Veliky Novgorod and the political structure of pre-state communities

Berkutov Stepan Maksimovich Postgraduate student; Institute of Russian History; Russian Academy of Sciences 63 Admiral Lazarev str., room 3, sq. 62, Moscow, 117041, Russia berkstep@gmail.com Other publications by this author

In science, it often happens that a topic touched upon by an immortal classic died with him, and while some ideas live, develop, and acquire extensive historiography, others remain forgotten. One such idea was to compare the Novgorod Republic with the ancient "tribal democracies" of N. M. Karamzin. The great historian believed that the model of the Novgorod political system should be sought not "in the rule of the free German cities," but "in the primitive composition of all the national Powers, from Athens and Sparta to Unterwalden and Glaris," Novgorod statehood reminded him of the "deep antiquity of nations," when states were still democratic, and the people who elected their own representatives, retained power over them with the right of trial and the possibility of executing unsuccessful leaders ^[1]. While comparing Veliky Novgorod with the ancient Greek polis ^{[2; 3; 4; 5; 6, pp. 265-268]} and Italian medieval city-states ^{[7; 8; 9; 10, pp. 388-389; 11, pp. 353-354; 12; 13, pp. 368-385; 14]} have found wide application The topic of comparing the Novgorod political system with tribal institutions, which follows logically from this, has not been sufficiently covered so far.

After N. M. Karamzin, the "tribal theme" was of interest to researchers not from the point of view of typological comparison, but solely in the context of clarifying the sources of origin of the Novgorod veche. One of the first authors of the concept of the "primordial veche" was V.I. Sergeevich, who believed that it "constitutes the original form of everyday life" ^[15]. Then this idea was repeated many times by pre-revolutionary historians, as a rule, in the form of opinions, without significant analysis, which often took on an a priori character. Such thoughts were expressed by I.D. Belyaev, who considered the communal veche system to be native to the early history of Russia and the Slavs in principle ^[16]. M.F. Vladimirsky-Budanov, M.S. Grushevsky, M.V. Dovnar-Zapolsky, S.F. Platonov, A.E. Presnyakov ^[17]. This concept was generally accepted in Russian science until 1917, with few exceptions. Soviet historians, acting within the framework of the formation approach, attributed medieval Russia to the feudal socio-economic system ^[18], therefore, the origin of the veche from "tribal institutions" began to be questioned and the concept of the "primordial veche" lost most of its supporters.

The emergence of a broader view of comparing the veche and the political system of Novgorod with non-medieval forms of government is associated with the school of I.Ya. Froyanov, who allowed a comparison of the political structure of Russian lands not only with ancient city-states and medieval communes, but also with the city-states of the Ancient East, as well as with societies with an "incomplete process of class formation" ^{[6, pp. 17-19]}. Modern historical science has rejected the Froyanov-Dvornichenko concept, returning to comparing the political system of Veliky Novgorod and other Russian medieval republics, mainly with Italian city-states ^{[13; 14]}.

The Froyanov-Dvornichenko concept has been rightly criticized by historians for its numerous weaknesses, lack of factual material, and illogical conclusions ^{[19; 20]}. Despite the justice and validity of the criticism, the theme of comparing the Novgorod political system not only with medieval city-states, but also with the ancient polis, and with the "primitive", pre-state system revived by Froyanov has a right to exist.

Considering the political structure of Novgorod in comparison with the political structure of the so-called pre-state communities will help to take a fresh look at the political history of the state we know, to go beyond considering Novgorod exclusively in the ancient Russian, medieval or even ancient context, which makes the topic especially relevant. A comparison with distant examples, a tribal society, will help to isolate exactly the essence of the democratic system that is common to all mankind and that which is characteristic of Novgorod and the medieval urban republics in general. Finding commonalities will help to trace commonalities in the evolution of republicanism and the state system as a whole, which, in turn, is a step towards understanding the causes of the emergence of such forms of statehood on the Novgorod land in the Middle Ages, given the obvious atypical nature of such a political structure of society at the time under review.

The purpose of this article is to compare the political structure of medieval Veliky Novgorod with societies that lived in a tribal system and, accordingly, were at the stage of a pre-state structure. A tribe, in this context, refers to its definition accepted in ethnographic literature as a community of people occupying a certain territory, having the same customs, language and representing a single political community ^[21]. To achieve this goal, the method of broad comparative analysis based on comparison with entire clusters of policies seems to be the most appropriate. This approach will allow us to see a broad picture of the diversity of political structures, to see the patterns of geographical distribution, as well as the evolution of the power structure, and, most importantly, to understand the place of Veliky Novgorod in the world history of republicanism and democracy. Chronicles remain the main sources on the history of Veliky Novgorod, while numerous notes from travelers, documents from colonial archives, and ethnographic data on "primitive" communities.

The political structure of Veliky Novgorod, as a whole, has undergone the following evolution. At the beginning of its history, Novgorod was ruled by grand ducal governors, was part of a larger Russian state and, accordingly, was under the rule of the monarch or his governor. This situation continued (with a spread of several decades due to the abundance of opinions on this issue) until the turn of the 11th – 12th centuries – the first half of the 12th century, when a virtually independent republic was formed ^{[23; 24; 8, p. 543; 25; 11, p. 105-106; 26; 27]}. From that time on, Novgorod lacked its own princely dynasty, princes were invited from various lands, and a collective of citizens gathered at a veche became the supreme ruler of the city ^{[10, pp. 55-56]}. Throughout the 12th century, the Novgorodians ruled the city and a vast district independently and through their elected magistrates: the prince (in cases where the prince did not come from the influential Suzdal line, in these cases the Novgorodians were dependent on the princely power), who performed the most important function for the Middle Ages – the military; the posadnik, who jointly with the prince carried out the court and separately from him, the collection of taxes; Archbishop and later Tysyatsky. The most important official was the prince, who had the military command on his shoulders. However, his power was not absolute: any decision could be challenged and not accepted by the civilian collective of Novgorodians who made up the army. At that time, the posadnik was elected from among the powerful Novgorod boyars of the three ends of the Sofia side of Novgorod ^{[11, pp. 166-174]}, where the Novgorod veche was then meeting.

Novgorod was divided into two sides – Sofia, which was the base of boyar aristocratic groups, and Trade (the first name: "Trading floor"), inhabited by artisans and merchants^[1]. Since all the main officials were elected from the boyars, merchants and artisans, called "lesser", "black people", "people", "merchant class", "common child", were politically disadvantaged, which, in the end, caused the struggle of the Novgorod "people"^[2] for the expansion of their political rights. The first episodes of it date back to the middle of the XII century, when the "Trading Floor", in defiance of the boyars, "rode in arms" for Prince Mstislav Yurievich, who pleased him. This first manifestation of the political will of the Novgorod people was suppressed, and the princely position was occupied by representatives of the Rostislavich line pleasing to the boyars ^{[29, p. 30]}. After this incident, the popular struggle subsided for a long time, until in 1228, "the devil ... raised up a great sedition ... a simple child." During this "sedition", all the magistrates were removed from office: the prince, the posadnik, Tysyatsky and the archbishop, the houses of many of their supporters were looted, and a tax was imposed on those who escaped such a fate, which went to the construction of the bridge ^{[29, pp. 67-68]}. Since then, the "simple child", and in later testimonies, the "people", has become the dominant force of the Novgorod Republic, relegating the once all-powerful boyars to the background. The "rabble" was engaged in foreign policy ^{[29, pp. 307-308]}, changed governments ^{[28, pp. 355-356]}, and resolved issues of war and peace ^{[28, pp. 353-353]}. In inner-city conflicts, the "Trading Floor" almost always won. In the second half of the 14th century, the power of the people decreased, conflicts were initiated mainly by one Slavonic end, from which they often ended in a "draw" ^{[28, pp. 366, 379]}. By the end of Novgorod's independence, there was a certain parity, and even punitive Boyar raids on the Trading side ^{[30, pp. 305-306]}. Thus, the Novgorod statehood evolved from a monarchical form of government to a people's boyar republic, where power was divided between the rabble and the boyars, at the end of its history showing a tendency to increase the strength of the boyars, which led to an equalization of forces between the two sides of the city.

One of the most well-covered sources of groups of pre-state peoples are the Indians of South and especially North America. Their political structure, at the time of discovery and subsequent centuries-old contact with Europeans before the complete seizure of Indian lands, was very diverse. Among the diverse palette of political regimes that Europeans had to face during the development of the two American continents, there was a full range from monarchy and oligarchy to democracy and anarchy. There were Indians who also had a theocratic structure of society ^{[31, p. 338]}.

The simplest, anarchic structure was typical for the Indians of the Arctic zone, the Great Basin, Northeastern Mexico, and Baja California ^{[31, p. 326; 21, p. 118-125]}, in South America for southern Chile and Argentina, the Amazon rainforest, and other unproductive biocenoses ^{[32, p. 94-95]}. All these tribes lived in separate families, foraging and often leading a nomadic lifestyle ^{[31, p. 326]}. The Yangans, for example, had no political life at all. All the people lived in separate nuclear families, living exclusively on subsistence farming. In the family, power existed only to the extent that it existed between husband and wife (women had even a little more influence, since they were the ones who extracted the basis of the daily diet: shellfish). Wars happened rarely and, as a rule, against the background of blood feuds. Then the relatives of the murdered man fought mostly with the relatives of the murderer. The people were divided into five dialect groups. Each dialect group was divided into subgroups, each of which had a fixed territory. Members of these subgroups sometimes gathered for general holidays and at that time chose a leader who led the holiday. The power of the leader ended with the end of rituals ^{[32, pp. 94-95]}.

The political structure of the democratic Indian tribes somewhat resembled anarchic ones, with the difference that the elected chiefs ruled the tribe constantly along with meetings of the men of the tribe. This arrangement was typical for the Miami Indians, who lived in the valleys of the Miami and Ohio Rivers in the north of the modern United States at the turn of the XVII – XVIII centuries. The people lived in villages and engaged in agriculture and hunting. To resolve any common issues, the people chose leaders from villages and groups of villages to participate in the general council of the entire tribe. The leaders were military and civilian. Both were chosen on merit in their respective fields ^{[33, pp. 13-15]}. To be elected to office, it was necessary to possess not only civil merits, but also significant oratorical abilities, therefore, among the Miami, as among all democratic peoples, speakers acted ^{[33, p. 96]} In peacetime, civilian leaders ruled, in wartime their power decreased and military leaders became more important. The most successful military leader was elected commander of the armed forces of the entire tribe ^{[33, pp. 104-105]}. Any matters concerning the entire tribe were decided at a general meeting of its leaders ^{[33, pp. 44-45]}.

The oligarchic structure was characteristic of one of the most famous Native American peoples, the Iroquois. The Iroquois Confederation was known to Europeans from the moment of its discovery, in the early 17th century, until 1783, when it was incorporated into the United States ^{[34, pp. 13-15, 27-28]}. The Iroquois were divided into five nations: Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneidas and Mohawks. Each of them occupied a certain territory along the southern shore of Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River ^{[34, pp. 48-49]}. All the Iroquois, in turn, were divided into eight tribes: wolves, bears, beavers, turtles, deer, snipe, herons and hawks. Tribes with the same names were in every nation of the Iroquois and, for example, each bear considered himself a brother of a bear from another nation. The tribes were connected by the peoples of the Iroquois, thanks to whom they felt like a single whole. Since belonging to the tribe was passed down through the mother, the hereditary status passed from uncle to nephew, and not from father to son, since the son was always from another tribe (it was forbidden to marry within one tribe) ^{[34, p. 75-78]}.

The social hierarchy of the society was four-part. The first class was represented by sachems or chiefs of the first class. They held the highest authority in the confederation. Each individual nation had a certain number of sachems who governed each individual nation. The power of the sachem was inherited. At the same time, the receiver took the name of its predecessor. For example, when the sachem Ganeodio of the turtle tribe died, the sachem under the name Ganeodio became his heir. This tradition is still widespread among the European nobility ^[3]. For example, in the English heraldic system, the hereditary title Prince of Wales is used as a surname. The council of sachems, which met at Lake Onendaga, governed the entire confederation. At the same time, the representation of sachems from each nation was uneven. The Oneidas and Mohawks each had nine sachems, the Onandaga had fourteen, the Cayuga ten, and the Seneca eight. The Council of Sachems dealt with all the issues of the confederation: war and peace, embassies, international negotiations, affairs of subordinate peoples, etc. ^{[34, pp. 135-137]}

The second class of the population were the chiefs. Sources have preserved evidence of their curious role, such as leading small paramilitary groups consisting of young people who were mainly engaged in attacks on neighbors. These small detachments were not under the control of the sachems (or the sachems pretended that they were not under their control). These small groups carried out attacks on neighboring peoples and on white settlers. When the latter made claims to the sachems, they threw up their hands and said: we are not responsible for these gangs of young people, they acted without our decree and deal with them yourself. The third class of the Iroquois society was a people who were personally free, but had no political rights. The fourth class were slaves who had neither personal nor political rights ^{[34, p. 68-69; 21, p. 135-137.]}.

Nevertheless, the most common type of government among the Indians, at the time of their discovery, was the monarchy ^[4]. In North America, such a structure of society was widespread in vast areas of the south, southeast and northwest. So, on the site of the future states of Oregon and Washington and the entire Pacific coast north to Alaska, tribes lived, which were ruled by sole monarchs who inherited power. The Tlingit people living here were divided into several groups at the time of its discovery at the turn of the XVIII – XIX centuries. Each group had several fairly densely populated villages (sometimes up to 200 households ^{[35, p. 74]}). Socially, the entire population consisted of four classes. The first was the supreme or independent chiefs, who each ruled their own group of villages. The power of such a leader was hereditary, transmitted, which was not typical for Indians, but extremely familiar to Europeans, from father to son ^{[35, p. 87]}. The paramount chiefs possessed the greatest wealth in the tribe: they owned hunting and fishing grounds, canoes, and slaves. The second class of society were ordinary leaders. There were several families in each village. If the supreme leaders corresponded to the monarchs, the ordinary leaders corresponded to the nobility. The nobility preferred to marry among themselves, and everyone tried to become related to a richer family. With a similar goal of preserving and increasing wealth and titles, closely related crossbreeding was widespread among the two noble estates ^{[35, pp. 85-97]}. Most of the population belonged to the common people. The last major group and the most disenfranchised were slaves.

In addition to the northwest, the monarchical type of politics was widespread throughout the Mississippi River Valley and all future territories of the southern United States. The first European evidence about the Indians of southeastern North America belongs to De Soto (mid-16th century), who mentioned leaders with absolute power, called "sun kings" by the local population. The leader moved on a special stretcher surrounded by a large retinue. During the conquest, the local population fanatically defended him and even after terrible tortures did not reveal his location.

More detailed descriptions of the monarchical Indians of the southeast date back to the first half of the 18th century, when the French began to develop the Mississippi River Valley. The Natchez tribe, which was ruled by the Great Sun, was described most fully. The Great Sun was, in fact, an ordinary monarch who concentrated absolute power in the tribe and performed all the high priestly functions. The transfer of power was carried out by the eldest son of a White Female matriarch of the tribe. The Great Sun was followed in the social hierarchy by his siblings from a White Woman, who were simply called Suns. Then came the descendants of the female Suns, called Nobiles. The descendants of female Nobles became Respected People, the descendants of female Respected People became Vile People. Thus, all the upper social classes of society were relatives of the Great Sun, with a blood distance from which, power and influence became less, with an approach – more. Inheritance was matrilineal. The children of the Great Sun could not claim his status, in which they inevitably fell as they moved away from the monarch. The entire population of the tribe paid tribute to the monarch. He himself ate from a special vegetable garden, which was cultivated by the supreme warriors, lived in a separate house and wore special feather ornaments. In the 18th century, the power of the Suns apparently began to weaken. So, in 1720, a White Woman complained to the French that the fate of the Suns (that is, the ruling dynasty) was causing her fears, because her subjects stopped obeying them ^{[36, pp. 203-210]}.

In the second half of the 18th century, the power structure of the Indians of the Southeast changed. Now we find neither the dynasty of the Sun, nor the supreme priest-kings, nor the extensive aristocratic system of power. The power in the tribe still belonged to the chief, who conducted negotiations, received embassies, was responsible for the distribution of grain, and organized feasts. However, this position was now elective. The chief of the screams, called miko, during the invitation to the position, refused the honor in every possible way, until finally he allowed himself to be persuaded. After being elected to the position, Miko chose assistants who assisted in his work ^{[36, pp. 223-224.]}.

By the first half of the 19th century, the statehood of the Cherokee, another tribe of the southeast, had finally evolved into a republic, the political structure of which in many ways resembled the United States. In 1822, the Supreme Court was established, which dealt mainly with cases of theft and private property, and in 1827 the supreme political body of the republic, the Supreme Council, began its work. 11 of the 12 members of the Council were large labor and landowners ^[37].

The evolution of the political system from monarchy to democracy was generally characteristic of the Indians after contact with Europeans. The aforementioned Miami had such a democratic power structure only in the XVIII – XIX centuries. At the time of their discovery by the French, they were ruled by the sun King as well as all the other tribes of the Mississippi Valley.

It is noteworthy that in the same epoch (XVII-XVIII centuries) similar processes took place in the north-western Caucasus. The local Circassian people were divided into many tribes: Shapsugs, Natukhais, Abadzehs, Temirgoevites, Besleneevites, Bzheduges and others ^{[38, pp. 147-148]}. The first source on their socio-political structure, The Life and Customs of the Khizi, by Interiano, dating back to the 15th century, paints a picture of a society that closely resembled the feudal one. The nobili nobility was at the head of the people, and the vasalli and servi, also called schiavi, were subordinate to them. The nobles were "highly respected" and spent most of their time on horseback. At the same time, their subjects were forbidden even to keep horses, and if suddenly someone from vasalli raises a foal, the noble, gentilhuomo, changes it to bulls with the words: "this will suit you better than a horse." Among the nobles were magnates with a large number of vassals and such "do not recognize any authority over themselves except God." The main task of a noble is to rule his people. Noble women do not do any work except embroidery ^[39].

The situation began to change by the middle of the 17th century, when, according to Nicolaas Witsen (1692), the Circassians "exterminated the large and small nobility, and are now governed by chiefs or chiefs who live in complete harmony with the community" ^{[38, p. 190]}. This "revolution" significantly changed the socio-political structure of Circassian society, which is reflected in the sources of the XVIII century. XIX century . Now all Circassians were divided into democratic (Shepsugs, Abadzekhs, Natukhai – coastal tribes in which revolutions took place) and aristocratic (all other) peoples. The old structure of power and society has been preserved in aristocratic nations. It was ruled by princes called Pschi, who were subordinate to the large nobility-Tlakoteshi. Both had squads of minor Orc nobles. The princes and nobles were paid tribute by the free peasants – tfekotli. A significant part of the population consisted of personally unfree serfs who were owned by the peasants and Orcs. The lowest level of society was occupied by slaves ^{[38, p. 177-190]}. In democratic tribes, unlike the aristocratic ones, where all power belonged to the princes and princely congresses, power was concentrated in the hands of the people's assemblies. The whole tribe was ruled by an assembly of all the elders of each clan and tribe, which decided all joint affairs: war, peace, eradication of robberies, etc. According to the testimony of the Circassian educator Khan Giray, the congresses of elders always pursued politics to the detriment of the nobility, who did not have the right to vote at national meetings. Unlike princely congresses of aristocratic tribes, "people's assemblies are always noisy, there is a lot of abuse, demagogues use great influence there, people are eloquent and able to manipulate the crowd, they promote many decisions, they are the ones who impose fines on those who disobey the laws" ^[40].

As can be seen from the above examples, the democratic structure of society is not something primordial, primordial or communal. The communal-tribal system is easily combined with all forms of government known to mankind since antiquity: monarchy, aristocracy and democracy. A common sequence is the evolution of power from a monarchical to a republican polity in Novgorod, among Western Circassians and democratic Indian tribes.

Even more interesting is the explanation of the emergence of similar democratic and republican forms of government, which are at such different "stages" of development.

P.V. Lukin, in his monograph "The Novgorod Veche", suggested that similar republican forms of government in Novgorod and the Western Pomeranian cities developed due to foreign trade, "early urbanization" and the lack of a strong princely power ^[41]. Historical experience shows that a strong princely or monarchical power existed both in Novgorod during the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries, and in the tribes of the Miami Indians, the southeast and northwest of the future United States at the time of the first contact. Therefore, this argument can hardly be considered convincing. Early or any kind of urbanization also does not affect the formation of republican or democratic forms of government. The earliest urban centers appeared in ancient Sumer and Egypt, but neither of them has ever been distinguished by democracy or republicanism. As for foreign trade, in fact, the transition to democratic and the decline of monarchical forms of government among the Indian tribes of North America was most likely caused by the impact of commodity and monetary relations and active trade with the white colonialists. For example, the Miami Indians changed their political system at the beginning of the 18th century. After moving from the west to the lands of the Ojayo and Miami River valleys, which were deserted due to the raids of the Iroquois. Those lands were empty and fertile, and the rivers connected them with numerous trading posts of the French, where fur could be sold in exchange for iron tools and clothing ^{[33, p. 5-6]}. Similarly to the Miami Indians, the people's elders of the western Circassians conducted active foreign trade ^{[40, p. 243]}, which cannot be said about the population or nobility of the eastern Circassians, who practiced a monarchical type of government. The conduct of active foreign trade by Veliky Novgorod is a well-known fact ^[42].

It turns out that the evolution of Novgorod statehood towards a democratic republican system was caused by the same reasons as in the case of "primitive", "tribal" democracies - the impact of commodity-market relations and international trade.

However, foreign trade itself is a controversial factor, which in itself is unlikely to determine the establishment of a democratic system. It is known that other democracies of the pre-industrial era, such as the communities of the Zaporozhian or Don Cossacks, instead of active foreign trade and commodity exchange, led a semi-bandit lifestyle, hunted and carried out military border service, however, they developed a hierarchy of power that can safely be called democratic and republican. The same can be said about Bey Algeria and the Muslim pirate republics of the Mediterranean. At the same time, there are currently states that exist solely through foreign trade, since they do not produce any consumer goods (Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates), but at the same time they are absolute monarchies.

This means that foreign trade is not a factor responsible for the democratization of the political system. Most likely, the impact that foreign trade can have in certain cases is important. In the Miami community, any individual Indian in the days of subsistence farming before European contact, using stone tools, worked in the field and hunted. Both types of economic activity are not very stable: crop yields vary greatly, and game tends to die out and migrate en masse. Both of these resources are limited, and the limited resources in nature lead to a tightening of the social hierarchy. Increasing access to resources, on the contrary, leads to a weakening of the dominance hierarchy, that is, to democratization. This is exactly what happened to the Miami Indians after the start of active contacts with Europeans. The massive supply of iron tools and clothing in exchange for the skins of animals that were easy to prey dramatically increased the productivity and standard of living of the native population, and most importantly, provided abundance and easy availability of resources for each individual. The need for a rigid hierarchy of dominance, characteristic of an economy with limited and unstable resources, has disappeared. A similar process probably took place in Veliky Novgorod. However, the fact that foreign trade has affected mainly the urban population here has predetermined the urban character of democratization. In Saudi Arabia and other "highly developed" monarchies, resources have never been publicly available. Oil is an extremely limited resource. Limited resources determine the pyramidal nature of the political system, a rigid hierarchy of dominance, that is, an absolute monarchy. Anarchic peoples who lived by individual hunting and gathering did not need any hierarchy at all due to the lack of competition for the necessary resources. Thus, the greater the struggle for a resource, the more limited it is, the more rigid the dominance hierarchy or political structure will be. The more accessible the resource, the softer the dominance hierarchy will be, if not disappear altogether. However, this explanation is only one of the possible ones.

^[1] The grounds for considering the Trading side as "folk", i.e. inhabited by artisans and merchants, are contained in all references to class-class conflicts in the Novgorod Republic. In 1255, during the conflict between the lesser people and Alexander Nevsky, a chronicler belonging to the lesser group called the Trading Side "ours" ^{[28, p. 308]}, in 1418, the people, as always, convened a veche on the Yaroslavl courtyard on the Trading Side, further, all the streets that the people went to rob, There were Kuzmodemyanskaya, Yaneva, Chudintseva, Ludogoshcha on the Sofia side, and the monastery of St. Nicholas was located there. Nikola, only Prusskaya Street, also located on the Sofia side, has strayed from the people. After that, the people "ran" to "their" side of the Trade, and began to say that the Sofia side would now go "into the army" against them. ^{[28, p. 409]} In 1359, the Slavs, residents of the Trade side, beat many boyars. The surviving boyars fled to their side, gathered their army and again "armed both sides against themselves." ^{[28, p. 366]} In 1476, during the train of the Moscow Grand Duke to Novgorod, he was given two petitions, one from the boyars, the other from the people. The boyars beat their foreheads against the inhabitants of the Merchant side, who robbed them, and the representatives of the people beat their foreheads against the Boyars, the inhabitants of the Sofia side, who robbed them in turn. ^{[30, pp. 305-306]}. Thus, there can be no doubt that the Trading side was considered by the contemporaries to be folk, and the Sofia side to be boyar. This division is clearly recorded from the middle of the 13th century to the end of the independence of the Novgorod statehood at the end of the 15th century, thus coinciding in time with the era of the struggle of the Novgorod aristocracy and the people.

^[2] For convenience, the term will be used without quotation marks in the future. The word "people" in this context will be used in the modern historical sense, in the sense of the urban artisan and merchant population.

^[3] For example, in the English heraldic system, the hereditary title Prince of Wales is used as a surname. For example: William, Prince of Wales and Harry, Prince of Wales.

^[4] Here, a monarchy refers to a type of political structure, and a tribe refers to either a "primitive" pre-state society, so called according to a strong historiographical tradition, or a community based on a real or mythical origin from a single ancestor. The presence of a tribal structure can be combined with any political regime: monarchical, oligarchic, democratic, etc.

For example, in modern Saudi Arabia, every resident considers himself to belong to a tribe. At the same time, Saudi Arabia is a modern state with a monarchical form of government, and not a union of tribes. All Chechens are divided into tapes, which are communities based on family ties. At the same time, the Chechen Republic is not considered a pre-State community. All Arabs (including all traditionally sedentary ones like Egyptians, Syrians, Iraqis and Moroccans), Kurds, Kazakhs, Mongols, as well as Jews descended from various tribes, and many other modern developed industrial peoples are divided into tribes, which gives no reason to consider modern Israel or Kazakhstan a union of tribes that is at the stage of pre-State development. Similarly, monarchical, oligarchic, and democratic Indian peoples who did not have a state were divided into tribes.

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