The Russian Elite in the Seventeenth Century, Vol. 2 / A Quantitative Analysis of the "Duma Ranks", 1613-1713

283 pp., bibliography, index. This book offers the first complete social analysis of the Boyar Duma and the career patterns of its members. Using an exhaustive data set and sophisticated statistical techniques, it examines the factors-status, merit, luck-that determined Muscovite notable's success or failure in climbing the political ladder. In a word, it lays bare the rules that structured the seventeeth-century Russian political system.