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THE EVOLUTION OF THE STATE
ii
development in Russia. They were able to fulfil this mission
because they were not a caste or class, but an estate or
group which constantly recruited itself from the various
strata of the population, and stood in the closest connexion
with it. The old feudal idea of nobility, derived from the
possession of land, had been abolished by the Tartar yoke.
Later on, the surviving remnants of the old Boyars were
suppressed through the drastic measures of Ivan the Terrible
and his successors. Peter the Great encountered no
difficulty in establishing a new nobility founded on the idea of
State service. On the other hand, only members of old
noble families were admitted to it. Catherine the Great
rescinded that condition, but still the State service remained
in practice accessible only to noblemen, and in addition
they had the privilege of possessing serfs.
Thanks to the liberal reforms of Alexander II, these
restrictions were abolished. Henceforth Government
service was open to every one. The right to become a
hereditary nobleman was acquired by all who had reached
the rank of actual State Councillors, Lieutenant-Generals,
or Vice-Admirals, or those who had received the Order of
St. Vladimir. These distinctions were earned by a great
number of persons, and this put the qualification for nobility
on a very broad basis. By the abolition of serfdom the
democratisation of the principle of aristocracy was carried
a step further, seeing that the nobility lost that privilege
which was tantamount to the right of owning land, as land
without serfs had no value.
Since 1861 the Russian nobility have sold the greater
part of their land, chiefly to peasants, descendants of serfs ;
and being no longer in possession of land they have become
a group of State employees, people engaged in liberal
professions, representatives of provincial self-government, and
so forth. This virtual revolution has brought about a
closer connection between the nobility and the rest of the
population, facilitated by the absence of titles and by the
custom of addressing noblemen by their surnames and
patronymics just like anybody else. Moreover, marriages
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