Testament of Vasily II and the Beginning of a New Page in the History of Russian Statehood and Law

Abstract

The formation of the Russian centralized state has been and remains one of the most discussed and at the same time clearly in need of new approaches and assessments of the historical and legal problem. There is no doubt that the formation of the Russian centralized state is a long process. However, there are disagreements in the literature regarding its time frame. Most experts agree that the foundations of early modern Russian statehood were laid in the era of Ivan III. But Ivan III did not begin their creation from scratch. According to the author of the article, the starting point from which his work began was the will of his father Vasily II. This testament and its place in the system of “constitutional” acts regulating the state system and relations between political subjects of the emerging Russian state has not yet been the subject of a special study. The author of the article draws attention to the main feature of this "constitutional" act - for all its external conservatism, the testament includes a number of provisions that de facto lay the foundations for the destruction of "old times" in inter-princely relations. Thus, they undermined the very foundation of the former political regime of “family” co-ownership of the Russian land by princes from the house of Rurikovich. The author believes that as a result of this, the path was opened for the transformation of a loose "confederation" of individual lands and specific principalities under the nominal authority of the Grand Duke as the "oldest" in the family into a more cohesive and stable early modern state