What Features Did the Early Modern State of the 16th–18th Centuries Have? (30.10.2024)
A short video by Vitaliy Dribnytsya in which he reads out and explains the six criteria of the “ideal type” of the early modern state from an article by Oleksiy Sokyrko (Ukrainian Historical Journal, 2024, No. 5) — from the sovereign authority of the ruler and the elite to representative institutions and the secularisation of the church, as well as the concepts of the fiscal-military state and the well-ordered state. A source for the article on the legal tradition of early modern Ukraine.
Key moments
- 02:19 First criterion: sovereign authority of the ruler and political elite over a territory (a dynastic state in which the elite influences the king)
- 02:56 Second and third criteria: durable state institutions (public + private ties) and complexly structured institutions of governance and law
- 04:02 Fifth and sixth criteria: representative institutions (diets, dietines) and the gradual subordination of the church to secular power (secularisation)
- 05:08 Evolution of the fiscal-military state → the well-ordered state; a new political philosophy that separated the person of the ruler from the state