veche

veche, popular assembly that was a characteristic institution in Russia from the 10th to the 15th century. The veche probably originated as a deliberative body among early Slavic tribes. As the tribes settled in permanent trading centres, which later became cities, the veche remained as an element of democratic rule, sharing power with a prince and an aristocratic council. Although its power varied from city to city, the veche generally could accept or reject the prince who “inherited” the city and, by controlling the town’s militia, could veto a prince’s plans for a military campaign.

In Novgorod, where the veche acquired its greatest power, it was able to choose the city’s prince, to enter into a contract with him that specifically defined and limited his powers, and to dismiss him. It also elected the major military and civil officials subordinate to the prince. In most areas the veche ruled both a city and its dependent villages; the heads of families in the entire region were entitled to participate in its sessions, which could be convoked by the prince, the town officials, or the citizenry. (Usually only the townsmen attended the meetings and the veche thus became a representative of urban interests.) The veche met irregularly; it had no formal procedural rules, and decisions were reached when one side gave up.

During the 11th and 12th centuries the veche acquired its greatest power but gradually lost importance with the decline of the old trading cities in the central Dnieper River region. The political centre of Russia was shifting to the northeastern region, where newer cities lacked the strong urban classes capable of developing their own political organs and of successfully competing with the authority of the princes. After the Mongol invasion of Russia (1240), the veche was further weakened; it was suppressed by the Mongols, who wanted to control the townspeople, considered to be the greatest opponents of Mongol rule. The Russian princes also aided the Mongol suppression in order to curtail the power of the institution.

By the middle of the 14th century the veche in most Russian cities no longer functioned as an independent, permanent governing body, although it sporadically reappeared in times of crisis. In Novgorod the veche survived until 1478, when the Muscovite grand prince Ivan III conquered that city and abolished it; the Pskov veche was similarly dissolved in 1510.