New film revisits the forgotten parliamentary traditions of Russian politics
Writer Mikhail Zygar's new film traces the history of the Novgorod Republic, a medieval state with a parliament-like assembly and powerful female political figures, and explains why this tradition disappeared once Moscow rose to dominance.
Russian writer and journalist Mikhail Zygar has released a new film examining a little-known chapter of Russian political history: the Novgorod Republic, a medieval state that functioned in ways resembling parliamentary government centuries before such systems took hold in Western Europe.
A parliament before Britain's
According to Zygar, Novgorod had an assembly known as the veche, which made the state's major decisions, long before Britain developed its own parliament. In this system, the prince was not an absolute ruler but effectively a hired manager who could be appointed or dismissed.
The film also highlights that a woman in Novgorod could hold political influence comparable to that of a modern prime minister — roughly five centuries before Margaret Thatcher held that office in the United Kingdom.
A political culture resembling Western Europe
Zygar argues that Novgorod's political culture had much in common with that of Western Europe at the time, where power was distributed among competing institutions rather than concentrated in a single ruler.
The film explores why this system ultimately lost out to the rising power of Moscow and vanished from the subsequent course of Russian political development. It also addresses why Russian President Vladimir Putin frequently invokes Alexander Nevsky, a historical figure tied to this era.
Meduza notes that this piece was translated from Russian using an AI model configured to follow the outlet's editorial standards, with every draft reviewed by an editor before publication.
