Was There Private Property in Muscovite Russia?

In a recent article in the Slavic Review , George G. Weickhardt undertook to demonstrate that Russia "gradually developed a concept of private property for land which more or less approached that of the English 'fee simple' and that the only significant limitations on individual property in [pre-Petrine] Russia were in favor of the clan rather than the state" (665). This thesis runs counter to virtually the entire historical literature in Russian as well as foreign languages.