The system of rule or influence by boyards; the practices, privileges, and power structure of the boyard class in Russia.
From boyard plus the suffix -ism, indicating a system or ideology. This term describes the institutional and cultural framework that sustained boyard power in medieval and early Russian society.
Boyardism as a political system was essentially what Ivan the Terrible destroyed during the 16th century, replacing hereditary aristocratic power with a centralized state—a turning point that shaped all of modern Russia.
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