In examining the reasons why Russia is now having problems making the transition to democracy, many scholars cite the absence of a democratic past. Seeing Russia as a country unremittingly ruled by authoritarian leaders, analysts increasingly are viewing Vladimir Putin's turn away from democracy as “natural” and part of Russians' yearning for a ruler with a “strong hand.”

What such accounts overlook are the periods of Russian history in which real efforts were made to establish a democratic government on Russian soil. As detailed by Nicolai N. Petro in this fine book, the most important was the 600-year-long flourishing of the Novgorod republic, centered as it was in Velikii Novgorod, or Novgorod the Great, a city that lies two hours southeast from modern-day St. Petersburg. During the period of the Novgorod republic, from the ninth to the fifteenth century, which predated and was ended by the establishment of a Russian state ruled by czars in Moscow, the citizens of Novgorod defined and exercised their rights to “choose among princes.” The elected city council (or Veche) employed and fired princes at will, ratified treaties, set taxes, and declared war. The Veche even elected its own clergy and bishops, who were only subsequently submitted for ordination by the Orthodox Church. The republic stretched from the Baltic to the northern Urals; its capital, Novgorod, was the easternmost city of the Hanseatic League and was legendary for its wealth and the extent of its trading ties, which were reputed to have exceeded Venice at that time.

And then in 1471 came Ivan III, who pillaged the city and tried to suppress its democratic institutions. Initially, local nobility had reason to believe that Novgorod's own strong traditions would effect a change in the political culture of the occupiers. However, the subsequent massacres by Ivan IV (“the Terrible”) and the building of St. Petersburg by Peter I (“the Great”) relegated Novgorod from a bustling and democratic capital to a provincial and obedient backwater.

Yet these efforts by two centralizing czars (of quite different characters, of course) did not have the desired effect. While of course Novgorod never regained its status as the center of an independent republic, history has shown the enduring power of this founding myth. Whenever Moscow's power declined, the citizens of Novgorod sought to revive aspects of the period when “Lord and Sovereign Novgorod the Great,” as the republic was called, was at its height. In the dying days of the USSR, when Mikhail Gorbachev introduced glasnost and Boris Yeltsin instructed the non-Russian republics to “take as much sovereignty as they can swallow,” the local elites in Novgorod lost no time in joining them.

In excellent chapters that form the core of Crafting Democracy, Petro details both how the democratic experience of the Novgorod republic was kept alive in Russia's memory and how the Novgorod myth was activated by local elites in the late 1980s. Recalling Thomas Hobbes's apt quotation that “No man can have in his mind a conception of the future … but of our conceptions of the past, we make a future” (p. 126), Petro provides a fascinating account of the process by which local intellectual and political elites took charge of making a future. They conducted a protracted public education campaign to revive the myth, with the new chairman of the city soviet (this was still in Soviet times) remarkably stating in his inaugural address that “what a sense of pride those [early] Novgorodians must have had in their contacts, not only with their own countrymen but with the foreigners who came here in large numbers … curious about the people who had placed such a rich city among the marshes and decorated it with magnificent cathedrals … who knew the value of free speech and who created a unique democratic construct…. [T]his phenomenon … can and must serve as an inspiration for the tasks before us” (pp. 149–50). Making such a reference to cathedrals when St. Sophia, the oldest cathedral in Russia, was still closed, showed local determination to recapture lost time. Street signs were stripped of their Soviet-era names, educational curricula were changed, independent newspapers were established, and a university was founded that was named after Novgorod prince and lawgiver Yaroslav the Wise. The region's past as a member of the Hanseatic League served as the launching point for a robust and successful campaign to attract foreign direct investment.

The popular governor of the Novgorod region, Mikhail Prusak, an early supporter of Yegor Gaidar, Gennady Burbulis, and Boris Yeltsin, has been reelected with over 90% of the votes. He has utilized the Novgorod myth by emphasizing the historic principles upon which Novgorod should be guided: “self-government, elections, public accountability of authority, private property, individual liberty” (p. 157). He has lamented that Russia in its past followed the “eastern tradition” and adopted a “starkly centralized model.” He has also criticized Putin. Only time will tell whether Prusak's career and Novgorodian independence will survive.

Petro provides other cases in Russia of local political cultures that have not supported the move toward democracy (like Pskov). He also is more cognizant than most of the high cost on local people of Putin's move to a more authoritarian state. But what this fascinating book clearly shows is that when there is political will at the top, there are many regions of Russia with a proud tradition of democracy, an indigenous Russian tradition upon which a law-based state could be built.