It is a matter of record that while music in the West steadily incorporated polyphony from the ninth century onwards, sacred music in Russia remained largely monophonic until around mid–17th century, when Western–style polyphony (partesny) suddenly appeared and was incorporated. However, the extant literature does not provide any fully satisfactory explanation for the success of this sudden incursion of polyphony, after almost seven centuries of concerted monophony. Accordingly, in this thesis, I examined the period from 1650–1750 in detail, to clarify the factors either promoting, or inhibiting, the abrupt appearance of polyphony. I identified several powerful pre–existing inhibitors, which I conclude had collectively barred polyphony up to mid–17th century. These included religious opposition, geographical isolation, a lack of training facilities and of singers capable of part singing, and musical roadblocks in the traditional Russia monophonic canon. I proposed that the appearance of partesny was directly and temporally related to the softening and eventual disappearance of these inhibitors. In addition, numerous promoters of polyphony long operative in the West, that had previously been largely absent in Russia, emerged gradually as inhibitors waned.
I conclude that the array of inhibitors identified played a primary role in successfully holding polyphony at bay until mid–17th century, with an additional lack of promoters playing a secondary role. I further suggest that while the secular music that developed subsequently in the 18th and subsequent centuries could have incorporated polyphony independently of sacred music at several different historical time points, ingress of polyphony into Russian liturgical music may only have been practically possible in the period from 1650–1750. Failing that, it is plausible that Russia’s sacred music could have remained largely monophonic to the present day, as is the case for Greek sacred music
