Reform in Russia always followed military defeat, as it did in the 1980s.
A. Tolstoy fought in the Russian army in the Caucasus against the Chechens and against “the West” when Britain and France attacked Russia in the Crimean War in 1856. The humiliating defeat in the Crimea led to serf revolts and general unrest.
1. The young Emperor Alexander II (tsar from 1855–1881) realized that if the peasants were not freed from above, they would soon free themselves from below and that Russia needed to catch up with the West.
2. The most important reform was emancipation of the serfs in 1861, but this presented a huge problem:
Liberating the serfs risked the destruction of the basis of the entire regime.
3. The nobility as a land-owning class was vital to the monarchy, and to take away their serfs might ruin them economically.
4. The final scheme was cunning. All personal serfdom was abolished, and the peasants were to receive land from the landlords and pay them for it. The state advanced the money to the landlords and recovered it from the peasants in 49 annual sums known as redemption payments.
5. The peasants got a raw deal. The average holding was tiny (less than 10 acres), and redemption
payments were high.
6. The peasant commune now had legal responsibility for those payments, which was a way of
reinforcing the mir and preventing anarchy at the base of society by slowing movement to towns.
7. Another reform affected Tolstoy’s position, the introduction of the zemstvo, a local assembly that
functioned as a body of provincial self-government in Russia from 1864 to 1917. Each district elected representatives, who had control over education, public health, roads, and aid to agriculture and commerce. The district zemstvos elected committees and delegates to the provincial assemblies, which in turn, elected an executive committee for the province.
8. The local nobles, such as Tolstoy, could represent themselves for the first time. Tolstoy was, first and foremost, a noble landlord.
1. War and Peace was written in the years 1863 to 1869, the years of the emancipation of the serfs and other reforms. On his estate, Tolstoy had to face the consequences.
2. War and Peace tells the story of the Russian struggle against the Napoleonic Empire between 1805
and 1815. Though the book is set in a period 60 years earlier, the reform era of the 1860s plays an important, if not obvious, part in it. Tolstoy became more and more hostile to artificial and abstract plans for reform, especially those imported from the West.
3. Tolstoy belonged to the so-called Slavophile side in the debate on modernization and reform. He believed in the unique communal principles of Russian peasant life.
4. The Russian people defeated the West in the form of Napoleon and his army, as portrayed in War and Peace, but Tolstoy believed that they must also reject Western-style schemes, plans, and models.
Sample Essay: Problems in Russia in the 1800s and Alexander II’s Reforms
When Tsar Nicholas I passed away in 1855, he left the country in a state some may describe as a national entropy. There were numerous problems, which were now Alexander II’s (Nicholas I’s eldest son and successor) to resolve. This essay will venture to concern itself with the difficulties encountered within the Russian military as well as social, economic and political predicaments which arose or had already emerged during/before the era of “the Liberator”. Furthermore it will examine the course of action undertaken by the Tsar in an effort to rectify the unfavourable circumstances.
A matter of great significance in the 19th century was the military. This was not only a substantial fraction of Russia, but that of any functional country in Europe at the time. One grave dysfunction of the Russian army was the fact that it consisted predominantly of serfs (=peasants) which had been sold to the army by their owners.1 In the early 1850s, the army consisted of around 900,000 regular soldiers, with a percentage of around 80% - 95% being peasants.2 This can be and evidently was detrimental to the general efficiency of a military force, as the majority of soldiers are likely to lack true enthusiasm and devotion. Before the emancipation, serfs were given no true reason to fight for their country. Their government treated them as property and failed to grant them any freedom or adequate reward for their labour, so naturally it was in their interest to see this system collapse. It is therefore plausible to proclaim an extensive demotivation within the army. With intentions of removing this injustice and henceforth creating a more spirited and forceful army, Alexander II had introduced conscription to all classes by 1870.3 Young men from all social stratums were now being compulsorily enlisted. As a result of this sudden abundance of soldiers, the service time could be reduced from 25 years to 15 years and training/education for soldiers was widely improved by, for example, investing more in the facilities.4 Military tax was raised by the Zemstvo as well as the Duma in order to support this by providing the financial means needed for these improvements.5
A further weighty hindrance was the ratio of leader to obstacle. Alexander II was often left in a quandary as he was only one man facing the problems of a nation. One man could not travel the land by horse and carriage, personally collecting taxes from each individual commune. He could not simply pursue all criminals on the run and bring them to justice. Essentially it was important for the Tsar to have an assemblage of staff members to handle these affairs. This issue was widely resolved with the initiation of the Zemstvo in 1864.6 This was a form of local government which consisted of a representative council and of an executive board. All social classes were now permitted to take part in the voting process and hence even peasants were represented in the councils. The Zemstva were primarily in charge of collecting tax money, settling land issues as well as local legal disputes. In essence, they were the local representatives of a main national legislature.7
An inconvenient aspect of Russia’s financial state of affairs was the eminent prevalence of corruption. At one point in time it was legal for government officials to use the means of the state for their own asset, this form of bureaucracy was known as the ‘Kormlenie’.8 In 1715 however, as officials began to receive fixed salaries, inducement became a crime. Though the Kormlenie made various reappearances followed by disappearances throughout the reigns of several Tsars, its illegality was eventually finalized by Alexander II in 1864.9 Nevertheless, the allocations of tax money were not conspicuous to the Russian citizen.10 Generally Russian state finances were a nebulous matter, which made it effortless for anyone who is presented with the opportunity to use governmental funds for their own benefit. Eventually the Tsar gave rise to a more transparent national budget.11 The tax payer was now more or less correctly informed of how the money was being utilized.12 This is crucial to a functioning relationship between government and tax payer, seeing as the ill informed citizen is likely to question and eventually resist or challenge the system. This national budget transparency did not include the Tsar, however.
Perhaps one of the most eminent difficulties in Russia during the 19th century was the social division. One third of the countries population in 1855 comprised agricultural workers. These peasants (about 80% of the total population) were either owned by landlords or by the state. Essentially the gentry had absolute supremacy over peasantry.13 This comes to show that the vast preponderance of Russians were living in burdensome, strenuous circumstances and had no actual quality of life. The labor on the seemingly boundless fields was arduous and unsafe and the majority of money and harvest had to be relinquished. There was no gain for the peasants, so they were bound to begin questioning and eventually resisting. This was a scenario which had to be avoided by all means, seeing as a revolt of the serfdom (80% of the population!) would result in substantial economic difficulties. In an effort to create better living conditions and thereby prevent this from taking place, Alexander II signed the ‘Emancipation Edict’ in 1861.14 This essentially allowed peasants to own their own agricultural land. They were granted freedom of choice regarding what they wanted to do and be where they wanted to be at any given time, so in essence they were no longer owned. Though it sounds far more humanitarian on paper than slavery, it didn’t really change much as far as the lifestyle of the peasantry is concerned. They were still forced to work the same type of labour in order to make a living. In addition, they were forced to live in communes (also known as Mir) in order to make tax collection an easier affair.15 The nobles now received the majority of tax money in order to compensate for the new-found shortage of slaves. Peasants families were issued a piece of arable land according to the amount of children in the family. If a child died, the land was reallocated to another family.16 Whether or or not the emancipation of serfs in 1855 was truly in the interest of the peasants, is presently still controversial amongst historians.17
In conclusion, the problems of sheer size of the country in combination with the major social divisions were a sizeable responsibility for the Tsar to tackle, though generally the reforms of Alexander II can be viewed as a success toward modernizing Russia. Though the above were not the only reforms lead into action by the Tsar, they were definitely substantial in shaping Russia as we know it today.
1 http://www.fsmitha.com/h3/h47-ru.htm 2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Russian_Army 3 Notes 4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Russia 5 http://www.country-data.com/cgi-bin/query/r-12428.html 6 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Russia_%281855%E2%80%931892%29 7 Video shown in class 8 http://www.history.ac.uk/reviews/review/257 9 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_in_Russia 10 Notes 11 Notes 12 http://www.pgexchange.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=158&Itemid=153 13 Textbook, p. 16-17 14 https://sites.google.com/site/ibhistoryrussia/syllabus-overview---imperial-russia/alexander-ii 15 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obshchina 16 http://historyofrussia.org/emancipation-of-the-serfs/ 17 http://heathenhistory.co.uk/russia/forums/topic/does-alexander-the-iind-deserve-the-title-tsar-liberator/
Compare and Contrast the Reforms of Tsars Alexander II and Alexander III of Russia in connection with the peasantry.
“Compare and contrast the reforms of Tsars Alexander II and Alexander III of Russia in connection with the peasantry”.
As a result of these two very distinguished rules, the sentence above shall be the objective of this essay and a conclusion will be reached by taking into consideration the reforms - social, constitutional and military - that each of the Tsars integrated into the Russian society during their reign. The time frame in reference to these reforms is between 1855, when Alexander II began his rule, until Alexander III’s death and consequently the end of his reign in 1894.
By exploring the similarities and differences between the reigns of Alexander II and Alexander III, this essay aims to identify which of the two Tsars’ reforms would have provided the more favourable outcome as regards the suppression of the insurrectionist peasant class.
This is an important topic to investigate because it provides some of the background and reasons why the peasant class eventually became disgruntled with the Tsarist rule and attempted a revolution. This topic would be worth considering for anyone interested in examining the aforementioned causal links as well as investigating the reasons behind Alexander III’s noticeably distinctive rule.
This essay intends to gather information regarding any events during the lives of both Alexander II and Alexander III, which might have had an influence on their later dealings with the peasantry as well as what kind of beliefs the two may have held. Furthermore, it shall also find information concerning their social reforms (education, politics, and military) so that a compare and contrast method may be utilized in order to determine which of the two Tsars had the more efficient way of handling the peasant class. This information will be gathered using a collection of literature written on or around the topic. Such as: Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, Russia, 1855-1991: From Tsars to Commissars, Russia 1848-1917 and by also looking at first hand accounts quoted/referenced within.
Compare and Contrast the attitudes of Tsars Alexander II and Alexander III of Russia towards the peasantry.
‘Like father like son’. This is an expression that one hears a lot in everyday life and finds quite often to be true, anecdotally speaking. However, if this is to be the case, then why was Alexander II known as “a great reformer” and Alexander III known as “a great reactionary”? By extension, were both Tsars equally admired or disliked; or did their policies and methods of ruling create distinctions between the two? In line with these thoughts, this essay would like to compare and contrast the reigns of Tsar Alexander II (1855 - 1881) and his son Tsar Alexander III (1881 - 1894)  of Russia.
The approach will be to look at different aspects of reforms (social, military and political) of each Tsar and to determine wherein the similarities lie and the differences in order to ascertain which had most effective attitude towards the peasantry. The level of effectiveness here is calculated by examining the intent of each reform based on intent, namely, how closely the outcome mirrored the design of the initial concept and whether or not that worked to fuel or subdue the revolutionary attitude becoming ever more prevalent during the late 1800s.
For each section, this essay will consider first the reforms of Alexander II, then Alexander III, followed by a third paragraph in which the effectiveness of the reforms will be compared. Thereafter it will be stated which Tsar had the most effective reform(s) in that particular branch of social policies and thus the better attitude toward the peasantry.
The thesis, therefore, is that it is in the opinion of this essay that Tsar Alexander III had the more successful and effective reign as regards his ability to quell social unrest amongst the peasant class.
The Social Reforms of Alexander II and Alexander III
In 1863, Alexander II brought about important education reforms, which entitled universities to a much greater level of autonomy in their affairs. In addition to this, there was the Elementary School Statute of 1864, which was instituted to aid in the combat against high illiteracy rates among the serfs, or peasants. Women were even given the opportunity to receive enough education to pursue careers as teachers and in 1878, the Bestuzhev higher learning courses for women was created and saw a very positive response judging by the number of applicants. This was a move in the direction of change as, before this educational reform was implemented, the system of education had come under extreme oppression and surveillance from Nicholas I. There was even a high demand for these schools by the peasants, however, that demand did not have as much to do with the new reforms, as Alexander would have liked. It actually originated from the peasants’ knowledge that being capable of reading and writing meant serving a shorter term of service in the military as well as quenching their thirst for salvation through the reading of holy books.
Despite this, historian David Saunders still makes the remark that the liberal policies of the government made the schools into “powder kegs” and teaching lectures “appeared to be serving not only academic and economic purposes but also the promotion of political instability.” Therefore Saunders believed that although the reform did much to ameliorate the standard of education throughout the nation, it seemed also that it was precipitating feelings of political turbulence.
Whereas Alexander II’s reforms enabled almost everyone to receive primary schooling, relaxed censorship laws and encouraged children to attend school and university, Alexander III did the opposite, imposing on Russia a level of “bureaucratic and police-rule more intense than the country had ever known,” seen at first with the enactment of the “Statute Concerning Measures for the Protection of State Security and the Social Order” decree, which was initially intended to only be in operation for a short while but continued until 1917 and subjected the entire nation to “regulations similar to martial law”. After Alexander II’s assassination in 1881, the state received the power from the Second State Duma to pursue revolutionaries, meaning that at any time they could declare a section of the country under “extraordinary protection.” This entailed banning public gatherings, closing schools and universities and charging individuals for political crimes and holding them in prison without trail, regardless of whether they were guilty or not. This went directly against one of Alexander II’s legal reforms in which Russians were offered the chance to have a fair trail for the first time in November 1864. Restrictive Press Laws were set up in 1881; education came under close government control, striving to limit opposition and revolutionary ideas to the best of their ability. School fees were increased in order to keep those of lower class—those suspected to be most involved with the revolutionaries—away from any kind of formal education. The peasants were at first reluctant to rise against the Tsar but in the long run, these new social forces began to highlight contradictions in society, leading to social unrest amongst the peasants.
Seeing as the point behind both of these reforms was the same—to stamp out any insurgents or insurgent ideas—the lack of revolutionary disturbances and the peaceful reign of Alexander III clearly shows that his repression of opposition had been successful. Therefore, it is in the opinion of this essay that this venture of snuffing out opposition fulfilled its full intent and was more effective than the reforms implemented by Alexander II.
The Constitutional Reforms of Alexander II and Alexander III:
Having to face the aftermath of the Crimean war and the ‘backwards’ label it consequently handed Russia, Alexander II was thrown into a different political and social climate to the one experienced by his father, Nicholas I. Therefore, he found that in order to do all he could to prevent peasant uprisings due to social unrest, he had to implement many new reforms, the most famous of which was the Emancipation Edict of 1861. This notion was more than welcomed by the over twenty-two million serfs and other liberal intellectuals in Russia but heavily opposed by the landowners. There were even 647 peasant riots in the first four months following the publication of the Edict.
However, though the serfs were now free, they found themselves still having to buy or rent land from their former masters. The areas granted to the serfs were often too small and landlords charged inflated prices, leaving millions in hopeless poverty and debt, which did not in any way help with the much needed transformation of the serfs into a prosperous new class of consumers. In addition, according to historian Orlando Figes, “any government trying to change the basic system of property owning throughout the entire country is taking the risk of becoming deeply unpopular, especially with the people whose land their expropriating… the serfs were property. ‘Property’-owning meant serfs and land.”
The full intent of the Emancipation Reform was not realized in that it had two main objectives: proclaim the emancipation of serfs on private estates as well as the domestic serfs and grant them full rights as citizens, meaning they could now own property and a business. However, Alexander II’s reform had only succeeded in alienating the principle classes in Russia - he was unable to earn the gratitude of the peasants and simultaneously lost the devotion of the nobility.
Alexander III did not use such moderate methods as his father. As a result of his father’s assassination by The People’s Will he resorted to his conservative instincts, instilled in him through his education by his tutor Pobedonostsev, a conservative, and soon ceased all proposed constitutions, perhaps acting on the advice he had been receiving from Pobedonostsev even prior to his father’s death. Like his father, Alexander III was also focusing a large amount of his time and energy on dealing with the peasantry, but that is where the similarities end. Despite the fact that both men were trying to bring about peace within their nation, their methods were poles apart.
Alexander II was attempting to do so through appeasement because he knew it was “better to begin abolishing serfdom from above than to wait for it to begin to abolish itself from below.”. In contrast, Alexander III’s main interest at the time was the suppression of the very rapidly growing opposition groups, dubbed ‘Populists’, whom of which had a proclivity for terrorism and assassination. In 1887, in an effort to revive the opposition, an attempt was made on the Tsar’s life but failed and as the efficiency of the Okhrana, political police, increased, opposition died down for the time being. Between 1881 and 1894, Alexander III and his government added conservative alterations to Alexander II’s reforms. For example, Land Captains were introduced in 1889 and consisted solely of nobility. These Land Captains had total authority in local administration and had the power to override the zemstva. Changes in the way the voting system functioned reduced the peasant self-government, giving them less power with which to protest or use against Alexander III. Alexander’s policy of Land Captains was so effective in its intent that former serfs feared that he might go as far to reinstitute serfdom. He did not ever take such action, however, in 1893 he banned peasants from leaving the mir, thereby gaining full control of their freedom to move around. Alexander III had almost all but completely done away with his father’s emancipation reforms by now, and achieving much better results.
The Military Reforms of Alexander II and Alexander III:
On January 1st, 1847, Alexander II began the universal military conscription. Every man over twenty was made liable to conscription, irrespective of his social class, if medically able to do so. Harsh corporate punishments and the branding of soldiers were done away with in an effort to improve the professionalism of the officer corps. All members of the military who lacked an elementary education were to receive it. Alexander II even set up reserve soldiers. Those who joined the army were also given shorter sentences, which meant that joining was no longer a ‘life sentence.’ Six years service for conscripts, followed by nine years in the reserve and five spent in the militia was now the requirements instead of 25 years. As a result, the military reserve was raised from 210,000 to 553,000 by 1870.
The second main military reform implemented by Alexander II was to improve the competency of the soldiers. Count Dmitry Milyutin, Minister of War, was in charge of the far-reaching military reforms that changed the face of the Russian army during Alexander II’s reign. Milyutin created a more civilized and efficient army through his reforms. The training and discipline of the soldiers no longer made up of brutal mistreatment, such as flogging or ‘running the gauntlet’ and he effectuated military cadet schools and colleges in order for the officers to be well trained. The intent of Alexander’s military reforms were to expand the Russian army and strengthen it after their brutally embarrassing defeat in the Crimea and without a doubt this is exactly what he was able to accomplish.
The peasantry reacted positively to this, no longer feeling that they were being forced into a life-long sentence when joining the army. They were also contented with the fact that nobles were no longer exempt from conscription.
Alexander III’s military reforms were very similar to those of his father if not exactly the same. When it came to that aspects of their nation, they both wanted the same thing—a strong military that would be ready and able to fight and defend Russia should the need present itself. This was one area in which the similarities in their reforms can be seen. Alexander III continued to do away with the barbaric forms of punishment used in the army and to replace them with more productive methods. He also managed avoided any foreign wars from 1881-1894, rightly earning himself the title ‘The Peacemaker’. This period of peace allowed the army to continue to grow and gain new skills through the cadet training schools implemented by Milyutin during Alexander II’s reign. There was also ample opportunity now for Russia to move towards industrialization.
The peasants, still experiencing a bitter aftertaste of the Crimean war, would most likely have been very please with this. And they would have been able to be a part of their country’s regrowth into the strong force it had been prior to 1853 when the war began.
The aim of this essay was to closely examine a few of the reforms of Russian Tsars Alexander II and Alexander III in order to determine which of the two men had the better and more effective rule. The idea was to do this by considering how well Tsarist oppression was either simply subdued or completely eradicated. It is safe to say that while neither of them managed to do the latter, Alexander III was the palpable victor in this regard. Despite Alexander II’s endeavors to please as many factions of Russia as possible, the best description of his ventures is with the modern day aphorism: “You can please some of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time.” And it was true in his case; he either had the gentry at his every beck and call or he had the support of the peasants, but never both; the new freedom granted through his reforms lead to unrealistic expectations of the Tsar and when these were not being met, opposition began to peak again. Alexander III lacked the support of these two principle groups as well, however, that was never his intention. After his father’s assassination, he had grown fearful of terrorist groups - so much so that he resided in Gatchina instead of the Winter Palace - and did all in his power to crush their rebellion.
When one completely dissects the reforms made by both men, a mutual goal can be clearly seen - avert an insurgency of the peasantry. And though it is debatable that without Alexander II there would have been no foundation for his son to build upon, if one does choose to take that side of the argument then the fact that Alexander II was assassinated by the very people whom he had tried to help, irrespective of the immediate results of his reforms, would render the argument that Alexander II provided a basis for a peaceful and successful rule for Alexander III void.
I. Peter Oxley, Oxford Advanced History: Russia: 1855 - 1991, From Tsars to Commissars (Oxford University Press, 2001)
II. Olga Bain, University Autonomy: Higher Education In Russia Since Perestroika (Taylor & Francis, May 1, 2003)
III. Nicholas Valentine Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-55 (University of California Press, 1959)
IV. William Mills Todd III, Literature and Society in Imperial Russia, 1800 - 1914 (Stanford University Press, 1978
V. David Saunders, Russia in the age of reaction and reform 1801 - 1881 (Longmann, 1992)
VI. Michael Kort, The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath (M.E Sharpe, Jan 1, 2001)
VII. Jonathan Bromley, Russia 1848 - 1917(Heinemann, 2002)
VIII. Roxanne Easley, The Emancipation of the Serfs in Russia: Peace Arbitrators and the Development of Civil Society (Taylor & Francis, Aug. 15, 2008)
IX. Junius P. Rodriguez, The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery (ABC-CLIO, Jan 1, 1997)
X. Walter Moss, Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (Anthem Press, Jan. 1, 2002)
XI. Sally Waller, History for the IB Diploma: Imperial Russia, Revolutions and the Emergence of the Soviet State 1853 - 1924 (Cambridge University Press)
XII. J.N. Westwood, Russia Against Japan, 1904 -1905: A New Look at the Russo-Japanese War (SUNY Press, 1986)
II. Bragg, Melvyn: Figes, Orlando; Catriona, Kelly; Lieven, Dominic, Tsar Alexander II’s Assassination, BBC: In Our Time, Jan. 6th, 2005 (podcast)
A letter to the future Alexander III, 4th December, 1879, from the Procurator of the Holy Synod, K. P Pobedonostsev:
“All the officials and learned men here sicken my heart, as if I were in the company of half-wits or perverted baboons. I hear from all sides that trite, deceitful and accursed word: constitution… But I also meet and talk with some
A letter to the future Alexander III, 4th December, 1879, from the Procurator of the Holy Synod, K. P Pobedonostsev:
“All the officials and learned men here sicken my heart, as if I were in the company of half-wits or perverted baboons. I hear from all sides that trite, deceitful and accursed word: constitution… But I also meet and talk with some
Russian men… Their hearts are seized with fear; above all else they fear that basic evil, a constitution. Among the common people everywhere the thought is spreading; better a Russian revolution and ugly turmoil than a constitution. The former could soon be repressed, with order restored throughout the land; the latter is poison to the entire organization.”
 Peter Oxley, Oxford Advanced History: Russia: 1855 - 1991, From Tsars to Commissars (Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 51
  John Etty, Primary Sources in Russian (First and Best in Education, 2009), p. 6
 Ibid. p. 45
 Olga Bain, University Autonomy: Higher Education In Russia Since Perestroika (Taylor & Francis, May 1, 2003)
 Nicholas Valentine Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-55 (University of California Press, 1959), pgs. 213-218
 William Mills Todd III, Literature and Society in Imperial Russia, 1800 - 1914 (Stanford University Press, 1978), p. 123
 David Saunders, Russia in the age of reaction and reform 1801 - 1881 (Longmann, 1992), p. 251
 Michael Kort, The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath (M.E Sharpe, Jan 1, 2001), p. 24
 Michael Kort, The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath (M.E Sharpe, Jan 1, 2001), p. 24
 Marshall Shatz, Judith E. Zimmerman, Landmarks (M.E Sharpe, Jan 1, 1994), p. 112
 Peter Oxley, Oxford Advanced History: Russia: 1855 - 1991, From Tsars to Commissars (Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 44
 Jonathan Bromley, Russia 1848 - 1917(Heinemann, 2002), p. 32
Bragg, Melvyn: Figes, Orlando; Catriona, Kelly; Lieven, Dominic, Tsar Alexander II’s Assassination, BBC: In Our Time, Jan. 6th, 2005
 Ibid. p. 176
 Roxanne Easley, The Emancipation of the Serfs in Russia: Peace Arbitrators and the Development of Civil Society (Taylor & Francis, Aug. 15, 2008)
 Peter Oxley, Oxford Advanced History: Russia: 1855 - 1991, From Tsars to Commissars (Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 27
 Junius P. Rodriguez, The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery (ABC-CLIO, Jan 1, 1997), p. 561
 Bragg, Melvyn: Figes, Orlando; Catriona, Kelly; Lieven, Dominic, Tsar Alexander II’s Assassination, BBC: In Our Time, Jan. 6th, 2005
 Peter Oxley, Oxford Advanced History: Russia: 1855 - 1991, From Tsars to Commissars (Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 27
 Ibid. p. 37
 Ibid. p. 43
 See Appendix: A letter to Alexander III
 Peter Oxley, Oxford Advanced History: Russia: 1855 - 1991, From Tsars to Commissars (Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 26
 Ibid. p. 52
 Jonathan Bromley, Russia 1848 - 1917(Heinemann, 2002), pgs. 79, 80
 Michael Kort, The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath (M.E Sharpe, Jan 1, 2001), pg. 24
 Ibid. p. 43
 Ibid. 26 p. 44
 Ibid. 26 p. 45
 Ibid. 26
 Ibid. 26
 Walter Moss, Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky (Anthem Press, Jan. 1, 2002), p. 154
 Peter Oxley, Oxford Advanced History: Russia: 1855 - 1991, From Tsars to Commissars (Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 29
 Ibid. 36.
 Sally Waller, History for the IB Diploma: Imperial Russia, Revolutions and the Emergence of the Soviet State 1853 - 1924 (Cambridge University Press), p. 46
 Ibid. 37.
 Ibid. 40, p. 46
Michael Kort, The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath (M.E Sharpe, Jan 1, 2001), pg. 25
 J.N. Westwood, Russia Against Japan, 1904 -1905: A New Look at the Russo-Japanese War (SUNY Press, 1986), p. 3
 Ibid. 45.
 Peter Oxley, Oxford Advanced History: Russia: 1855 - 1991, From Tsars to Commissars (Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 33
 Sally Waller, History for the IB Diploma: Imperial Russia, Revolutions and the Emergence of the Soviet State 1853 - 1924 (Cambridge University Press), p. 76
 Peter Oxley, Oxford Advanced History: Russia: 1855 - 1991, From Tsars to Commissars (Oxford University Press, 2001)
A History of Russia: From Peter the Great to Gorbachev Part I Professor Mark D. Steinberg THE TEACHING COMPANY ® Mark D. Steinberg, Ph.D. Professor of History, Director of the Russian and East European Center, University of Illinois Mark Steinberg completed his undergraduate work at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1978 and received his Ph.D. in European history at the University of California at Berkeley in 1987. He taught Russian and European history at the University of Oregon (1987), Harvard University (1987–1989), and Yale University (1989– 1996) before joining the faculty at the University of Illinois, at its main campus in Urbana-Champaign, in 1996. Since 1998, Professor Steinberg has also been the Director of the Russian and East European Center at Illinois, an interdisciplinary program designated by the Department of Education as a national resource center. Professor Steinberg has received many awards for his teaching, including the Sarai Ribicoff Prize for Teaching at Yale University (1993) and, at Illinois, the George and Gladys Queen Excellence in History Teaching Award (1998 and 2002) and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2002). For his work as a scholar, he has received numerous prestigious fellowships, including from the International Research and Exchanges Board, the Social Science Research Council, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Smithsonian Institution, the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2001, the University of Illinois gave him one of its highest honors and named him a University Scholar. Professor Steinberg has published many articles, delivered numerous papers at national and international conferences, given public lectures throughout the country, and served on several national professional committees and editorial boards. He specializes in the cultural, intellectual, and social history of Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His first book, published in 1992, was a study of the relations among employers, managers, and workers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, entitled Moral Communities. In 1994, Professor Steinberg co-edited Cultures in Flux, an influential collection of essays on Russian lower-class cultures. In 1995, he published, together with a Russian archivist, The Fall of the Romanovs, which examines the fate of the tsar and his family during the revolution and includes translations of documents from then recently opened Russian archives. In 2001, Professor Steinberg published Voices of Revolution, 1917, a study and collection of translated documents exploring the revolution through contemporary letters and other writings by ordinary Russians. His most recent book, Proletarian Imagination, published in 2002, explores poetry and other writings by lower-class Russians in the years before and after 1917, focusing on ideas about self, modern times, and the sacred. He is currently working on a collection of essays on religion in Russia, a revised textbook on Russian history, and a study of St. Petersburg in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Professor Steinberg is a native of San Francisco and is married to Jane Hedges, an editor and translator. Further information can be found at his Web site: http://www.history.uiuc.edu/steinb/index.htm. ©2003 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership i Table of Contents A History of Russia: from Peter the Great to Gorbachev Part I Professor Biography............................................................................................i Course Scope.......................................................................................................1 Lecture One Lecture Two Lecture Three Lecture Four Lecture Five Lecture Six Lecture Seven Lecture Eight Lecture Nine Lecture Ten Lecture Eleven Lecture Twelve Timeline .............................................................................................................35 Glossary .............................................................................................................39 Understanding the Russian Past.................................2 The Russia of Peter the Great’s Childhood ...............4 Peter the Great’s Revolution......................................7 The Age of EmpressesCatherine the Great..........10 Social RebellionThe Pugachev Uprising .............13 Moral RebellionNikolai Novikov ........................16 Alexander IImagining Reform.............................19 The Decembrist Revolution .....................................22 Nicholas IOrthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality .....25 Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s National Poet ............27 The Birth of the Intelligentsia..................................30 WesternizersVissarion Belinskii..........................33 Please refer to Part II for the biographical notes and Part III for the annotated bibliography. ii ©2003 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Scope: A History of Russia: From Peter the Great to Gorbachev After a discussion of background issues (geography, multi-ethnicity, the problem of backwardness, Europeanization), the course begins with politics and culture on the eve of Peter the Great’s efforts to transform his country, then looks at Peter and his reforms. Next, women’s rule in eighteenth-century Russia is examined, with a particular focus on the reigns of Elizabeth (Peter the Great’s daughter) and Catherine the Great. Turning toward society, two additional lectures on the eighteenth century follow: on the Pugachev uprising and the growing critique of autocratic despotism by educated Russians, especially the publisher and writer Nikolai Novikov. Lecture Seven begins the nineteenth century by returning to a focus on the state and the monarch: Paul I and especially Alexander I, who seriously discussed possible reform. We also look at the Decembrist rebellion, in which educated nobles took arms against the state to bring about social and political reform. Next, we consider Nicholas I and the ideas about power and order that inspired the Russian state at that time. Returning the gaze to society, the course then offers lectures on different intellectuals’ visions of change: the “national poet” Alexander Pushkin (whom we consider also for what his image as a symbol of the Russian nation tells us) and the full-fledged emergence of the “intelligentsia” in the 1830s and 1840s. Particular attention is paid to their ideas about Russia, the West, and the meanings of freedom. Lecture Thirteen begins the history of the Great Reforms under Alexander II, which sought to create a modern society in Russia though dramatic reform. We then examine dissident trends and the individuals associated with them: nihilism (including terrorism), populism, Marxism (including the emergence of Bolshevism). For a different voice, we look at the famous writer Lev Tolstoy, especially his life and his arguments about morality and conscience. Returning our gaze to official Russia, we highlight the lives, personalities, and outlooks of the last two tsars, Alexander III and his son Nicholas II. We then consider a decisive event in the reign of Nicholas: the strikes, demonstrations, and public demands that the tsarist government accept civil rights and democratic rule in Russia in 1905. To see Russia’s changes in larger perspective, we look at peasant life and culture in the late 1800s and early 1900s, life in the changing cities (especially for workers and the middle class) from the industrialization drive of the 1890s to the eve of World War I, and at aspects of what might be called fin-de-siècle culture: decadence in everyday life and in the arts, cultural iconoclasm, and the religious renaissance. Lecture Twenty-Five examines the Russian experience in World War I and the coming of revolution. It is followed with an examination of the Russian experience in the key months from the fall of the tsarist government in February to the coming to power of the Bolsheviks in October, then by a lecture on the Bolsheviks during their first year in power. The story of the Civil War comes next, followed by a discussion of the debates in the 1920s in the Soviet Union over how to overcome Russia’s backwardness and build socialism. Next, we look at Joseph Stalin’s biography and political personality, the era of radical industrialization and social transformation that he launched at the end of the 1920s, and the contradictory political, social, and cultural life of the 1930s (including the Great Terror). We turn then to the Soviet experience in World War II and to politics and the experiences of Soviet people during the decades after the war and before Gorbachev’s reforms. Continuing the theme of exploring dissent, we look at some of the various forms of alienation from, and resistance to, the Soviet system during the years before Gorbachev came to power (both everyday forms and open dissidence). Finally, we look at Mikhail Gorbachev’s recognition of the many problems of the system and his efforts to make Communism work though a policy of reform. The final lecture concludes with a consideration of the situation left in the wake of the collapse of Communism. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 1 Lecture One Understanding the Russian Past Scope: This first lecture introduces the overall scope and plan of the course. The lecture explains the approach of the course, including its focus on human experience, ideas, and values and especially on the lives and thoughts of individuals, both notable and ordinary. Next, the lecture considers why the history of Russia is significant for us, and fascinating, both as a story of events that had great impact on modern world history and as a story of human experience. Finally, it outlines the chronological scope of the course, reviews the types of individuals to be considered (ranging from political rulers to ordinary men and women), and highlights the themes that weave these stories together (especially power and imagination). Outline I. This introductory lecture has three main purposes. A. First, I want to introduce the approach to the Russian past I am using in these lectures, especially my focus on individuals and ideas. B. Second, I would like to offer some thoughts about why it is important to study the history of Russia. C. Third, I would like to provide an outline of this course. II. Historians narrate the past. A. The past itself is immense, chaotic, and fragmentary. B. History tries to create some order and logic. C. These lectures focus, not only on what happened in the past and why, but on how people acted in the past and, especially, how they made sense of their lives. III. Russian history is important and compelling. A. Russia’s sheer size makes it important to understand. Note that this is a modern greatness, because as late as the early sixteenth century, Russia was still a relatively small nation. B. By the nineteenth century, Russia was a vast multinational empire that covered one-sixth of the earth’s land surface. It was also a great political and cultural force in the world. 1. In the early sixteenth century, the country was still politically fragmented and economically and culturally undeveloped. 2. Even many Russians were concerned that Russia was far behind Europe. 3. But, by the nineteenth century, Russia was clearly a European power and culture. 4. Travelers to Russia in the nineteenth century may have been appalled by the dictatorial power of the Russian monarchy and dismayed at the poverty of the majority of the people, but they also recognized that educated Russians were as sophisticated and European as themselves. C. Russia’s modern history is also important and compelling as a human story, though it is an often- contradictory story. 1. It is a story of people’s efforts to discern life’s fundamental meaning, as well as a story of their uncertainty and confusion. 2. It is a story of people’s efforts to create a society built on principles of right and justice, as well as a story of evil and injustice. 3. It is a story about human imagination and creativity, as well as a story of great tragedy. 4. Yet Russia is not “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.” Although a dense and complex tale, it is compelling because we can understand it. IV. Before we begin, we should consider some of the people to be examined and some of themes and ideas that link these human stories together. 2 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership A. B. First, the time frame of this course is modern Russia, from the childhood of Peter I (“the Great”) in the late seventeenth century to the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev at the end of the Communist era. Certain types of people are the focus of attention: 1. Political rulers (tsars, emperors, Communist Party leaders) are central figures in this story. 2. No less important are political rebels. 3. These lectures also introduce creative writers, poets, and artists. 4. Finally, we will explore the lives and thoughts of relatively ordinary people. C. One of the major themes is power. 1. We will explore how political rulers used state power and justified their authority. 2. We also look at the critical arguments made by peasant rebels, intellectuals, and dissidents. D. Another major theme is imagination. 1. Throughout Russian history, we see varied individuals and groups imagining and, often, trying to construct a different lifepolitically, socially, culturally, morallyfrom the one they were leading. 2. No less important is the reverse side of this spirit of imagination: widespread doubt and pessimism and the tragic failure of many of these visions. E. Another theme is Russia and the West. 1. Since Peter the Great’s time, Russians have struggled with their relationship to the West. 2. The West represented both a competing economic and political force (and model) and an influential source of ideas and culture. F. Happiness, and the pursuit of happiness, is yet another theme: From rulers to revolutionaries, Russians have often spoken of happiness as what they most sought for themselves and Russia. G. Morality and ethics form another theme. 1. The idea of an ethical society often motivated rulers who embarked on courses of reform. 2. Critics of the state used the idea of an ethical society as a mirror to show the corruption and evil of the status quo. H. A related theme is spirituality. 1. The influence of the Russian Orthodox Church has long been widespread in Russian life. 2. In addition, diverse individuals have believed that the material life alone would not ensure happiness or morality in the world. I. Finally, people’s everyday lives are a central part of this historical account. Essential Reading: Gregory Freeze, ed., Russia: A History (Oxford, 1997), chapter 1. Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime, chapters 1–2. Nicholas Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, 6th ed. (Oxford, 2000), chapters 1–14. Supplementary Reading: Daniel Kaiser and Gary Marker, eds., Reinterpreting Russian History (York, 1994), chapters 1–8. Questions to Consider 1. Why have outside observers of Russia so often emphasized its “backwardness,” even savagery, and/or its inscrutability, as in Churchill’s famous description of Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”? 2. How does looking not only at the actions of rulers but also at their values and ideals and at the experiences and attitudes of ordinary people or intellectuals change how we understand the history of a country? ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 3 Lecture Two The Russia of Peter the Great’s Childhood Scope: This lecture explores Russian politics and culture on the eve of Peter the Great’s efforts to transform his country. In light of the image of Peter the Great as single-handedly bringing Russia into Western civilization, this lecture explores changes already underway by the end of the seventeenth century. We look at efforts to modernize state and law, at the ideology of Russian state power (especially the competing ideas of secular and sacred rulership), and at the Western sources of these ideas. The lecture then considers the Westernization of everyday Russian life, including the growing presence of foreigners in Russia and cultural changes in the lives of individual Russians. Finally, the lecture describes the influence of all these changes on Peter the Great’s childhood. Outline I. We shall first examine a story that borders on myth: that Peter the Great initiated modernization and Westernization in Russia. A. According to this story, Russia was a backward, Asiatic nation before Peter came to the throne at the end of the seventeenth century. B. After Peter, it is often said, Russia was fully on the path toward becoming a modern Western nation. C. Sometimes these stories about Peter’s revolutionary transformation of Russia were quite elaborate. 1. Leading Russians often declared that Peter was the “sculptor” who shaped modern Russia or even a god. 2. In the nineteenth century—a more scientific age—Peter was seen as a historical great man who had the power to alter the destiny of his country. D. These claims hold some truth. 1. But these images of Peter also expressed a certain idealism about where Russia should go, which led to a darkening of the images of where Russia had come from. 2. Russia, in reality, was not “a blank sheet of paper” when Peter came to power. Already when Peter was born in 1672, the country was changing in many ways. II. In the political sphere, Russian rulers and their officials tried to create the structures of a modern (if authoritarian) monarchical state. A. First, they tried to increase bureaucratic centralization, though the tsar remained powerful. 1. This meant reforming the existing system, in which personal rule over the state by the monarch was combined with personal rule over local society by noblemen. 2. Instead, the country was increasingly governed by bureaucratic offices and officials based in Moscow. B. No less important was the ongoing effort in the seventeenth century to establish orderly laws and structures, to systematize government and especially law. This culminated in one of the most important events of the seventeenth century: the enacting of a new comprehensive law code (ulozhenie) in 1649. C. To more fully understand Russian politics on the eve of Peter’s rule, we need to explore how people understood politics and power in the late seventeenth century. D. One place to look is at the symbols of power, at self-representations of authority. 1. When Peter the Great’s father, tsar Aleksei Romanov, came to the throne in 1645, he wore barmyornate brocade shoulder coverings, “The Life-Giving Cross,” and the Crown of Monomakh, and he carried the orb and scepter, the latter crowned with a double-headed eagle. 2. The message of these symbols is clear: They emphasize the ruler’s sacred authority and that his power was rooted in the whole of Christian history. III. These seventeenth-century ideas about the nature and legitimacy of the Russian monarchy, in particular, certain key ideas, would long remain influential. 4 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership A. B. The tsar understood his power to be that of an “autocrat” and saw the system as an autocracy. Helping to define this notion were two basic ideas: 1. First, the ruler as a powerful secular force, as forceful, dynamic, even aggressive, though for the good of the nationa groznyi tsar (awesome and mighty). 2. Second, the ruler as sacred and loving (as a Christian monarch)as a tishaishii tsar (“gentle,” pious, saintly). C. Both ideas have their roots other than in Russia, of course. 1. 2. D. The 1. A. We should not forget that Western influences in Russia had a long history. 1. A large proportion of the ruling elites were not purely Slavic. 2. Once the Russian state accepted Christianity, the cultural influences of Byzantium became strong. 3. As early as the fifteenth century, Russian rulers were eager to establish to the world that they were European rulers. B. By the late seventeenth century, Western influence was becoming much more widespread and substantive. 1. Intellectual life was changing. 2. Huge numbers of foreigners came to Muscovy to live. By the time of tsar Aleksei (1645–1676), many foreigners had become permanent residents of Russia, and a special foreign settlement (nemetskaia sloboda) had been established in Moscow. C. All these changes affected the everyday lives of many Russians. 1. Many of Russia’s leading noblemen dressed in Western clothes, did not wear beards, had portraits painted, ate Western foods, and smoked. One such aristocrat was Vasilii Liutkin. 2. For the Russian elite, things were changing even before Peter the Great’s reforms, especially a growing sense that Russia was a part of Europe. V. Peter was born in 1672 into this vital, changing environment. A. Tsar Aleksei’s death in 1676 first brought Peter’s half-brother Fyodor to the throne and then, in 1682, Peter and his half-brother Ivan to power, though real control was in the hands of the regent Sophia. B. Peter’s childhood was a remarkably free one (especially during his years of virtual exile from the Kremlin between the ages of ten and seventeen). 1. Bored by life away from the Kremlin, Peter spent much time with soldiers and foreigners. 2. These two groups would remain important parts of his life and his rule. C. Peter loved the soldier’s life so much that he formed his own private play regiment when he was eleven. D. Peter’s interest in technical matters (especially building boats) led him to the foreign settlement in Moscow, and he also made friends with less than well-born Russians. E. He learned much about the world and about technical achievements from these foreigners. 1. His contact with them shaped his choice of Western dress and appearance. 2. Peter’s association with foreigners spurred him to study math and science, but these associates also taught him how to drink heavily and enjoy the charms of foreign women. F. Eventually, he would apply all of these energies and ideas to remaking Russia. Essential Reading: George Freeze, ed., Russia: A History (Oxford, 1997), chapters 2–3. Richard Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime, chapters 3–4. Nicholas Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, 6th ed. (Oxford, 2000), chapters 15–19. Ancient Rome was the referent for the mighty and secular ideal. Byzantine rulers were the referent for the pious and Christian ideal. relation between these two ideals was not simple. The two aspects were unified in that the sacred roots of power made the ruler all the more powerful, and the ruler’s power made him a more effective vicar of God. But there was also tension: The sacred sources of the tsar’s power potentially compromised his secular absolutism, for such a ruler must govern in accordance with the will of God and for the good of others. look beyond the halls of state power into the world of society and culture, where the connections with the larger world were especially pronounced. 2. IV. We now ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 5 Supplementary Reading: Michael Cherniavsky, “Khan or Basileus: An Aspect of Russian Medieval Political Theory,” Journal of the History of Ideas 20 (1959): 459–476. Daniel Kaiser and Gary Marker, eds., Reinterpreting Russian History (York, 1994), chapters 9–13. Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in the Russian Monarch (Princeton, 1995), vol. 1, chapter 1. Questions to Consider: 1. 2. What were the achievements and limitations in Russia’s turn to the West before Peter I’s reign? How did the Russian tsars traditionally think about their power? How do we reconcile their absolutism and even brutality with their professions of religious faith and desire to rule as Christian monarchs? 6 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Lecture Three Peter the Great’s Revolution Scope: This lecture looks at the reign of the ruler many say did more to create modern Russia than any other: Peter I (“the Great”). The lecture begins with Peter’s childhood and the period of his minority as tsar, a key period of contradictory possibilities in Russian history and one in which Peter developed his major interests and orientation to the world. The lecture then examines Peter’s personality: his energy and love of work but also his crudeness and cruelty. We then survey Peter’s major reforms, especially reform of government and mandated changes in society and culture. The lecture concludes by examining the vision of progress that motivated reform, especially the meaning of the West for Peter. Particular attention is paid to his reforms of cultural life and the creation of St. Petersburg as a new modern capital. Outline I. Peter’s first years were a time of tumult, contradiction, and possibility. A. At the age of ten, Peter became co-tsar of Russia (as Peter I). 1. He ruled together with his half-brother Ivan V. 2. Real power was in the hands of the regent Sophia (Peter’s elder half-sister). B. In 1689, when Peter was seventeen, Sophia was deposed when she tried to seize full control of the throne. C. A traditionalist reaction set in almost immediately. 1. Traditional religiosity was strongly encouraged. 2. All foreigners came under suspicion. D. Still, the forces of Westernization were alive and strong. 1. During this period, Peter spent more time than ever in the foreign settlement, and he insisted that those associated with him dress and behave in a Western manner. 2. Symbolically, Peter made it clear where he stood in the culture wars of the time: through his dress, his recreations, and his use of rituals. E. In many ways, the two tsars, Peter and Ivan, visibly symbolized the two choices Russia faced at the end of the seventeenth century. 1. The “pious” (if also not especially bright) Ivan V was to be seen walking about in his heavy, brocaded Muscovite robes. 2. Peter, by contrast, was dressed in European clothing and was seen riding and sailing, dashing between shipyard and military parade, and making it clear that he considered Russia’s traditional ways backward. F. After the death of his mother in 1694, Peter decided it was time to take control and to act in dramatic and public ways on his inclinations and values. II. To understand these inclinations and values, it is necessary to examine Peter’s personality. A. Peter was a physically huge (6 feet, 7 inches tall) and energetic man. 1. Like no Russian ruler before him, Peter was profoundly optimistic, positive, and active. 2. This was also a political idea: Peter believed that government had a positive, active role to play in a nation’s life. B. Not unrelated to his high level of energy, Peter was obsessed with physical work. 1. He loved making things: model boats, furniture, crockery. He also considered himself a good surgeon and dentist. 2. More significantly, as a young man, he traveled to Europe, where he learned a variety of industrial skills and techniques. C. At the same time, Peter’s public personality was marked by a great deal of personal crudeness. 1. He drank prodigiously (and insisted others do the same). 2. He reveled in noise, buffoonery, and horseplay, perhaps the most famous example being the rather bizarre institution known as the “All-Mad, All-Jesting, All-Drunken Assembly.” ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 7 3. Many interpretations have been offered to explain the Drunken Assembly, the most common being an attack on the Church by a modernizer and his supporters. 4. Equally important, however, was the social function of the Assembly: it facilitated camaraderie and bonding among Peter’s associates. D. Although Peter could be quite compassionate, he was often violent and cruel. 1. He carried a club with which he occasionally beat nobles, friends, and other members of his court when he felt this was needed. 2. More politically significant, Peter brutally suppressed dissent and was constantly involved in wars. III. Almost from the moment Peter came into real power, he showed himself to be an exceptionally energetic ruler. A. During his reign, there was continual territorial expansion through war. B. Peter sought to rationalize and centralize government and administration, creating new governing bodies and a new political police, reorganizing the empire geographically, and putting the Church under state control. C. Parallel to these administrative reforms were changes meant to transform society, including a single “Table of Ranks,” new civic organizations, industrial enterprises, a new tax system, and the structures of a Western intellectual life. IV. But what was Peter’s vision of progress? A. In part, Peter’s idea was technical, involving the regularization of laws and of the social structure. B. Yet, despite all his reforms, Peter was ruling in the Russian tradition. 1. He believed in and insisted on his all-powerful might as a ruler (his role as a groznyi tsar). 2. This is clearly evident in his preoccupation with things military: his constant wars and the widespread images of him as a conqueror. C. Nevertheless, it mattered to Peter that Russia be (and be perceived as) “civilized.” 1. Peter hated the cultural look of old Russia and did all he could to remove it, insisting on Western dress, appearance, and customs. 2. These changes were, in part, superficial, but they had a deeper meaning: Peter believed that external things affected what was inside a person and usefully conveyed particular ideas about the sort of society the state was creating. D. Peter’s greatest creation—St. Petersburg, the new capital he built on the northern swampland he won in a battle with the Swedes—provides a clear picture of his vision. 1. Petersburg was a symbol of modern, secular power, order, and rationality (imposed from above). 2. The rationality of Petersburg is evident in its physical layout: a city of lines, squares, grids, and triangles. 3. Other aspects of Petersburg’s design and architecture (such as squares and churches) also conveyed this ideal of control and order. 4. These were surface changes, but they were meant to convey to the world that that Russians were not savages and to teach Russians to think and act in a more civilized manner. E. As a result of his many reforms, Peter transformed the shape of Russian life. 1. Mikhail Pogodin, a noted Russian intellectual writing in the mid-nineteenth century, was one of many who were astonished by the impact Peter had on Russia. 2. Others prepared the way for these changes to occur, but it was Peter who took the first step. 3. Peter’s revolution was made possible by the Russian political system (including the absolutism of the Russian monarchical traditionbut none had ever used this power so boldly). Essential Reading: Lindsey Hughes, Peter the Great: A Biography (New Haven, 2002). Nicholas Riasanovsky, The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought (New York, 1985). 8 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Supplementary Reading: Paul Bushkovitch, Peter the Great (Oxford, 2001). Lindsey Hughes, Russia in the Age of Peter the Great (New Haven, 1998). Vasili Kliuchevsky, Peter the Great (New York, 1958). Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power (Princeton, 1995), vol. 1, chapter 2. Questions to Consider: 1. Peter the Great sought to Europeanize Russia, but what aspects of European civilization did he admire and desire to import? 2. Did the reign of Peter the Great effect a “revolution from above” in Russian life, or were these only “reforms,” continuing earlier trends and preserving the fundamental Russianness of politics and social life? ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 9 Lecture Four The Age of EmpressesCatherine the Great Scope: This lecture explores women’s rule in eighteenth-century Russia, with a particular focus on the reigns of Elizabeth (Peter the Great’s daughter) and Catherine the Great. It examines the efforts of these rulers to continue the Westernizing reform of Russia: to rationalize government, develop the economy and culture, extend the empire, and under Catherine, encourage some measure of civic involvement. In order to understand the ideas inspiring these reforms, the lecture looks at the ethos of power in the reigns of Elizabeth and Catherine. For Elizabeth, we consider her “cult of happiness.” For Catherine, we look at the inspiration of Enlightenment ideas but also her insistence on the necessity of absolutism. The lecture concludes by examining the contradictory ways that Catherine culturally represented her own power. I. Outline After the death of Peter the Great in 1725, Russia was ruled by women for most of the rest of the century. A. From 1725–1727, Peter the Great’s second wife, Catherine I, ruled Russia. B. After Catherine I’s death, Peter the Great’s twelve-year-old grandson, Peter II, took the throne until his death three years later. C. From 1730–1740, the empress was Anna, the daughter of Ivan V. D. Just before Anna died, she chose as her successor a two-month-old baby, her great-nephew, Ivan VI, and she appointed her German lover, Ernst-Johann Biron, as regent. E. Within a few months, Ivan VI was replaced on the throne by Elizabeth, the daughter of Peter the Great and Catherine I, who ruled for twenty years, from 1741–1761. F. When Elizabeth died, she was replaced by her nephew Peter III, who ruled for only six months before he was overthrown by guard troops and replaced by his wife, Catherine II. G. Catherine II (Catherine the Great) ruled for thirty-four years, from 1762–1796. H. Women held imperial power in eighteenth-century Russia for a number of reasons. 1. Peter the Great decreed that the monarch could designate his own successor (male or female, noble or non-noble, blood relation or not). 2. There was a shortage of healthy, able, adult male successors. 3. Noblemen at court and the guards regiments enjoyed their growing power and believed that women would be more pliable and give them a greater voice at court. I. These women were not passive rulers, however. They had their own visions of power and did much to shape the Petrine tradition. Elizabeth I reigned from 1741 to 1761. II. 10 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership A. B. C. Elizabeth I differed dramatically from her father, Peter the Great, in personality. 1. Beautiful and charming, Elizabeth was greatly admired. After the brutality and domination of Biron and the so-called German party, Elizabeth seemed to promise greater respect for Russians and the Russian elite. 2. Unlike her energetic and forceful father, though, Elizabeth was notoriously indolent and pleasure- loving. Despite these differences, Elizabeth did much to continue Peter’s legacy. 1. She resumed efforts to routinize and rationalize government institutions. 2. She encouraged cultural development (notably founding Moscow University). 3. She did much to stimulate the economy (such as abolishing customs barriers and encouraging entrepreneurship). 4. In foreign policy, Elizabeth continued to demonstrate that Russia was a European great power (especially by defeating Prussia as part of the Seven Years War and briefly occupying Berlin in 1760). But there were new elements appearing in this Petrine formula, which may be described as a feminine ideal of progress 1. Elizabeth I endeavored to bring a spirit of culturedness and beauty to Russia and to demonstrate to the world that Russia was not a savage land. 2. As a result, she built (or, in a few cases, totally rebuilt) some of Russia’s most elegant royal palaces, which were invariably designed by Italian architects. 3. Elizabeth promoted what might be called a “cult of happiness” in Russian public life. In this spirit, At the time of her coronation in 1742, Mikhail Lomonosov composed an ode in her honor. 4. One can see her more secular version of the traditionally religious ideal of the tishaishii tsar (the “most tender” loving tsar). 5. The succession of lovers in Elizabeth’s private life echoed this ideal of tenderness and her belief in the “cult of happiness.” III. These trends were further developed in the reign of Catherine II (called “Great” for her conquests in war and expansion of the empire). A. Catherine came to the throne after guards officers overthrew her husband, Peter III. 1. Peter III’s extreme pro-German orientation was considered intolerable. 2. The problem was not Peter’s foreign blood, but his foreign orientation and his obvious hatred of Russia, its Church, and its language. 3. Catherine II was technically even less Russian than Peter, being entirely German in ancestry, but understood that her authority depended on her presenting herself as serving and strengthening Russia. B. Catherine undertook numerous major reforms during her lengthy reign. 1. The first major reform was a codification of the laws, for which she convened, in 1767, a national “legislative commission.” 2. She restructured the central administration to make procedures and departments more efficient. 3. She accepted Peter III’s decision to end required state service for all nobles and to encourage them to become more active in local administration. 4. She enacted major reforms in local administration. 5. She promoted education and culture. 6. She worked to develop the economy. 7. She continued the expansion of the empire and the enhancement of Russia’s status as a great power. C. To understand these reforms, we need to look at how Catherine thought about the purposes of power. 1. In part, Catherine was inspired by Enlightenment ideas about the need for human freedom, equal rights, and democracy in the world. 2. At the same time, Catherine did not believe that Russia was ready for liberty or democracy and insisted on the value of autocracy as a source of order and progress. D. How can these two attitudes be reconciled? 1. Some historians, as well as some disappointed French philosophes, considered this to be hypocrisy. 2. Others have attributed these two views to a change of mind in response to aristocratic efforts to claim more power, greater knowledge of Russia’s problems, the threat of peasant rebellion, and the French Revolution. E. But it is useful to keep in mind the dual tradition of the Russian autocracy that saw the ruler as both groznyi and tishaishii. 1. In fact, this duality is clearly visible in how Catherine (and her advocates) represented her rule. 2. Catherine deliberately cultivated a masculine and belligerent image of herself as ruler (groznyi). 3. Catherine also cultivated the image of the eighteenth-century ideal of the female monarch: the tishaishii tsar modernized into the ideal of a virtuous ruler bringing happiness. 4. The tension in this duality would continue to plague later monarchs. Essential Reading: John Alexander, Catherine the Great: Life and Legend (New York, 1989). Isabel de Madariaga, Catherine the Great: A Short History (New Haven, 1990). ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 11 Supplementary Reading: Isabel de Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great (New Haven, 1981). Marc Raeff, Catherine the Great: A Profile (New York, 1972). George Vernadsky, Ralph Fisher, et al., eds., A Source Book for Russian History from Early Times to 1917 (New Haven, 1972), vol. 2, chapters 11–12. Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power (Princeton, 1995), vol. 1, chapters 3–4. Questions to Consider: 1. 2. How did the empresses of the eighteenth century continue and change the legacy of Peter I? Was there a “feminine” aspect to their rule? What ideas inspired Catherine the Great? What sort of political and social order did she desire to create in Russia? 12 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Lecture Five Social RebellionThe Pugachev Uprising Scope: This lecture begins by considering the life of serfs in eighteenth-century Russia: the emergence and structures of serfdom, landlord paternalism, and serf communities. In the face of a fundamental lack of freedom, peasants found various ways to resist. After considering everyday forms of resistance to serfdom, as well as more violent forms of rebellion, the lecture focuses on the enormous uprising, during Catherine the Great’s reign, led by Emelian Pugachev. The lecture describes the growth of the movement and its main course. To understand the motives of the rebels, the lecture examines the discontents of the various groups of followers and looks closely at the ideas and language of its leaders. Outline I. In eighteenth-century Russia, most people were peasants, most peasants were serfs, and the institution of serfdom was more intense than ever. A. Serfdom evolved gradually during the Muscovite period. 1. It ensured a sufficient supply of peasant labor to work the land that the state granted to nobles in return for service. 2. Peasant mobility was restricted by law. 3. Serfs and other bound peasants were technically not slaves: They were bound, not to landlords, but to the landthough, in practice, there was little difference. B. By the eighteenth century, gentry landlords often treated peasants as slaves. 1. Estate owners considered peasants lazy and childlike, with a weak moral sense, and thus, in need of help and guidance from nobles. 2. This attitude resulted in a strongly paternalist relation to serfs, which could mean both brutal control and enlightened provision of schools and hospitals. 3. Still, all serfs were bound to the land and, thus, were not free. II. Peasants found many ways to cope with these conditions. A. They created a strong sense of community with the peasant commune (obshchina or mir). 1. Formally, the commune was the institution of the heads of households. 2. Landlords and the state found the commune convenient and allowed it a wide range of responsibilities. 3. The commune served the interests of both landlords and the state and protected the interests of peasants. B. Peasants were also deeply religious and found comfort and meaning from their faith. III. Most of the time, peasants coped with their hardships, but they also found reasons and ways to fight back. A. They engaged in small, quiet, daily acts of resistance. 1. When working estate lands, they would work in a lazy and sloppy manner. 2. They would engage in petty theft. 3. They were also culturally resistant, stubbornly holding on to religious beliefs and practices that their “betters” told them were backward and ignorant. B. Peasants also engaged in more substantial and open forms of protest. 1. There were collective protests, which often involved a group drafting a petition of complaint. 2. The most common form of open protest was flight, especially to the frontiers of the south and southeast, where many joined Cossack communities. 3. Arson was an anonymous and relatively safe form of protest. 4. Murder was another form of open protest. 5. Rarely, the peasants engaged in mass uprisings. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 13 IV. In the eighteenth century, the most impressive of the peasant uprisings was led by Emelian Ivanovich Pugachev. A. In November 1772, Pugachev arrived among Cossacks and peasants settled around the Ural River and identified himself as tsar Peter III come to deliver them from oppression. 1. Pugachev was a disgruntled former Don Cossack, a military deserter, and at least a sympathizer with Old Belief. 2. The primary group to join his growing army were Cossacks, but many others joined up as well, including serfs, Old Believers, and non-Russian minorities. 3. By October 1773, numerous forts and settlements had fallen to his motley army, and he began a six- month siege of Orenburg. 4. His growing army then marched on toward the Volga River regionwith the goal of marching to St. Petersburg. 5. Thousands of peasants joined in the Volga region. 6. As the movement grew, it became increasingly violent. 7. The government and the elites of St. Petersburg and Moscow were terrified. 8. Once well-trained army troops arrived, the rebel army was defeated, and Pugachev was arrested and executed. B. To better understand this revolt, it is useful to recognize the reasons it took hold where it did. 1. The Volga valley and the Ural region had been frontiersplaces of escapebut noble landowners were increasingly beginning to establish estates there. 2. This region was also a center of religious dissidence, with numerous monasteries and hermitages of Old Believers. 3. Another group that responded to Pugachev’s appeals, factory serfs, were also more numerous here than elsewhere. 4. This region was home to ethnic minorities who had grievances against the central state, especially the Bashkirs. 5. Most important, the Cossacks of the Urals were under assault from the expanding central state. C. To understand this movement, we also need to examine its ideas and goals. 1. Printed proclamations by the movement’s leaders were quite specific about their goals: making all peasants into crown peasants, granting the use of all land without requiring rent or dues, ensuring exemption from taxes and recruitment, returning to old religious traditions. 2. The tone and language of these proclamations and speeches helped to make these appeals compelling. 3. This discourse has many interesting features: the concept of a tsar batiushka who loves and cares for his people; the idea that nobles should serve the state; the view of their leader as a wanderer, even as a type of Christ-like figure whose return promises deliverance. 4. This religious dimension is highly important. 5. In general, the discourse of this movement offered a heady mixture of millenarian images of judgment, punishment, and deliverance. 6. Throughout these appeals, one idea was frequently and clearly articulated: freedom. D. After reading these proclamations, Catherine II dismissed them with contempt. 1. As she saw it, Pugachev promised peasants “castles in the air.” 2. But history often shows that such dreams of revenge, deliverance, and freedom have the power to mobilize. Essential Reading: John Alexander, Emperor of the Cossacks: Pugachov and the Frontier Jacquerie of 1773–1775 (Lawrence, 1973). Paul Avrich, Russian Rebels, 1600–1800 (New York, 1972), chapter 4. Isabel de Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great (New Haven, 1981), chapter 16. Supplementary Reading: Peter Kolchin, Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom (Cambridge, MA, 1987). Questions to Consider: 14 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 1. How can one reconcile the intensification of serfdom with the advancing Westernization and enlightenment of Russia? 2. What ideals and goals inspired Pugachev and his followers? ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 15 Lecture Six Moral RebellionNikolai Novikov Scope: This lecture considers the first emergence of a critique of autocratic despotism in Russia by educated Russians. The lecture begins with an important context: the development of secular higher education for Russian elites and the emergence of an educated public and even of an intelligentsia. As an illustration of this development of an educated, critical, noble voice in Russia, the lecture focuses on the publisher and writer Nikolai Novikov, one of the most influential critics of autocracy in the late 1700s. After describing his biography, the lecture considers his ideas about his own class, the state, social reform, morality, and spirituality. The lecture looks at Russian Freemasonry as a source of ideas, subversive of the Russian status quo, about the human being and society. The lecture concludes with Novikov’s imprisonment by Catherine the Great and the suppression of his work. Still, his legacy was more important than his individual fate. I. Outline Eighteenth-century Russia saw the emergence of an educated elite, a force that both aided the state and criticized it, offered it new ideas and sometimes opposed it. II. A. B. C. The A. B. C. D. E. This development begins with the Russian nobility, who absorbed certain aspects of Western culture. The emergence of an educated elite was closely linked to the spread of secular higher education in Russia. 1. Simultaneously, there was a shift in emphasis from technical and professional training to an education that was more broadly liberal and humanist. 2. Ivan Betskoi, Catherine the Great’s education adviser, argued that the purpose of education was to provide educated, intelligent members of society by developing the whole person. What were some of the major consequences of this growth of an educated class in Russia? 1. A growing number of young Russians were inspired by the concept of the natural dignity and worth of the individual and were eager to be useful. 2. Closely related is the emergence of an intelligentsia, educated individuals who criticized the realities they encountered on the basis of high moral and philosophical ideas. 3. Another development nurtured by education was the emergence of a public sphere, an important domain in which individuals can come together to discuss matters of public concern and where free “public opinion” can be formed. life of Nikolai Novikov (1744–1818) clearly illustrates this development. Novikov began as a typical member of the elite: gentry background, education at Moscow University, service in the elite Izmailovskii Guard, appointment to the Legislative Committee. In 1769, Novikov retired from state service to devote himself to literary pursuits—as a publisher, printer, editor, and writer. He established a series of influential (and controversial) satirical journals. 1. Novikov criticized all sorts of vices in public and private life. 2. Landowners who boasted of their nobility but were cruel to their peasants and of no use to society were the main target of his criticism. 3. He also combined praise of Catherine the Great with lighthearted criticism. 4. Despite his jabs at her, Catherine continued to support his publishing work financially, especially his publication of historical documents and his efforts to translate Western classics. Although Novikov’s criticisms were some of the harshest condemnations of social abuses written during this period, his goal was to appeal to the consciences of his fellow Russian nobles, not to attack the system itself. Novikov’s social and political criticism was fundamentally ethical. 16 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 1. 2. For the state, his ideal was a patriarchal ruler who was above any particular interests and who would unite the entire nation and serve the common good. The ideal nobles, in Novikov’s view, would act paternalistically toward their peasants, neither abusing nor exploiting them, and would care for and instruct them. 3. Novikov sought a moral rather than a social or political revolution. F. Like many of the educated and sensitive nobles of this time, Novikov was searching for answers and was unsure how far to press his criticisms. 1. When the Pugachev rebellion erupted, he saw the depth and ferocity of people’s anger, as well as the brutality of which both the peasants and the state were capable. 2. This convinced him of the futility of revolution. 3. At this point, in 1775, Novikov joined the growing Masonic movement in Russia. G. In Russia, as in Western Europe and North America, Freemasonry was quite popular among young, educated nobles in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. 1. The Freemason was expected to develop his inner spiritual resources; this was his duty to himself. 2. At the same time, the Freemason had a duty to concern himself with the welfare and dignity of his fellow human beings. III. Novikov was inspired by the ideals of Freemasonry to redouble his efforts as publisher and journalist. A. In 1777, he began publishing the journal Morning Light, a serious philosophical and moral journal that tried to promote virtue. B. Its clear and profound message was that human beings are not miserable fallen creatures, but made in God’s image and, hence, equal in rights and dignity. C. Although not original, for these were the ideas that pervaded Enlightenment thinking and helped shaped the American Revolution, Novikov’s achievement was in spreading and popularizing this Enlightenment humanism among Russia’s growing educated class. D. Novikov’s work as an advocate of Enlightenment ideas was prodigious. 1. In 1779, he moved to Moscow to take over the lease of the Moscow University Press. 2. After Catherine II allowed private individuals to set up publishing houses in 1783, Novikov established his own printing and publishing firm. 3. He continued to edit and contribute to a number of journals. 4. He also actively promoted the book trade in Russia. 5. As a publisher, Novikov established the first series of children’s books. 6. In addition, during the 1787 famine, he helped to organize charitable famine relief. E. As the most visible figure in the development of independent cultural life and opinion in Russia, Novikov stood at the forefront of the emergence in Russia of a public sphere and an intelligentsia. F. Catherine the Great grew increasingly nervous about such independence, and she was suspicious of the Freemasons. 1. She wrote stories and brochures ridiculing the Masons (and Novikov) as obscurantist mystics. 2. After the French Revolution, she took more decisive action against Novikov and others: In 1792, Novikov was arrested and condemned to fifteen years’ imprisonment. G. Novikov emerged from prison four years later, amnestied at the beginning of Paul’s reign. Broken physically and financially, he sought comfort mainly in mysticism. H. Despite this sad ending for Novikov personally, he was part of a larger process that could not be stopped. 1. The emergence of a growing public sphere in Russia. 2. The development of an intelligentsia: critically minded, morally driven, serving their nation without being subservient to the state. Essential Reading: Isabel de Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great (New Haven, 1981), chapters 33–34. Supplementary Reading: Nikolai Novikov, “On Man’s High Estate,” in Russian Intellectual History: An Anthology (New York, 1966), pp. 62–67. W. Gareth Jones, Nikolay Novikov: Enlightener of Russia (Cambridge, 1984). Marc Raeff, The Origins of the Intelligentsia: The Eighteenth-Century Nobility (New York, 1966). ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 17 Questions to Consider: 1. 2. In what ways was state-sponsored higher education transforming Russian life? Why did Catherine the Great seek to silence voices such as Novikov’s? What made his arguments dangerous? 18 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Lecture Seven Alexander IImagining Reform Scope: This lecture begins with the reign of Paul Iimportant less for what Paul accomplished than for the symbolism of his authoritarianism and his efforts to undo reform and, especially, for the strong aristocratic rejection of these tsarist traditions. Overthrown and murdered, he was replaced by his son Alexander I. The lecture considers the high expectations surrounding Alexander’s accession, his important reforms, and his considerations of constitutional reform in Russia. At the same time, however, Alexander never delivered on this talk and even resisted certain efforts at reform. The lecture explores the contradictions in Alexander’s reign by examining his ideas about power: his sincere embrace of Enlightenment values, his love of military culture, his limited conception of constitutionalism, his belief in the necessity of power and order to ensure happiness. The lecture concludes by considering Alexander’s growing mysticism and doubt. Outline I. Anxieties about the dangers of too much reform became especially visible in the final reign of the eighteenth century: the brief rule of Catherine the Great’s son Paul I (ruled 1796–1801). A. Paul had little lasting impact on Russian politics, but the symbolism of his reign is significant for what it tells us about changes in Russia. B. Paul I sought to undo much of his mother’s work. 1. He signaled this by removing and reburying, with special honor, his murdered father, Peter III. 2. Deeply suspicious of independent social activity, Paul revoked the Charter of the Nobility and the Charter of Towns. 3. Greater militarization was his main ideal for Russian life. 4. To help ensure a martial spirit in Russian life, he made sure that women would never rule again by proclaiming a new law of succession that restored primogeniture in the male line. C. Paul endeavored to revive the tradition of the all-powerful, dominating autocrat, ruling according to personal will and whim (the groznyi tsar). This was especially visible in his personal style. 1. Paul had a short temper and a brutal manner. 2. Hating and fearing French influence, which he considered revolutionary, Paul banned French-style fashions. 3. He also banned foreign books, foreign travel, and even the use of certain foreign words. 4. Yet, at the same time, Paul was a religious man and saw himself as a Christian ruler and as a “father” to his people. D. Elite society, much changed, quickly made it clear that they would not accept these sorts of restrictions any longer. E. When Paul was murdered by palace guards in a coup in March 1801, the response among the Russian elite was often joyful. II. Within elite society, the accession of Alexander I (ruled 1801–1825) was met with widespread jubilation and high hopes. A. Alexander himself encouraged this admiration by explicitly promising to rule in the spirit of his grandmother, Catherine II, revering many of his father’s anti-reforms and embarking on his own course of reform. B. Alexander I is a complex ruler, difficult to interpret. 1. He has been variously called a “sphinx,” an “enigma,” even a “crowned Hamlet.” 2. Yet Alexander’s seeming contradictoriness and strangeness has much to do with the contradictory Russian political tradition that saw the tsar as both groznyi and tishaishii. C. Alexander I began his reign with a series of important reform efforts. 1. He established an “Unofficial Committee” to discuss major political and social reforms, including a constitution and the abolition of serfdom. 2. The central state apparatus, especially the Senate, was made stronger. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 19 3. Inefficient colleges were replaced by more efficient and responsible ministries. 4. Legislation was enacted to mitigate some of the harshest conditions relating to serfs. 5. The economy was encouraged by allowing non-nobles to own estates. 6. New universities and schools were established. D. But despite the constant talk about constitutional reform, nothing was accomplished. 1. This failure to act had many possible explanations, including distraction with international affairs, political unrest in Europe, the influence of the conservative Austrian foreign minister Metternich, an unwillingness to alienate the nobility, and Alexander’s growing personal mysticism. 2. Alexander also vigorously opposed giving real legislative power to the Senate and expressed suspicion of anyone who might oppose his autocratic will. III. Alexander’s ideas about power offer a means of reconciling these two aspects of his policies. A. There are good reasons to see his enlightened talk as serious and sincere. 1. What we know about Alexander suggests that he took the teachings of the Enlightenment deeply to heart. 2. These ideals pervaded his education (which was personally overseen by his grandmother, Catherine the Great). 3. Alexander’s tutor, the Swiss philosopher Frederic-Cesar de la Harpe, further instructed him in the central values of the Enlightenmentespecially that a ruler should be guided by reason and care for his people and that society should respect the natural equality of human beings. 4. In his first public statements as ruler, Alexander tried to express his self-ideal as a virtuous and caring ruler, and official praise echoed these images. 5. All of this reflects—with modernized features—the old ideal of the tishaishii tsar, though in Enlightenment colors. B. There was another side to Alexander’s political personality: Like his father, he loved all things military. C. To reconcile these conflicting images of Alexander as “blessed angel” and “passionate soldier,” we need to explore his understanding of the key notion of a “constitution.” 1. For Alexander and associates, a constitution did not encompass the idea of a separation and balance of powers or a check on executive power. 2. Instead, Alexander’s notion of a constitution involved the idea of an orderly system of administration and law, a Rechtsstaat free from arbitrariness. 3. For him, this law-based but powerful autocracy was the key to the nation’s political happiness, a guarantor of order, and a dynamic force for change. IV. In the final years of Alexander’s reign, there were signs that he was losing confidence in this rationalistic faith that order will lead to happiness. A. Alexander began to express his growing doubts that humans can ever make the world a better place. B. These doubts were reinforced by his travels around Russia, where he witnessed firsthand the sufferings and backwardness of the mass of ordinary Russians. C. These doubts were further strengthened by his growing religious mysticism. D. A key moment in Alexander’s existential crisis was the horrible flood of 1824 in St. Petersburgwhich appeared to many as a symbol of the failure of rationalism, a symbol of the limited power of humans to control and improve the world. Essential Reading: Nicholas Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, 6th ed. (Oxford, 2000), chapter 25. Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power (Princeton, 1995), vol. 1, chapters 6–8. Supplementary Reading: Allen McConnell, Tsar Alexander I: Paternalistic Reformer (New York, 1970). George Vernadsky, Ralph Fisher, et al., eds., A Source Book for Russian History (New Haven, 1972), chapter 13. 20 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Questions to Consider: 1. Describe Alexander I’s vision of civic and national happiness. Was this unrealistic? 2. How can one reconcile Alexander’s love of all things military with his contemporary idealization as a “blessed angel”? ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 21 Lecture Eight The Decembrist Revolution Scope: This lecture looks at the origins, history, and consequences of a remarkable event in Russian history: the unsuccessful armed uprising against autocracy by groups of educated nobles belonging to secret societies in December 1825. The lecture begins with the succession crisis after the death of Alexander I and describes the armed uprising that accompanied it and the suppression of the rebellion. It then examines the political programs of the rebels. In order to understand the underlying ideas and values more closely, the lecture looks in detail at a single individual, Nikolai Turgenev. The lecture considers his biography, his experiences in Western Europe, his association with other Russians troubled by their autocratic government and by serfdom, and his ideas for change. Particular attention is paid to the influence of Enlightenment ideas of humanism and rationalism, as well as Romantic ideas about the individual. Outline I. The Decembrist rebellion occurred in the midst of a succession crisis after the childless tsar Alexander I died unexpectedly in November 1825. A. There was considerable public confusion over who would take the throne. 1. In accordance with Paul’s law of succession, the public expected it to be Alexander’s eldest brother, Constantine. 2. But it was publicly announced that the new tsar would be Alexander’s youngest brother, Nicholas (because of Constantine’s morganatic marriage, though this reason was not announced). 3. Nicholas was widely viewed as a reactionary, whereas Constantine was thought to have more liberal, Westernizing views. 4. Taking advantage of the confusion, a group of liberal-minded aristocrats, members of the secret Northern Society in St. Petersburg, made plans to seize power. B. This “revolution” was to take place on Senate Square on December 14, 1825, the date set for swearing allegiance to the new emperor Nicholas. 1. But several of the leaders grew fearful and did not show up at the square. 2. This lack of leadership meant that on the square were a few officers who were either unwilling or unable to take command and a few thousand soldiers who knew little or nothing of their officers’ original plans. 3. The new tsar, Nicholas I, ordered troops to suppress the rebellion with force. 4. This rebellion had echoes in other parts of the country, especially in the Ukraine, where rebel troops led by the secret Southern Society were marching toward the capital. 5. The leaders were severely punished; 125 men were sentenced to hard labor or exile and 5 men were publicly executed. II. What did these rebels, all privileged young nobles and officers, want? A. As can be seen from their written programs, the Decembrists saw a strong state as essential for progress. 1. The “constitution,” written primarily by Nikita Murav’ev for the Northern Society, envisioned a Russia ruled by a hereditary monarch who would share power with an elected legislature. 2. Pavel Pestel’s “Russian Law” (Russkaia pravda) envisioned ten years of dictatorship followed by a centralized and authoritarian, although democratically elected, government. B. The 1. The Decembrists wanted to promote and ensure citizenship and the rights of individuals. 2 They insisted on basic civil rights: freedom of speech, press, religion, and assembly. 3. They also vehemently opposed serfdom. III. To appreciate the human meaning of the Decembrist movement, we look at one Decembrist, Nikolai Turgenev (1789–1871). A. Turgenev was one of the organizers of the Northern Society and of secret societies that preceded it, for which, in 1826, he was sentenced to decapitation, though he had left Russia the year before the uprising. 22 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership point of this strong authority, however, was progressive change. B. Socially, Turgenev was exceptionally privileged. C. Nonetheless, Turgenev was profoundly discontented, frustrated, and angry. 1. One cause of this discontent was disappointment with Alexander I. 2. No less, like many young, educated Russians, he had begun to see the world differently and to expect more from it. D. To understand this perceptual transformation, one must remember that most of the future Decembrists had been to Western Europe. 1. Many had been officers in the Russian army as it marched westward through Europe after Napoleon’s defeat. 2. Turgenev experienced Europe as a student at the university in Göttingen (1808–1812). 3. But whether in Europe as soldiers or students, young Russians like Turgenev had similar experiences discovering ideas. 4. They also saw a freer and more prosperous life that was previously unknown to them. 5. Young, elite Russians like Turgenev were embarrassed by their country’s backwardness. E. In addition, the early years of the nineteenth century were a time of enormous intellectual and cultural ferment in Russia. 1. Education was expanded and more publications were available. 2. There were increasing opportunities to meet and discuss ideas. IV. In their modes of thinking, men like Turgenev were influenced by both the eighteenth-century Enlightenment and the Romanticism of the nineteenth century. A. They were humanists. 1. They despised the conservative view of man as an essentially evil, fallen creature, believing that every human being is endowed with reason and deserves a life of dignity and respect. 2. Thus, they hated serfdom. B. They were rationalists. 1. They believed that the world is malleable and must be transformed in accordance with the dictates of reason. 2. They saw the best hope for change in a strong state led by rational and wise leaders. C. They were also influenced by Romanticism. 1. They were nationalists who considered it their sacred mission to save Russia from its backwardness. 2. They had a typical Romantic view of the individual: They dreamed of a society in which everyone, including themselves, could realize their full potential as human beings. 3. They wanted to live their own lives for some higher purpose. D. The story of Decembrism in Russia involved the disappointment experienced by men like Turgenev in the face of the glaring contrast between what they felt ought to be and what was. 1. They believed in rationality and the rule of law, but they saw personal and arbitrary government. 2. They believed in the natural dignity of all human beings and the importance of personal self-fulfillment, but they saw the slavery of the majority and the restriction of the rights and freedoms of the elite. 3. They wanted Russia to be respected in the world, but they saw that their country was feared and often viewed with contempt. Essential Reading: Anatole Mazour, The First Russian Revolution, 1825 (Stanford, 1964). Supplementary Reading: Marc Raeff, The Decembrist Movement (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1966). Andrzej Walicki, A History of Russian Thought: From the Enlightenment to Marxism (Stanford, 1979), chapter 3. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 23 Questions to Consider: 1. 2. Why was the notion of a strong stateeven a temporary dictatorshipcentral to the programs of the Decembrists? Did this contradict their ideas about individual rights and dignity? Compare the ideas and values of the Decembrists to Novikov’s criticisms of autocracy. 24 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Lecture Nine Nicholas IOrthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality Scope: This lecture looks at the rule of Nicholas I and the ideas about power and order that inspired the Russian state at that time. It looks first at Nicholas I’s image as one of the most reactionary rulers in modern Russian history, and the policies that shaped this view, but also at his image as majestic Jupiter. The lecture then considers more closely his political personality and beliefsboth his conservative values and his religious and moral ideals. Finally, the lecture explores the very important efforts during his reign to articulate an official ideology for the Russian state, with its guiding principles of Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality. We examine each of these as key ideas for understanding Russian state politics in the nineteenth century (and beyond). Outline I. In modern Russian politics, a certain pattern had begun to emerge: Westernizing reform often alternated with hesitation, conservatism, even reaction. A. Sometimes, we have seen, this is apparent in the alternation of regimes. B. But this hesitancy toward reform is no less often visible in the work of individual rulers, as we saw in the reigns of Catherine and Alexander, in particular. C. This pattern again becomes visible when Alexander’s younger brother, Nicholas, came to the throne. II. Contemporaries generally agreed that Nicholas I (ruled 1825–1855) was exceptionally ruthless as a man and as a ruler. A. B. C. D. E. F. III. The A. They spoke of his personal harshness, his outbursts of rage, his obsession with regimentation and militarismhis groznyi qualities. His desire for order had a positive (even progressive) side. 1. He completed a codification of the laws. 2. He regulated some aspects of the lives of state peasantsleading to some improvements in conditions, though also higher taxes. But his concern with order also had a harsher face. 1. Nicholas was determined to defend traditional monarchies (and traditional social orders) in Europe against the rising tide of democratic revolution. 2. He also implemented intense Russification policies throughout the empire (especially in Poland). 3. Under his rule, there was growing cultural repression: Only officially approved views were allowed in the classroom, censorship became more restrictive than ever before, even science was put under tighter controls. Many felt that Nicholas had created what amounted to a police state in Russia. 1. Nicholas established a special political police agency that was secretive and responsive to the personal will of the emperor (Third Department of His Majesty’s Own Chancery). 2. The purpose of the Third Department was broad, but two goals were clear: obtaining information and suppressing disorder. In the aftermath of the European revolutions of 1830 and 1848, Nicholas’s police state became increasingly rigid, especially as these upheavals convinced him that Russia had been spared precisely because he was so ruthless. Contemporaries who met Nicholas invariably commented not only on his brutality as a ruler but also on his imposing physical presence (he was 6 feet, 3 inches, tall). complexity of Nicholas’s political personality reveals complicated motives. First, there is evidence that Nicholas’s legendary ruthlessness and obsession with order reflected not confidence but fear that almost verged on panic. 1. He was obsessed with revolution, for example. 2. His obsession with regimentation, orderliness, neatness, and precision extended well beyond reason. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 25 B. Nicholas had a deep religious faith; however, his religiosity was not the restless seeking for truth that occupied many educated Russians but a simple, unquestioning faith. C. Nicholas was known for his moral harshness, his inability to forgive. D. At the same time, Nicholas cultivated a public image as a family man. 1. Images of the tsar with his family were made widely available for the first time. 2. But this was not just a public image. Nicholas cultivated his own idyllic family life. E. All these aspects—religion, morality, family life—contribute to an image of the ruler as virtuousas a tishaishii tsar (loving and pious), as well as a groznyi tsar (awesome and mighty). IV. These years of Nicholas’s rule also saw the clearest articulation yet (especially by the Minister of Education, Sergei Uvarov) of an explicit ideology of Russian politics, embodied in three key principles: Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality. A. Orthodoxy (pravoslavie) was always listed first in this trinity of principles. 1. This assertion of religion was a reaction against the dominant convictions of the Age of Reason, as can be seen, for example, in the arguments against reliance on reason by the journalist and historian Mikhail Pogodin. 2. This philosophical position had practical and conservative implications for politics: Human society was not perfectible and earthly authority should be left in the hands of established rulers, whom God has sanctified and guides. 3. At the same time, these arguments assumed that authority must be in the spirit of God’s will. 1. 2. In what ways can the “reactionary” Nicholas I be seen as still continuing the legacy of reform of Peter I and Catherine II and in what ways was he trying to reverse their reforms? What is the importance of religion in Russian politics in the reign of Nicholas I and before? 26 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership B. The 1. Autocratic rule was justified because power is willed by God. 2. Autocratic rule was viewed as absolutely necessary (as good). 3. In part, this was a negative argument: The strong hand of government was needed to keep order. 4. But this was also a positive political argument: Autocratic power was seen as the best means to ensure progress and happiness and the Russian polity seen as a “family” in which the tsar was the stern but benevolent father (tsar-batiushka). C. The (narodnost’). connection of all this to autocracy (samoderzhavie) is obvious. third component of official ideology is the most puzzling and often debated of the three: nationality 1. In part, this was simply the reverse side of autocracy: a view of the Russian people as loving and obedient subjects (“children”) of the tsar and the landlords. 2. These ideas had their roots in European thought of the day. A widespread Romantic ideal was that every nation has its unique genius; Russia’s genius, it was felt, was the unique bond of love and devotion between the people and the tsar. 3. Many Russians had already begun to feel that this was an archaic and dangerous ideal and not suitable for a modern state in the modern European world. Essential Reading: Nicholas Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, 6th ed. (Oxford, 2000), chapters 26–28. Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power, (Princeton, 1995), vol. 1, chapters 9–13. Supplementary Reading: Bruce Lincoln, In the Vanguard of Reform: Russia’s Enlightened Bureaucrats, 1825–1861 (DeKalb, 1986). Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825–1855 (Berkeley, 1959). Cynthia Whittaker, The Origins of Modern Russian Education: An Intellectual Biography of Count Sergei Uvarov, 1786–1855 (DeKalb, 1984). Questions to Consider: Lecture Ten Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s National Poet Scope: This lecture considers the life and the powerful myth of Alexander Pushkin, Russia’s most beloved writer. It begins with Pushkin’s life as both privileged insider and difficult outsideras aristocrat and African, as privileged government official and rebel poet. To more fully understand Pushkin and what his life tells us about Russia’s changing culture, the lecture looks at his personal style of living and writing, in particular, his spirit of serious play. Pushkin’s tragic death in a duel is then described, along with the growing cult around Pushkin that followed. The lecture concludes by considering the meaning of Pushkin as a symbol of the Russian nation and of what it means to be Russian. Outline I. Widely considered Russia’s national poeteven part of the definition of Russia itselfAlexander Pushkin (1799–1837) was both a privileged insider and a difficult outsider to Russian life. A. Born in Moscow in 1799, Pushkin’s aristocratic family could, on his father’s side, trace its lineage back for centuries to the old Muscovite nobility. B. By contrast, his maternal great-grandfather was Ibrahim Hannibal, said to be the son of an Abyssinian prince given by the Turkish sultan to Peter the Great. C. This African heritage, as well as his aristocratic lineage, was a part of Pushkin’s self-image. 1. Pushkin was taunted for his African heritage and features, which were sometimes a source of self- hatred. 2. But this African ancestry was also a source of pride for Pushkin in being an exotic outsider. In his novel-in-verse Evgenii Onegin, he writes of fleeing Russia “for my Africa.” D. The 1. Most obviously, he was a privileged insider. He was educated in St. Petersburg at the elite new lycée duality of being both insider and outsider was visible in Pushkin’s biography. directly attached to the emperor’s summer palace at Tsarskoe selo. 2. After graduating, he worked at a good but easy job in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and enjoyed the pleasures of life in the capital. 3. At the same time, Pushkin seemed to perceive himself as an outsider: He became associated with semi- legal literary and political societies and was close friends with many future Decembrists. 4. He even wrote some mildly political poems about liberty that circulated hand-to-hand and some pointed satirical epigrams. 5. Because of this daring, if modest, opposition, he was dismissed from the civil service and forced into what amounted to house arrest on his estate. 6. In response to the Decembrist rebellion, he wrote a sympathetic poem to the rebels in Siberian exile. E. In 1826, the new tsar, Nicholas I, pardoned Pushkin, but to ensure that he behaved, Nicholas became Pushkin’s personal censor. 1. Pushkin’s writings often praised Russia and its rulers, but he also continued to write politically critical poems. 2. Some of his greatest works—such as the epic poem about Peter the Great, “The Bronze Horseman”— were filled with warnings about the dangers of unbridled power and arrogant political will. F. One view of these contradictions (the old Soviet view) is that Pushkin was truly a rebel but had to pretend to be loyal to protect his freedom. I would suggest that he was both loyalist and rebel, just as he was both Russian and African, insider and outsider. II. To more fully understand Pushkin’s identity and his cultural place in his own time, we must examine his style of living and writing. A. Play was one of the highest values for Pushkin; it pervaded everything he did and, indeed, was part of the increasingly Westernized culture of nineteenth-century Russia. 1. At the lycée, Pushkin had the reputation for being creative but rather flighty. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 27 2. As a government official in St. Petersburg, he reveled in the pleasures of high society, including gambling (which soon led him deeply into debt) and women. B. Pushkin’s literary writing reflected this culture of play, both in its subject matter (Evgenii Onegin, for example, begins with a loving description of the pleasures of city life) and in his versatile and protean style. C. But this was serious play: Pushkin worked hard to make his writings appear brilliant and easy. D. As early as 1825, some readers were complaining that he was not sufficiently high-minded and serious, and sales of his works declined in the early 1830s. III. When Pushkin died—suddenly and tragicallyhis reputation was transformed. A. B. C. IV. The A. B. C. D. By 1836, Pushkin’s situation had become quite difficult: His literary popularity was waning, his gambling debts were mounting, and he had continuing problems with the tsar. In addition, rumors were surfacing about a flirtation between his young wife and the young officer Georges d’Anthès. 1. Pushkin challenged d’Anthès to a duel, which was resolved when d’Anthès agreed to marry Pushkin’s sister-in-law. 2. When the flirtation continued, Pushkin sent d’Anthès’s father (the Dutch ambassador) an insulting letter, leading young d’Anthès to challenge Pushkin. 3. They fought on January 27, 1837Pushkin lost and died two days later of his injuries. Pushkin’s deathreminding people of what they had losttransformed his waning popularity into new enthusiasm. 1. When his body lay in state, thousands of people paid their respects, and some tried to take bits of his coat and pieces of his hair. 2. His books began to sell extremely well. 3. Such outpouring of emotion for a poetor any nongovernmental figurehad never occurred before, and the government grew fearful that this might turn into a political demonstration. 4. Newspapersdespite government warnings not to emphasize Pushkin’s importancedeclared Pushkin to be Russia’s “national glory” and his death, a national tragedy. cult of Pushkin as national symbol grew steadily This first signs of this mythic Pushkin had begun to emerge even before he died, when Nikolai Gogol spoke of Pushkin as a “national poet” possessing a Russianness that transcended class and time. A high point of the growing cult of Pushkin as symbol of the nation came in 1880 at the three-day celebration organized around the unveiling of a monument to Pushkin in Moscow. 1. This was the first major monument in Russia not dedicated to a political or military leader and built with public initiative and public funds. 2. Fedor Dostoevskii spoke at the unveiling, declaring Pushkin to be both uniquely Russian and a “universal man.” Throughout the twentieth century, Pushkin has been described as symbolizing all that is great in Russia. But what has Pushkin symbolized to so many? 1. Pure Russianness but also the entwining of Russian culture with other cultures. 2. Love of country and loyalty but also discontent and rebellion. 3. An intellect that was serious and earnest but also the culture of play and pleasure. 4. In other words, the contradictoriness that is so central to the meaning of Russian history. Essential Reading: Alexander Pushkin, Eugene Onegin and Other Poems (Everyman’s Library Pocket Poets) (New York, 1999). Victor Terras, A History of Russian Literature (New Haven, 1991), pp. 182–184, 204–216, 239–243. 28 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Supplementary Reading: David Bethea, Realizing Metaphors: Alexander Pushkin and the Life of the Poet (Madison, 1998). William Mills Todd, III, Fiction and Society in the Age of Pushkin: Ideology, Institutions and Narrative (Cambridge, MA, 1986). Abram Terts (Andrei Sinyavsky), Strolls with Pushkin (New Haven, 1993). Questions to Consider: 1. Compare Pushkin’s attitudes to those of Novikov and the Decembrists. Was there anything intellectually or ethically serious in his spirit of play? 2. What does the response to Pushkin’s death tell us about changes in Russian public life since the end of the eighteenth century? ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 29 Lecture Eleven The Birth of the Intelligentsia Scope: Focusing on the 1830s, this lecture looks at the emergence of one of the most important social and cultural groups in Russian history: the intelligentsia. The lecture defines this term and looks at common characteristics: a shared Romantic philosophical outlook and preoccupation with ideas but also a common Romantic temperament. The lecture then turns to the arguments of a single individual, Petr Chaadaev, whose ideas about Russia’s past and future shocked and inspired many educated Russians. We examine his brutal critique of Russia’s backwardness and his emerging argument that Russia’s future is necessarily connected to the West. The lecture concludes with the arguments made against Chaadaev by the Slavophiles, who believed Russia had a unique destiny in the world rooted in traditions of community and freedom that had been eroded by Russia’s Westernization since Peter I. Outline I. One of the most important developments of the nineteenth century, especially for discussions of Russia’s fate, was the emergence of the intelligentsia. A. The term intelligentsia meant not a social category (a class or occupational group) but a cultural category, such that intelligenty were defined by their particular way of looking at the world. 1. This culture was defined in opposition to a repressive and restrictive political and social order. 2. Intelligenty believed that they were fighting, not for themselves, but for others and for ideas. 3. Although ideas were central, the intelligentsia was also defined by its spirit, which had an element of religious fervor. B. The key period in which the Russian intelligentsia took shape as an organized movement was the 1830s and 1840s, which was also the time when the intelligentsia split into two main competing currents: “Westernizers” and “Slavophiles.” II. Although there were clear differences between these two groups, these should not be overstated. A. They almost all knew one another personally, were from the same small social class (educated noblemen), and were even friends. B. More important, they shared certain essential beliefs and values and a certain sensibility. C. Both groups shared a common philosophical outlook. 1. 2. 3. D. The 1. 2. 3. III. In 1836, letter.” Westernizers and Slavophiles were both deeply influenced by German Romantic philosophers (especially Friedrich Schelling and Georg Wilhem Friedrich Hegel) and the belief that the world is “organic” and “whole.” Thus, truth was to be found, not by mechanical reasoning, but through instinct and the senses. These ideas were extremely important for the life of the Russian intelligentsia in the 1830s and 1840s: Individuals had to discover where they personally fit into this grand unified scheme and to discover Russia’s place in this totality. Westernizers and Slavophiles also shared a Romantic temperament. In part, this meant being emotional, enthusiastic, and dreamy. This also meant being excited about poetry, nature, friendship, and romantic love. Most of all, these young men were fervent about abstract ideas. into this impassioned intellectual and emotional milieu came Petr Chaadaev’s “first philosophical 30 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership A. B. C. It would be difficult to exaggerate the agitation that this letter provoked. This response was partly to Chaadaev’s tone and style, which was full of bitterness and anguish. Most important, though, was that Chaadaev addressed the question of Russia’s historical nature and destiny as a nation. 1. 2. He offered an audacious explication of the emptiness of Russia’s national culture. Unlike a normal civilization that develops and evolves over time, Russia was like time’s orphan. D. E. IV. The A. B. C. D. E. F. G. 3. For Chaadaev, Russia’s unique position on the boundaries of Asia and Europe gave it a special possibility in the world. 4. But Russia’s fate, he worried, was to fail to be either East or West and to fail to be original. Chaadaev’s arguments provoked varying reactions from different groups. 1. The government declared Chaadaev mad and placed him under house arrest. 2. Most intellectuals rejected his evident despair but drew different conclusions depending on their attitudes to Russia’s Westernization. Chaadaev’s own response is also of interest. 1. In 1837, he wrote “Apology of a Madman” 2. Here, he began to reconsider Russia’s backwardness as an advantage: Because Russia has no history, reason is given a freer hand. Slavophiles were among Chaadaev’s most virulent critics. Although they shared Chaadaev’s Romantic view of history as the source of nationhood, they saw in Russia’s past the history that Chaadaev did not see. To demonstrate this history, they studied and collected folklore and popular culture. The Slavophiles agreed that some Russians were indeed “homeless nomads,” but these were only the Westernized Russians, not the common people who preserved national traditions. A communal spirit was the most important of these preserved popular traditions. 1. The Slavophiles called this spirit sobornost’. 2. This means a society existing as a community, united by free will on the basis of shared values. 3. This idea was at the heart of all Slavophile thinking about Russia and its future. This idea is most fully explored in the works of Aleksei Khomiakov, who believed that Russia embodied the values of sobornost’ like no other nation. 1. The particular character of Russian religion (Eastern Orthodoxy) was seen to nurture this communal spirit. 2. The Orthodox Church did not agree and forbade the publication of Khomiakov’s works. The Holy Synod saw the idea of sobornost’ as placing too much emphasis on faith and will and too little on the institutions of the Church. 3. Slavophiles also pointed to certain secular customs, especially the peasant commune, as sustaining the traditions of “communal social life.” The Slavophile ideal lay backward in history, not ahead; it was a traditional, conservative ideology. But the Slavophiles were also radicals who were critical of the status quo. 1. They believed that the Petrine autocracy had steadily eaten away at the cultural features that made Russia great. 2. For the Slavophiles, the only salvation was to return to Russia’s true roots: religious, collectivist, and free. 3. But this meant that the Slavophiles opposed much of the existing political and social order, including serfdom, the lack of civil rights, the death penalty, and government intrusion into private life. 4. Thus, in many ways, the Slavophiles were not conservatives at all but idealistic visionaries and even radicals who found a better future in a partly imagined past. Essential Reading: Andrzej Walicki, A History of Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to Marxism (Stanford, 1979), chapters 5–6. Supplementary Reading: James Edie, James Scanlan, and Mary-Barbara Zeldin, Russian Philosophy (Chicago, 1965), vol. 1, pp. 101–269. Philip Pomper, The Russian Revolutionary Intelligentsia (Arlington Heights, IL, 1970), chapter 3. Andrzej Walicki, The Slavophile Controversy: History of a Conservative Utopia in Nineteenth-Century Russian Thought (Oxford, 1975). ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 31 Questions to Consider: 1. 2. Do you agree with Chaadaev that Westernization meant the loss of Russia’s connection to history? Why did he first see this as a disaster, then as an opportunity? What are the implications of the Slavophiles’ key idea sobornost’ for their vision of Russia’s future? 32 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Lecture Twelve WesternizersVissarion Belinskii Scope: This lecture considers the personalities and ideas of the Westernizers, the main critics of the Slavophiles. The focus is on the life and ideas of a single exemplary Westernizer intelligent: Vissarion Belinskii. The lecture considers his social origins and education; the passion with which he, and other Russian intelligenty, struggled to find the meaning of life; and his passion for ideas. In particular, the lecture explores the evolution of his thought about burning questions of the day: God and evil, the nature of humanity, and the value of the individual human being. The lecture also explores Belinskii’s ideas, influenced by Western thought, about the dignity and rights of the individual and how these moral and philosophical ideas were used to critique serfdom, autocracy, and social injustice. The lecture concludes with a comparison of Westernizers and Slavophiles around the question of the individual person. Outline I. The larger of the two main movements in the emerging Russian intelligentsia was the Westernizers. A. Whereas the Slavophiles formed a relatively coherent intellectual trend, the Westernizers were more diffuse and varied. B. What united them was the belief that Russia’s only hope—its only future—lay in joining the civilization of the West. II. A remarkable individual who exemplified this emerging intelligentsia is Vissarion Belinskii (1811–1848). A. B. C. D. III. In a A. B. Unlike most of the other radicals of the 1830s and 1840s, who tended to be from the gentry, Belinskii was the son of a country doctor. 1. Later, many young radicals would come from the raznochintsy (people of various ranks—that is, not from any of the traditional estates: peasants, nobles, clergy). 2. Their origins mattered, for the raznochintsy stood sociologically apart from the traditional order, which encouraged them to imagine a society in which they had a proper place. 3. The fact that Belinskii was relatively underprivileged meant that he was less prepared intellectually than other leading intelligenty (for example, he could not read German). 4. But he made up for his educational deficits in emotional commitment and fervor. The essence of his intellectual style was embodied in the idea: “to think, to feel, to understand and to suffer are one and the same thing.” 1. These sentiments were true to the Romantic ideal that real understanding comes, not from reason, but from intuitive insight. 2. This combination of thinking and feeling pervaded Belinskii’s life. 3. Alexander Herzen, one of the leading Westernizers, tells of Belinskii’s passion for honest conviction. 4. Belinskii was never lighthearted, and his search for “truth” was unrelenting, as recalled by his friend the writer Ivan Turgenev, who participated in a discussion with Belinskii over God’s existence. To understand the culture of the entire intelligentsia, it is important to pay attention to this style and manner. All of this earnest passion was directed at ideas, but what were these ideas? letter written just before his death, Belinskii noted three stages of his thought: God, humanity, man. Belinskii resolved the eternal question of the existence of evil in a world supposedly created by a good and omnipotent God (theodicy) by deciding that there can be no God. His second major intellectual struggle was how could one explain human evil? 1. Like other young, educated Russians of his generation, Belinskii was enamored with German idealistic philosophy, especially with the works of Schelling and Hegel, who argued that everything that exists in the world is an embodiment of the totality of all thingsof a higher harmony. 2. Belinskii concluded that the correct philosophical response was to recognize that all is as it should be. 3. Belinskii interpreted Hegel’s notion that “all that is real is rational” in a conservative way. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 33 4. Belinskii did not deny the evil of the real world, but he tried to philosophically accept this world. 5. After little more than a year, Belinskii found this intellectual position unbearable. 6. He escaped from this “reconciliation with reality” by relying on moral thought and feeling. C. Belinskii now emphasized an ethical idea that was central to the emerging thought of the intelligentsia: the individual human being. 1. A key term here is lichnost’ (the individual person, the human personality, the self). 2. Armed with this idea, Belinskii challenged much conventional philosophical thinking. 3. He also constructed a critique of the world around himhe criticized autocracy, serfdom, poverty, prostitution, drunkenness, wife-beating, and other evils of everyday Russian life D. In 1847, in a letter Belinskii wrote to the writer Nikolai Gogol, we find the most famous and influential example of this social and moral criticism of the existing world. 1. Gogol had become famous as a writer of fiction in which he exposed the widespread corruption in Russian political and social life and expressed sympathy for the poor and downtrodden. 2. In 1847, Gogol shocked the Russian public by publishing Selected Passages from a Correspondence with Friends, in which he bluntly declared that national regeneration would come about through personal, inward transformation and submission to all established authority. 3. Belinskii responded, with moral outrage, that what Russia needed was for the people to awaken to their sense of human dignity and for there to be rights and laws that protected the person. 4. The dignity of the human person was the sole categorical imperative for Belinskii and the basis for needed political, social, and cultural change in Russia. E. Belinskii’s writings on literature were inseparable from these moral judgments. 1. What Belinskii required most of a work of literature was “truth.” 2. For Belinskii, truth meant a probing portrayal of real life and a commitment to moral truth. 3. The backwardness and oppressiveness of Russian life, he argued, made literature and its moral and critical mission especially important. IV. Rather than their attitudes toward the West or Russia, it was this idea of lichnost’ (of the dignity of each individual) that truly divided Slavophiles from Westernizers. A. The Slavophiles idealized a world in which people were all bonded together in a natural community (sobornost’). B. The Westernizers idealized the individual and were concerned above all with the individual’s rights and dignity in society C. For many Westernizing intelligenty, this was a liberal idea, but it was also a socialist one, for socialism was seen as a social ideal meant to promote the individual. Essential Reading: Isaiah Berlin, Russian Thinkers (New York, 1995or earlier editions). Supplementary Reading: James Edie, James Scanlan, and Mary-Barbara Zeldin, Russian Philosophy (Chicago, 1965), vol. 1, Book 3. Alexander Herzen, My Past and Thoughts (Berkeley, 1999). Nicholas Riasanovsky, A Parting of the Ways: Government and the Educated Public in Russia, 1801–1855. Questions to Consider: 1. 2. Why were Russian intelligenty so passionate (some would say obsessed) about philosophical ideas? What were Belinskii’s (and Westernizers’) attitudes toward the individual person? Is this similar to Western notions of individuality? 34 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Note: Names of rulers are printed in bold. Timeline 1613 .................................. Founding of Romanov dynasty with election of Mikhail as tsar by notables 1645–1676........................Reign of tsar Aleksei, father of Peter I 1649..................................First law code (Ulozhenie) 1652..................................Establishment of foreigners’ settlement (nemetskaia sloboda) in Moscow 1653 .................................. Church reforms begin (leading to schism in 1666) 1676–1682........................Tsar Fedor 1682–1689 ........................ Peter I and his half-brother Ivan V rule as co-tsars; Sofia is regent 1689–1725........................Peter I reigns as tsar; major reforms and Westernization 1721..................................Peter named emperor and “the Great” 1697–1698........................Peter’s “grand embassy” to Holland and England 1700–1721........................Northern War between Russia and Sweden 1703..................................Founding of St. Petersburg 1710..................................Conquest of the Baltic region 1722 .................................. Table of Ranks requires all nobles to earn rank through state service 1724..................................Establishment of Academy of Sciences 1725–1727........................Rule of Peter’s second wife, Catherine I 1727–1730........................Rule of Peter I’s grandson (through his first wife) Peter II 1730–1740 ........................ Anna, daughter of Ivan V, rules, abolishing the powerful Privy Council and reasserting autocracy 1736–1739........................Russo-Turkish War 1740–1741 ........................ Reign of the infant Ivan VI (grandnephew of Anna) with mother as regent 1741–1761........................Reign of Elizabeth, daughter of Peter I and Catherine I 1761–1762 ........................ Peter III; emancipates nobility from mandatory state service 1762–1796........................Catherine II the Great (wife of Peter III) 1767..................................Legislative Commission formed to consider reform, guided by Catherine II’s “Instructions” (nakaz) 1768–1774........................Russo-Turkish War 1772..................................First Partition of Poland (complete 1794–1795) 1773–1775........................Pugachev rebellion 1777..................................Nikolai Novikov begins publishing philosophical and moral journal, Morning Light 1785..................................Charter of the Nobility; Charter of the Towns 1787–1792........................Russo-Turkish War 1792..................................Arrest and suppression of Novikov 1796–1801........................Paul I (Catherine’s son); tries to undo many of Catherine’s reforms ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 35 1797..................................Law restores succession to throne by eldest son 1801–1825........................Alexander I; much discussion of reform 1805..................................Russia participates in war against Napoleon 1809..................................Acquisition of Finland 1810..................................Establishment of State Council, appointed advisory body composed of Russia’s oldest aristocratic families 1812..................................Napoleon invades Russia; Battle of Borodino; burning of Moscow; French retreat 1814..................................Victorious Russian troops enter Paris 1816 .................................. Formation of the secret political society the Union of Salvation among discontented young nobles (succeeded by the Union of Welfare and the Northern and Southern Societies) 1824..................................Serious flood in St. Petersburg 1825..................................Decembrist revolt in the wake of the death of Alexander I 1825–1855........................Nicholas I (brother of Alexander I) 1826..................................Hanging of five aristocratic leaders of the Decembrist revolt 1835..................................First modern law code (Svod zakonov) 1836 .................................. Publication of the first of Petr Chaadaev’s Philosophical Letters (written in 1829) 1847..................................Vissarion Belinskii writes famous letter to the writer Gogol 1853–1856........................Crimean War; defeat sparks talk of major reform 1855–1881........................Alexander II; the Great Reforms 1857–1862........................Herzen’s journal Kolokol (The Bell) published in London 1861..................................Emancipation of the serfs 1863 .................................. University reform; publication of Nikolai Chernyshevskii’s radical novel What Is to Be Done? 1864 .................................. Establishment of local self-government (zemstvo); reform of the judicial system and of elementary education 1865 .................................. Reform of censorship 1865–1885........................Conquest of Central Asia 1866..................................Assassination attempt on Alexander II 1869..................................Publication of Lev Tolstoy’s War and Peace; separate Women’s universities authorized 1869–1870........................Publication of Petr Lavrov’s Historical Letters 1870 .................................. Reform of city government 1874..................................Culmination of military reform; populist “To the People” movement 1876–1879........................Populist organization Land and Freedom 1877–1878........................Russo-Turkish War in the Balkans 1878..................................Religious transformation of the writer Lev Tolstoi 1879 .................................. Land and Freedom splits into terrorist organization, People’s Will, and propaganda- oriented Black Repartition 36 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 1880..................................Count Loris-Melikov’s “political spring” and plans to establish a consultative national assembly; Vladimir Solov’ev lectures on “Godmanhood” at St. Petersburg University 1881..................................Assassination of Alexander II by member of People’s Will 1881–1894........................Alexander III 1881–1884........................Counter-reforms; “temporary regulations” created conditions of virtual martial law 1881–1882........................Anti-Jewish pogroms, along with laws restricting Jewish settlement and employment 1891–1892 ........................ Famine 1891–1904........................Building of Trans-Siberian Railway 1892–1903........................Sergei Witte serves as Minister of Finance 1894–1917........................Nicholas II 1895 .................................. Formation of Marxist St. Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class 1898..................................Founding of Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party 1901..................................Formation of populist Socialist Revolutionary Party; Tolstoi excommunicated for his religious views 1902 .................................Publication of Vladimir Lenin’s “What Is to Be Done?,” the foundation text of Bolshevism 1903..................................Split in Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks 1904–1905........................Russo-Japanese War 1904..................................Formation of first liberal party, the Union of Liberation 1905..................................Revolution of 1905: Bloody Sunday (January 9); mass strikes; October Manifesto promises political reform and civil rights; December insurrections 1906 .................................. Fundamental laws; first State Duma elected, critical of government, so closed; Prime Minister Stolypin’s land reforms and policies of repression 1907 .................................. Second State Duma, also critical of government; government closes Duma and revises electoral law before allowing new elections 1912..................................Revival of labor unrest; legal publication begins of Bolshevik and Menshevik newspapers 1914..................................Outbreak of World War I 1916..................................Assassination of Rasputin 1917..................................February Revolution; establishment of Provisional Government and Petrograd Soviet of Workers and Soldier’s Deputies; abdication of Nicholas II; Bolsheviks come to power and establish one-party government 1917–1924 ........................ Vladimir Lenin, chairman of Council of People’s Commissars and de facto leader of Politburo of Communist Party 1918 .................................. Treaty of Brest-Litovsk removes Russia from war 1918–1921........................Civil war; independence of Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, and Armenia 1921..................................Anti-Bolshevik Revolt at Kronstadt naval base near Petrograd 1921..................................Tenth Party Congress and promulgation of New Economic Policy ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 37 1921–1922 ........................ Famine 1924..................................Death of V. I. Lenin; Petrograd renamed Leningrad 1920s ................................ Debates and power struggles, out of which Stalin emerges as supreme party leader 1922–1953........................Iosif Stalin general secretary of the Communist Party 1928..................................Beginning of first Five-Year Plan 1930..................................Mass collectivization of agriculture begins 1932–1933 .......................Famine 1936–1939........................Purges, show trials, and “great terror” 1939..................................Nazi-Soviet pact 1940 ................................. Annexation of Baltic states and war with Finland 1941..................................Nazi Germany invades USSR 1941–1953........................Stalin also head of state (Chairman of Council of People’s Commissars) 1941–1944........................Siege of Leningrad 1944–1945........................Soviet armies move into Eastern Europe and Germany 1953..................................Death of Stalin 1953–1964........................Nikita Khrushchev first secretary of the Communist Party 1956..................................Khrushchev’s “secret speech” denouncing Stalin delivered at Twentieth Party Congress 1962 .................................. Publication of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich 1962..................................Cuban missile crisis 1964 .................................. Nikita Khrushchev removed from power 1964–1982........................Leonid Brezhnev first secretary (later renamed general secretary) of Communist Party 1974 .................................. Solzhenitsyn deported from Soviet Union 1975..................................Andrei Sakharov awarded Nobel Peace Prize 1979–1989........................Soviet war in Afghanistan 1980..................................Andrei Sakharov exiled to Gor’kii 1982–1984........................Iurii Andropov general secretary of the Communist Party 1984–1985........................Konstantin Chernenko general secretary of the Communist Party 1985–1991........................Mikhail Gorbachev general secretary of the Communist Party, beginning policy of restructuring and allowing greater freedom 1989..................................Opening of new elected Congress of People’s Deputies of USSR 1990..................................Russian Federation declares sovereignty; Boris Yeltsin elected first Russian president; Gorbachev becomes president of USSR 1991..................................Attempted coup against Gorbachev by conservative Communists; Boris Yeltsin elected president of Russian Federation; declarations of independence by many Soviet states; USSR dissolved 38 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Glossary Autocracy (samoderzhavie). Meaning literally and in its original sense, self-sustained or independent power, the term increasingly referred to the absolute authority of the Russian tsars, who were known as autocrats. Adapted in the fifteenth century from Byzantine ideas of imperial authority, it signified that there was no higher earthly authority than the Russian ruler. Bolsheviks. Members of a wing of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, which, led by Lenin, took control of the government in Russia in October 1917. The group originated at the party’s second congress in 1903 when Lenin’s followers, insisting that party membership be restricted to professional revolutionaries, won a temporary majority on the party’s central committee and on the editorial board of its newspaper, Iskra. They assumed the name Bolsheviks (“those of the majority”) and called their opponents the Mensheviks (“those of the minority”). The Bolsheviks insisted on a highly centralized, disciplined, professional party flexible enough to act boldly when the historical situation warranted. The Bolsheviks became a de facto independent party after 1912 and were renamed the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1918. Boyars. Old Russian aristocrats who were the dominant social group in medieval Russian society and state administration. The social and political importance of the boyars declined in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Peter I abolished the rank and title of boyar, although the term was sometimes used archaically to refer to old aristocratic families. Cheka (ChK, VChK, Vecheka). The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission for the Struggle against Counterrevolution and Sabotage. Established 7 (20) December 1917, its role combined fighting banditry, looting, and financial corruption with the tasks of a political police. During 1918, a network of provincial and district Chekas was established. During the civil war, the Cheka was the primary organ of the “red terror.” It was replaced by the OGPU and, in later years, by the NKVD and the KGB. Council of People’s Commissars. See Sovnarkom. Duma. A national representative assembly established in 1906. Empowered to initiate and approve legislation, though limited in its authority. Day-to-day political power remained in the hands of the ministers, whom the tsar appointed and who were not responsible to the Duma. The tsar could veto legislation, as could the parliamentary upper house of notables, the State Council, half of whose members were appointed by the tsar. Much of the budget (especially military and foreign policy) was not under the Duma’s control. In 1907, the voting law was changed to reduce representation by the peasantry, urban workers, and national minorities and to increase that of the gentry. Glasnost’. A Russian word that literally means openness, making things public and visible, this term was used to define Russian state policies of reform in two periods. During the Great Reforms of Alexander II, the policy of glasnost’ involved open discussions of the coming reforms, a new system of jury trials open to the public, and censorship reform. Under Mikhail Gorbachev, the policy of glasnost’ meant a greater freedom of information and of public discussion about problems in Soviet life, both past and present. Groznyi. A Russian term, used to describe the traits of Russian rulers, meaning awesome, stern, severe, formidable, terrible, menacing, or dread. Ivan the Terrible (Ivan Groznyi, whose name is sometimes translated as Ivan the Dread) was titled with this term, but it was also used to refer to other powerful Russian tsars. It indicated the tsar’s might and awesome power, traditional traits of the ideal ruler in the Russian political tradition. See also tishaishii. Gulag. A Russian acronym standing for the Main Directorate for Corrective Labor Camps (Glavnoe upravlenie ispravitel’no-trudovykh lagerei). In the Soviet Union, this was the name of a department of the NKVD, the Soviet political police, responsible between 1934 and 1955 for the administration of corrective labor camps and prisons. Many political prisoners were sent to these camps and often died there, especially in the Stalinist years. After the department was renamed, the term continued to be used to refer to the Soviet prison camp system generally. Intelligentsia. A Russian term, now widely used in other languages, denoting a class of people devoted to critical thought and intellectual activity. Arising in the early nineteenth century, though the term itself came into regular use only in the 1860s, the Russian intelligentsia was not so much a social category (a class or occupational group) as a cultural one. It indicated not merely an educated person or a professional, nor even all people who shared an interest in ideas. An intelligentthe singular (pronounced with a hard “g”)was a person distinguished by a particular intellectual orientation: a stance in opposition to a repressive and restrictive political and social order, commitment ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 39 to serving others (especially “the people”), commitment to the cause of “truth,” and a spirit of mission and consecration to a cause. Kolkhoz. An acronym for the Russian kollektivnoe khoziaistvo, meaning collective farm. These began to emerge in the 1920s, but were most widespread after Stalin’s forced collectivization in the early 1930s. Kruzhki (singular, kruzhok). A Russian word meaning circles. Formed among students, intellectuals, political radicals, workers, dissidents, and others, kruzhki were informal, and sometimes illegal, gatherings where ideas were discussed and information and opinions were shared. They were most important for the intelligentsia in the nineteenth century and dissidents in the late Soviet period. Kulak. Literally meaning “fist,” this Russian term of contempt was popularly used by peasants to describe relatively well-to-do farmers, traders, millers, and others. In 1929, on the eve of massive forced collectivization of the peasantry, Stalin decreed “liquidation of kulaks as a class.” Many richer farmersand many who were not so wealthywere violently expropriated and often arrested and sent to prison or into exile. Lichnost’. A Russian term meaning person, personality, individual, or self, this term denoted not simply the individual or a person, but a person’s inward human essence, which made each person naturally deserving of respect and freedom. This concept was especially widespread among Russia’s intelligentsiafrom Novikov to Soviet dissidentsamong whom it had become an article of faith that one of the most essential and fundamental rights was “the right to live as a human being” and that a just social and political order was one that promoted the freedom and dignity of the human person. Mensheviks. Members of the non-Leninist wing of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party, which evolved into a separate party. It originated when a dispute over party membership requirements arose at the 1903 congress of the Social-Democratic Party. One group, led by Iulii Martov, opposed Lenin’s plan for a party restricted to professional revolutionaries and called for a more open mass party. They disagreed with the Bolsheviks’ emphasis on the vanguard role of a highly centralized party of professional revolutionaries. They also believed that Russia first needed a liberal democratic revolution, which the proletariat could not and should not dominate, before the preconditions could be established for building socialism. Hence, in 1917, they were willing to work with the bourgeois Left in the Provisional Government to establish a democratic but not socialist society. After 1917, they attempted to form a legal opposition but were suppressed. Many went into exile. See also Bolsheviks. Mir or obshchina. Russian terms for the traditional peasant commune in Russia, which lasted until collectivization in 1930. This institution of the heads of households of a rural community (often a village but sometimes several small settlements combined) served both peasant interests and those of landlords and the stateespecially after emancipationthough a variety of functions: collecting taxes, managing community law and order and punishment, dealing with outsiders, organizing field work, and periodically redistributing peasant plots to ensure that the size of the plot was appropriate to family needs and capacities. The peasant commune was much romanticized by populists as a sign of natural peasant socialism. Narod. A Russian term meaning the common peopleespecially peasantsbut also the nation. For most educated Russians (including government officials), from the late eighteenth century until at least the 1940s, to talk about the common people was to talk about Russia’s essential nature and identity as a nation. Nationality (narodnost’). One of the three key terms, along with autocracy and Orthodoxy, in the statement of Russian autocratic political ideology that was first made explicit in the 1830s. The concept of nationality referred to the distinctive character and personality of the Russian nation, especially as manifested in its common people (narod). Above all, this meant the Russian people’s devoted love of autocratic authority. NEP. In 1921, Lenin initiated the New Economic Policy, which lasted until the end of the 1920s. A departure from the radically centralizing policies of the civil war, which tried to create a socialist economy by central directive, the NEP era can be seen (and was seen by various people) as either a temporary retreat or an original strategy for building socialism through gradualism, education, and a mixed economy. This latter view was strongly associated with Nikolai Bukharin. Under NEP, peasants were allowed to market grain and other products, and private retail trade and small-scale industry was restored (creating a class of small traders and manufacturers known as Nepmen). The state retained control of heavy industry, transport, banking, and foreign trade. Many workers and radicals were discontented with what they saw as the social and ideological compromises of NEP. 40 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Nomenklatura. A Russian term for the list of government and managerial elites appointed by higher party and state organs during the later Soviet years. The term was often used as a shorthand to refer to the whole class of privileged Soviet officials. Obshchina. See mir. Okhrana. A Russian acronym for okhrannoe otdelenie, or security department, the Okhrana was the political police in late Imperial Russia. Established in 1881 after the assassination of Alexander II, its task was to maintain the security of the state and suppress revolutionary activities. It was disbanded in 1917. Orthodoxy (pravoslavie). The majority religion of Russia, Russian Orthodoxy is a branch of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Introduced from Byzantium, it became the official religion of Russia by state decree in 988. The Russian term pravoslavie (which means the correct way to worship and glorify God) underscores the central importance in Russian Christianity of liturgy, ritual, and prayer. Perestroika. A Russian word meaning restructuring, perestroika was a policy under Mikhail Gorbachev of political and economic renewal of the socialist system. An attempt to make Soviet socialism work, it involved economic reforms that would encourage greater initiative and responsiveness to the market to revitalize a stagnant economy. It also involved political reforms, especially multicandidate elections, that would encourage more public engagement and, it was hoped, overcome widespread political disenchantment and even cynicism. Politburo. Acronym for Political Bureau, this was the supreme policy-making body of the Communist party. In 1919, in place of a single Central Committee, three new bureaus were created alongside an expanded Central Committee: the policy-making Politburo, headed by Lenin; the administrative Organizational Bureau (Orgburo); and the supporting Secretariat. Because the Secretariat planned the agenda, provided all documentation for debate, and transmitted Politburo decisions to the lower echelons, the general secretary of the party (later called first secretary) became, after Lenin’s death, the Politburo’s most influential member and, hence, the Soviet leader. Populism (narodnichestvo). The predominant ideology on the Russian Left from the 1870s until the 1890s, when many were attracted to Marxism, though it remained a strong influence through the 1917 revolution. Nineteenth- century populists believed that capitalism would not improve the lives of the common people and that Russia had a special historical opportunity to avoid the evils of capitalism and create a socialist society because of the unique Russian peasant commune with its traditions of collective ownership and collective responsibility. No less important, populists were characterized by a strong moral passion for justice. In the 1870s, populists differed over strategy and tactics (especially on the question of terrorism) and formed different groups, notably People’s Will (Narodnaia volia), which favored terror, and Black Repartition (Chernyi peredel), which focused more on education and propaganda. The Socialist Revolutionary party, which formed in 1901, was heir to these populist traditions. In the elections to the Constituent Assembly in November 1917, the SRs won a plurality of votes, revealing strong support among peasants. Pravda. A Russian word meaning truth, law, and justice. The term was used by Decembrists in the early 1800s as the title for one of their programs for the political and social reform of Russia. In 1912, Pravda was chosen as the name of the Bolshevik party newspaper. Rechtsstaat. A German concept, widely discussed as an goal in nineteenth-century Russia, especially during the reign of Alexander I, to denote a state in which the rule of law predominates rather than the personal will of the monarch or his officials. Samizdat. A Russian term, an abbreviation of self-publishing house (samoizdatel’stvo), created by Soviet dissidents, especially in the 1960s and after, to refer to unofficial texts, ranging from poetry to works of history, reproduced by hand or on individual typewriters, often using carbon paper, and passed from hand to hand. A related form, sometimes called tamizdat (literally, published “there” [tam]), were publications printed in Western Europe and the United States, then smuggled back into the country. Slavophiles (slavianofily). Members of an intellectual movement, primarily from the 1830s through the 1850s, that wanted Russia’s future development to be based on values and institutions derived from the country’s history before the Westernizing reforms of Peter the Great. They believed that these national traditions, especially a communal spirit, still survived most strongly among the common people. A central principle was the ideal of sobornost’. Although they looked to the past for inspiration, they were not conservative. They criticized much of the existing ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 41 political and social order in Russia, in particular, serfdom and the lack of civil rights and liberties. See also Westernizers. Sobornost’. The central ideal of the Slavophiles, most fully elaborated by Aleksei Khomiakov. Usually translated as “conciliarity,” sobornost’ is more accurately (if loosely) translated as “spiritual community.” It is the ideal of a society existing as a community (in natural, harmonious relationships), united by free will on the basis of shared Christian values. Soviets. Councils of deputies elected by urban workers and soldiers, but also including representatives of leftist parties, trade unions, and other organizations. Ranged in scale from neighborhood soviets in large cities to citywide and regional soviets. First established during the 1905 revolution, they arose again in Petrograd in February 1917, followed by most Russian cities. The Petrograd Soviet, which shared the Tauride Palace with the Provisional Government and, especially, its Executive Committee, functioned as a national representative of workers and soldiers. The First All-Russian Congress of Soviets, in early June 1917, established the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets (VTsIK), which functioned in the same way. After October 1917, the Congress of Soviets, and the VTsIK between sessions, was formally the supreme organ of state power. Sovnarkom (Sovet narodnykh komissarov). Council of People’s Commissars. Established 26 October (8 November) 1917, replacing the Council of Ministers of the tsarist and Provisional governments. Headed by Vladimir Lenin until his death in 1924. The Sovnarkom was the executive and administrative branch of the Soviet government, formally subordinate to the legislative authority of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets, though in practice, the dominant structure of state power. Stakhanovism. A campaign for increasing industrial production through a mixture of labor enthusiasm and more efficient work. Begun in 1935, it was named for Aleksei Stakhanov, a coal miner in the Donets basin, whose team increased its daily output sevenfold by organizing a more efficient division of labor and by working with increased intensity. Stakhanovites were offered higher pay and other privileges. Tishaishii. A Russian term used to describe the traits of Russian rulers, literally meaning most quiet or most gentle. Officially, it was the epithet applied to tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich, Peter the Great’s father, but it was used to refer to other tsars as well. In the Russian political tradition, it expressed the ideas of religious piety and love for the people that were considered some of the ideal traits of the ruler. See also groznyi. Tsar. The title of the Russian monarch starting with Ivan IV (“the Terrible”) in 1547. Before then, Russian rulers had been called grand princes. Peter the Great renamed the ruler emperor, but tsar was still commonly used. Adapted from the Latin title Caesar, the term identified the Russian ruler as an emperor and was one of many symbols of authority borrowed from Rome and Byzantium. Tsar is often spelled czar in English, though this does not follow modern transliteration systems. Tsar-batiushka. A Russian term meaning tsar-father. This was a popular expression of affection used especially by peasants to express their love of the tsar and their certainty that he cared for and protected them. Westernizers (zapadniki). Members of an intellectual movement, primarily from the 1830s through the 1850s, that emphasized Russia’s common historic destiny with the West, as opposed to Slavophiles, who looked to Russia’s traditions before Westernization for inspiration. Leading Westernizers included Alexander Herzen and Vissarion Belinskii. A central principle for them was the individual person (lichnost’) and his or her natural rights and dignity. Many Westernizers became socialists, seeing in socialism the most advanced Western ideas and the best means of promoting the welfare and happiness of the individual. Zemstvos. Provincial rural assemblies established in 1864. Representatives were elected by the local population; peasants were included, but their representation was weighted so that larger landowners would be predominant. Also included members appointed by the state. Hired professionals, often liberal in their politics, played an increasingly large role. Responsible for education, road building, health care, and improvement of agricultural techniques, the zemstvos became organizing centers for Russian liberalism and sources of demands for a more representative national government. Zhenotdel. The Women’s Department of the Central Committee of the Russian (later Soviet) Communist Party existed from 1919 until it was closed by Stalin in 1930. It was designed to mobilize women to improve their lives, focusing on issues of child care, public health, education, literacy, housing, and the family, including the problem of male alcoholism and wife and child abuse. The Zhenotdel promoted public laundries, bath houses, and cafeterias to 42 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership alleviate the burdens of individual housework. The program of the Zhenotdel derived from the fundamental socialist ideal of social equality. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 43 A History of Russia: From Peter the Great to Gorbachev Part II Professor Mark D. Steinberg THE TEACHING COMPANY ® Mark D. Steinberg, Ph.D. Professor of History, Director of the Russian and East European Center, University of Illinois Mark Steinberg completed his undergraduate work at the University of California at Santa Cruz in 1978 and received his Ph.D. in European history at the University of California at Berkeley in 1987. He taught Russian and European history at the University of Oregon (1987), Harvard University (1987–1989), and Yale University (1989– 1996) before joining the faculty at the University of Illinois, at its main campus in Urbana-Champaign, in 1996. Since 1998, Professor Steinberg has also been the Director of the Russian and East European Center at Illinois, an interdisciplinary program designated by the Department of Education as a national resource center. Professor Steinberg has received many awards for his teaching, including the Sarai Ribicoff Prize for Teaching at Yale University (1993) and, at Illinois, the George and Gladys Queen Excellence in History Teaching Award (1998 and 2002) and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching (2002). For his work as a scholar, he has received numerous prestigious fellowships, including from the International Research and Exchanges Board, the Social Science Research Council, the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies of the Smithsonian Institution, the Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. In 2001, the University of Illinois gave him one of its highest honors and named him a University Scholar. Professor Steinberg has published many articles, delivered numerous papers at national and international conferences, given public lectures throughout the country, and served on several national professional committees and editorial boards. He specializes in the cultural, intellectual, and social history of Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. His first book, published in 1992, was a study of the relations among employers, managers, and workers in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, entitled Moral Communities. In 1994, Professor Steinberg co-edited Cultures in Flux, an influential collection of essays on Russian lower-class cultures. In 1995, he published, together with a Russian archivist, The Fall of the Romanovs, which examines the fate of the tsar and his family during the revolution and includes translations of documents from then recently opened Russian archives. In 2001, Professor Steinberg published Voices of Revolution, 1917, a study and collection of translated documents exploring the revolution through contemporary letters and other writings by ordinary Russians. His most recent book, Proletarian Imagination, published in 2002, explores poetry and other writings by lower-class Russians in the years before and after 1917, focusing on ideas about self, modern times, and the sacred. He is currently working on a collection of essays on religion in Russia, a revised textbook on Russian history, and a study of St. Petersburg in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Professor Steinberg is a native of San Francisco and is married to Jane Hedges, an editor and translator. Further information can be found at his Web site: http://www.history.uiuc.edu/steinb/index.htm. ©2003 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership i Table of Contents A History of Russia: From Peter the Great to Gorbachev Part II Professor Biography............................................................................................i Course Scope.......................................................................................................1 Lecture Thirteen Lecture Fourteen Lecture Fifteen Lecture Sixteen Lecture Seventeen Lecture Eighteen Lecture Nineteen Lecture Twenty Lecture Twenty-One Lecture Twenty-Two Lecture Twenty-Three Alexander II and the Great Reforms..........................2 “Nihilists” ..................................................................5 Populists and Marxists...............................................8 Paths to RevolutionLenin and Martov .................11 Lev Tolstoy..............................................................14 The Reign of Alexander III .....................................17 Nicholas II, the Last Tsar.........................................19 The Revolution of 1905 ...........................................21 Peasant Life and Culture..........................................24 The Modern City and Its Discontents ......................26 Fin-de-Siècle CultureDecadence and Iconoclasm........................................................28 Fin-de-Siècle CultureThe Religious Renaissance .............................................................30 Lecture Twenty-Four Biographical Notes............................................................................................33 Please refer to Part I for the timeline and glossary and Part III for the annotated bibliography. ii ©2003 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Scope: A History of Russia: From Peter the Great to Gorbachev After a discussion of background issues (geography, multi-ethnicity, the problem of backwardness, Europeanization), the course begins with politics and culture on the eve of Peter the Great’s efforts to transform his country, then looks at Peter and his reforms. Next, women’s rule in eighteenth-century Russia is examined, with a particular focus on the reigns of Elizabeth (Peter the Great’s daughter) and Catherine the Great. Turning toward society, two additional lectures on the eighteenth century follow: on the Pugachev uprising and the growing critique of autocratic despotism by educated Russians, especially the publisher and writer Nikolai Novikov. Lecture Seven begins the nineteenth century by returning to a focus on the state and the monarch: Paul I and especially Alexander I, who seriously discussed possible reform. We also look at the Decembrist rebellion, in which educated nobles took arms against the state to bring about social and political reform. Next, we consider Nicholas I and the ideas about power and order that inspired the Russian state at that time. Returning the gaze to society, the course then offers lectures on different intellectuals’ visions of change: the “national poet” Alexander Pushkin (whom we consider also for what his image as a symbol of the Russian nation tells us) and the full-fledged emergence of the “intelligentsia” in the 1830s and 1840s. Particular attention is paid to their ideas about Russia, the West, and the meanings of freedom. Lecture Thirteen begins the history of the Great Reforms under Alexander II, which sought to create a modern society in Russia though dramatic reform. We then examine dissident trends and the individuals associated with them: nihilism (including terrorism), populism, Marxism (including the emergence of Bolshevism). For a different voice, we look at the famous writer Lev Tolstoy, especially his life and his arguments about morality and conscience. Returning our gaze to official Russia, we highlight the lives, personalities, and outlooks of the last two tsars, Alexander III and his son Nicholas II. We then consider a decisive event in the reign of Nicholas: the strikes, demonstrations, and public demands that the tsarist government accept civil rights and democratic rule in Russia in 1905. To see Russia’s changes in larger perspective, we look at peasant life and culture in the late 1800s and early 1900s, life in the changing cities (especially for workers and the middle class) from the industrialization drive of the 1890s to the eve of World War I, and at aspects of what might be called fin-de-siècle culture: decadence in everyday life and in the arts, cultural iconoclasm, and the religious renaissance. Lecture Twenty-Five examines the Russian experience in World War I and the coming of revolution. It is followed with an examination of the Russian experience in the key months from the fall of the tsarist government in February to the coming to power of the Bolsheviks in October, then by a lecture on the Bolsheviks during their first year in power. The story of the Civil War comes next, followed by a discussion of the debates in the 1920s in the Soviet Union over how to overcome Russia’s backwardness and build socialism. Next, we look at Joseph Stalin’s biography and political personality, the era of radical industrialization and social transformation that he launched at the end of the 1920s, and the contradictory political, social, and cultural life of the 1930s (including the Great Terror). We turn then to the Soviet experience in World War II and to politics and the experiences of Soviet people during the decades after the war and before Gorbachev’s reforms. Continuing the theme of exploring dissent, we look at some of the various forms of alienation from, and resistance to, the Soviet system during the years before Gorbachev came to power (both everyday forms and open dissidence). Finally, we look at Mikhail Gorbachev’s recognition of the many problems of the system and his efforts to make Communism work though a policy of reform. The final lecture concludes with a consideration of the situation left in the wake of the collapse of Communism. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 1 Lecture Thirteen Alexander II and the Great Reforms Scope: This lecture considers the efforts by the state, under Alexander II, to create a modern society in Russia through dramatic reform but also the state’s anxiety about reform. The lecture begins with the catastrophic failure in the Crimean War and the death of Nicholas I. Made painfully aware by the war of Russia’s backwardness, the new tsar embarked on a major series of reforms: abolition of serfdom and the reform of major institutions. Asking what the purposes and meaning of these reforms were, the lecture first considers the political personality of Alexander II, especially the persistent desire to balance power and progress, order and change. These contradictory goals are seen reflected in the reforms. The lecture concludes with a discussion of the political crisis at the end of Alexander II’s reign—including failure in war, the rise of terrorism, and peasant unrest—and plans for further reform, cut short by the assassination of the tsar himself. Outline I. By the mid-1800s, generations of Russians had been talking about the need for various reforms. A. The desire was for what might be called “modernizing reforms” that would strengthen the state and the country and bring Russia more into accord with the values seen throughout Europe as “civilized.” B. Yet the fear of change repeatedly caused the government to pull back from reformist causes. 1. We saw these anxieties during the reigns of Catherine II and Alexander I. 2. Although Nicholas I recognized the need for reform, even the abolition of serfdom, his fear of the risks was greater than ever. II. Two events changed this calculus of risk and benefit: the death of Nicholas I in 1855 and the Crimean War. A. Liberals and radicals were happy about the death of Nicholas I; even many conservatives had found his reign to be stifling. B. Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War (1854–1856) made the country’s backwardness clear. III. In 1855, Alexander II (1855–1871) inherited the throne and the failing war, quickly conceded defeat, and set out on a course of major reform. A. Serfdom was abolished in 1861 (to take effect in 1863). 1. Serf owners were in a state of shock and disbelief. 2. Serfs, after initial doubts and before later disappointment, were enthusiastic. B. In 1863, the university statute made universities more autonomous. C. Municipal reform in 1870, creating city councils, similarly increased self-government in the cities. D. In 1864, a much more open and regularized judicial system was created, along with a new a system of jury trials that were open to the public (in accordance with the new principle of glasnost’, or openness). E. In 1865, a reform of press laws replaced preliminary censorship with judicial punishment after the fact. F. The 1874 military reform restructured the army on a modern European model. IV. What did these dramatic and important reforms mean to the tsar and his advisers and to the larger society? 2 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership A. B. C. Let us first examine the political personality of Alexander himself. 1. Every indication is that he was neither a bold reformer nor strongly attached to tradition for its own sake. 2. We can see a fair measure of ambivalence and uncertainty in his policies: He chose ministers that were often opposed to one another, and his policies fluctuated between reform and efforts to limit the effects of reform. When we look closely at the reforms and statements by reformers, we see a unifying goal: strengthen the power of the country and the government, improve military preparedness, and enhance Russia’s authority as a strong, modern nation. This modernization had two sides. 1. On the one hand, we see the desire to create a state based on regular procedures and the rule of law and to free people to become active citizens. 2. On the other hand, we see a concern to preserve the power and security of the state that brought about these changes. 3. Taken together, the goal was to balance power and progress, order and change. V. To understand this balancing act, it is useful to look more closely at the reforms themselves. A. In the planning stages of the emancipation, we see this balance. 1. Discussions and decisions of the state were published and widely disseminated for discussion (glasnost’). 2. At the same time, Alexander ordered the police to monitor discussions, and overly critical voices were silenced. B. The 1. Freed serfs received land to prevent the danger of landlessness. 2. To maintain the strength of the gentry, landlords were allowed to keep a large part of the land. 3. Restrictions on movement made it difficult for peasants to leave the village without the permission of the commune. C. Other reforms show a similar balancing act. 1. In the zemstvo reform, although all social groups were to be involved, the participation was weighted to ensure that the landowners were predominant and government appointees were included. 2. Although the university statute made universities more autonomous, student rights to organize were ended and faculty members were prevented from being involved in public political activity. 3. Preliminary censorship was abolished for most books and journals under press reform, but punishments remained common against publishers and writers who criticized the government too directly or harshly. D. This attempt to combine reform with control over the consequences of reform proved counterproductive. 1. The liberal-minded, who wanted more, were frustrated by the limits. 2. Peasants were disappointed that they did not get all the land they worked, and they had to pay for the land they received. 3. At the same time, the success of the reforms helped to create groups with increasing independence, who would eventually challenge the status quo (such as members of zemstvos and city councils and the growing class of independent professionals). VI. In the years 1879–1881, a major political crisis erupted, partly as a result of the contradictions of reform. A. The failure of the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878) provided the context and stimulus for crisis. 1. Russia actually won this Balkan war on the battlefield. 2. But Russia’s victory frightened Western European leaders, who forced Russia back to the bargaining table, where the spoils of victory were taken away. B. There was renewed peasant unrest in the late 1870s, caused by both disappointment over the results of the emancipation and immediate economic problems. C. The third element of the crisis was a growing terrorist movement by radical youths against officials and even the tsar. D. Facing a clear political crisis, the government intensified its characteristic approach: combine reform and repression. 1. The key figure in this new policy was Count Mikhail Loris-Melikov, minister of the interior and head of the Imperial Police Department. 2. Loris-Melikov saw his task as twofold: restoring order (with force when necessary) and introducing needed reforms. 3. He attempted to win the support of moderate public opinion by some modest immediate reforms and the more radical proposal that a consultative national assembly be established. 4. Loris-Melikov’s proposal was signed into law on March 1, 1881. 5. However, Alexander II was killed a few hours later by a bomb thrown by revolutionaries of the People’s Will. emancipation reform itself similarly tried to balance change and order. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 3 6. Alexander III renounced Loris-Melikov’s plan. Essential Reading: W. Bruce Lincoln, The Great Reforms: Autocracy, Bureaucracy, and the Politics of Change in Imperial Russia (DeKalb, 1990). Supplementary Reading: Ben Eklof, John Bushnell, and Larissa Zakharova, eds., Russia’s Great Reforms, 1855–1881 (Bloomington, 1994). W. Bruce Lincoln, In the Vanguard of Reform: Russia’s Enlightened Bureaucrats, 1825–1861 (DeKalb, 1982). Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in the Russian Monarchy (Princeton, 2000), vol. 2, chapters 1–4. Questions to Consider: 1. 2. How important was the goal of democracy in Alexander II’s “Great Reforms”? What did democracy mean to these reformers, if anything? What ideas of “citizen” and “citizenship” were visible in the Great Reforms? 4 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Lecture Fourteen “Nihilists” Scope: This lecture returns to the continued growth of dissent by educated Russians. The focus is on something new: an organized student movement starting in the 1860s and the appearance of a new type of intelligent, the “nihilist,” whose criticisms of tradition seemed so uncompromising as to be a rejection of everything. The lecture looks at new conditions in the universities under Alexander II, then turns to the student movement. It explores student organizing, conflicts with authorities, and the emergence of terrorism beside strategies of education. The lecture seeks to understand what motivated these students by looking at a number of proclamations. It then turns to the influential ideas of Nikolai Chernyshevsky and considers the relative importance of scientific rationalism and moral passion in his ideas. The lecture concludes by looking at what might be called “nihilist style”—patterns of dress, manner, and lifestyle and what these tell us about the nihilists’ ideals and values. Outline I. The period of the Great Reforms during the 1860s brought an important new development in the history of the intelligentsia: an organized student movement and a new type of young, educated Russian—the “nihilist.” A. The reforms of Alexander II helped set the stage for this student movement. 1. Immediately after ascending the throne, Alexander II created freer conditions in Russia’s universities. 2. These reforms helped encourage increased enrollment (of men) and the social diversity of the student body (greater numbers of non-nobles). 3. In addition, people’s expectations were raised and their imaginations, stimulated. B. These freer conditions did not make the universities less dangerous, however. Instead, they now became centers of organized rebellion. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. C. It is 1. 2. Students organized mutual assistance societies, libraries, and newspapers and began holding mass meetings and even demonstrations. Once organized, they began to exercise their power within the university, especially by mobilizing against teachers they did not like. Sometimes, students directly confronted police, as in the violent clash between students and police in Kazan in 1857. In 1861, the government issued the restrictive “May Rules” to try to stem student activism. Students responded in the fall by staging illegal mass meetings, street demonstrations, and strikes; issuing manifestoes; and engaging in violent clashes with the police. important to recognize that this student movement was not isolated. Educated adults sympathized with and financially supported the students. The students, in turn, “accepted all this as a proper tribute for our behavior.” D. This movement continued throughout the 1860s. E. Although most of these students focused their efforts on self-education and the education of others, in the mid-1860s, a minority turned to terrorism. 1. By assassinating government officials, they hoped to inspire a revolution. 2. In 1866, Dmitrii Karakozov, a member of a Petersburg organization named “Hell,” attempted to assassinate Alexander II. 3. There would be many attempts on the tsar’s life before he was assassinated in 1881. 4. The result of these attacks, though, was often to inspire sympathy for the monarchy and contempt for revolutionaries. II. One way of discovering what motivated these young Russians is to examine some of the hundreds of manifestoes and pamphlets that appeared in 1861–1862. A. A relatively moderate statement was titled “Great Russia”it called for wider reforms, a constitution, and freedom for Poland. B. More radical was “To the Young Generation.” ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 5 1. It argued that the only vital forces in Russia were the peasants, the intelligentsia, and the students. 2. The monarchy, it said, should be replaced by a republic based on the peasant commune. 3. Though the nihilists’ economic ideal was vague, they favored some sort of socialist cooperative ownership and work. C. The most radical proposal was “Young Russia,” written in 1862 by Petr Zaichnevskii, who had been expelled from Moscow University. 1. Russia was to be a decentralized federation, with much local political authority. 2. Peasant communes and communally run factories were to organize production. 3. In addition, education was to be free, there was to be equality for women, and all nationalities were to have the right to secede from Russia if they wished. 4. The violent methods proposed and the arguments about elite leadership of the new order echoed French Jacobinism and foreshadowed Leninism. D. Proclamations like “Young Russia” not only alarmed the government, but also alienated liberal society. 1. This sense of alarm was reinforced by a series of suspicious fires in St. Petersburg in the early summer of 1862. 2. Many blamed the radical students. 3. Many considered one man, the radical journalist Nikolai Chernyshevskii, indirectly responsible. 4. In the hope of stopping the movement, Chernyshevskii was arrested in July 1862 and sentenced to prison and exile. III. Chernyshevskii’s ideas were quite influential and can help us understand the motivations and ideas of these students. A. He advocated the usual list of ideals that Russians were beginning to think of as socialism: communal economic forms, equality and emancipation of women, civil rights, and democratic government. B. The philosophical basis of his socialism was “rational egoism.” 1. The “egoism” stemmed from the belief that individual needs and individual happiness must form the basis for all morality and, hence, for society. 2. The “rational egoist” recognizes that everyone must be an egoist—and respects others’ needs as equal to his own. 3. In other words, the “rational egoist” sees that his self-interest lies in the well-being of all humankind and, thus, in cooperation, not competition. C. Thus, Chernyshevskii came to the same conclusions as Belinskii and other Westernizers in placing the individual at the center of concern. 1. But Chernyshevskii treated these ideals as a product of rationalism and utilitarianism, not moralism. 2. However, in many respects, Chernyshevskii and his followers were also inspired by a moral point of view. IV. To deepen this examination of these students, it is useful to consider their manner, style, and behavior. A. In their dress, male and female nihilists deliberately defied convention. B. Their manners were similarly defiant and uninhibited. C. Many young nihilists favored communal living, with, in theory, complete equality between classes and genders. D. Young nihilists were trying to become, following Chernyshevskii’s advice, “new people.” 1. Their efforts were fueled by reasoned thought. 2. However, their vision of change was also fed by moral passion, desire, and imagination. Essential Reading: Franco Venturi, The Roots of Revolution (London, 2001). 6 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Supplementary Reading: Nikolai Chernyshevsky, What Is to Be Done? (Ithaca, 1989). Abbott Gleason, Young Russia: The Genesis of Russian Radicalism in the 1860s (New York, 1980). Irina Paperno, Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism: A Study in the Semiotics of Behavior (Stanford, 1988). Questions to Consider: 1. Did the “nihilists,” as this term was meant to suggest, reject all established beliefs and moral principles? 2. What were student radicals trying to accomplish with their alternative lifestyles? What does it mean to create a “new person”? ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 7 Lecture Fifteen Populists and Marxists Scope: This lecture examines two major intellectual and political movements that emerged in the final decades of the nineteenth century: populism (narodnichestvo) and Marxism. After considering the standard definitions of populism, the lecture looks more deeply at the guiding ideas and values by considering the writings of leading populist thinkers, especially Petr Lavrov, whose works reveal the centrality of moral vision and concern with human welfare and the individual person. The lecture next examines the famous “to the people” movement of the summer of 1874 and responses to its failure, including the rise of terrorism as a political and social strategy. The lecture concludes by considering the early history of Marxism in Russia and the reasons for its emergence as a response to disappointments with populism. Attention is focused on ideas about capitalism and the peasantry and on the deterministic logic of Marxism. I. II. Outline By the 1870s, nihilism gave way to what was termed “populism” (narodnichestvo). A. Populism became the dominant ideology on the Russian left, and even many liberals were influenced by its ideas. B. Populism’s popularity was one of many signs of the continuing and deepening “parting of the ways” between educated society and the monarchical state. What was Russian populism? 8 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership A. B. C. The standard definition runs as follows: 1. Populists were devoted to serving the people. 2. They believed that only socialism would improve the lives of the common people. 3. They believed in Russia’s special historical opportunity to avoid the evils of capitalism. 4. They believed that political changes were secondary to the transformation of social and economic relations. These ideas had a remarkable power for many educated Russians. An example of the ideas that brought many young Russians to feelings of intellectual and sentimental rapture can be found in Petr Lavrov’s Historical Letters. 1. Lavrov was dissatisfied with Hegel, the most popular philosopher of the day, because Hegel did not provide an ideal of morality that might guide practical action. 2. For Lavrov, the principle of lichnost’ (the person, the self) was at the center of his practical philosophysocial relations and politics should promote individual welfare. 3. He also argued that it was the duty of “critically thinking individuals” to act on behalf of society as a whole. 4. Lavrov rejected the materialism and utilitarianism that had been dominant in the 1860s and, like Kant, insisted on the existence of natural moral truths: natural human personal dignity and the necessity of justice. V. V. Bervi-Flerovsky’s The Condition of the Working Class in Russia (1869) impressed people with its brutally frank picture of the sufferings of peasants and urban workers. Nikolai Mikhailovskii’s essay “What Is Progress?” (1870) showed that real progress advances human self- realization, in contrast to harmful capitalist “progress.” This message was reinforced in 1872 by the publication in Russia of the first volume of Karl Marx’s Capital, translated by two populists. None of these works placed any real emphasis on the idea that is usually seen as defining populism: a socialist society based on the peasant commune. D. E. F. G. 1. 2. 3. Censorship was partly to blame. Populism’s more essential concern, though, was a moral obsession with creating a moral society. Indeed, populism could be defined first and foremost as a moral philosophy, out of which emerged its notions of socialism. III. More than earlier dissenting movements, populism demanded practical action in society by critically thinking individuals. A. Populists organized libraries, gave lectures, and ran discussion circles for workers and peasants. B. In 1874, thousands of young people left the cities to “go to the people.” C. The message they carried was simple. 1. All the land should belong to the people, the economy should be organized collectively, and everyone should be free and equal. 2. Sometimes, they simply argued their views directly, openly challenging church, landlord, and tsar. 3. Many took a more indirect approach by translating their ideas into religious terms or telling stories in the style of peasant folktales but reflecting their new morality. D. Peasants had a mixed response. 1. Some individual peasants responded positively. 2. Usually, though, peasants were polite but unmoved. 3. Some peasants reacted with open hostility and handed students over to the police or even beat them up. E. Overall, the movement was a failure, especially in relation to expectations. 1. Peasants refused to believe criticisms against the tsar. 2. Student radicals also had trouble overcoming peasant fatalism and submissiveness. IV. Populists were initially divided over what to do in the wake of the “mad summer” of 1874, though gradually two answers emerged. A. One answer was to deepen educational efforts (“propaganda”). After 1879, this effort was associated with a group called Black Repartition (Chernyi peredel). B. Another answer was terror, which was associated after 1879 with the very popular People’s Will (Narodnaia volia). C. Historians have tried to explain the appeal of terrorism to many Russians at this time. 1. Given that the results of terrorism were obvious, it was a more satisfactory alternative to the fruitless efforts of previous years. 2. It reflected the growing belief that the peasants were ready to rebel. 3. It was a tactically effective way of showing people that the state (even the tsar himself) was not invulnerable. 4. It echoed government violence, especially, draconian punishments for relatively minor offenses. D. In their own statements, terrorists provided all these reasons, as well as suggesting other more deeply grounded motives. 1. Vera Zasulich—who shot the Governor-General of St. Petersburg—claimed that she acted to avenge the beating of a political prisoner she knew. 2. Sergei Kravchinskii, who stabbed to death the St. Petersburg chief of gendarmes, argued that he had to do this because the chief had trampled on the human dignity of others and thought himself above the law. 3. One might ask whether it is too farfetched to suggest that terror was paradoxically an ethical act? V. By the late 1880s and early 1890s, as many populists began to be troubled by the ineffectiveness of their efforts, increasing numbers began to declare themselves to be Marxists. A. This shift began among the exiled leaders of the populist movement. B. In addition, an increasing number of populist study circles began to declare that they were Marxist. C. In 1895, in St. Petersburg, two circles led by Vladimir Lenin and Iulii Martov combined to form “The Petersburg Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class.” 1. They also decided that the educational work of the past was inadequate and terrorism was counterproductive. 2. Their new tactic was known as “agitation.” 3. This led to growing attention among workers, but also police attention and arrests. D. In 1898, a congress in Minsk established the Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 9 E. In 1900, the socialist newspaper Iskra (The Spark) was printed in Europe with networks of party cells in Russia. VI. Why did Marxism have such an appeal among Russian intelligenty? A. A key problem was how to reconcile faith with reality. 1. Populism had taught that Russia could avoid the evils of capitalism, but by the early 1890s, signs of the growth of capitalism were everywhere. 2. Populism also taught that peasants were naturally revolutionary, but the passivity of the peasantry seemed unchanged. B. In addition, the government had effectively destroyed the populist movement by imprisoning or exiling most active revolutionaries. C. In these depressing times, Marxism gave idealistic revolutionaries new reasons to hope. 1. It turned the necessity of recognizing capitalism into a virtue: Capitalism was a necessary stage leading to socialism. 2. Marxism offered new hope for revolution by helping radicals see an alternative revolutionary class: workers 3. There was a certain deterministic logic to Marxism, and many Marxists found this comforting. 4. Others, however, considered this historical determinism too constraining and passive. Essential Reading: Franco Venturi, The Roots of Revolution (London, 2001). Supplementary Reading: Barbara Alpern Engel and Clifford Rosenthal, Five Sisters: Women against the Tsar (Boston, 1987). Leopold Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism (Boston, 1955), chapters 1–3. Peter Lavrov, Historical Letters (Berkeley, 1967). Andrzej Walicki, A History of Russian Thought: From the Enlightenment to Marxism (Stanford, 1979), chapters 12, 13, 18. Questions to Consider: 1. 2. How do Russian populist and later Marxist values and goals differ (or not) from liberal democratic ideals as we know them in the modern West? Why was terrorism known as “propaganda of the deed”? What is the logic behind attempts to justify political violence and murder? 10 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Lecture Sixteen Paths to RevolutionLenin and Martov Scope: This lecture looks closely at the two most influential Marxists: the leader of the Bolsheviks, Vladimir Lenin, and his rival, the leader of the Mensheviks, Iulii Martov. The lecture begins with the split in the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party in 1903 over the question of membership, then explores the significance of these differences. The biographies and personalities of each man are considered—Martov’s democratic and moral faith and Lenin’s political passion and intolerance of moralizing. The lecture then examines different views of two fundamental ideas. The first is democracy, which Martov and Lenin understood quite differently. The second idea is consciousness—how people were seen to develop political understanding. In Martov’s view, we see, Lenin seemed to distrust people as a matter of principle. The implications of these differences are considered. The lecture concludes by looking at Lenin’s more willing embrace of violence. Outline I. In 1903, the recently established Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party—which sought to unite all Russian Marxists—held its second congress (in Western Europe, because the party was illegal). A. The various groups represented at the congress argued vehemently over many important issues, but the question that most divided them and that led to a permanent split in the party concerned the seemingly trivial question of membership. 1. Vladimir Ulianov—whose party nickname was Lenin—wished to limit party membership to active and regular participants in party organizations. 2. Iulii Tsederbaum—who used the name Martov—preferred a more inclusive definition of party member. B. Essential principles were at stake. 1. Lenin wanted a party that only included full-time revolutionariesa vanguardfollowing strict party discipline. 2. Martov favored an open, mass party. 3. Lenin lost the vote on this question but held a slight majority when electing the party leaders. II. Especially in his passion for justice, Martov was part of a tradition reaching well back in the history of the intelligentsia. A. Martov grew up as a Jew in Odessa in the 1870s and 1880s. 1. These were difficult times to be Jewish in Russia. 2. These years saw intense discrimination, as well as periodic anti-Jewish violence. B. Martov’s parents were relatively educated and liberal. C. In high school, Martov became obsessed with social, political, and moral questions. 1. The conservative curriculum provided few answers. 2. He sought truth elsewhere. D. In the 1880s, his family moved to St. Petersburg, where he became involved in the student movement. E. In time, he turned to Marxism. 1. This meant faith in the proletarian and in the natural course of history. 2. No less important, Martov was inspired by a vision of an end to inequality, injustice, and suffering. III. Lenin (Ulianov) was a quite different individual. A. In his early youth, Lenin was generally uninterested in political or social questions. 1. His father was a loyal provincial bureaucrat with vaguely liberal ideals. 2. The event that awakened Lenin to politics was the arrest, conviction, and public hanging of his older brother, Alexander, on charges of plotting the tsar’s execution as a member of the People’s Will. 3. Young Vladimir Ulianov was shocked and angered and began seeking to understand what motivated his brother. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 11 4. In time, he decided that he, too, would become a revolutionary. B. People who knew Lenin were impressed by his intense passions. 1. He loved hunting and could spend a whole day racing through the woods in search of game. 2. He was obsessed with chess, which he could play from morning to night. 3. He was notoriously passionate about skating and mushroom collecting. 4. But most of all, he “raged” about politics. C. An early example of Lenin’s intense style is his polemic against the populists. 1. In part, he offered the standard Marxist critique of the populist faith that capitalism could be avoided in Russia. 2. But Lenin also made it clear that he despised the political moralizing so common to populist socialism. IV. Consider Lenin’s and Martov’s different notions of democracy—a term that dissenting Russians, from liberals to socialists, claimed to support. A. Martov was attracted to Marxism precisely for its democratic promise. 1. He believed in the value of political representation and civil freedoms as natural rights rooted in recognition of human dignity. 2. Martov also believed that this political democracy would need to be supplemented by social democracy. B. Lenin shared this embrace of social democracy, but he had a quite different view of political democracy. 1. He did not value political freedom and rights for their own sake. 2. For Lenin, political democracy had mainly an instrumental value. 3. He considered political democracy to be valuable as a situational and utilitarian value not as a universal and moral value. 4. One expression of this was his almost visceral hatred of liberals and liberalism. V. Related to these ideas about democracy is the more complex question of “consciousness”—how ordinary people came to recognize that their interests lay in struggle against autocracy and capitalism. 12 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership A. B. C. D. E. F. Martov believed strongly in what might be called the consciousness-raising benefits of experience itself. 1. Everything about workers’ lives would lead them toward class consciousness and belief in socialism. 2. Workers needed organizational help and political education, but Martov had confidence in workers’ natural political evolution. 3. We see this view in practice during moments of upheaval, such as the 1905 revolution, when Mensheviks actively supported workers’ strikes and unions. Lenin was less sanguine about workers’ experience. 1. Lenin was deeply suspicious of the results of workers’ learning from experience alone (“spontaneity”). 2. As he argued in his “What Is to Be Done” (1902), workers, left to themselves, will never be able to see beyond the economic struggle and to understand that their interests lie in overthrowing the existing social system. The implications of Lenin’s views were considerable. 1. This logic led Lenin to insist that workers (as a class) not be allowed to lead their own movement. 2. The vanguard party, whose members were full-time revolutionaries, would provide the leadership role. 3. The idea that the party was the embodiment of the consciousness that the masses lacked was expressed symbolically in the title the Bolsheviks chose for their newspaper in 1912: Pravda (Truth). By contrast, the Mensheviks named their paper Rabochaia gazeta (Workers’ Paper). Martov had a simple and blunt view of Lenin’s ideas about consciousness and spontaneity: Lenin “did not trust people.” Another explanation focuses on the influence of the populists, who believed in the creative power of individuals to change history The heritage of the terrorist People’s Will was also evident in another typical aspect of Leninism. 1. 2. 3. Lenin and the Bolsheviks liked to portray themselves as tough-minded and “hard.” In turn, Lenin liked to portray the Mensheviks as “soft” and lacking in revolutionary spirit. After 1917, this willingness to use “plebian measures” would lead to some rather brutal policies. Essential Reading: Robert Service, Lenin: A Biography (Cambridge, 2000). Supplementary Reading: Israel Getzler, Martov: A Political Biography of a Russian Social Democrat (Cambridge, England, 1967). Leopold Haimson, The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism (Boston, 1955). Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Lenin Anthology (New York, 1975), part 1. Questions to Consider: 1. How did Lenin and Martov differently value liberal democratic goals, such as free speech, freedom of assembly and organization, and democratic elections? 2. Why did Lenin so distrust “spontaneity”? ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 13 Lecture Seventeen Lev Tolstoy Scope: This lecture looks at one of the most remarkable men in modern Russian life, notable both as a famous writer and as a public voice of morality and conscience. It considers the stages of his life: privileged and dissipated aristocrat, celebrated novelist, and religious and moral prophet. To understand the connections among these stages, the lecture explores Tolstoy’s search for the meaning of life and for a morality that could guide both personal life and that of his country and the world. Tolstoy’s preoccupation, in his life and his writings, with self-perfection and the search for truth is examined. Next, the lecture looks at his pursuit of simplicity and a natural life and considers his critique of individualism. Finally, the lecture examines his religious views, which resulted in his excommunication. The lecture concludes by looking at Tolstoy’s continual uncertainties and his final abandonment of home and family and tragic death on the road. Outline I. Both idolized as a saint and reviled as a false prophet, Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy (1828–1910) was a great literary figure, as well as a major voice in Russia’s public life. A. Russians have traditionally believed that writers should do more than entertain; they should also speak the truth and serve as witnesses to good and evil in the world. B. But even in this tradition, Tolstoy was unique, as no other Russian writer generated a civic movement that took his name. C. In many respects, Tolstoy’s life seemed to echo some of the hagiographic traditions in Russia of a saint’s life. II. Superficially, Tolstoy’s life seems to have had three major periods. A. The first is a youth filled with privilege and typical aristocratic dissipation. 1. Tolstoy was born in 1828 into a wealthy family of hereditary landed aristocrats. 2. His early life was fairly typical of his class: He was educated at the family estate of Iasnaia poliana, then attended Kazan University for three years before dropping out and returning to his estates in 1847. 3. During the next few years, he led a rather dissipated life in Moscow and Petersburg. 4. In 1851, Tolstoy joined the army as an officer and fought in the Crimean War, though he also began to write fiction. 5. In 1856, he quit the army to devote himself to writing. B. The second period of Tolstoy’s life was that of the great novelist, the author of War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and other famous works. C. The third period of his life seems quite different from the first two. 1. Around 1878, Tolstoy experienced a religious crisis that resulted in his “conversion” to a truer Christianity. 2. In his own everyday life, he tried to exemplify the ideals of simplicity and nonviolence. 3. During the final years of his life, he considered becoming a hermit or a pilgrim. 4. In 1910, he fled his estate, his family, and the world, dying while on the road. III. This simple story focuses on the external aspects of Tolstoy’s life and exaggerates the breaks in his life. The deeper story is more complicated. 14 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership A. B. Tolstoy was obsessed with self-perfection and the search for truth during most of his life. 1. We see this, for example, already in the 1840s, in the preoccupation with self-perfection in his diary. 2. His diaries are also filled with rules. Tolstoy’s search for self-understanding and moral perfection pervaded his literary works, as well. 1. In his first major literary publication, the trilogy Childhood, Boyhood, Youth, Tolstoy psychologically analyzed his own developing consciousness. 2. In the major work of his middle period, War and Peace (first draft completed in 1869), the themes of self-examination and self-perfection are even more evident. 3. Several characters in War and Peace undertake journeys of self-discovery, notably the most autobiographical figure, Pierre Bezukhov. 4. At the end of his psychological and moral journey, Bezukhov meets the peasant Platon Karataev, who exemplifies many of the principles of life that Tolstoy would embrace in the 1880s. 5. Nevertheless, Bezukhov remains uncertain about whether he has found the truth. IV. From very early on, Tolstoy idealized simplicity. A. He strongly believed that human beings were born innocent but were ruined by the institutions of civilization. 1. Western education, he argued, ruined people’s natural innocence by blinding them to the deepest truths. 2. But these truths can be perceived by those whose innocence is still intact (children and peasants). B. Tolstoy’s educational efforts on his own estate were connected to these ideas. 1. He organized a school for peasant boys where basic skills were taught. 2. But he also sought to preserve children’s natural intelligence and will to learn, as well as their naturally harmonious relations with nature and other people. C. These ideas are visible in most of Tolstoy’s work. V. Another major theme in Tolstoy’s writing is his advocacy of the need for self-renunciation, his anti- individualism. A. Most of Tolstoy’s great novels make a case against the autonomous individual. B. In War and Peace, Tolstoy tries to demonstrate that even “great men,” such as Napoleon, are powerless to affect the movement of history. C. In Anna Karenina, Anna’s two selves engage in an ultimately tragic struggle that leaves her with nothing but her individuality, which leads her to commit suicide. VI. Tolstoy’s many ideas led him to think in new ways about religion, for which the Russian Orthodox Church excommunicated him in 1901. A. For Tolstoy, official Christianity was deeply flawed. 1. It masked, crushed, and perverted the real meanings of life. 2. In his view, the universal truths that were at the heart of Christianity were hidden behind ritual and mysticism. B. Tolstoy argued that the real greatness of Jesus Christ was that he could see through the falsehoods of civilization. C. The whole of true Christianity, for Tolstoy, was expressed in the Sermon on the Mount, which instructs people to refrain from actions that their nature tells them are wrong. D. Inspired by this ethical reading of Christianity, Tolstoy rejected much that the established Orthodox Church held sacred. 1. He rejected most of the theology of the church. 2. He rejected the need for priests, sacraments, and liturgy. 3. He even began rewriting the Gospels to remove everything that was mystical and supernatural. VII. Uncertainty, doubt, and contradiction remained in Tolstoy’s thought A. His arguments were often contradictory. 1. Although he famously argued for quietism (nonresistance to evil), he also insisted that evil must be criticized and fought. 2. He combined a belief in learning from the simple people with the conviction that they must be taught to see the truth. 3. He combined a belief in natural absolute truths with recognition that their verity could never be demonstrated. 4. He believed in faith but disdained blind unquestioning faith. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 15 B. Tolstoy never stopped asking questions and struggling to find certainty. 1. In the end, the uncertainty that plagued him led to his final tragic journey. 2. Yet the heart of his genius lay in his uncertainty and contradictions. Essential Reading: Henri Troyat, Tolstoy (New York, 1967). Isaiah Berlin, “The Hedgehog and the Fox” and “Tolstoy and Enlightenment,” in Russian Thinkers (New York, 1995). Supplementary Reading: Lev Tolstoy, Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth; War and Peace; Anna Karenina; Resurrection. Questions to Consider: 1. 2. What did Tolstoy mean when he argued that children and peasants were closest to understanding the greatest truths? Can we see in Tolstoy’s great novels the roots of his later religious and moral advocacy? 16 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Lecture Eighteen The Reign of Alexander III Scope: This lecture examines policies and ideas during the reign of Alexander III. It begins with a look at Alexander III’s “counter-reforms,” especially his efforts to limit civic liberalization, but also at his efforts to stimulate economic progress. To understand the ideas motivating policy, the lecture examines Alexander’s efforts to revive traditional forms and return to the past, evident in his personal style, the construction of old Russian-style churches, and the articulation of a political philosophy of personal autocracy. The lecture suggests that behind the image of political confidence and certainty lay anxieties about the dangers of the modern world. We then turn to a discussion of the outlook and ideas of Alexander’s closest adviser, Konstantin Pobedonostsev. His personal and political influence is described, along with his conservative ideology: his critique of all constitutional or legal limitations on the monarch and his critique of the Great Reforms. The lecture next looks at Pobedonostsev’s pessimistic views of existence and his philosophical distrust of human beings. His views of family, Church, and the autocratic state as the only hope for Russia are considered. Outline I. The reign of Alexander III (ruled 1881–1894) has often been described as an “era of reaction.” A. To be fair, Alexander III was not entirely opposed to all change and reform. 1. Like all Russian rulers, he recognized the need for national progress to maintain and develop the strength of the nation and the state. 2. The reforms during his reign were almost entirely economic, including a peasants’ land bank, a gentry land bank, the abolition of the head tax, and efforts to stimulate industrial growth and modernization. B. But these positive reforms were overshadowed by the so-called counter-reforms. 1. The most important of these were the “Temporary Regulations” of 1881, which created conditions of virtual martial law. 2. The censorship code was strengthened to prevent and punish dissent. 3. University autonomy was ended in 1884. 4. To increase bureaucratic control over the zemstvos and the peasant communes, state-appointed “land captains” were introduced in 1889. 5. During the early 1890s, the government increased central control over the zemstvos. 6. Bureaucratic control over the municipal governments was also increased. 7. An aggressive policy of Russification and discrimination against national minorities (especially Jews) was enforced. II. Alexander III was engaged in a radical project: to save Russia from disorder by turning away from the path of continual Westernization laid down by so many of his predecessors. A. We see this turn to the Russian past even in Alexander’s visual appearance. B. Another symbolically important way Alexander sought to recall Russia’s ancient traditions was by constructing an intensely Muscovite-style church on the spot where his father, Alexander II, had been assassinated by a terrorist’s bomb. C. But Alexander’s turn to the past was most explicitly visible in his political beliefs. 1. Alexander believed deeply in the benefits of strong power. 2. The “Temporary Regulations” of 1881 exemplified this; they allowed the tsar to freely appoint governors with “extraordinary” discretionary power and gave state authorities a virtually free hand to punish dissent. 3. Minister of Finance Sergei Witte described Alexander as a “mountain of stone,” recalling the classic ideal of the groznyi tsar. 4. But Alexander also sought the stance of a traditional tishaishii tsar, as was visible in his religious faith, which he considered central to Russianness. D. Although Alexander exuded calm, imperturbable confidence, there is reason to think that his desire to turn Russia toward the past and away from reform also reflected fear and foreboding about change. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 17 E. One sign of these anxieties was a remarkable turning away from public life in ruling circles. III. His closest adviser, Konstantin Pobedonostsev (1827–1907), provides one indication of these doubts and anxieties. A. During the final decades of tsarist rule, Pobedonostsev was one of the most powerful and influential intellectuals in Russia. 1. From 1880 to 1905, he was Chief Procurator (lay director) of the Holy Synod of the Russian Orthodox Church. 2. He also directly influenced the thinking of Russia’s last two tsars, serving as their tutor when they were young and as adviser when they were in power. B. Pobedonostsev opposed any constitutional or legal limitations on the power of the monarch. 1. The tone with which he condemned constitutionalism is as revealing as the fact itself. 2. In 1881, when Alexander III first came to power, Pobedonostsev shocked many ministers by condemning even the modestly liberal reforms of Alexander II. 3. One minister declared Pobedonostsev’s arguments to be “a negation of all that is at the foundation of European civilization.” 4. Philosophically, Pobedonostsev did indeed reject the main philosophical value of the European Enlightenment: the belief in reason. C. But more than philosophy lay behind Pobedonostsev’s conservatism. A primary motive for Pobedonostsev was fear: fear of modernity, fear of people, fear about the future. 1. Pobedonostsev’s outlook on life was pessimistic and misanthropic. 2. Like most nineteenth-century conservatives, Pobedonostsev had a dismal view of humanity. 3. Given these convictions about human nature, his view of the future encompassed only misery and error. D. Pobedonostsev saw only three institutions that might save Russia in these conditions: the family, the Orthodox Church, and the state. 1. For Pobedonostsev, the family’s job was to repress children’s evil instincts by teaching obedience. 2. The Church was expected to teach obedience and to provide the spiritual and ideological cement to hold society together and ensure stability. 3. The autocratic state was of the greatest importance, because it embodied the truth that men, not laws, must rule. 4. This was not a confident ideology. Although it emerged from a faith in tradition, it also arose from emotional and philosophical fear about the future and loathing for human nature. Essential Reading: Hans Rogger, Russia in the Age of Modernization and Revolution, 1881–1917 (London and New York, 1983), chapters 1–6. Supplementary Reading: Robert Byrnes, Pobedonostsev: His Life and Thought (Bloomington, 1968). Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Reflections of a Russian Statesman (Ann Arbor, 1965). Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power (Princeton, 2000), vol. 2, chapters 5–8. Questions to Consider: 1. 2. What are the underlying ideas and purposes motivating Alexander III’s “counter-reforms”? Why was Pobedonostsev so vehemently opposed to any legal limitations on the authority of the monarch? 18 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Lecture Nineteen Nicholas II, the Last Tsar Scope: This lecture focuses on the personality, values, and ideas of Russia’s last monarch. Notwithstanding arguments that Nicholas had no interest in governance or ideas about rulership, the lecture explores his essential political philosophy. First, the lecture explores Nicholas II’s embrace of the tradition of autocratic authoritarianism, especially as reflected in his obsessions (personal and political) with order and discipline and in his love of military culture. Next, the lecture looks at Nicholas as tishaishii tsar: his public ritual enactments of the ideal of the tsar as united in love and harmony with his people and his deep religious belief that God acted through him. His relationship with Rasputin is viewed in the light of these beliefs and ideals. The lecture concludes with Nicholas II’s fatalism and the relationship of his values and ideals to his eventual fall. Outline I. To speak honestly and fairly about Nicholas II (ruled 1896–1917) is a difficult task. A. Nicholas II has often been described as a weak ruler, who focused more on family than politics. B. He has also been depicted as a narrow-minded tyrant who ruthlessly held onto power in an age of social change and rising democracy. C. Due to his brutal execution, along with his family, in the middle of the night in 1918, he has been portrayed him as a tragic figure, a martyr, even a saint. D. To avoid these simplifications and clichés, we need to try to understand Nicholas on his own terms, to explore his own ways of thinking about life and politics. E. Nicholas drew upon two large political-cultural traditions in formulating his ideas about rule. 1. The first of these sees the ruler as “awesome” in power and might—the tradition of the groznyi tsar. 2. The second mythic ideal sees the ruler as a sacred and divine figure, loving and conciliatory, who seeks unity with his people—the tradition of the tishaishii tsar. II. Like his father, Nicholas II was strongly attracted to the groznyi traditions of order and might. A. He was obsessed with order, regularity, and discipline. 1. His diary provides a documentary account of this ideal. 2. Nicholas tried to imbue his life with order: self-discipline, neatness, systematization. Anna Vyrubova, lady-in-waiting to his wife, described Nicholas as “the tidiest, most systematic of men.” 3. His deep attraction to military culture arose from this love of order. 4. Rituals of tradition, order, discipline, and military might provided Nicholas with a sense of “calm” and “pleasure” that he found deeply meaningful personally. B. These are matters of personality and personal values, but they also shaped Nicholas’s ideas about society and politics. 1. In his view, all people should be guided by the virtues of self-discipline, orderliness, and regularity. 2. He believed strongly that the autocratic order was the key to Russia’s might and stability and its progress and virtue as a nation. 3. His persistent rejection of appeals for political freedom and democracy reflected these views. III. But Nicholas also embraced the Russian tradition of the tishaishii tsar, of the tsar-batiushka (tsar-father). A. Nicholas II devoted much effort to expressing this ideal in publicly visible ways, and found in these public rituals confirmation of his faith. 1. In 1900, Nicholas started a new tradition of regularly celebrating Easter with his family in Moscow’s ancient Kremlin churches and cathedrals. 2. He often observed and admired peasants’ devotion to him as he traveled the country. 3. During Nicholas’s tour of the heartland to celebrate the tercentenary of the Romanov dynasty in 1913, he was deeply moved by what he viewed as signs of popular love of the autocracy. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 19 4. The demonstrations on Palace Square at the beginning of World War I similarly impressed him with the people’s devotion. 5. Reflecting this faith in the union of ruler and people, Alexandra and her elder daughters served as nurses during the war. 6. Certain that his charismatic presence would inspire his people to victory, Nicholas assumed personal command of the army in 1915. B. Nicholas believed deeply in the divine source of his authority. 1. He was certain that God literally spoke and acted through him. 2. Nicholas found ever-increasing comfort in religious practice and faith. 3. Nicholas and Alexandra’s famous attraction to Grigorii Rasputin was connected to this faith. IV. Many of these stories about Nicholas as man and ruler may seem admirable and even charming, but they also form an essential part of the story of Nicholas’s fall from power. A. Many factors contributed to the overthrow of the tsarist order in 1917. 1. The devastating war with Germany and Austria was a major cause. 2. No less important were the growing desires in society for democratic change and social reform. 3. Meanwhile, the autocracy was retreating into an intractable faith in Russia’s ancient (and archaic) political ideal of a mystical bond between absolute tsar and loving people. B. Nicholas’s deep fatalism also contributed to his downfall. 1. For Nicholas, everything was ultimately God’s will. 2. This belief formed a leitmotif throughout his life: when he assumed the throne, when people were trampled to death during celebrations of his coronation in Moscow in 1896, during the revolutionary upheavals of 1905, and in 1917, when he was forced from power and Romanov rule ended. Essential Reading: Dominic Lieven, Nicholas II (New York, 1994). Supplementary Reading: Mark D. Steinberg and Vladimir Khrustalev, The Fall of the Romanovs: Political Dreams and Personal Struggles in a Time of Revolution (New Haven, 1995). Andrew Verner, The Crisis of Russian Autocracy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution (Princeton, 1990). Richard Wortman, Scenarios of Power (Princeton, 2000), vol. 2, chapters 9–15. Questions to Consider: 1. 2. In the face of the steady modernization of Russian life, why did Nicholas II hold so firmly to the old traditions of autocratic authoritarianism and patriarchalism? Do you agree with the suggestion that one of the reasons the monarchy fell was Nicholas II’s insistence on preserving traditional forms of authority? Could his vision of authority have been compatible with a modern society? 20 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Lecture Twenty The Revolution of 1905 Scope: This lecture describes a key event in modern Russian history: the strikes, demonstrations, and public demands that the tsarist government accept civil rights and democratic rule in Russia. The lecture begins by exploring the growing liberal movement and its programs. Next, the growth of a socialist movement is described, as are the discontents of workers and peasants. The Russo-Japanese war and the government’s “political spring” of 1904 are viewed as stimulants to protest. The key events of the year are examined: Bloody Sunday, the upsurge in strikes and demands, the October general strike, the October manifesto, and the continuing but weakening protests that followed. The lecture concludes by considering the shape and meaning of the government’s reforms as these were elaborated in the following years. Outline I. In 1905, the autocracy confronted its greatest political challenge to date: a massive social and political revolution that was the most dramatic sign yet of the steady growth of opposition to traditional autocracy. A. Particularly important was the rise of liberalism since the turn of the century. 1. Liberal ideas in Russia can be traced back to the late eighteenth century. 2. Most liberals agreed on a common program: civil rights, rule of law, “four-tail” suffrage (universal, equal, direct, secret), parliamentary government, local self-government, and social reforms. B. Socialists were also becoming more organized. 1. The Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party was growing. 2. The populist Socialist Revolutionary (SR) party arose in 1901. 3. Like the populists before them, the SRs had two faces: propaganda, which focused on education and organization, and terrorism. C. Discontent was increasing among peasants, who were unhappy with the settlement of the land issue and with their poverty. D. Dissatisfaction among the growing class of urban workers was on the rise. 1. Workers’ material situation in the city was often horrible. 2. But more was at stake than material change: As workers were exposed to new ideas and to the inequalities of city life, ideas about a more just society began to develop. 3. Since the 1890s, the strike movement had been growing, and workers were increasingly responsive to appeals by radicals. II. Into this increasingly dangerous situation entered two potentially explosive elements: war and reform. A. In early 1904, Japan, not without provocation, launched a war with Russia over control of Korea and Manchuria, during which Russia suffered a series of humiliating defeats. B. The government made another attempt at reform. 1. In August 1904, Socialist Revolutionaries assassinated one of the most reactionary men in the government: the Minister of Internal Affairs, Viacheslav von Plehve. 2. He was replaced by the relatively liberal Prince Dmitrii Sviatopolk-Mirskii, who initiated what came to be called a “political spring.” C. His initial steps, and promises of greater reform, encouraged more protest, first of all among liberals. 1. At meetings in various organizations, resolutions were passed calling for political reform. 2. The Union of Liberation staged a massive “banquet campaign.” 3. Liberal demands were much the same as they had been in the past: civil liberties, equality of citizens before the law, more local self-government, and an elected national assembly. D. This liberal campaign might have died out or been easily crushed by the government had it not been for the movement of workers and students in the streets, provoked by the shooting of workers bringing a petition to the Winter Palace on January 9, 1905 (“Bloody Sunday”). 1. In 1901, hoping to lead workers away from the radicals, the government established special legal labor organizations under the control of the secret police (the Okhrana). ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 21 2. A priest and police-agent named Georgii Gapon established one of these organizations in St. Petersburg in 1904. 3. In December 1904, Gapon’s organization decided to organize a massive march to convey workers’ grievances to the tsar himself. 4. On January 9, 1905, Father Gapon led tens of thousands of workers carrying pictures of the tsar, icons, and church banners in a march to the Winter Palace with a petition for Nicholas II. 5. The crowd was met by troops with orders to fire on the crowds approaching the palace. III. Bloody Sunday marked the beginning of the revolution. A. In the following weeks, everything the government had long feared came to pass: a mass strike movement, the rise of unions and soviets, endless demonstrations, growing political opposition. B. To calm the massive unrest that followed Bloody Sunday, the government granted mild concessions. 1. In February, Nicholas II promised to establish a consultative assembly—a Duma. 2. But unrest continued because most people wanted real legislative power and guaranteed civil rights. C. In early October, a massive general strike occurred. The political demands were the same everywhere: complete civil liberties and a constituent assembly to establish a new constitutional order. D. Although Nicholas later regretted his weakness, he made a further concession and signed the October Manifesto on October 17. 1. For the first time in Russian history, all Russians were guaranteed civil liberties and a Duma with legislative powers was promised. 2. Russia was to become a constitutional monarchy. E. Yet many in society still desired more (or did not trust the government’s promises). 1. Many workers and socialists condemned the Manifesto as inadequate and continued to protest. 2. Students continued to refuse to attend classes. 3. Soldiers and sailors occasionally rebelled. 4. In the border areas of the empire, national groups began to demand independence. 5. Peasants began to seize land. F. Many liberals found this popular movement frightening, splitting the united social front for democracy that had existed until then. 1. Some liberals shared the view that the Manifesto granted too little and too late. 2. More moderate liberals felt that the Manifesto had gone far enough and feared that further opposition would encourage dangerous social unrest. IV. Details of the promised political reforms were announced during 1906. A. These reforms represented a major attempt to include people in the formulation of policy. 1. Political parties were legalized. 2. Russian men from all classes were to be allowed to participate in elections to the Duma. 3. The Duma itself was given legislative authority. B. But the new Duma proved to be a frustrating reminder of the autocracy’s unwillingness to accept real political reform. 1. Voting laws were skewed in favor of classes the government considered most trustworthy: landowners and peasants. 2. The Duma’s legislative power was severely restricted. 3. The Duma’s competence was limited. C. The Duma continued to offer people a public voice and even some real power, but also to whet people’s appetites for true representation. D. Partial social reforms left workers and peasants dissatisfied. Essential Reading: Abraham Ascher, The Russian Revolution of 1905 (Stanford, 1988 and 1992), 2 volumes. 22 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership Supplementary Reading: Gerald Surh, 1905 in St. Petersburg (Stanford, 1989). Laura Engelstein, Moscow, 1905 (Stanford, 1982). Questions to Consider: 1. Compare Nicholas II’s vision of the political relationship that ought to exist between government and people and the models articulated by liberals, students, worker protesters, and others during the 1905 revolution. 2. Did the Russian state become a constitutional monarchy after October 1905? ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 23 Lecture Twenty-One Peasant Life and Culture Scope: This lecture discusses the experiences, values, and ambitions of Russian peasants—the vast majority of the population—in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The lecture begins by considering common images of the Russian common people—as idealized embodiments of the moral and spiritual genius of the Russian nation or as backward savages. To understand the actual lives and cultural world of Russian peasants, the lecture focuses on several key themes. First, it looks at traditions of community in peasant life, especially as concerned with agriculture and law and order. Next, the lecture explores peasant religious traditions as means of understanding and coping with the world: the veneration of icons but also older traditions and the syncretism of Christian and pre-Christian forms. Peasant “land hunger” is next considered. Finally, the lecture explores signs of cultural change in the village: the growth of literacy and reading and the impact of migration to the cities. Outline I. Educated Russians were preoccupied with the Russian common folk, the narod. A. In Russia, from the late eighteenth century until at least the 1940s, to talk about the narod was to talk about Russia as a nation (part of the meaning of the word). B. Two large general images of the narod predominated. 1. In one image, the peasants embodied all the qualities that gave Russia its particular moral and spiritual greatness: egalitarianism, closeness to nature, folk wisdom, spirituality, personal dignity. 2. In the other image, the peasant is a dark savage, backward and ignorant. C. These images are parts of peasant reality, but a complete picture requires that we consider peasants from their own point of view, that we explore their values and ways of seeing the world. II. In certain areas of peasant life, traditional forms and values seemed especially strong. A. The idea of community was central to the way peasants looked at the world. 1. In all traditional villages, many important decisions continued to be made by an assembly composed of the heads of households within the “commune.” 2. The village commune enforced community moral norms and social order. 3. Individuals were less important than the community and its norms, and infractions of these norms were punished by public humiliation. 4. Peasants understood that this sense of community would help them survive in a harsh world. B. Religion was another important aspect of the peasants’ worldview. 1. Religion helped peasants understand and cope with a harsh world. 2. Although Russian peasants were Christians (mostly Eastern Orthodox but also Old Believers and members of schismatic “sects”), their Orthodoxy had its own forms, emphases, and adaptations. 3. Peasants saw the world as a place filled with powerful spirits and forces for both good and evil, but they also believed that they could understand and influence their world. 4. Icons were central to the life of Orthodox peasants as means of appealing to saints, Christ, and Mary for help. 5. Magic rites and incantations, holy water, and prayer supplemented the power of icons to heal and cure. 6. Peasants also turned to priests and monks, as well as wandering holy men, sorcerers, and magic healers. 7. Thus, for Russian peasants, religion was a rich combination of Christianity and older mystical and magical traditions. III. Discontent was also prevalent among the post-emancipation peasantry. 24 ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership A. B. Peasants were increasingly preoccupied with the need for more land. This “land hunger” arose from a number of factors. 1. 2. The emancipation gave peasants only part of the land they had formerly worked. Enormous growth in population had reduced the amount of land each family possessed. 3. Peasants also felt the need for more land because of the low productivity of the land they worked, which was caused by poor soil and a short growing season, the backwardness of the peasant economy, and the inefficiencies of communal agriculture. 4. Peasants believed that by right, the land should belong to those who work it. C. Had economic conditions for the peasants improved, it is possible that the dream of getting all the land might have fadedbut poverty kept these dreams alive. IV. Peasants were not living in an unchanging world aparton the contrary, their lives were entwined with the larger world and changed dramatically during the second half of the nineteenth century and the early twentieth century. A. Schools proliferated. B. Literacy rose. C. The number of publications directed at common people increased significantly. 1. Numerous cheap newspapers and illustrated magazines reached common readers. 2. Many books, from science to adventure stories, also appeared. D. Many peasants (especially young men) left the countryside to go to work in the growing industrial cities. 1. Their lives in the cities encouraged new tastes that they often carried back to the village. 2. They also began to acquire (or at least to covet) material possessions. E. The 1. The value they placed on community competed with the idea of individual assertiveness. 2. Strong moral values existed alongside brutality. 3. Awe before a world filled with magical power vied with the peasants’ sense of their own power to cope or, perhaps, even to prosper. 4. An acceptance of suffering coexisted with dreams of change. Essential Reading: Olga Semyonova Tian-Shanskaia, Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia (Bloomington, 1993). Supplementary Reading: Jeffrey Burds, Peasant Dreams and Market Politics: Labor Migration and the Russian Village, 1861–1905 (Pittsburgh, 1998). Barbara Alpern Engel, Between the Fields and the City: Women, Work, and Family in Russia, 1861–1914 (Cambridge, England, 1995). Stephen Frank, Crime, Cultural Conflict, and Justice in Rural Russia, 1856–1914 (Berkeley, 1999). Stephen Frank and Mark Steinberg, eds., Cultures in Flux: Lower-Class Values, Practices, and Resistance in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton, 1994), introduction, chapters 1–5. Christine Worobec, Peasant Russia (DeKalb, 1995). Questions to Consider: 1. How can one explain the combination in peasant religion of Christian and pre-Christian traditions? Is this merely, as some have argued, the veneer of Christianity over essential paganism? Can we understand this combination more deeply from peasants’ own point of view? 2. How would you describe the peasant ideal of a good life? peasants’ mental world was complex, contradictory, and in flux. ©2002 The Teaching Company Limited Partnership 25 Lecture Twenty-Two The Modern City and Its Discontents Scope: This lecture shifts attention to urban life and change from the 1890s to the eve of World War I. It begins by exploring the evidence of a flourishing public sphere: periodical press and book publication, voluntary associations, and sites of public entertainment. Paralleling this positive face of urban modernity was a darker side. Using stories in the popular press, we look at evidence of personal danger in the modern city, uncertain identities, hooliganism, murder, and suicide, and how these were interpreted. Next, the lecture examines modern urban life from the perspective of an urban worker. In particular, we focus on workers’ words: collective demands, memoirs and published essays, even poetry. At the center of much of this writing, we see, is concern with the individual personality and its fate in the modern city. Outline I. The idea of a public sphere is useful for understanding the development of urban life at the turn of the century and after. A. A public sphere is a social space between private life and the life of the state. 1. It is generally organized around various institutions. 2. People can participate in public life freely without repression or coercion. 3. It is a space where public opinions take shape and are expressed. 4. Many would argue that the public sphere is the essential foundation for a democratic society. B. Such a public sphere was flourishing in Russian cities in the late 1880s and especially after 1905. 1. The steady growth of the press in Russia contributed to this trend. 2. Voluntary civic organizations formed, including charities, service organizations, and business and professional societies. 3. There were also various forms of public entertainment where a diverse public could gather. C. Of course, none of this existed without some measure of resistance by the state. II. Modernity and a thriving public life created a city filled with opportunity, excitement, and possibility, but this was A. B. C. III. The A. also a landscape filled with danger and difficulties. Newspapers in such cities as Petersburg or Moscow provided much evidence that Russian life was moving in a healthy direction. 1. Stories about the spread of scientific knowledge and technical know-how appeared. 2. Tales of entrepreneurial success and of individual upward mobility were also published. 3. Other writers reported on the increasing role of AGRICULTURE Agrarian Party of Russia Agrarian Reforms Agriculture Babi Bunty Black Earth Chayanov, Alexander Vasilievich Collective Farm Collectivization of Agriculture Committees of the Village Poor Famine of 1891–1892 Famine of 1921–1922 Famine of 1932–1933 Famine of 1946 Food Goods Famine Grain Crisis of 1928 Grain Trade Kulaks Land Tenure, Soviet and Post-Soviet OUTLINE OF CONTENTS This topical outline was compiled by the editors to provide a general overview of the conceptual scheme of the Encyclopedia of Russian History. lxxxi OUTLINE OF CONTENTS Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich Machine Tractor Stations Moscow Agricultural Society Peasant Economy Peasantry Prodnalog Prodrazverstka Smychka Sovkhoz Three-Field System Twenty-Five Thousanders Virgin Lands Program Zagotovka ARCHITECTURE Banking System, Tsarist Barshchina Barsov, Alexander Alexandrovich Beard Tax Bednyaki Black Market Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich Bureaucracy, Economic Capitalism Caviar Central Bank of Russia Central Statistical Agency Chayanov, Alexander Vasilievich Chervonets Collective Farm Collectivization of Agriculture Command Administrative Economy Commanding Heights of the Economy Committee for the Management of the National Economy Communism Control Figures Cooperatives, Law on Cooperative Societies Corporation, Russian Council for Mutual Economic Assistance Crony Capitalism Decree on Land Denga Developed Socialism Dialectical Materialism Economic Growth, Extensive Economic Growth, Imperial Economic Growth, Intensive Economic Growth, Soviet Economic Reform Commission Economism Economy, Soviet and Post-Soviet Economy, Tsarist Edinonachalie Electricity Grid Enserfment Enterprise, Soviet Federal Property Fund Five-Hundred-Day Plan Five-Year Plans Foreign Dept Foreign Trade Free Economic Society Full Economic Accounting Funded Commodities Geneticists Gigantomania GKOs Admiralty Architecture Cathedral of Cathedral of Cathedral of Cathedral of Cathedral of Cathedral of Caves Monastery Gatchina Kirill-Beloozero Monastery Kremlin Christ the Savior St. Basil St. Sophia, Kiev St. Sophia, Novgorod the Archangel the Dormition Makary, Metropolitan Melnikov, Konstantin Stepanovich Museum, Hermitage Nationalism in the Arts Neoclassicism Peter and Paul Fortress Rastrelli, Bartolomeo Red Square Simonov Monastery Solovki Monastery Tithe Church, Kiev Tsarskoye Selo Winter Palace ECONOMICS Aeroflot Agriculture Alcohol Monopoly Altyn Apparat Assortment Plans Banking System, Soviet lxxxii ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY Glavki Gold Standard Goods Famine Gosbank Goskomstat Gosplan Grain Crisis of 1928 Grain Trade Grivna GUM Hard Budget Contraints Hayek, Friedrich Imports and Exports Index Number Relativity Indicative Planning Industrialization Industrialization, Rapid Industrialization, Soviet Input-Output Analysis Kantorovich, Leonid Vitaliyevich Khozraschet Khutor Kondratiev, Nikolai Dmitrievich Kopeck Kormlenie Kornai, Janos Kosygin Reforms Kritzman, Lev Natanovich Kulaks Labor Labor Books Labor Day Labor Theory of Value Land Tenure, Imperial Era Land Tenure, Soviet and Post-Soviet Lend Lease Liberman, Yevsei Grigorevich Machine Tractor Stations Mafia Capitalism Market Socialism Marxism Material Balances Material Product System Mercantilism Merchants Ministries, Economic Ministry of Foreign Trade Monetary Overhang Monetary System, Soviet Moscow Agricultural Society Nemchinov, Vasily Sergeyevich Net Material Product New Economic Policy New Statute of Commerce Novosibirsk Report Novozhilov, Viktor Valentinovich Obrok Obshchina Organized Crime Peasant Economy Perestroika Planners’ Preferences Postal System Preobrazhensky, Yevgeny Alexeyevich Primitive Socialist Accumulation Privatization Prodnalog Prodrazverstka Prostitution Production Sharing Agreement Rabkrin Railways Ratchet Effect Redemption Payments Repressed Inflation Ruble Ruble Control Ruble Zone Russian Federal Securities Commission Sberbank Scientific Socialism Scissors’ Crisis Second Economy Serednyaki Seven-Year Plan Serfdom Service State Shatalin, Stanislav Sergeyevich Shock Therapy Shockworkers Slavery Slutsky, Yevgeny Yevgenievich Smychka Socialism Socialism in One Country Soul Tax Soviet-German Trade Agreement of 1939 Sovkhoz State Capitalism State Enterprise, Law of the Stock Exchanges Stolypin, Peter Akradievich Stroibank Strumilin, Stanislav Gustavovich Subbotnik Subway Systems Taxes Tax, Turnover ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY lxxxiii OUTLINE OF CONTENTS OUTLINE OF CONTENTS Techpromfinplan Teleological Planning Three-Field System Tourism Trade Routes Trade Statutes of 1653 and 1667 Trade Unions Transition Economies Trans-Siberian Railway Trusts, Soviet Tugan-Baranovsky, Mikhail Ivanovich Twenty-Five Thousanders Union of Struggle for the Emancipation of Labor Value Subtraction Varga, Eugene Samuilovich Virgin Lands Program Vodka Virtual Economy Wages, Soviet War Communism War Economy Westernizers Workers Workers’ Control Workers’ Opposition World Revolution Zagotovka Zaslavskaya, Tatiana Ivanovna EDUCATION Academy of Arts Academy of Sciences Cantonists Communist Academy Communist Youth Organizations Education Ethnography, Russian and Soviet Fyodorov, Ivan Higher Party School Historiography Ilminsky, Nikolai Ivanovich Institute of Red Professors Klyuchevsky, Vasily Osipovich Krupskaya, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Language Laws Lazarev Institute Lomonosov, Mikhail Vasilievich Lunacharsky, Anatoly Vasilievich National Library of Russia Pirogov, Nikolai Ivanovich Primary Chronicle Rostovtsev, Mikhail Ivanovich Russian State Library Slavo-Greco-Latin Academy Smolny Institute Universities Uvarov, Sergei Semenovich FOREIGN RELATIONS Afghanistan, Relations with Austria, Relations with Bulgaria, Relations with Chechnya and Chechens China, Relations with Cold War Cuban Missile Crisis Cuba, Relations with Czechoslovakia, Relations with Foreign Policy France, Relations with Geneva Conventions Germany, Relations with Great Britain, Relations with Greece, Relations with Hungary, Relations with Iran, Relations with Iraq, Relations with Israel, Relations with Italy, Relations with Japan, Relations with KAL 007 Korea, Relations with League of Nations Montenegro, Relations with North Atlantic Treaty Organization Norway, Relations with Pakistan, Relations with Prussia, Relations with Romania, Relations with Security Council Serbia, Relations with Sweden, Relations with Turkey, Relations with United Nations United States, Relations with Vietnam, Relations with Yugoslavia, Relations with GOVERNMENT Apparat Article 6 of the 1977 Constitution lxxxiv ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY Cabinet of Ministers, Imperial Cabinet of Ministers, Soviet Central Committee Central Control Committee Commissar Constitution of 1918 Constitution of 1936 Constitution of 1977 Constitution of 1993 Congress of People’s Deputies Constituent Assembly Council of Ministers, Soviet Duma Federal Assembly General Secretary Governing Senate Guberniya Kremlin Local Government and Administration Main Political Directorate Ministry of the Interior Orgburo Plenum Politburo Political Party System Presidency Presidential Council Presidium of the Supreme Soviet Primary Party Organization Prime Minister Provisional Government Second Secretary Secretariat Soviet State Committees State Council Succession of Leadership, Soviet Supreme Soviet HISTORICAL EVENTS AND PEOPLE KIEVAN RUS AND MEDIEVAL ERA Alexander Mikhailovich Alexander Yaroslavich Alexei Mikhailovich Andrei Alexandrovich Andrusovo, Peace of Avvakum Petrovich Basil I Basil II Basil III Batu Khan Bolotnikov, Ivan Isayevich Boretskaya, Marfa Ivanovna Civil War of 1425–1450 Copper Riots Cyril of Turov Daniel, Metropolitan Dionisy Dmitry Alexandrovich Dmitry, False Dmitry Mikhailovich Dmitry of Uglich Enserfment Filaret Romanov, Patriarch Florence, Council of Fyodor Alexeyevich Fyodorov, Boris Grigorievich Fyodorov, Ivan Glinskaya, Yelena Vasilyevna Godunov, Boris Fyodorovich Golitsyn, Vasily Vasilievich Hilarion, Metropolitan Igor Ivan I Ivan II Ivan III Ivan IV Ivan V Izyaslav I Izyaslav Mstislavich Joakim, Patriarch Job, Patriarch Joseph of Volotsk, St. Khovanshchina Kotoshikhin, Grigory Karpovich Kulikovo Field, Battle of Kurbsky, Andrei Mikhailovich Kuritsyn, Fyodor Vasilevich Livonian War Makary, Metropolitan Matveyev, Artamon Sergeyevich Maxim the Greek, St. Medvedev, Sylvester Agafonikovich Minin, Kuzma Mniszech, Marina Morozov, Boris Ivanovich Morozova, Feodosya Prokopevna Mstislav Muscovy Nerchinsk, Treaty of Neronov, Ivan Nikitin, Afanasy Nikon, Patriarch Nil Sorsky, St. OUTLINE OF CONTENTS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY lxxxv OUTLINE OF CONTENTS Normanist Controversy Oleg Olga Oprichnina Ordin-Nashchokin, Afanasy Lavrentievich Osorina, Yulianya Ustinovna Otrepev, Grigory Paleologue, Sophia Peasantry Polotsky, Simeon Pozharsky, Dmitry Mikhailovich Primary Chronicle Razin Rebellion Romanov, Mikhail Fyodorovich Rostislav Rublev, Andrei Rurik Rurikid Dynasty Serfdom Sergius, St. Shuisky, Vasily Ivanovich Simeon Smolensk War Sophia Stolbovo, Treaty of Svyatopolk I Svyatopolk II Svyatoslav I Svyatoslav II Theophanes the Greek Thirteen Years’ War Time of Troubles Ugra River, Battle of Ushakov, Simon Fyodorovich Vladimir Monomakh Vsevolod I Vsevolod III Winius, Andries Dionyszoon Yaropolk I Yaroslav Vladimirovich Yaroslav Vsevolodovich Yaroslav Yaroslavich Yermak Timofeyevich Yuri Danilovich Yuri Vladimirovich Yuri Vsevolodovich IMPERIAL ERA Alcohol Monopoly Alexander I Alexander II Alexander III Anna Ivanovna Archives Armand, Inessa Berlin, Congress of Bloody Sunday Bolshevism Bunin, Ivan Alexeyevich February Revolution Catherine I Catherine II Caucasian Wars Chukovsky, Kornei Ivanovich Elizabeth Famine of 1891–1892 Great Northern War Hrushevsky, Mikhail Sergeyevich Ivan V Ivan VI July Days of 1917 Kerensky, Alexander Fyodorovich Khomyakov, Alexei Stepanovich Kollontai, Alexandra Mikhailovna Kornilov Affair Leipzig, Battle of Lena Goldfields Massacre Lenin, Vladimir Ilich Lesnaya, Battle of Lobachevsky, Nikolai Ivanovich Lomonosov, Mikhail Vasilievich Makarov, Stepan Osipovich Makhno, Nestor Ivanovich Martov, Yuli Osipovich Menshikov, Alexander Danilovich Milyukov, Paul Nikolayevich Milyutin, Dmitry Alexeyevich Naryshkina, Natalia Kirillovna Nechayev, Sergei Geradievich Nekrasov, Nikolai Alexeyevich Nesselrode, Karl Robert Nijinsky, Vaslav Fomich Nicholas I Nicholas II October General Strike of 1905 October Revolution Odoyevsky, Vladimir Fyodorovich Ostrovsky, Alexander Nikolayevich Pallas, Peter-Simon Paul I Peter I Peter II Peter III Pisarev, Dmitry Ivanovich Pobedonostsev, Konstantin Pogodin, Mikhail Petrovich Pokrovsky, Mikhail Nikolayevich Polish Rebellion of 1863 lxxxvi ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY Poltava, Battle of Port Arthur, Siege of Potemkin Mutiny Propp, Vladimir Iakovlevich Protopopov, Alexander Dmitrievich Pruth River, Campaign and Treaty of Quadruple Alliance and Quintuple Alliance Revolution of 1905 Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai Andreyevich Rodzianko, Mikhail Vladimirovich Roerich, Nicholas Konstantinovich Romanov Dynasty Russo-Japanese War Russo-Persian Wars Seven Years’ War Tolstoy, Leo Nikolayevich Tourism Tsvetaeva, Marina Ivanovna Tukhachevsky, Mikhail Nikolayevich Witte, Sergei Yulievich World War I SOVIET ERA Adzhubei, Alexei Ivanovich Afghanistan, Relations with Aganbegyan, Abel Gezevich Agitprop Alcohol Monopoly Alexei II, Patriarch Aliyev, Heidar Allied Intervention Alliluyeva, Svetlana Iosifovna Andreyeva, Nina Alexandrovna Andropov, Yuri Vladimirovich Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty Anti-Comintern Pact Apparat Archives Armand, Inessa Arms Control Artek Article 6 of 1977 Constitution August 1991 Putsch Babel, Isaac Emmanuyelovich Babi Bunty Baikal-Amur Magistral Railway Bakatin, Vadim Viktorovich Bakhtin, Mikhail Mikhailovich Bely, Andrei Berlin Blockade Blok, Alexander Alexandrovich Bolshevism Bonner, Yelena Georgievna Brezhnev, Leonid Ilich Brodsky, Joseph Alexandrovich Brusilov, Alexei Alexeyevich Budenny, Semeon Mikhailovich Bukharin, Nikolai Ivanovich Bulgakov, Mikhail Afanasievich Bulganin, Nikolai Alexandrovich Bunin, Ivan Alexeyevich Chapayev, Vasily Ivanovich Chebrikov, Viktor Mikhailovich Chechnya and Chechens Chernenko, Konstantin Ustinovich Chernobyl Chernomyrdin, Viktor Stepanovich Chicherin, Georgy Vasilievich Chkalov, Valery Pavlovich Chubais, Anatoly Borisovich Chuikov, Vasily Ivanovich Chukovskaya, Lydia Korneyevna Chukovsky, Kornei Ivanovich Collectivization of Agriculture Civil War of 1917–1922 Cold War Cuban Missile Crisis Cultural Revolution Czechoslovakia, Invasion of De-Stalinization Denikin, Anton Ivanovich Deportations Dissident Movement Doctors’ Plot Dudayev, Dzhokhar Dzerzhinsky, Felix Edmundovich Ehrenburg, Ilya Grigorovich Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich Ethiopian Civil War Famine of 1921–1922 Famine of 1932–1933 Famine of 1946 Frunze, Mikhail Vasilievich Gagarin, Yuri Alexeyevich Geneva Summit of 1985 Genoa Conference Genocide Ginzburg, Evgenia Semenovna Glasnost Goods Famine Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich Grigorenko, Peter Grigorievich Grishin, Viktor Vasilievich Gromyko, Andrei Andreyevich Grossman, Vasily Semenovich Hayek, Friedrich Helsinki Accords Hrushevsky, Mikhail Sergeyevich ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY lxxxvii OUTLINE OF CONTENTS OUTLINE OF CONTENTS lxxxviii ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY Hungarian Revolution July Days of 1917 Kaganovich, Lazar Moyseyevich KAL 007 Kalinin, Mikhail Ivanovich Kamenev, Lev Borisovich Kaplan, Fanya Katyn Forest Massacre Kerensky, Alexander Fyodorovich Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich Kirov, Sergei Mironovich Kolchak, Alexander Vasilievich Kollontai, Alexandra Mikhailovna Konev, Ivan Stepanovich Kornilov Affair Kosmodemyanskaya, Zoya Kosygin, Alexei Nikolayevich Kosygin Reforms Kovalev, Sergei Adamovich Kozlov, Frol Romanovich Krasnov, Pyotr Nikolayevich Kritzman, Lev Natanovich Kronstadt Uprising Krupskaya, Nadezhda Konstantinovna Kryuchkov, Vladimir Alexandrovich Kunayev, Dinmukhammed Akhmedovich Kursk, Battle of Kuybyshev, Valerian Vladimirovich Kuznetsov, Nikolai Gerasimovich Lend Lease Leningrad Affair Lenin, Vladimir Ilich Liberman, Yevsei Grigorevich Ligachev, Yegor Kuzmich Likhachev, Dmitry Sergeyevich Lotman, Yuri Mikhailovich Lukyanov, Anatoly Ivanovich Lunacharsky, Anatoly Vasilievich Lysenko, Trofim Denisovich Makhno, Nestor Ivanovich Malenkov, Georgy Maximilyanovich Malta Summit Mandelshtam, Nadezhda Yakovlevna Mandelshtam, Osip Emilievich Martov, Yuli Osipovich Mayakovsky, Vladimir Vladimirovich Medvedev, Roy Alexandrovich Medvedev, Zhores Alexandrovich Melnikov, Konstantin Stepanovich Meyerhold, Vsevolod Yemilievich Mikhalkov, Nikita Sergeyevich Mikoyan, Anastas Ivanovich Moiseyev, Mikhail Alexeyevich Molotov, Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Moscow, Battle of Moscow Olympics of 1980 Myasoedov Affair Narva, Battles of Nijinsky, Vaslav Fomich Novocherkassk Uprising Novosibirsk Report October Revolution Ogarkov, Nikolai Vasilevich Operation Barbarossa Ordzhonikidze, Grigory Konstantinovich Orlova, Lyubov Petrovna Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich Pavliuchenko, Lyudmila Mikhailovna Perestroika Podgorny, Nikolai Viktorovich Pokrovsky, Mikhail Nikolayevich Ponomarev, Boris Kharitonovich Popov, Gavriil Kharitonovich Preobrazhensky, Yevgeny Alexeyevich Primakov, Yevgeny Maximovich Prokofiev, Sergei Sergeyevich Pugo, Boris Karlovich Purges, The Great Pytatakov, Georgy Leonidovich Rachmaninov, Sergei Vasilievich Radek, Karl Bernardovich Radzinsky, Edvard Stanislavich Raikin, Arkady Isaakovich Red Terror Refuseniks Reykjavik Summit Roerich, Nicholas Konstantinovich Rutskoi, Alexander Vladimirovich Rykov, Alexei Ivanovich Ryutin, Martemyan Sakharov, Andrei Dmitrievich Scissors Crisis Sergei, Patriarch Shakhty Trial Shatalin, Stanislav Sergeyevich Shcharansky, Anatoly Nikolayevich Shevardnadze, Eduard Amvrosievich Shlyapnikov, Alexander Gavrilovich Sholokhov, Mikhail Alexandrovich Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitrievich Show Trials Simonov, Konstantin Mikhailovich Sinyavsky-Daniel Trial Skrypnyk, Mykola Oleksiiovych Solidarity Movement Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Isayevich Sorge, Richard Soviet-Finnish War Soviet-Polish War Spanish Civil War Stalingrad, Battle of Stalin, Josef Vissarionovich Stanislavsky, Konstantin Sergeyevich Starovoitova, Galina Vasilievna Strategic Defense Initiative Strumilin, Stanislav Gustavovich Suslov, Mikhail Andreyevich Tarkovsky, Andrei Arsenievich Thaw, The Tolstaya, Tatiana Nikitichna Tomsky, Mikhail Pavlovich Trotsky, Leon Davidovich Tsvetaeva, Marina Ivanovna Tourism Tukhachevsky, Mikhail Nikolayevich Tupolev, Andrei Nikolayevich U-2 Spy Plane Incident Ustinov, Dmitry Fedorovich Varga, Eugene Samuilovich Vavilov, Nikolai Ivanovich Volkogonov, Dmitry Antonovich Volsky, Arkady Ivanovich Voroshilov, Kliment Efremovich Voznesensky, Nikolai Alexeyevich Vyshinsky, Andrei Yanuarievich Vysotsky, Vladimir Semyonovich World War II Wrangel, Peter Nikolayevich Yagoda, Genrikh Grigorevich Yakovlev, Alexander Nikolayevich Yalta Conference Yanayev, Gennady Ivanovich Yesenin, Sergei Alexandrovich Yevtushenko, Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yezhov, Nikolai Ivanovich Yudenich, Nikolai Nikolayevich Zaslavskaya, Tatiana Ivanovna Zhdanov, Andrei Alexandrovich Zhirinovsky, Vladimir Volfovich Zhukov, Georgy Konstantinovich Zinoviev, Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev Letter POST-SOVIET ERA Aganbegyan, Abel Gezevich Alexei II, Patriarch Aliyev, Heidar Bakatin, Vadim Viktorovich Bonner, Yelena Georgievna Chechnya and Chechens Chernomyrdin, Viktor Stepanovich Chubais, Anatoly Borisovich Communist Party of the Russian Federation Democratization Dudayev, Dzhokhar Economy, Post-Soviet Federal Assembly Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich Khasbulatov, Ruslan Imranovich Kozyrev, Andrei Vladimirovich Kravchuk, Leonid Makarovich Kursk Submarine Disaster Lebed, Alexander Ivanovich Lukashenko, Alexander Grigorievich Lukyanov, Anatoly Ivanovich Luzhkov, Yuri Mikhailovich Mikhalkov, Nikita Sergeyevich Moiseyev, Mikhail Alexeyevich Nemtsov, Boris Ivanovich October 1993 Events Persian Gulf War Presidency Primakov, Yevgeny Maximovich Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich Referendum of April 1993 Referendum of December 1993 Referendum of March 1991 Russian Federation Shevardnadze, Eduard Amvrosievich Starovoitova, Galina Vasilievna Stepashin, Sergei Vadimovich Tolstaya, Tatiana Nikitichna Tourism Volsky, Arkady Ivanovich Yakovlev, Alexander Nikolayevich Yavlinsky, Grigory Alexeyevich Yeltsin, Boris Nikolayevich Zhirinovsky, Vladimir Volfovich Zyuganov, Gennady Andreyevich JOURNALISM Adzhubei, Alexei Ivanovich Aksakov, Ivan Sergeyevich Belinsky, Vissarion Grigorievich Censorship Chernyshevsky, Nikolai Gavrilovich Chronicle of Current Events Glavlit Intelligentsia Izvestiya Journalism Katkov, Mikhail Nikiforovich Mikhailovsky, Nikolai Konstantinovich Newspapers OUTLINE OF CONTENTS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY lxxxix OUTLINE OF CONTENTS Novikov, Nikolai Ivanovich Okudzhava, Bulat Shalovich Pravda Saltykov-Shchedrin, Mikhail Yevgrafovich Samizdat Suvorin, Alexei Sergeyevich Sytin, Ivan Dmitrievich TASS Thick Journals Thin Journals Tur, Yevgenia LAW AND JUDICIARY Constitutional Court Cooperatives, Law on Court, High Arbitration Court, Supreme Emancipation Act Family Code of 1926 Family Code on Marriage, the Family, and Guardianship Family Laws of 1936 Fundamental Laws of 1906 Gulag Language Laws Law Code of 1649 Lefortovo Legal Systems Lubyanka Novgorod Judicial Charter Organized Crime Prisons Pskov Judicial Charter Russian Justice Shakhty Trial Show Trials Sinyavsky-Daniel Trial State Enterprise, Law of the State Security, Organs of Succession, Law on LITERATURE Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich Cultural Revolution Dostoyevsky, Fyodor Mikhailovich Folklore Gogol, Nikolai Vasilievich Golden Age of Russian Literature Goncharov, Ivan Alexandrovich Lermontov, Mikhail Yurievich Lubok Nekrasov, Nikolai Alexeyevich Odoyevsky, Vladimir Fyodorovich Pasternak, Boris Leonidovich Pisarev, Dmitry Ivanovich Propp, Vladimir Iakovlevich Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin House Romanticism Russian Association of Proletarian Writers Science Fiction Silver Age Solzhenitsyn, Alexander Isayevich Thick Journals Thin Journals Tolstaya, Tatiana Nikitichna Tolstoy, Leo Nikolaevich Turgenev, Ivan Sergeyevich Tyutchev, Fyodor Ivanovich Union of Soviet Writers MILITARY Administration, Military Admiralty Alexeyev, Mikhail Vasilievich Allied Intervention Angolan Civil War Arms Control Baltic Fleet Baryatinsky, Alexander Ivanovich Black Sea Fleet Brusilov, Alexei Alexeyevich Budenny, Semeon Mikhailovich Chapayev, Vasily Ivanovich Chernyshev, Alexander Ivanovich Committee of Soldiers’ Mothers Cossacks Czechoslovak Corps Decembrist Movement and Rebellion Dedovshchina Denikin, Anton Ivanovich Donskoy, Dmitry Edinonachalie Frontier Fortifications Frunze, Mikhail Vasilievich Gordon, Patrick Leopold Grand Alliance Great Reforms Grigorenko, Peter Grigorievich Gromov, Boris Vsevolodovich Guards, Regiments of xc ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY Hague Peace Conferences KAL 007 Kaliningrad Kaufman, Konstantin Petrovich Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich Kokoshin, Andrei Afanasievich Kolchak, Alexander Vasilievich Konev, Ivan Stepanovich Konstantin Nikolayevich Kornilov Affair Krasnov, Peter Nikolayevich Kuropatkin, Alexei Nikolayevich Kursk Submarine Disaster Kutuzov, Mikhail Ilarionovich Kuznetsov, Nikolai Gerasimovich Lay of Igor’s Campaign Lebed, Alexander Ivanovich Lend Lease Makarov, Stepan Osipovich Manifesto of 1763 Mazepa, Hetman Ivan Stepanovich Menshikov, Alexander Danilovich Military Art Military Doctrine Military Intelligence Military Reforms Military, Imperial Era Military, Soviet and Post-Soviet Military-Economic Planning Military-Industrial Complex Milyutin, Dmitry Alexeyevich Minin, Kuzma Moiseyev, Mikhail Alexeyevich Myasoyedov Affair Nakhimov, Paul Stepanovich Napoleon I Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 New Formation Regiments North Atlantic Treaty Organization Northern Convoys Northern Fleet Obruchev, Nikolai Nikolayevich October 1993 Events Ogarkov, Nikolai Vasilievich Operation Barbarossa Orlov, Grigory Grigorievich Pacific Fleet Pestel, Pavel Ivanovich Peter and Paul Fortress Peter I Peter III Polovtsy Pomestie Potemkin Mutiny Potsdam Conference Pozharsky, Dmitry Mikhailovich Preobrazhensky Guards Pugachev, Emelian Ivanovich Razin Rebellion Red Guards Reitern, Mikhail Khristoforovich Rumyantsev, Peter Alexandrovich Russo-Japanese War Russo-Persian Wars Russo-Turkish Wars Security Council Sevastopol Seven Years’ War Shamil Shaposhnikov, Boris Mikhailovich Sholokhov, Mikhail Alexandrovich Skobelev, Mikhail Dmitriyevich Sokolovsky, Vasily Danilovich Sorge, Richard State Defense Committee Stavka Stenka Razin Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties Strategic Defense Initiative Streltsy Suvorov, Alexander Vasilievich Three Emperors’ League Triyandafillov, Viktor Kiryakovich Tukhachevsky, Mikhail Nikolayevich U-2 Spy Plane Incident Varennikov, Valentin Ivanovich Vasilevsky, Alexander Mikhailovich Vlasov Movement Volkogonov, Dmitry Antonovich Voroshilov, Kliment Efremovich Voyevoda White Army Wrangel, Peter Nikolayevich Yalta Conference Yazov, Dmitry Timofeyevich Yermak Timofeyevich Yudenich, Nikolai Nikolayevich Zero-Option Zhukov, Georgy Konstantinovich BATTLES AND WARS Afghanistan, Relations with Antonov Uprising Austerlitz, Battle of Balaklava, Battle of Balkan Wars Borodino, Battle of Caucasian Wars ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY xci OUTLINE OF CONTENTS OUTLINE OF CONTENTS Chechnya and Chechens Chesme, Battle of Civil War of 1425–1450 Civil War of 1917–1922 Crimean War Czechoslovakia, Invasion of Ethiopian Civil War French War of 1812 Great Northern War Katyn Forest Massacre Khalkin-Gol, Battle of Korean War Kronstadt Uprising Kulikovo Field, Battle of Kursk, Battle of Leipzig, Battle of Lena Gold Fields Massacre Leningrad, Siege of Lesnaya, Battle of Livonian War Moscow, Battle of Navarino, Battle of Novocherkassk Uprising October 1993 Events October Revolution Operation Barbarossa Persian Gulf War Polish-Soviet War Poltava, Battle of Port Arthur, Siege of Pruth River, Campaign and Treaty of Potemkin Mutiny Revolution of 1905 Russo-Japanese War Russo-Persian Wars Russo-Turkish Wars Seven Years’ War Sinope, Battle of Smolensk War Spanish Civil War Stalingrad, Battle of Tannenberg, Battle of Thirteen Years’ War Tsushima, Battle of Ugra River, Battle of War of the Third Coalition World War I World War II MUSIC Balalaika Bylina Chastushka Cultural Revolution Folk Music Glinka, Mikhail Ivanovich Gypsymania Historical Songs Mighty Handful Music Odoyevsky, Vladimir Fyodorovich Okudzhava, Bulat Shalovich Opera Petrushka Prison Songs Prokofiev, Sergei Sergeyevich Rachmaninov, Sergei Vasilievich Rimsky-Korsakov, Nikolai Andreyevich Shostakovich, Dmitri Dmitrievich Stasov, Vladimir Vasilievich Stravinsky, Igor Fyodorovich Tchaikovsky, Peter Ilyich Vysotsky, Vladimir Semyonovich POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS Agrarian Party of Russia Bolshevism Borotbisty Bund, Jewish Civic Union Communist Communist Communist Communist Communist Congress of Constitutional Democratic Party Dashnaktsutiun Information Bureau International Party of the Russian Federation Party of the Soviet Union Youth Organizations Russian Communities Democratic Party Democratic Union Fatherland-All Russia Land and Freedom Party Left Opposition Left Socialist Revolutionaries Liberal Democratic Party Mensheviks Movement in Support of the Army Musavat Octobrist Party Old Believer Committee Our Home Is Russia Party Pamyat Party Congresses and Conferences xcii ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY People’s Control Committee People’s Party of Free Russia Rabbinical Commission Right Opposition Russia’s Democratic Choice Russian National Unity Party Social Democratic Party Social Democratic Workers Party Union of Right Forces United Opposition Unity (Medved) Party Vlasov Movement Women of Russia Bloc Workers’ Opposition Yabloko POLITICAL POLICY Abortion Policy Brezhnev Doctrine Censorship Democratization Deportations Enserfment Federalism Glasnost Language Laws Nationalities Policy, Soviet Nationalities Policy, Tsarist Passport System Perestroika Russification Science and Technology Policy Socialism Temporary Regulations REGIONS, NATIONS, AND NATIONALITIES Abkhazians Adyge Ajars Alash Orda Alaska Albanians, Caucasian Altai Armenia and Armenians Avars Azerbaijan and Azeris Balkars Bashkortostan and Bashkirs Basmachis Belarus and Belarusians Bessarabia Birobidzhan Bukhara Bukovina Bulgarians Buryats Carpatho-Rusyns Caucasus Central Asia Chechnya and Chechens Cherkess Chukchi Chuvash Cimmerians Crimea Crimean Khanate Crimean Tatars Dagestan Dargins Dolgans Dungan Estonia and Estonians Ethnography, Russian and Soviet Evenki Ferghana Valley Finland Finns and Karelians Gagauz Georgia and Georgians German Democratic Republic German Settlers Golden Horde Gnezdovo Greeks Gypsy Huns Immigration and Emigration Inorodtsy Jews Kabardians Kalmyks Karachai Karakalpaks Khakass Khanty Kievan Rus Komi Koreans Koryaks Kurds Kyrgyzstan and Kyrgyz Latvia and Latvians Lezgins OUTLINE OF CONTENTS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY xciii OUTLINE OF CONTENTS Lithuania and Lithuanians Mansi Mari El and the Mari Meskhetian Turks Mingrelians Moldova and Moldovans Mordvins Muscovy Nagorno-Karabakh Nakhichevan Nation and Nationality Nenets Nogai Northern Peoples Osetins Poland Poles Russians Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic Sakha and Yakuts Sami Sarmatians Sarts Scythians Svans Tajikistan and Tajiks Tatarstan and Tatars Turkestan Turkmenistan and Turkmen Tuva and Tuvinians Udmurts Ukraine and Ukrainians Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Uzbekistan and Uzbeks Cities Baku Bukhara Kaliningrad Khiva Moscow Novgorod the Great Sevastopol St. Petersburg Tashkent Tiflis Vilnius RELIGION Alexei I, Patriarch Alexei II, Patriarch Anthony Khrapovitsky, Metropolitan Anthony Vadkovsky, Metropolitan Armenian Apostolic Church Avvakum Petrovich Byzantium, Influence of Cantonists Cathedral of Christ the Savior Cathedral of St. Basil Cathedral of St. Sophia, Kiev Cathedral of St. Sophia, Novgorod Catholicism Christianization Church Council Church Council, Hundred Chapters Consistory Cyril of Turov Daniel, Metropolitan Diocese Dvoeverie Enlightenment, Impact of Episcopate Filaret Drozdov, Metropolitan Filaret Romanov, Patriarch Gapon, Georgy Apollonovich Georgian Orthodox Church Hagiography Hilarion, Metropolitan Holy Synod Icons Ilminsky, Nikolai Ivanovich Islam Jews Joakim, Patriarch Job, Patriarch Joseph of Volotsk, St. Kormchaya Kniga League of the Militant Godless Living Church Movement Makary, Metropolitan Maxim the Greek, St. Metropolitan Monasticism Neronov, Ivan Nikon, Patriarch Nil Sorsky, St. Novgorod, Archbishop of Old Believer Committee Old Believers Orthodoxy Paganism Patriarchate Petrov, Grigory Spiridonovich Pimen, Patriarch Platon (Levshin) Polotsky, Simeon xciv ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY Possessors and Non-Possessors Protestantism Rabbinical Commission Religion Russian Orthodox Church Saints Sectarianism Sergei, Patriarch Sergius, St. Service State Sinodik Soloviev, Vladimir Sergeyevich Sorokoust Spiritual Elders Stefan Yavorsky, Metropolitan Tikhon, Patriarch Tithe Church, Kiev Trinity St. Sergius Monastery Uniate Church Vladimir, St. Zealots of Piety RULERS 1362–1917 Donskoy, Dmitry Ivanovich (r. 1362–1389) Basil I (r. 1389–1425) Basil II (r. 1425–1462) Ivan III (r. 1462–1505) Basil III (r. 1505–1533) Ivan IV (r. 1533–1584) Fyodor Ivanovich (r. 1584–1598) Godunov, Boris Fyodorovich (r. 1598–1605) Fyodor II (r. 1605) Dmitry, False (r. 1605–1606) Shuisky, Vasily Ivanovich (r. 1606–1610) Romanov, Mikhail Fyodorov (r. 1613–1645) Alexei Mikhailovich (r. 1645–1676) Fyodor Alexeyevich (r. 1676–1682) Ivan V (r. 1682–1696) Peter I (Peter the Great) (r. 1682–1725) Catherine I (r. 1725–1727) Peter II (r. 1727–1730) Anna Ivanovna (r. 1730–1740) Ivan VI (r. 1740–1741) Elizabeth (r. 1741–1762) Peter III (r. 1762) Catherine II (r. 1762–1796) Paul I (r. 1796–1801) Alexander I (r. 1801–1825) Nicholas I (r. 1825–1855) Alexander II (r. 1855–1881) Alexander III (r. 1881–1894) Nicholas II (r. 1894–1917) SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY Academy of Sciences Atomic Energy Aviation Bering, Vitus Jonassen Chernobyl Electricity Grid Exploration Gagarin, Yuri Alexeyevich Imperial Russian Geographical Society Imperial Russian Technological Society International Space Station MIR Space Station Pallas, Peter-Simon Polar Explorers Science and Technology Policy Sikorsky, Igor Ivanovich Space Program Sputnik SOVIET GENERAL SECRETARIES AND RUSSIAN PRESIDENTS Lenin, Vladimir Ilich (1917–1924) Stalin, Josef Vissarionovich(1922–1953) Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich (1953–1964) Brezhnev, Leonid Ilich (1964–1982) Andropov, Yuri Vladimirovich (1982–1984) Chernenko, Konstantin Ustinovich (1984–1985) Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich (1985–1991) Yeltsin, Boris Nikolayevich (1991–1999) Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich (elected 2000) TSARS, GRAND PRINCES, AND POLITICAL LEADERS Alexander I Alexander II Alexander III Alexander Mikhailovich Alexander Yaroslavich Alexei Mikhailovich Andrei Alexandrovich Andrei Yaroslavich OUTLINE OF CONTENTS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY xcv OUTLINE OF CONTENTS Andrei Yurevich Anna Ivanovna Basil I Basil II Basil III Brezhnev, Leonid Ilich Catherine I Catherine II Chernomyrdin, Viktor Stepanovich Dmitry Alexandrovich Dmitry, False Dmitry Mikhailovich Donskoy, Dmitry Ivanovich Elizabeth Fyodor Alexeyevich Fyodor II Fyodor Ivanovich Godunov, Boris Fyodorovich Gorbachev, Mikhail Sergeyevich Igor Ivan I Ivan II Ivan III Ivan IV Ivan V Ivan VI Izyaslav I Izyaslav Mstislavich Kasyanov, Mikhail Mikhailovich Kerensky, Alexander Fyodorovich Khrushchev, Nikita Sergeyevich Lebed, Alexander Ivanovich Lenin, Vladimir Ilich Luzhkov, Yuri Mikhailovich Mstislav Nemtsov, Boris Ivanovich Nicholas I Nicholas II Oleg Olga Paul I Peter I Peter II Peter III Primakov, Yevgeny Maximovich Putin, Vladimir Vladimirovich Romanov Dynasty Romanov, Mikhail Fyodorovich Rostislav Rurik Rurikid Dynasty Shuisky, Vasily Ivanovich Simeon Stalin, Josef Vissarionovich Stepashin, Sergei Vadimovich Svyatopolk I Svyatopolk II Svyatoslav I Svyatoslav II Trotsky, Leon Davidovich Tsar, Tsarina Vladimir Monomakh Vladimir, St. Vsevolod I Vsevolod III Yaropolk I Yaroslav Vladimirovich Yaroslav Vsevolodovich Yaroslav Yaroslavich Yeltsin, Boris Nikolayevich Yuri Danilovich Yuri Vladimirovich Yuri Vsevolodovich Zhirinovsky, Vladimir Volfovich Zyuganov, Gennady Andreyevich VISUAL ARTS, DRAMA, AND DANCE Academy of Arts Alexandrov, Grigory Alexandrovich Ballet Bauer, Yevgeny Frantsevich Bolshoi Theater Byzantium, Influence of Cabaret Chagall, Mark Chapayev, Vasily Ivanovich Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich Chernuhka Circus Constructivism Cultural Revolution Dunayevsky, Isaak Osipovich Eisenstein, Sergei Mikhailovich Fabergé, Peter Carl Futurism Glavlit Icons Kandinsky, Vassily Vassilievich Korsh Theater Kuleshov, Lev Vladimirovich Matryoshka Dolls Meyerhold, Vsevolod Yemilievich Mikhalkov, Nikita Sergeyevich Moscow Art Theater Moscow Baroque xcvi ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY Motion Pictures Museum, Hermitage Nationalism in the Arts Neoclassicism Nijinsky, Vaslav Fomich Orlova, Lyubov Petrovna Ostrovsky, Alexander Nikolayevich Palekh Painting Pavlova, Anna Matveyevna Photography Protazanov, Yakov Alexandrovic Repin, Ilya Yefimovich Rublev, Andrei Silver Age Tarkovsky, Andrei Arsenievich Theater ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY xcvii OUTLINE OF CONTENTS This page intentionally left blank ABKHAZIANS Abkhazians call themselves Apswa (plural Apswaa). Abkhazia (capital: Sukhum/Aqw’a) comprises 8,700 square kilometers (between lat. 43°35’–42°27’ N and long. 40°–42°08’ E) bordering the Black Sea, the Caucasus, Mingrelia, and Svanetia. The early Soviets’ drive to eradicate illiteracy saw Abkhaz attain literary status; like Circassian and Ubykh (extinct since 1992), Abkhaz is a northwest Caucasian language. Christianity arrived two centuries before its official introduction under Justinian sixth century. Sunni Islam spread with Ottoman Turkish influence from around 1500. Traditional paganism has never entirely disappeared, making adherence to either major religion relatively superficial, although within A Abkhazia most Abkhazians are nominally Christian. Life revolves around the extended family, morality (including respect for elders) being essentially determined by the dictates of custom (akjabz) and an ever-present sense of “Abkhazianness” (apswara). Local nobility fostered their offspring among the peasantry to cement societal relations— only captured foreigners served as slaves. English visitor James Bell noted in the 1830s that Abkhazians rendered this concept by their ethnonym for “Mingrelian” (agərwa). Milk-brotherhood was another social bond, symbolic establishment of which between two warring families could end vendettas. A semi-tropical climate with abundant water resources, forests, and mountain-pasturage dictated an economy based on animal husbandry, timber, and agriculture, with fruit, viticulture, and millet (yielding to maize in the nineteenth century) playing dominant roles; tea and tobacco gained importance in the twentieth century. Greece, Rome, Persia, Lazica, Byzantium, Genoa, Turkey, Russia, and Georgia have all influenced Abkhazian history. In the 780s Prince Leon II took advantage of Byzantium’s weakness to incorporate within his Abkhazian Kingdom most of western Georgia, this whole territory being styled “Abkhazia” until 975 when Bagrat’ III, inheriting Abkhazia maternally and Iberia (eastern Georgia) paternally, became first monarch of a united Georgia. This medieval kingdom disintegrated during the Mongol depredations (thirteenth to fifteenth centuries), and part of Abkhazia’s population (the Abazinians, who speak the divergent Abaza dialect and today number around 35,000) settled in the north Caucasus. The Chachbas 1 ABORTION POLICY An Abkhaz Army soldier stands in front of an armored personnel carrier in Kodori Gorge, October 2001. © REUTERS NEWMEDIA INC./CORBIS controlled Abkhazia, the Dadianis controlled Mingrelia, vying for dominance in the border regions; the current frontier along the River Ingur dates from the 1680s. Abkhazia became a Russian protectorate in 1810 but governed its own affairs until 1864 when, in the wake of imperial Russia’s crushing of North Caucasian resistance (1864) and again after the 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War, most Abkhazians (along with most Circassians and all the Ubykhs) migrated to Ottoman lands. Soviet power was established in 1921; this Abkhazian SSR was recognized by Georgia, the two then contracting a treaty-alliance that lasted until Abkhazia’s 1931 demotion to an “autonomous republic” within Georgia. The Stalin years were characterized by forced (largely Mingrelian) immigration and suppression of the language and culture in an attempted Georgianization. Post-Soviet Georgian nationalism led to war in August 1992. Abkhazian victory in September 1993 resulted in the mass flight of most of the local Mingrelian population, numerically the largest group in prewar Abkhazia. The conflict remained unresolved as of the early twenty-first century. Abkhazia declared independence in October 1999 but remains unrecognized. There are roughly 100,000 Abkhazians in Abkhazia (or ex-Soviet territories) and up to 500,000 across the Near East, predominantly in Turkey, where the language is neither taught nor written. See also: CAUCASUS; CHERKESS; GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST BIBLIOGRAPHY Benet, Sula. (1974). Abkhasians: The Long-Living People of the Caucasus. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. Hewitt, George. (1993). “Abkhazia: A Problem of Identity and Ownership.” In Central Asian Survey 12(3): 267–323. Hewitt, George, ed. (1999). The Abkhazians: A Handbook. Richmond, UK: Curzon Press. Hewitt, George, and Khiba, Zaira. (1997). An Abkhaz Newspaper Reader. Kensington, MD: Dunwoody Press. B. GEORGE HEWITT ABORTION POLICY The Soviet Union was the first country in the world to legalize abortion, but its goal was to protect women’s health and promote motherhood, not to advance women’s rights. Abortion was a criminal offense punishable by exile or long prison sentences before the Bolshevik Revolution. As part of its effort to reform Russian society, the Soviet government legalized abortion in a decree issued November 18, 1920. Supporters of the decree believed legal abortions were a necessary evil to prevent women from turning to dangerous and unsanitary back-alley abortions. Their goal was not to protect a woman’s individual reproductive rights, but to preserve the health of the mother for the common good. Furthermore, the legalization only applied to abortions performed by trained medical personnel, and in 1924 a system was established that prioritized access to legal abortions according to class position and social vulnerability (unemployed and unmarried working women topped the list). 2 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY In 1936, the state recriminalized abortion in an attempt to increase the birth rate and to emphasize the value of motherhood. Although the policy shift temporarily reduced the number of abortions, in the long term repression failed to have the desired effect and abortion rates increased. Abortion was again legalized in 1955 on the premise that women had become sufficiently aware of the importance of their maternal roles. Despite the changes over time, Soviet abortion policy consistently focused on protecting women’s health and encouraging motherhood. A lack of alternative methods of contraception, however, ensured that Soviet women relied on abortion as their primary means to control reproduction throughout the Soviet period. See also: FAMILY CODE OF 1926; MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE BIBLIOGRAPHY Buckley, Mary. (1989). Women and Ideology in the Soviet Union. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Goldman, Wendy Z. (1993). Women, the State, and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917– 1936. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. SHARON A. KOWALSKY ACADEMY OF ARTS The idea of founding an Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg was first mooted by Peter the Great, but it was not until 1757, primarily on the initiative of Ivan Shuvalov, that the project was realized. Shuvalov, its first president, commissioned a large, neoclassical edifice on the banks of the Neva to house the institution, and in 1764 Catherine II gave it its first charter, based on that of the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture, which had been established in Paris in 1648. Following the French example, the Academy developed a system of instruction in painting, sculpture, architecture, and the decorative arts that emphasized the study of old masters and the antique, and which prioritized subjects of historical significance. However, the Academy was not created primarily to fulfill state commissions, as had been the case in France, but aimed instead to professionalize practice in the visual arts. Students followed a regimented system, and all graduates who fulfilled the program were entitled to fourteenth rank in the civil service Table of Ranks. Those who won the major gold medal competition were also granted the opportunity to study abroad for three to six years with a travel scholarship from the Academy. Students were required to complete regular assignments, which, along with the Academy’s growing collection of casts, copies, and original works by western European artists, formed an invaluable teaching resource. In the nineteenth century, the role of the Academy changed as its activities became increasingly harnessed to state interests. Beginning in 1802, national monuments could only be erected with the approval of the Academy; this had the effect of casting it in the role of an official arbiter of taste. Nicholas I then took an active interest in the Academy’s affairs, appointing his favorites as professors and pronouncing on the direction that he felt the work of its students should follow. This growing association between the Academy and the court culminated with the appointment of Nicholas’s son-in-law Maximilian, Duke of Leuchtenberg, as president in 1843, after which the institution was continually headed by a member of the imperial family. By this time, the Academy was being criticized for the rigidity of its training program, particularly since the Moscow School of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture, though partially dependent on the Academy’s program, actively supported new trends in art. Opposition came to a head in 1863, when fourteen students led by the painter Ivan Kramskoy requested permission to choose their own subject for the annual gold medal competition. When this was refused, thirteen of them left, working initially in a commune known as the Artel. Subsequently they joined the Association of Traveling Art Exhibitions, a group of realist artists that dominated the artistic scene for the next twenty years. The Academy attempted to counter this threat by launching its own travelling exhibitions in 1886, and in 1893 effected a partial rapprochement with some of the realists, who joined its teaching staff. However, its position of authority had been irredeemably undermined. In the Soviet era, the Academy encompassed teaching institutes in various cities, including the Repin Institute in the original building in St. Petersburg. It became a bastion of Socialist Realism in the 1930s and 1940s, but it has since regained its status as a respected center for the study and practice of the fine arts. See also: EDUCATION; NATIONALISM IN THE ARTS; SOCIALIST REALISM ACADEMY OF ARTS ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 3 ACADEMY OF SCIENCES BIBLIOGRAPHY Pevsner, Nicholas. (1940). Academies of Art: Past and Present. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Valkenier, Elizabeth. K. (1989). Russian Realist Art: The State and Society: The Peredvizhniki and Their Tradition. New York: Columbia University Press. ROSALIND P. BLAKESLEY ACADEMY OF SCIENCES Advised first by the philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibnitz and then by his student Cristian Wolff, Peter the Great founded the Imperial Russian Academy of Sciences in 1725 on the model of the Paris and Berlin institutions of the same kind. All initial members of the new Academy were foreigners. The most outstanding member of the fledgling institution was Leonhard Euler, who in a short time was widely acclaimed as Europe’s leading mathematician. He was credited as the founder of a strong mathematical tradition in Russia. The new Academy was assigned two tasks: to initiate systematic work on the latest developments in science and to train the first Russian scientists. Small and fluid, the training component of the Academy became known as the first Russian secular institution of higher education. Mikhail Vasilievich Lomonosov was the first Russian scientist to become a member of the Academy and was living proof of Russia’s readiness to enter the challenging world of advanced science. Catherine II relied on the Academie Francaise as a model for the Imperial Russian Academy founded in 1783 with the primary task of improving the Russian literary language and preparing a Russian grammar and dictionary. Close relations between the two institutions were facilitated by the fact that a large number of the country’s leading scholars belonged to both academies. At this time, the Academy of Sciences increased appreciably the volume of its publications presented in the Russian language. In the eighteenth century, all presidents of the Academy of Sciences were aristocrats with close ties to the royal family but no interest in scholarship. In 1803, Alexander I granted the Academy a new charter that limited the choice of candidates for presidency to individuals with proven affinity with scientific scholarship. It also granted the Academy extended autonomy in administering its work and choosing individual and group research topics. Despite the unceasing threats to academic autonomy during the reign of Nicholas I (1825–1855), the Academy recorded substantial progress in contributions to science. Among the most eminent academicians were Karl von Baer, the founder of modern embryology; Frederick G. W. Struve, who not only founded the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory but made it one of the world’s leading institutions of its kind; and Mikhail Vasilievich Ostrogradsky, who was credited by James Clerk Maxwell with contributing to the mathematical apparatus of electromagnetic theory. For a long time, the foreign members of the Academy formed a community isolated from Russia’s social and cultural dynamics. By the 1830s they manifested concrete and multiple signs of expanding and intensifying their Russian connections. Now they contributed articles on scientific themes to popular journals, gave lectures to organized groups, and took part in founding such naturalist societies as the Russian Geographical Society, fashioned on the model of similar organizations in the West. The publications of the Mineralogical Society and the Russian Geographical Society added to the list of scientific journals appealing to the growing public interest in science. In 1841 the Academy underwent a drastic organizational change: It absorbed the Imperial Russian Academy and made it one of its three departments. This move not only broadened the scholarly concerns of the Academy of Sciences but also strengthened the Russian share of membership. The Natural Science Departments continued to be dominated by foreign members. The era of Nicholas I ended on a sour note: Overreacting to the revolutionary waves in Western Europe in 1848, the government made it illegal for young Russians to attend Western universities in search of advanced scientific training. The Academy, which traditionally supervised the selection for foreign training, lost one of its prized functions. The government also abrogated Paragraph 33 of the 1836 charter, which stipulated that “scholarly books and journals, subscribed to by the Academy or full members of the Academy are not subject to censorship.” Russia’s defeat in the Crimean War in 1855 and 1856 created an atmosphere favoring liberal reforms of a large magnitude in both the political system and social relations. The emancipation of the serfs topped the list of changes that earned the 1860s the title of “The Epoch of Great Reforms.” 4 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY Scientists monitor the control desk at the Academy of Sciences Atomic Electric Station. © HULTON ARCHIVE The restive intelligentsia viewed science and its critical spirit as the safest path to lifting Russia on the scale of social, political, and economic progress. Among the new members of the Academy were several Russians whose scholarly reputations were firmly established in and outside Russia. The mathematician Pafnuty Lvovich Chebyshev’s contributions to number and probability theories made a strong impression on the Paris Academy of Sciences, which elected him an associé étranger. In addition to his many other contributions to chemistry, Nikolai Nikolayevich Zinin reduced aniline from nitrobenzene; this introduced the industrial production of paints. The historian Sergei Mikhailovich Soloviev, elected a member of the Academy in 1871, was deeply involved in writing his multivolume History of Russia since Ancient Times, a grand synthesis of the nation’s political, social, and cultural developments. The Academy established closer contact with university professors by allowing more space in its journals for their contributions. It also improved its public image through intensive involvement in the national festivities commemorating the centennial of Lomonosov’s death. On this occasion it published a number of books covering the multiple sides of Lomonosov’s scientific and literary activities. After the celebrations, Peter Pekarsky, a member of the Academy, wrote a two-volume history of his institution, based exclusively on the archival material and casting penetrating light on the early history of Russian science. For the first time, a Russian was appointed permanent secretary of the Academy, and annual reports were presented in the Russian language. The use of the Russian language in the Academy’s publications increased by the establishment of the journal Zapiski (Memoirs). In the early 1880s, the Academy became a target of public attacks provoked by its refusal to elect Dmitry Ivanovich Mendeleyev, the discoverer of the periodic law of elements, to its membership. The Academy was now referred to as a “German institution” and the novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky went so far as to suggest the establishment of a Free Russian Academy supported by private endowments. The Mendeleyev incident helped bring an ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 5 ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ACADEMY OF SCIENCES end to inviting foreign scholars to fill the vacant positions in the Academy. All distinguished university professors, the new members of the Academy provided a significant index of rapidly advancing Russian scholarship. At the end of the nineteenth century, the growing fields of science were represented by the neurophysiologist and expert on conditioned reflexes Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, the first Russian recipient of the Nobel Prize; the mathematicians Andrei Andreyevich Markov and Alexander Mikhailovich Lyapunov, who raised the theory of probability to new heights; Alexei Nikolayevich Krylov, an expert in naval architecture and the translator of Newton’s Principia; and Nikolai Yegorovich Zhukovsky, a pioneer in aerodynamics. The Academy welcomed the February Revolution in 1917, which brought an end to the autocratic system. The academician Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky was the moving spirit behind the law abolishing the multi-ramified system of censorship in all phases of written expression. The Academy acquired a new name—the Russian Academy of Sciences—and the geologist Alexander Petrovich Karpinsky became the first elected president. The organization of the first research institutes heralded the appearance of research focused on the burning questions of modern science. They quickly became the primary units of the Academy. The first institute concentrated on the use of physical methods in chemical analysis. At the end of Imperial Russia, the Academy had fourty-one full members. It had one of the country’s richest libraries, several museums, and a small number of underequipped laboratories. A solid majority of academicians worked in the humanities and the social sciences. This distribution was reversed under the Soviet system. The academicians were supported by a staff of specialists in individual fields and laboratory technicians. The Bolshevik victory in October 1917 brought two instant changes affecting the Academy. The new government reintroduced censorship that in some respects was more comprehensive and rigid than that of the tsarist era. It took some time, however, for the new system of censorship to become an effective system of ideological control, in part because of persisting ambiguity in the definition of its tasks. The new government acted quickly and resolutely in founding the Socialist Academy (in 1923 renamed the Communist Academy) with the primary task of preparing dialectical materialism—the Marxist philosophy of science—to serve as an ideological clearinghouse for scientific ideas. Its task was also to create the theoretical base of the social sciences and the humanities. The efficiency of the Socialist Academy, intended to be a competitor to the “conservative” Academy of Sciences, was drastically reduced by deep disagreements among Marxist theorists in interpreting the revolutionary waves in modem science. At this time, the Bolshevik government was not ready to engineer drastic changes in the Academy of Sciences. In 1925 the government gave financial support to the Academy of Sciences to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of its founding, an event attended by a large contingent of Western scientists. Now renamed the Academy of Sciences of the USSR, the institution received the first government recognition as the country’s supreme scientific body. The next year, the Academy was given a new charter—the first since 1836—which made it an institution open to activities by such “public organizations” as the trade unions and proliferating Communist associations. The new charter abolished the traditional privilege of academicians to be the sole authority in selecting candidates for new members of the Academy. The process of making the Academy a typical Soviet institution was generally completed in 1929, with Stalin now at the helm of the government and the Communist Party. The first large-scale election of new members included a group of Marxists. Dialectical materialism was proclaimed the only philosophy admitted in the Academy—and in the country—and loyalty to the Communist Party (the so-called partynost, or “partyness”) prescribed behavior. A group of leading historians and an eminent mathematician were exiled to provincial towns. At the same time, the government approved the Academy’s proposal to admit students to work for higher degrees and to acquire research experience. Upon completion of their studies, most of these students were absorbed by the Academy’s research staff. Some advanced to the rank of full members of the Academy. The history of the Academy in the Stalin era (1929–1953) has two dominant characteristics. On the one hand, the Soviet government made vast financial investments in building the Academy into a gigantic network of institutes and laboratories, concentrating on both scientific research and train6 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY ing new cadres of scientists. On the other hand, Stalin encouraged and patronized Marxist philosophers in their mounting attacks on the leaders of the scientific community accused of violating the norms of Marxist theory. In the years of Stalin’s reign of terror in the late 1930s, a long line of Academy personnel landed in political prisons, from which many did not return. In 1936 the government abolished the Communist Academy and transferred its members to the Academy of Sciences, where they became part of the newly founded Department of Philosophy, the center of an intensified crusade against “idealism” in both Western and Soviet science. For a long time, “physical idealism,” as manifested in quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, was the main target of Marxist attacks. Even in the peak years of Stalinist oppression, the Academy’s physicists—led by Abram Fyodorovich Ioffe, Vladimir Alexandrovich Fock, and Igor Yevgenievich Tamm—made bold efforts to resist philosophical interference with their science. Their basic arguments were that Marxist philosophers were not familiar with modern physics and were guilty of misinterpreting Marxist theory. At a later date, Nikolai Nikolayevich Semenov, a Nobel laureate, stated publicly that only by ignoring Marxist philosophers were the physicists able to add fresh ideas to their science. More general criticism of Marxist interference with science came from the academicians Ivan Petrovich Pavlov and Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky: They opposed the monopolistic position of Marxist philosophy. Physics and biology were the main scientific arena of Stalinist efforts to establish full ideological control over scientific thought. The two sciences, however, did not undergo the same treatment. In physics, Stalin encouraged Marxist philosophers to engage in relentless attacks on the residues of “idealism” in quantum mechanics and the theory of relativity, but refrained from interfering with the ongoing work in physics laboratories. The situation in biology was radically different. Here, Stalin not only encouraged a sustained ideological attack on genetics and its underlying “bourgeois” philosophy but played a decisive role in outlawing this science and abolishing its laboratories. Academicians Peter Leonidovich Kapitsa and Igor E. Tamm, experienced warriors against Stalinist adverse interference with the professional work of scientists, were among the leading scholars whose sustained criticism swayed the government ten years after Stalin’s death to abandon its stand against modern genetics. The process of the de-Stalinization of the Academy began soon after Stalin’s death in 1953. By the mid-1960s, there was no science in the outside world that was not recognized and closely followed in the Soviet Union. The Academy played the leading role in reestablishing sociology and the rich national tradition in social psychology dominated by the internationally recognized legacy of Lev Semenovich Vygotsky. At the same time, Marxist philosophers were encouraged to explore paths to a reconciliation with leading Western philosophies of science and to search for “the kernels of truth” in “bourgeois” thought. In the meantime, the Academy continued to grow at a rapid pace. In 1957 it established a string of research institutes in Novosibirsk—known as the Siberian Department or Akademgorodok (Academic Campus)—concentrating, among other activities, on the branches of mathematics related to the ongoing computer revolution, the latest developments in molecular biology, and the new methodological requirements of the social sciences, particularly economics. In 1971 the Department had fourtyfour research institutes, fifty laboratories, and a research staff of 5,600. It also supported a new university known for its high academic standards. A new complex of research institutes in nuclear physics was established in Dubna, and another group of institutes engaged in physico-chemical approaches to biological studies was built in Pushkino. A scientific center engaged in geophysical studies was established in 1964 in Krasnaya Pakhta. The scientific center in Noginsk concentrated on physical chemistry. The Academy also helped in guiding and coordinating the work of the Union-Republican academies. In 1974 the Academy had 237 full members and 439 corresponding members. In the same year the professional staff of the Academy numbered 39,354, including 29,726 with higher academic degrees. The Academy published 132 journals, a few intended to reach the general reading public. It continued the tradition of publishing collections of essays celebrating important events in national history or commemorating major contributors to science. One of the last and most memorable collections, published in 1979, marked the centennial of Einstein’s birth. The Academy produced voluminous literature on its own history. The Soviet period of the AcadENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 7 ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ADMINISTRATION FOR ORGANIZED RECRUITMENT emy was presented in a glowing light with no place for a critical analysis of the underlying philosophy and internal organization of this gigantic institution. In 1991, with the dismemberment of the Soviet union, the name of the Russian Academy of Sciences was again made official. The new Academy brought an end to the monopoly of a single philosophy of science. See also: CENSORSHIP; COMMUNIST ACADEMY; SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY; UNIVERSITIES BIBLIOGRAPHY Graham, Loren R. (1967). The Soviet Academy of Sciences and the Communist Party. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Vucinich, Alexander. (1984). Empire of Knowledge. Berkeley: University of California Press. Vucinich, Alexander. (1963–1970). Science in Russian Culture. 2 vols. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. ALEXANDER VUCINICH ADMINISTRATION FOR ORGANIZED RECRUITMENT The Administration for Organized Recruitment (Russian acronym, Orgnabor) was a labor recruitment agency that existed in the USSR from 1931. Its essential feature was that the recruiting organization, not the potential employee, initiated the recruitment process. In the 1930s it was mainly concerned with the recruitment of peasants for seasonal and permanent work in nonagricultural jobs. During the New Economic Policy (NEP) the USSR had high unemployment, and relied on labor exchanges to bring supply and demand for labor into balance. It also had substantial numbers of peasants migrating to the towns in search of work, and substantial numbers of these peasants found seasonal employment away from their villages. With the abolition of unemployment in 1930, it was thought that there would be no further need for market economy instruments such as labor exchanges. Given the huge demand for labor in industry and construction, and the collectivization of agriculture, it nonetheless became necessary to establish a procedure for recruiting peasants from collective farms. Hence the creation, in 1931, of a new type of recruitment for the rapidly growing construction and industrial sectors: organized recruitment. In this new system, state-owned enterprises or administrative organizations such as the People’s Commissariats recruited a number of workers for regular or seasonal work by entering into an agreement with a collective farm, group of collective farms, or rural area. The Administration for Organized Recruitment offered a planned, socialist mechanism for placing workers where they were most needed, and was intended to replace the traditional practice of recruitment from among those peasants who happened to turn up at the factory gate. In many cases the new recruits were promised much better employment conditions than actually existed, which was one of the reasons for the high rate at which the newly recruited workers left their jobs. According to official statistics, 3.6 million people were recruited by Orgnabor in 1932, an average of 2.6 million per year between 1933 and 1937, 1.7 million in 1938, and 2.2 million in 1939. For many of the peasants concerned, the process was essentially an economic conscription. After 1946 the role of organized recruitment declined. In this later period, organized recruitment often concerned urban workers recruited for coal mining, construction, and as lumberjacks. In 1946 organized recruitment recruited 2.2 million people (mainly to coal mining, textiles, industrial and military construction, and forestry). Between 1947 and 1950, an average of about 0.6 million people were recruited per year, mainly to industrial and military construction, coal mining, and forestry. Organized recruitment remained at about 0.6 million per year between 1951 and 1955, but fell to only 0.1 million per year between 1966 and 1970. The administrative framework for organized recruitment varied. In the 1930s there were commissions for organized recruitment, but between 1953 and 1956, republican administrations (in the RSFSR and Ukraine chief administrations) for organized recruitment. In the late Soviet period organized recruitment was mainly administered by regional or local authorities. The program of organized recruitment experienced numerous problems, however, and was never the predominant form of labor recruitment in the USSR. Decisions by individual workers as to where they wanted to work were always more important. See also: COLLECTIVE FARM; LABOR; NEW ECONOMIC POLICY; SOVNARKOM 8 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY BIBLIOGRAPHY Barber, John. (1986). “The Development of Soviet Employment and Labour Policy, 1930–1941.” In Labour and Employment in the USSR, ed. David Lane. Brighton, UK: Wheatsheaf. Filtzer, Donald. (2002). Soviet Workers and Late Stalinism. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Dyker, David. (1981). “Planning and the Worker.” In The Soviet Worker, ed. Leonard Shapiro and Joseph Godson. London: Macmillan. Stalin, Joseph. (1955). “New Conditions—New Tasks in Economic Construction.” In Works, Vol. 13. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. MICHAEL ELLMAN ADMINISTRATION, MILITARY The term militiary administration was used to identify both the techniques and system of state agencies involved in the management of the armed forces. Russian writers long distinguished between the agencies for military command and those for administration (management), and Soviet theorists added a distinction between those providing leadership of the armed forces as such, and those for overall leadership of the country’s defense. Whereas the latter involves participation by the political leadership in decision making, the former deal with the military professionals’ implementing of the resulting policies. And if the lines between command and management, and between the two types of leadership, sometimes blur in modern conditions, this was commonplace in the premodern periods of Russia’s history. The Kievan Rus druzhina—the warband surrounding a prince—provided an ad hoc administration to the ruler, a core around which a militia of commoners rallied and, in battle, the professional commanders for the commoners. When Rus splintered into local “appanages” in the late 1000s, the druzhina’s primitive administrative functions were absorbed by the puty (offices) of a princeling’s dvor, or “court,” while selected boyars, the descendants of the warband members, joined him in his duma (council) in peacetime and helped provide military leadership in wartime. Thus all command and military administrative functions remained concentrated in the ruler’s person, with no distinction between them or, indeed, between the civil and military spheres of state life. This system served Moscow’s grand dukes during the Mongol period. But as their realm expanded and became increasingly centralized, a reorganization was clearly necessary, especially after Ivan III (1462–1505) began creating an army based on a mounted dvoryane (gentry) militia, whose members served in return for pomestie land grants (or fiefs). The state’s more complex administrative needs were met by the creation of prikazy (chancheries), headed by civil servant dyaki (state secretaries). Of the prikazy, the Razryad most closely approximated a war ministry, but a host of others had specialized military (e.g., armaments, fortifications) or mixed civil-military (e.g., medical, communications) functions. The boyar aristocracy continued to advise their increasingly autocratic masters in the duma and to provide commanders for his armies or “hosts.” But the mestnichestvo (system of places), which aimed at preserving the social status of the boyar clans, also dictated assignment to military posts. Consequently, while Muscovite military administration initially gained in efficiency, wartime appointments to field armies often reflected social rather than military prowess. This problem finally was resolved by the destruction of the boyars’ genealogical records in 1682. Yet by that time the piecemeal reforms introduced by Romanov rulers after 1613 had brought the continuous creation of new, specialized prikazy that left the expanded but fragmented administrative system badly in need of modernization and another radical overhaul. This was provided by Peter I (r. 1689–1725), who founded both the modern Russian Empire and the Imperial Army. He created a European-style regular or standing army (and navy), based on conscription, to fight Sweden (1700–1721). “Leadership of defense” remained concentrated in the ruler and a series of military-court agencies, but in 1718 Peter assigned “leadership the armed forces” to a ramified central administration headed by the Military and Admiralty Colleges, each headed by a president and board, with provincial governors overseeing the local agencies. Despite bureaucratic inefficiency and constant modification, this system remained in place until Alexander I (r. 1801–1825) replaced it with more streamlined ministries, headed by ministers, in 1802. Those for the army and navy now led the armed forces The two ministers helped lead defense as members of a Council of Ministers, which worked with the State Council and other military-court bodies in peacetime, while an Imperial General Headquarters (Stavka) directed the armies in wartime. This system again ADMINISTRATION, MILITARY ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 9 ADMIRALTY was streamlined by Alexander II (r. 1856–1881) and his war minister, Dmitry Milyutin. After 1864 his War Ministry comprised numerous specialized administrations or directorates, developed a professional General Staff, and headed a number of geographically and administratively defined, local military districts. But as before, overall leadership of defense was provided by the emperor and his court agencies. This situation remained in place even after the creation of a State Duma in 1905–1906, and seemingly ended only with the 1917 revolutions. Yet despite changes in terminology, a similar system reemerged during the civil war (1918–1921), after which the new Soviet Union recreated the network of territorial administrativemilitary districts, headed by People’s Commissariats (after 1945, Ministries) which, aided by a powerful General Staff, led the army and fleet. Instead of an emperor and his court, leadership in defense again was provided by some sort of peacetime Defense Council (or wartime Stavka), now dominated by the Communist Party’s leader through the Central Committee’s Secretariat and Politburo. See also: COUNCIL OF MINISTERS, SOVIET; MILITARY, IMPERIAL ERA; MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET; SOVNARKOM; STAVKA BIBLIOGRAPHY Derleth, James. (1991). “The Defense Council and the Evolution of the Soviet National Security Decisionmaking Apparatus.” In Russia and Eurasia Armed Forces Annual, Vol., 15:, ed. T. W. Karasik. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International. Fuller, William C., Jr. (1985). Civil-Military Conflict in Imperial Russia, 1881–1914. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hellie, Richard. (1971). Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Keep, John L. H. (1985). Soldiers of the Tsar: Army and Society in Russia, 1462–1874. Oxford: Clarendon Press. DAVID R. JONES ADMIRALTY From the beginning, St. Petersburg’s docks and associated administrative building, collectively known as the Admiralty, had been an essential part of the city’s existence. The shipyard was built by Peter the Great in 1704, and in the 1730s Ivan Korobov added the central gate and golden spire. By 1806 plans submitted by Andreian Zakharov for reconstruction of the large, and by then, decrepit complex had been approved. Zakharov had attended the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg and studied extensively in France and Italy. Although he died in 1811, long before the completion of the building in 1823, no significant changes were made in his design. In reconstructing Korobov’s partially destroyed Admiralty, Zakharov expanded the length of the facade from 300 meters to 375. In addition there were two perpendicular wings almost half that long extending to the river. From the perspective of the Neva River, the complex consisted of two pishaped buildings, one within the other. The inner building served the Admiralty dockyard, which it enclosed on three sides, while the outer contained The gilded Admiralty Tower rises above St. Petersburg. © CUCHI WHITE/CORBIS 10 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY administrative offices. The Admiralty end-blocks, facing the Neva River, are among the most successful neoclassical attempts to achieve a geometric purity of structure. The main facade, overlooking a large square (now a park), is marked in the center by a grand arch, flanked by statues of nymphs supporting a globe, sculpted by Feodosy Shchedrin. Above the arch, a sculpted frieze portrays Neptune handing Peter the Great the trident, symbol of power over the seas. The corners of the central tower support statues of Alexander the Great, Ajax, Achilles, and Pyrrhus. The tower culminates in a spire resting on an Ionic peristyle, the cornice of which supports twenty-eight allegorical and mythological statues representing the seasons, the elements, and the winds. The remarkable power of the Admiralty building derives from Zakharov’s ability to create visual accents for an immensely long facade. The simplicity of the surfaces provided the ideal background for large, rusticated arches and high-relief sculpture, thus converting a prosaic structure into a noble monument. See also: ARCHITECTURE; ST. PETERSBURG BIBLIOGRAPHY Brumfield, William Craft. (1993). A History of Russian Architecture. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hamilton, George Heard. (1975). The Art and Architecture of Russia. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books. WILLIAM CRAFT BRUMFIELD ADYGE The Adyge are the titular nationality of the Republic of Adygeia in the Russian Federation, which lies along the foothills of the northwestern Caucasus Range. In Soviet times, this was an autonomous okrug (district) within Krasnodar Krai, with its capital city of Maikop. The Adyge number 22 percent of the republic, which has 541,000 inhabitants, the remainder being largely Russians. There are considerable Adyge communities living just outside the republic in the Krasnodar Krai. The Adyge are primarily engaged in agriculture and forestry. Health resorts are also an important source of employment and revenue, as is tourism. The Adyge belong to the same ethnolinguistic family as the Cherkess and the Kabardians, who live in neighboring republics, and they speak various dialects of Western Circassian. Soviet nationalities policies established these three groups as separate peoples and languages, but historical memory and linguistic affinity, as well as postSoviet ethnic politics, perpetuate notions of ethnic continuity. An important element in this has been the contacts, since the break-up of the Soviet Union, with Adyge living in Turkey, Syria, Israel, Jordan, West Europe, and the United States. These are the descendants of migrants who left for the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century, after the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. In the 1990s, a number of Adyge families from the diaspora migrated back and settled in Maikop, but integration remains somewhat fraught with social and legal problems. The Adyge are Muslim, although other religious influences, including Greek Orthodox Christianity and indigenous beliefs and rituals, can be discerned in cultural practices. As elsewhere, the Soviet state discouraged Islamic practice and identity among the Adyge, but supported cultural nationbuilding. In the post-Soviet period, the wars in Abkhazia (1992–1993) and Chechnya (1994–1997; 1999–2000) greatly affected Adyge politics, causing the Russian state to intermittently infuse the republic with resources to prevent the spreading of conflict. In another development, the Shapsoug, who belong to the same ethno-linguistic group and live on the Black Sea shores near the town of Sochi, are lobbying Moscow for their own administrative unit, and for political linkages with the Adygeia Republic. See also: ABKHAZIANS; CAUCASUS; CHECHNYA AND CHECHENS; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; SHAMIL BIBLIOGRAPHY Baddeley, John F. (1908). The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus. London: Longmans, Green & Co. Borxup, Marie Bennigsen, ed. (1992). The North Caucasus Barrier: The Russian Advance towards the Muslim World. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Gammer, Moshe. (1994). Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan. London: Frank Cass. Jaimoukha, Amjad. (2001). The Circassians: A Handbook. New York: Palgrave. ADYGE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY 11 ADZHUBEI, ALEXEI IVANOVICH Jersild, Austin. (2002). Orientalism and Empire: North Caucasus Mountain Peoples and the Georgian Frontier, 1854–1917. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queens University Press. Matveeva, Anna. (1999). The North Caucasus: Russia’s Fragile Borderland. London: The Royal Institute of International Affairs. SETENEY SHAMI ADZHUBEI, ALEXEI IVANOVICH (1924–1992), Nikita Khrushchev’s son-in-law, and a leading Soviet journalist. Alexei Adzhubei met Rada Khrushcheva at Moscow State University in 1947 and married her in August 1949, when Khrushchev was party boss of Ukraine. Adzhubei became chief editor of Komsomolskaya pravda in 1957 and then, in 1959, of the Soviet government newspaper, Izvestiya. In 1961 he was named a member of the party Central Committee. In addition, Adzhubei was a member of Khrushchev’s “Press Group,” which edited the leader’s speeches. He served as an informal adviser to his father-in-law on matters ranging from culture to foreign policy, and he accompanied Khrushchev on trips abroad including the United States (1959), Southeast Asia (1960), Paris (1960), and Austria (1961). Under Adzhubei, Komsomolskaya pravda sharply increased its circulation by adding feature articles and photographs, while Izvestiya reduced the amount of predictable political boiler plate, printed more letters from readers, and published boldly anti-Stalinist works such as Alexander Tvardovsky’s poem, “Tyorkin in the Other World.” In time, Adzhubei began acting as an unofficial emissary for Khrushchev, meeting with foreign leaders such as U.S. president John F. Kennedy and Pope John XXIII, sounding out their views, reporting back to his father-in-law, and writing up his interviews in Izvestiya. Thanks to his special position, Adzhubei was cultivated by other Soviet leaders, including some who eventually conspired to oust Khrushchev. When Khrushchev fell from power in October 1964, Adzhubei was denied the right to write under his own name and forced to live in obscurity until he was rehabilitated during the era of perestroika and glasnost in the late 1980s. See also: IZVESTIYA; JOURNALISM; KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH; PRAVDA BIBLIOGRAPHY Buzek, Antony. (1964). How the Communist Press Works. New York: Praeger. Khrushchev, Sergei N. (2000). Nikita Khrushchev and the Creation of a Superpower. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. WILLIAM TAUBMAN AEROFLOT Aeroflot, literally “air fleet,” is the common name for the state airline of the Soviet Union. It was operated under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Civil Aviation. The airline was founded in 1928 as Dobroflot and was reorganized into Aeroflot in 1932. During Soviet times, Aeroflot was the world’s largest airline, with about 15 percent of all civil air traffic. The first ever nonstop transpolar flight (from Moscow to the United States in 1933) on the ANT-25 aircraft operated by Valery Chkalov, Georgy Baidukov, and Alexander Belyakov was a landmark in the history of the aviation. Aeroflot introduced commercial jet plane service on September 15, 1956, on a flight from Moscow to Irkutsk. Aeroflot developed the world’s first supersonic airliner, the TU-144. Its maiden flight took place on December 31, 1968, two months ahead of the Concorde. Regular supersonic cargo flights began in late 1975 and passenger flights in 1977. Supersonic service was suspended in 1978, after 102 flights. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, Aeroflot was reorganized by the June 1992 resolution of the government of Russian Federation, becoming Aeroflot-Russian International Airlines. Another government resolution appointed Valery Okulov as its first general director in May 1997. Aeroflot-Russian International Airlines is a joint-stock company, with 51 percent of the stock owned by the government as of 2002 and the remaining 49 percent belonging to the employees. With over fourteen thousand employees, as of 2002 Aeroflot-Russian International Airlines was the world’s fourth largest commercial airline; with flights to 140 destinations in 94 countries, it provided 70 percent of all the international air transport performed by Russian airlines, and had 151 representatives abroad, as well as branches in the Russian Federation in Novosibirsk, 12 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY Khabarovsk, and St. Petersburg. The company’s fleet consisted in 2002 of 111 airplanes, including two Boeing-767-300s, eight Airbuses A-310-300, six long-range Iluyshin-96-300s, eighteen Iluyshin76TD cargo planes and one cargo DC-10/30F, and other jets, illustrating the diversification of aircraft in the post-Soviet period. See also: AVIATION BIBLIOGRAPHY Aeroflot: Russian International Airlines. (2003). Available at