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Cultural Atl/
MIL
Cultural atlas of Russia and
Cultural Atlas of
RUSSIA
and the Former Soviet Union
—
1 Abingdon Oxfordshire.
HnglandOXU 3PX Please call our Special Sales
Department in New York at
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;
Cultural Atlas of
RUSSIA
and the Former Soviet Union
by Robin Milner-Gulland
with Nikolai Dejevsky
Revised Edition
Ej
Checkmark Books
An imprint of Feu
CONTENTS
8 Chronological Table
10 The Rulers of Russia and the former Soviet Union
14 Preface
225 Bibliography
228 Glossary
230 List of Illustrations
232 Gazetteer
235 Index
Special Features Lis of Maps
30 Scythian Gold 12 The former Soviet Union physical
32 The Peoples of the Steppe 22 Vegetation of the former Soviet Union
48 St Sophia, Kiev 22 Climate of the former Soviet Union
62 Ivan the Terrible 23 Soils of the former Soviet Union
68 The Trinity Monastery of St Sergius 26 Languages of the former Soviet Union
70 Novgorod the Great 28 The Slavonic language family
72 The Great Age of Russian Art 35 Eastern Europe and the Byzantine world
86 Wooden Buildings of Northern Russia in the 10th century
98 The Russian Baroque 36 Russia and the Vikings
116 1812 38 Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean in
118 Decembrists, Anarchists and Terrorists the mid- 11th century
122 Pushkin and Gogol 41 Kievan Russia
130 Tolstoy the Revolutionary 45 Russia on the eve of the Tatar conquest
138 Peasant Life before the Revolution 50 Russia and the Asiatic world, 13th-14th
140 1905 centuries
144 Chekhov and the Moscow Art Theater 55 The monastic and missionary movements,
158 Communism 14th-15th centuries
162 Diaghilev and Stravinsky 56 Moscow and the "gathering-in" of the
164 Two Paths to Modern Art: Malevich and Russian lands
Tatlin 58 West Russia: the growth of Poland and
166 Religion in Russia and the Soviet Union Lithuania
170 The Art of Propaganda 60 Novgorod: lands and trade connections
210 Moscow 67 Russia at the Time of Troubles, c.1600
214 St Petersburg 74 The expansion of Muscovy in the 16th
and 17th centuries
79 Russian in the reign of Tsar Aleksey
91 Peter I's Great Embassy and Northern War
104 Expansion of the Russian empire in the
18th century
108 The Razin rebellion
109 The Pugachov rebellion
111 The social composition of Russia in the
century
late 18th
115 The Napoleonic wars
124 The Crimean War
127 The Eastern Question
128 The Russian empire at its greatest extent,
mid- 19th century
147 Europe: alliances and frontiers in 1914
148 World War I
152 The revolutions and civil war
157 Consolidation of the Soviet Union
172 Industrialization, urbanization and
collectivization
174 World War II
177 The Soviet bloc, c.1950
183 Key to the regional maps
186 Belarus, Moldova and Ukraine
192 The Baltic republics
198 Transcaucasia
204 Russia
206 The Moscow region
216 Central Asia
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE
Princely conference at Tatar rule established in
Rvurik ruler of Novgorod
Lyubech 1097 Rus 1240
Oleg unites Kiev and
Novgorod c.882
INTERNATIONAL RM.ATIONS First Rus attack on FirstRussian treaty with First Tatar raid 1223
Constantinople 860 Constantinople 911 Alexander Nevsky
Igor of Kiev makes treaty defeats Teutonic Knight
with Constantinople 944 1242
Swatoslav of Kiev sacks Novgorod signs treaty
Khazaria 967 with Hanseatic Leauge
1270
TERRITORIAL CHANGES Yaroslavl founded 1025 Vladimir founded 1108 Nizhniy Novgorod
Moscow founded 1147 founded 1221
ART AND ARCHITECTURE St Sophia, Kiev, begun Virgin of Vladimir icon St George,Yuryev-
1037 c.1125 Polsky 1230
St Sophia, Novgorod, Dormition Cathedral, Transfiguration
begun 1043 Vladimir 1158 (enlarged Cathedral, Tver 1285
1189)
Church of the Savior,
Nereditsa Hill,
Novgorod 1198
LEARNING, SCIENCE AND Cvrillic alphabet devised Hilarion's On the Law and Instruction of Vladimir II
LITERATURE c.860(?) the Grace mid-1 lth Monomakh c.1100
century Primary Chronicle
completed 1113
/gorTa/ec.1187
Yury of Moscow obtains Ivan 111 ends tribute I Ivan IV assumes title of Time of Troubles begins Peter 1 transfers seat oi Decembrist uprisi 182 in: Duma 1906
yarlyk from Tatars 1 3 1 T.it.irs 480 "tsar" 1547 1605 government to si Revolt in Polish February and October
Dmitriy Donskoy defeat Sudebtlik flaw code) 1550 Mikhail I. first Romanov Petersburg 1712 provinces 1830 tions 1917
Tatars at Kulikovo 1380 Fyodor I, last Ryunkid tsar 161 5 Gentry liberated from Emancipation of sells Civil War 1917-20
ruler, dies 1598 Ulozhenne (new legal obligatory service 7(>2 1 1861 USSR formed 1923
code) promulgated 1649 Legislative Commission first "To the People" End <>1 MP, institution
Revolt ol Stenka Razm 1767 movement 1873 74 ear plans 1928
1670 71 Pugachov rebellion Great Purges 1936-38
Mestnichestvo abolished 1773-75 Stalin dies 1953
1682 Charter of Nobility 1785 Dissolution ol I'SSK I 'I'M
ft
f» \4
Patriarch Filaret. I ..'inn, 1870 1924
15537-1633
Lithuanians defeat Muscovy Company Treaty of Nerchinsk Start of Great Northern Treaty of Tilsit signed Russo-Japanese War
Teutonic Knights at formed in London 1555 signed with China 1689 War against Sweden 1700 with Napoleon 1807 1904-09
I a iinen berg 14 Hi Commercial links Peter I's Great Embassy Peter 1 defeats Charles rench invade Rus
I World War I 1914-18
Constantinople falls to established with 1697-98 XII of Sweden at Poltava Nonaggression pact with
Ottoman Turks 1453 Holland 1577 1709 Outbreak of Crimean Germany 19 39
[van III closes Hanseatic Peace of Nystad 1721 War 1853 Hitler invades USSR 1941
depot in Novgorod 1494 First partition of Poland Hungarian uprising
1772 crushed 1956
Second partition of Cuban missile crisis 1962
Poland 1793 "Prague Spring" 1968
Third partition of Poland Invasion of Afghanistan
1795 1979
Metropolitan see Solovki Monastery Church cour supports Nikon patriarch of Patriarchate abolished Reestablishment of
transferred from Kiev founded 1429 "Josephites" 1503 Moscow 1652 patriarchate 1918
to Vladimir1300 Lithuanians set up rival Council of Hundred Church council deposes Dukhobor sect founded Church property
Metropolitan see Orthodox metropolitan Chapters 1551 Nikon but confirms 1740-50 confiscated 1922
transferred from Vladimir in Kiev 1458 Patriarchate of Moscow reforms 1666-67 Death of Patriarch
to Moscow c. 1321 established 1589 Archpriest Avvakum Tikhon; no new
St Sergius founds Trinity Union of Brest 1596 martyred 1682 patriarch elected 1925
Monastery c.1340 Reestablishment of
patriarchate 1943
Theophanes the Greek Iconostasis of Archangel Cathedral, "Marvelous Church" at Old Admiralty building, Admiralty building, St Institute of Artistic
active in Novgorod Annunciation Moscow, begun 1 505 Uglich 1618 St Petersburg' 1704 Petersburg, remodeled Culture (Inkhuk)
1378 Cathedral, Moscow 1405 Church of the Church of the Nativity Rastrelli's Winter Palace, 1806 organized 1920
Rublyov's Old Ascension, in Putinki, Moscow St Petersburg 1754 First Wanderers' Lenin Mausoleum,
Testament Trinity Kolomenskoye 1532 1649 Falconet's Bronze exhibition 1871 Moscow 1929-30
icon c.1410 St Basil's, Moscow Nikon's New Jerusalem Horseman, St Petersburg Mir iskusstva (World of Doctrine of Socialist
Fioravanti builds 1555-60 begun 1658 1766-82 Art) launched 1898 Realism formulated 1934
Dormition Cathedral. Smolensk kremlin 1596 Palace of Kolomenskoye Union of Artists founded
Moscow, 1475-79 1667-70 1957
Trinity Chronicle early First book printed in Life(autobiography) of Russia's first newspaper Karamzin's History of the First issueof Pravda 1912
15th century Moscow 1564 Avvakum 1670s published 1703 Russian State 1816-26 Sholokhov's The Quiet
Slav-Greek-Latin Academy of Sciences Pushkin's Yevgeny Onegin Don 1928^40
Academy established in founded at St Petersburg 1823 31 Artistic groups officially
Moscow' 1687 1725 Chaadayev's first dissolved 1932
Lomonosov's Letter on Philosophical Letter 1836 First congress of Union of
the Utility of Glass\752 Lermontov's Hero of our Soviet Writers 1934
Moscow University Time 1840 Eisenslein's Alexander
founded 1755 Gogol's Dead Souls 1842 Nevsky 1938
Academy of Arts Turgenev's Fathers and Sputnik I launched 1957
founded at St Petersburg Children 1862 Pasternak's Dr Zr
1757 Tolstoy's War and Peace 1957
Radishchev's Journey 1864-69 Gagarin first man in
from St Petersburg to Dostoievsky's The space 1961
Mosow 1790 Brothers Karamazov Solzhenitsyn's One Day of
1879-80 Ivan Denisovich 1962
Moscow Art Theater
founded 1897
THE RULERS OF RUSSIA In the period before 1547 the rulers of Russia
Kievan line
862-79 Ryurik semilegendary ruler of Novgorod
913-45 Igor
945-64 [Olga] widow of Igor
945-72 Svyatoslav I
973-78/80 Yaropolk I
1015-19 Svyatopolk I
1073-76 Svyatoslav II
sons of Yaroslav I, who ruled Kiev in turns
1077-78 Izyaslav I (again)
1078-93 Vsevolod I J
1093-1 1 1 3 Svyatopolk II son of Izyaslav I
1125-39 Mstislav I
_
1132-39 Yaropolk II
younger brothers of Mstizslav I
1 1 39-46 Vyacheslav _
1146-54 Izyaslav II
~~]
sons of
J
Mstislav I
1 1 54-67 Rostislav
1149-57 Yury Dolgoruky (i.e. Long-armed or Long-sighted) younger
brother of Mstislav I; overlaps with Rostislav; prince of Suzdal
Vladimir
1176-1212 Vsevolod III (Bolshoye Gnezdo; i.e. of the Large Nest) son
subsequently Vladimir
1263-71 Yaroslav III son of Yaroslav II; prince of Tver
Muscovite line
1263-1303 Daniil youngest son of Alexander Nevsky; first prince of
Moscow and (from 1302) of Pereyaslavl
1 303-25 Yury III (Danilovich) grand prince of Moscow
1325-41 Ivan I (Kalita; i.e. Moneybags) brother of Yury III; "Grand
Prince of Vladimir and All Russia," resident in Moscow
1341-53 Semyon (Gordy; i.e. the Proud)
1353-59 Ivan II (Krasny; i.e. the Fair) brother of Semyon
1359-89 Dmitriy Ivanovich (Donskov)
1389-1425 Vasiliy I
Romanov dvnastv
161 3-45 Mikhail Romanov son oj Fyodor Romanov, who later became
Metropolitan Filaret
1645-76 Aleksey Mikhavlovich
1676-82 Fyodor III Aleksey's children b <ava;
1682-89 [Sophia] Ivan V senior co-tsar with Peter I.
1801-25 Alexander 1
1855-81 Alexander II
Post-Revolutionarv period
1917 (Feb-July) Prince Georgiy Lvov prime minister in provisional
government
1917 (July-Oct) Alexander Kerensky prime minister in provisional
government
1917-24 Lenin (Vladimir Ilvich Ulyanov) chairman of the Council of
People's Commissars
1924-53 Joseph Stalin (Iosif Visarionovich Dzhugashvili)
secretary-general of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
from 1922; effective sole power from 1928; from 1940 official head of
government
1953-55 Georgiy Malenkov unofficial head of collective leadership after
Stalin
Joseph :
Boris Yeltzin
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PREFACE
— —
can demonstrate positively as well as on pp. 138, 140, 166 and 170. Malcolm Day
negatively alternative possibilities within the produced many expert map briefs and drafted
European heritage. parts of the last section.
The term "Russia" is not self-explanatory: what For the rest, and indeed for the overall shape of
it has meant through more than a thousand years the volume, I have to take responsibility. But to
of changing circumstances —
from Kievan Rus many colleagues I must express thanks for helping
through Muscovy, the Russian Empire, the Soviet me on detailed queries (often without knowing
—
Union and the CIS is indeed one of this book's they were doing so): among them are Professors
themes. Geographical context is of the highest A. A.M. Bryer, A.G. Cross, G.S. Smith and R.E.F.
importance, and is provided in our first and last Smith and Drs D. Dyker, S. Franklin and S. Hackel;
sections (in the latter, the new republics are also members of my family. Above all I have
treated individually). The bulk of our
text is a profited by the support and comments of Professor
narrative history from the earliest times to the Sir Dimitri Obolensky, as indeed I have throughout
present. It is both impracticable and undesirable to a friendship lasting decades.
separate cultural from political or any other kind
of history. But particular attention has been paid Robin Milner-Gulland
to the context of ideas in which Russian history
PART ONE
THF
GEOGRAPHICAL
—
Any accounl of Russian culture through the ages as might be expected, colder as one proceeds from
should begin by evoking the circumstances and south to north, but also from west to east until
locations in which the history of this culture has close to the Pacific seaboard, as a truly continental
unrolled. Russians may not have a unique status climate supersedes the somewhat more variable
among peoples in their sense of self-identification and comparatively temperate conditions of western
with their land, but their awareness of the part it and even central European Russia. The vegetation
has played in shaping their destiny, sometimes as belts are of considerable importance to the
ally, sometimes as antagonist, has always been economy and remain easily recognizable to the
particularly acute. modern traveler, despite centuries or millennia of
For the past thousand and more years several human interference and modification. The most
constraints can be seen in the relationship of the basic distinction is between forest and grassland
people and the land of Russia. These tend to (or steppe). Each has presented its own difficulties
present themselves in the form of problems in and opportunities for exploitation. It is however
whose resolution a positive aspect can emerge. (1) worth dwelling briefly on all seven of the great
Russia is. and throughout history has been, large vegetation zones and their distinctive traits.
very large on a European or even world scale: only —
The northernmost is tundra the true Arctic
evanescent empires of conquest have outreached it. waste, where summers are too short and cool for
This huge extent has generally entailed poor com- trees or exploitable grasses to grow. Though it
munications and the threat of ungovernability. (2) Ocean coastline and part of
fringes the entire Arctic
Russia is thinly populated, and this was true even the Pacific, it forms only a narrow strip in
before it added the vast emptiness of Siberia to its European Russia on either side of the White Sea
territory. (3) Russia is agricultural. The often pre- entrance: in central Siberia however it stretches
carious harvests of field and forest have been the several hundred kilometers south from the Taymyr
prime source of its wealth (and cause of its difficul- Peninsula. It was not, for obvious reasons, a place
ties). Even in the industrialized 20th century the of permanent Russian settlement until very
rural population has been larger than the urban recently, yet it is not wholly hostile to life: it
until the present generation. (4) Russia has lacked supports reindeer on its lichen, water-birds on its
fixed frontiers. The unequivocal natural demar- innumerable pools and summer swamps and fish
cations of seacoasts or high mountain ranges have —
and walruses in its seas resources which for
been attained bv Russians only very gradually, and centuries the Russians, not to mention Eskimo
through infiltration or conquest that has taken peoples such as the Nentsy, have to some extent
them far beyond their historic lands. Nor did the exploited. The soil beneath the tundra is perman-
boundaries of the former Soviet Union or the Russ- ently frozen; it would be wrong however simply to
ian empire before it follow ethnic/linguistic demar- equate tundra with "permafrost," a frozen subsoil,
cations at all closely. (5) Russia is astonishingly far since in parts of central and eastern Siberia perma-
north: even its great historic southern metropolis, frost actually stretches far further south, up to and
Kiev (now modern-day Kyyiv), is on a level with beyond the Mongolian border.
the southern tip of Hudson Bay; St Petersburg is on South of the tundra, yet reaching in many places
the latitude of the Shetland Islands; nearly half of beyond the Arctic Circle, comes the most extensive
Russian territory is north of 60°, that is, on a level zone of all: the coniferous forest belt. Stretching as
with Alaska, Baffin Island or Greenland. (6) Finally it does from the Gulf of Finland to Kamchatka, not
the Russian climate seems expressly designed to less than 1000 kilometers wide (sometimes double
foil human habitation and activity. Winter lasts that), this, the "Hercynian Forest" of the ancients,
half the year or more, but the summer is actually is one of the mightiest features of our planet. The
often very arid, with rainfall slight and ill-distrib- Russian term for it is taiga, which properly implies
uted; vast tracts of desert are matched by even trackless or virgin forest, though geographers
vaster tracts of waterlogged swamp. worldwide have adopted it to apply to the entire
zone. In any case it has always been thinly, where
The vegetation belts at all, inhabited, with sparse settlements along its
The great overriding constant in Russian and river systems developing around forts, monasteries
Eurasian geography has been the natural division and trading posts, and scattered non-Russian
of the country's vegetation, following its climate, (mostly Finno-Ugrian) indigenous inhabitants liv-
into a series of latitudinal bands running roughly ing generally as hunters and gatherers. Where the
from west to east across European Russia and well forest is cleared, particularly in European Russia,
into Asia, unhindered by what on the map might some cultivation of hardy crops is possible, but the
look like the natural obstacles of the Ural Moun- soil is usually poor and often swampy, the growing
tains, the Caspian Sea and several great river sys- season short and chancy. Yet from these northern
tems. This spectrum of seven long, often narrow forests Russia has derived great wealth over the
zones, each continuing for literally thousands of course of the last millennium, nowadays from the
kilometers, is closely related to soil type and in timber which is methodically exploited and
turn to geology and to climate. The latter becomes, exported, but in the past above all from the fur-
Tundra in summer: an Eskimo bearing animals whose luxuriant pelts were well golia. The steppe landscape is quite distinct from
fishing settlement by the shores adapted to the bitter cold. and
that of the forested zones, to understand this
of the Arctic Ocean.
The next two zones, very narrow by comparison distinction we need to go back to the ice ages. In
with the taiga, can conveniently be treated European Russia the maximum extent of glaciation
together. First comes the mixed coniferous- reached approximately as far as what is now the
deciduous forest: this fansout towards the western belt of wooded steppe. To the north of this the ice
border, taking in all of Belarus and the Baltic states, irregularly scoured the landscape, leaving sandy,
linking up with the forests of central Europe. Here clayey or gravelly surface deposits overlying the
the firs, pines and larches of the north are inter- chalk and limestone (north of St Petersburg, older
spersed with large stands of (chiefly) birch and oak: rocks) beneath, and creating many moraine ridges
such trees, together with limes, characterize too the as it retreated: an undulating, sometimes hum-
so-called wooded steppe, a narrow band running mocky landscape has resulted, with many scooped-
alongside the mixed forest across European Russia, out lakes and swampy hollows, among which
then becoming wider beyond the Urals until fading rivers wander rather inconsequentially. Below the
out among the mountains of central Asia. With dis- however, thick and fertile soils,
limit of glaciation,
continuities, both zones can be traced subse- including much windblown loess, have built up
quently along the southern fringe of Siberia to the undisturbed.
Far East. Relatively inconspicuous on the map, The age-old steppe vegetation is the tall and lux-
these two zones have been of the greatest impor- uriant feather-grass, whose matted roots trap such
tance to Russia's historical geography. With a some- moisture as is available in this thirsty region, and
what better climate and more fertile soils, they, over millennia of growth and decay build up a
unlike the taiga, have been cleared and tilled from splendidly rich layer of humus. This is the famous
the beginnings of Russian history, while still "black earth" or chernozem, the availability of
retaining a fair amount of exploitable forest land. which is Russia's greatest agricultural blessing.
Russia's three ancient capitals of Kyyiv (formerly There also exist various less remarkable, but still
\
1
/ I *
Ft*
••
nil LAND AND
whole of eastern Siberia beyond the Lena. The very small, but totally distinctive pockets of sub-
southern mountains of the former Soviet Union, as tropical vegetation: in western Georgia (particu-
elsewhere, are favorable for livestock and timber larly Adzharia), in Azerbaijan, in Turkmenistan
exploitation; the precipitation they attract is and on the southeast coast of the Crimea. They do
important in the most arid parts of the country, not form any coherent zone or belt; indeed they are
watering in particular the fertile Transcaucasian scarcely large enough to be noticed on most vegeta-
republics and the great oases of Central Asia. tion maps. Yet as normally frost-free areas they are
The only important range eccentric to the remarkable in the context of this northerly country
pattern described above is that of the Urals: rela- and have disproportionate economic significance.
tively low, and without special agricultural signifi- Citrus fruits are grown, while the largest of these
cance, they nevertheless have been most important pockets — at the extreme eastern end of the Black
for centuries to Russia as a source of mineral Sea, around Bat'umi in Adzharia — has rich tea
wealth. Old Russia's territory touched on moun- plantations, and its hinterland actually represents a
tains only at its extreme southwestern corner (the continuation of the subtropical rain forest of the
III! LAND AND THfi PEOPLE
Right The mixed-forest zone of Trebizond area. The Crimean "dry Mediterranean"
central Russia has long been coastal strip in the lee of the Yayla has long been an
hospitable to human settlement
The woman with her cluster of area of touristic importance as a winter and sum-
small livestock represents a mer resort.
timeless mode of peasant life.
ESTONIA
LATVIA
LITHUANIA
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mountain vegetation
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MOLDOVA -^V^
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RUSSIA
scale 1 36 000 000
mean precipitation, January
Above: vegetation.
GEORGIA^ k. KAZAKHSTAN
ARMENIA^
A series of vegetation
l.itnudinally across the entire
zones runs
AZERBAIJAN
^A^ uzBEKisTAN >-^
region. A fundamental
division
r¥-^- v
separates those areas that are
naturally covered with dense
TURKMENISTA N _X \
V-KYRGYZSTA
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forest irom those that are scale 1:86 500 000 N^TAJIKISTAN
treeless. A great coniferous
forest (taiga), the largest such
feature in the world, stretches ESTONIA
from Scandinavia to the Sea of LATVIA.
Okhotsk: to the north and LITHUANIA
northeast it is fringed by tundra,
to the south come successively
BELARUS^^X/
zones of steppe, semidesert and .-^> ;
\ O \ J
desert. These continue beyond MOLDOVA —S'V'S
the Central Asian frontiers on
Mongolian and Chinese territory.
Between the coniferous forest 1 precipitation, July
and the open grassland of the
steppe come two narrow
transitional zones: mixed forest GEORG
(in Siberia, "sub-taiga"), and the ARMENIA
so-called wooded steppe (steppe AZERBAIJA
country with considerable areas
of forest). These two zones have
been of the greatest importance TURKMENISTAN
for human settlement and
agriculture.
22
THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE
ESTONIA
LATVIA
LITHUANIA
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KYRGYZSTAN
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praises the mild and respectful habits of the quite possible that Slavonic tribes, probably Languages of Russia and
own Though (though not certainly) direct forebears of the Rus- Northern Eurasia.
Polyane tribe, the Kievans' ancestors.
Well over 100 languages are
divided, they retain a unified language, Slavonic; sians, occupied parts of Southern Russia many spoken in the region, the
they "live separately," that is, independently, centuries before they were first mentioned in majority of them by very small
ethnic groups, and hence
though some pay tribute to the Khazar kingdom of written sources by outsiders; some archaeological
unrecordable on any save the
the steppe country (one tribe, the Vyatichi, was to evidence points in this direction. To postulate a most detailed maps. The greatest
do so until the later 10th century). The establish- long and formative period of contact and coopera- diversity is seen in the Caucasus,
particularly in Dagestan on the
ment of a more-or-less unitary Russian state took tion with southern steppe peoples of Iranian stock northeast flank of the range.
place in the mid-9th century when a group of Vik- (as does the much-read historian G. Vernadsky) Two great language families,
ings, headed by a certain Ryurik (a name perhaps goes far beyond any ascertainable facts. Yet there however, dominate the territory
in question. The larger is the
cognate with "Rorich" or "Roderick") assumed the remains one not easily explained phenomenon: the Slavonic, comprising the closely
government of Novgorod and north Russia, appar- indisputable existence in the early Kievan period related Russian, Ukrainian and
Belarusian. Native speakers of
ently by invitation, and his descendants extended (lOth-llth centuries) of a single Russian outpost
Russian extend from the Gulf of
their power southwards. far to the southeast of anv other Russian domains, Finland to the Pacific;
The chronicler does not hazard a guess as to the the small principality of Tmutorokan on the Strait nevertheless they are now less
than half the total population.
time scale over which this migration or infiltration of Kerch, where the Sea of Azov debouches into the
The other family is the Turkic,
of Slavs on to what is now Russia, and the coal- Black Sea. Was its establishment merely one of the most of whose recognized
escence of small clans into larger tribal units, took consequences of the military expeditions of that languages and dialects are
intercomprehensible: it extends
place. There is very little clear evidence. Unequi- greatest of peripatetic Kievan warriors, Prince from Azerbaijan to Yakutia.
vocal references to the Slavs on the territory of Svyatoslav (960s), or a unique, hence precious rem- Other non-Indo-European
Southern Russia are found only from the mid-6th nant of an early Russian presence south of the great language families include the
Finnic to the north and the
century onwards, in the writings of Byzantine, and steppe, guarding the mouth of what an early Arab Caucasian group to the south.
subsequently also Arab, historians and geogra- writer calls the "Slav River" (the Don)? Answers
phers. It seems likely that a confederation of tribes do not come readily, but what is certain is that Kie-
known as Antes or Antae, who dominated the Pon- van Russians considered this area an important
tic steppe (north of the Black Sea) as vassals of the part of their realm, and devoted much ultimately
Sarmatians until crushed by the Turkic Avars, unsuccessful effort to retaining it.
were wholly or partly Slavonic. So too must have Up to this point we have referred to the fore-
been the more northerly Venedi (from whose name bears of the Russians as "Slavs," as members, that
derive modern forms such as "Wendish"). It is is to say, of a larger unit of people, linguistically
—
I HE LAM) AND THE PEOPLE
homogeneous, who during the middle centuries of of Europe, spreading in waves from eastern Anato-
the first millennium ad spread outwards from a lia. It is a concept of particular interest in a Russian
fairly confined territory somewhere in east-central context, but it is largely untested and has been
&&£<&&% Europe to occupy wholly or partially, a vast vigorously disputed.
swathe of the continent, extending to the Elbe in The Indo-European language family overall has
Germany, to the Adriatic, to the Baltic, to beyond some rather distinctive characteristics that set it
the Gulf of Corinth in mainland Greece, and into apart on the world linguistic scene: a highly devel-
the wooded steppe, and perhaps the true steppe oped grammatical system whereby discrete
x-:
country eastwards. It is clear that in the course of —
words nouns, verbs, adjectives and pronouns
this great migration, or rather these waves of undergo a series of systematic changes (usually to
migration, the Slavs split into three main branches: their endings) to indicate their "agreement" with
the Western, the Southern and the Eastern. Out of other words and/or their semantic function within
these, over centuries, the present Slavonic nations the sentence; a pervasive and apparently arbitrary
Czechs and Slovaks (all, as well
crystallized: Poles, attribution of the category of "gender" to nouns:
as some smaller groups, such as the Sorbs or Lusa- an elaborate set of verb forms distinguishing the
tians of East Germany, West Slavs); Bulgarians, manner (usually temporal) of an action. Modern
:"- . Serbo-Croats and Slovenes (South Slavs); and the Indo-European languages have mostly, in the
Russians (subdividing only from the late Middle course of their evolution, shed parts of this compli-
Ages into Great Russians, Belarusians and Ukrai- cated web of interconnections —
English more than
nians) or East Slavs. This Slavonic expansion is any. The Slavonic languages, by contrast, have
poorly documented: evidently it did not have the retained a remarkable amount of the pristine gram-
suddenness or the military character of the great matical system. A most characteristic and interest-
movements of barbarian peoples that alarmed and ing feature that distinguishes them from other
Sakhalin
sometimes threatened the Romans and Byzantines. modern European languages is their virtual
abandonment of fine temporal distinctions through
The Slavonic languages the tense of verbs (as in modern English and
The Slavs, their three major branches and their French) in favor of a different category, "aspect,"
subsequent subdivisions, are fundamentally to be based on the concept of the duration or completion
defined not territorially, racially or politically but of an action. It is not so many years since whole
linguistically. The Slavonic group of languages theories on the nature of the "Slav soul" used to be
forms one of the major components of the great propounded on the basis of this rather fundamen-
Indo-European language family, whose speakers tal grammatical point.
range from North India (Hindi and Urdu), through The modern Russian language, even after more
Iran (Farsi) and parts of middle Asia (Tajik), to than a millennium of separate development, is not
Armenia, the Baltic (Lithuanian, Latvian) and vir- remote from the other Slavonic languages either
tually the whole of Europe. The Slavonic group phonetically, grammatically or (with reservations)
stands on an equal footing with, for example, the in vocabulary. These languages are much closer to
Romance languages (derived from Latin), the Ger- each other than, for example, even English is to
manic (including English and the Scandinavian Dutch: it is probably as easy for one Slav to be
Indo-European (with branch) tongues) and also such solitary surviving represen- understood in another's language as, say, for an
|
Belarusian (Slavonic)
tatives of ancient groups as Greek. By tracing back Italian in Spain or a Dane in Norway. The aware-
|
Russian (Slavonic)
the evolution of the existing Slavonic languages ness of this communality has always been
|
Ukrainian (Slavonic) and extrapolating to the period before documen- important to Slavonic peoples, though it has not
|
Latvian. Lithuanian (Baltic) tation, linguists have without difficulty recon- always led to undying affection between them. A
|
Ta|ik. Ossetian (Iranian) structed a plausible "Common Slavonic" language certain inter-Slav solidarity has probably been fos-
!5S-| Moldovan ( Romance i
from which the three major branches originated. tered through the ages by a lurking sense of being,
1
Armenian (other) Common Slavonic, incidentally, must have devel- collectively, "outsiders" on the European scene,
oped in proximity to the Baltic group (Latvian, seldom if ever among the cultural or political
Altaic (with branch)
A2en, Turkmen. Yakut (Turkic) Lithuanian, the extinct Old Prussian) with which it leaders, aware since the days of the Germanic
[
|
Bashkir. Tatar (Turkic) shares several significant features. Certain non- Ottonian empire in the 10th century of the cov-
Karakalpak. Kirghiz. Uzbek (Turkic) Indo-European languages (Finnish, Estonian, etous eyes of powerful neighbors. Sense of linguis-
| |
Magyar, Turkish, Tatar) have also adjoined the tic community is incorporated in the very word
|
Kazakh (Turkic)
Slavs, apparently without affecting their linguistic "Slav," which is cognate with slovo, word: its deriv-
I
Mongol. Tungus-Manchunan Tuvan (other)
structures. Some more conjectural detective work atives are found in the Slovenes who live at the
Caucas ian
has attempted to fix a prehistoric "homeland" for head of the Adriatic Sea and, at the opposite corner
Abkhaz. Chechen
of the Slav world, the sloveny who were the north-
| |
Dagestani languages
the Slavs, chiefly on the basis of the distribution of
I I
\ l^\ uninhabited or sparsely populated sumably came from somewhere. Problems con- event of prime historical importance to the Slavs as
nected with the spread of the Indo-European a whole rather than merely to the one nation in
peoples are highly contentious. A modern theory, which it took place. This nation was Greater Mora-
scale 1:36 000 000
propounded by the archaeologist Colin Renfrew, via, in the 9th century the most powerful and best-
sees the Indo-Europeans as the bearers of the organized Slav state that had ever existed,
settled agricultural way of life that during the Neo- occupying at its maximum all modern Slovakia and
lithic superseded hunting and gathering over most the Czech Republic, most of what is now Hungary,
THE LAND AND THE PEOP1 I
spread to certain non-Slavs, most notably the intermediary of Polish, entered Russian in some
syw*a '
Romanians. It is to this day the language of the quantity during the 17th century. With Peter the
Orthodox Church liturgy. Great's deliberate reorientation of Russia towards
There are two main factors that make this of the West after 1698 this trickle became a flood.
more than merely historical or ecclesiastical Naval and military terms, titles, even place names
interest. First, the missionaries, in order to trans- were borrowed (often in rough-and-ready trans-
latebooks of the New Testament and other spiri- literation) from Dutch, German and English. As the
tual works, had to devise an entire abstract century progressed French- and Latin-based words
vocabulary (mostly from Slavonic roots, following and expressions became very numerous, and more
tosome extent Greek patterns of word formation). significantly much word formation and even
Thus they opened the door for the enrichment of syntax was produced with Slavonic word-roots on
simple vernacular tongues with a whole new voca- Western patterns (so-called "caiques"). Both
bulary of intellectual concepts. Secondly, because caiques of this kind and transliterated words
the Slavonic languages have remained fairly (generally, but not always, adapted to the exigen-
close —for a long time intercomprehensible, cies of Russian grammar) have entered the language
—
despite their separate development Old Church in vast numbers during the last century. The
Slavonic has never been sensed as "alien," hardly Western visitor to modern Russia is often surprised
indeed as a separate language: rather as an archaic, and pleased to find that a mere ability to decipher
time-honored, solemn, abstract or rhetorical the Cyrillic alphabet (a skill quickly acquired) is
SIA
version of one's spoken tongue. A good deal of Old enough to reveal that large numbers of words in
r Church Slavonic vocabulary remains identical with street signs, newspaper headlines and elsewhere
that of modern Russian; where there are differ- are familiar friends from the European "inter-
ences, including in grammar, they are often of a national" vocabulary.
simple and consistent nature. There is thus a radi- Russia, like any long-established rural society,
cal difference between the role of "Slavonicisms" in has plentv of dialect differentiation at village level:
Russian and that of "Latinisms" in English and on a larger scale, however, the language is remark-
other Northern European languages, which in ably uniform over its vast range (far more so, for
\ other respects is a comparable case. example, than English, German or Italian).
Modern Russian thus has innumerable "doub- Probably the early mobility of the Russian popu-
East Slavonic
lets" —words recognizably similar, but of East Sla- lation (even, until the late 18th century, of the aris-
Belarus
vonic (Russian) and Old Church Slavonic origin tocracy) has been a contributory factor in this.
|
respectively, never merely synonymous but Basically there are two main Russian dialects
|
Great Russian
Ukrainian
carrying greater or lesser differences in meaning, in —
"northern" and "southern" that come together,
|
usage or in stylistic "load." An interesting, still or overlap, in a narrow mixed "central" belt. The
South Slavonic "productive" Old Church Slavonic element in Rus- most general and obvious differences concern the
[ |
Bulgarian
sian, known to everyone, is the termination -grad pronunciation of vowels and certain consonants:
|
Macedonian indicating a city (as in Volgograd); the Russian the central dialect, which is the basis of modern
|
Serbo-Croatian equivalent is gorod, town. A similar phonetic alter- standard Russian, takes some features from each.
'£ t \
Slovenian
I -\ nation affects the personal name "Vladimir," whose It would be neat if the dialect distinction corres-
Old Russian (and modern Ukrainian) equivalent is ponded with the forest/steppe divide: to some
approximat
speaking areas, "Volodimir," from which is derived the modern extent it does, with the central belt (that includes
approxima
speaking i
"familiar" form "Volodya." A characteristic Old Moscow and St Petersburg) representing the mixed
Church Slavonic abstract formation is the well- forest, but in fact the dialect division slopes south-
known word glasnost, relating to Russian golos, wards as it goes further east, thus giving a much
voice. Throughout its history the Russian literary larger (though less thickly populated) area, includ-
language has, with varying degrees of self- aware- ing most of the Volga basin and Siberia, to the
ness and recognizability, mixed native Russian and northern division. The southern dialects not sur-
Old Church Slavonic elements; in the mid-18th cen- prisinglv share some features with the Ukrainian
tury a consistent attempt was made to codify these language, to which they are transitional. Until the
variables in terms of "high," "middle" and "low" late Middle Ages, indeed, what were to become
styles — an attempt that soon broke down as too Muscovite (or "Great") Russian, Ukrainian and
unsubtle a rigidification of an infinitely mobile Belarusian were the fundamental dialect divisions
system. of Russian (or East Slavonic): differentiation into
Russian has absorbed other outside linguistic what are now regarded as separate languages came
influences besides those from Slavonic over its long with the political division of Russia after the Tatar
history. To the earliest neighboring peoples of the conquest and consequent absorption of Ukraine
Slavs in general and the Russians in particular and Belarus into the Polish-Lithuanian state. A
Germans in the west, Iranians in the southeast, form of early Belarusian was in fact the chancery
Finnic peoples in the northern forests, even Norse language of the medieval Lithuanian principality.
—
Vikings who provided early Russia's rulers only But their status as independent languages was
a tiny handful of words can be attributed. Much recognized in the case of modern Ukrainian and
more significant are the Turkic elements that Belarusian only with their development of self-
arrived partly through the Tatar invasion and sufficient literatures and the general rise of nation-
period of rule (c. 1240-1480), partly with the open- alistic awareness in the early 19th century, and was
ing-up of routes to the East in the 16th century. given official recognition only after the Revoluticn.
But even these were limited to certain areas of None of these three great branches of the liast
vocabulary, mostly to do with officialdom and Slavonic peoples can lay exclusive claim to the Old
trade. New techniques and cultural terms from Russian heritage, as their propagandists might
Western European languages, often through the energetically try to do so.
Scythian Gold
JO
SCYTHIAN GOLD
Left A masterpiece of
Greco-Scythian goldsmithing of
the 4th century bc, this pectoral
was discovered in a mound
south of Dnepropetrovsk in
1971. Its outer register depicts
animals in their wild and
ferocious aspect: pairs of griffins
attack horses, lions maul a stag
and a boar while hounds pursue
hares. The inner register shows
animals beautifully observed in
their domesticated roles, with a
mare suckling her foal and a cow
her calf. One of the four human
figures milks a ewe; another
holds an amphora, possibly
containing milk from the ewe on
her right. In the center two men
make a sheepskin shirt; despite
their domestic preoccupation,
their goryti are close
—
by reminders of the Scythians'
famed and feared prowess as
equestrian archers.
The Peoples of the Steppe
The earliest human inhabitants of the steppe were Left A leather applique
decoration from a saddle, found
already advancing over the land before the last Ice in a 5th-century bc barrow grave
Age. Paleolithic and Neolithic remains are widely dis- at Pazyryk. The contorted
silhouettes of the deer and its
tributed across Russia and its neighoring republics.
attacker are typical of the
As the Neolithic gave way to the Bronze Age, agricul- vigorous, stylized form of
ture became widespread in the chernozem zone. The nomadic art that reached its
apogee in Scythian Animal Style.
best-known culture of this period (4th-3rd millennia
bc) isnamed after Tripolye, south of Kyyiv (Kiev); its
sites have yielded the earliest evidence for the
domestication of the horse —
probably at first for meat.
The use of horses for riding, evident on the steppe
from the late 2nd millennium bc, brought about the
rise of societies based on mounted nomadism. The
nomads' mobility gave them a priceless advantage
over the settled farmers whom they could raid
without fear of retaliation. The migratory pressure of
the nomads was remarked (c.675 bc) by the earliest
known Greek to penetrate the steppe country, Aris-
teas of Proconnesus, who observed that the peoples
there "continually encroached on their neighbors."
Cultural continuities can be traced right across the
steppe through the different nomadic peoples, what-
ever their ethnic origins. At the opposite end of the
Scythian world, the graves (5th-3rd centuries bc) at
Pazyryk, preserved by permafrost in the Altay
mountains in western Siberia, contained items that
corroborate Herodotus' description of the Scythians.
Left A finial in the shape of a Above A swan worked in felt. A Above A man's headdress made
griffin's head; it holds the head group of these birds, whose of felt over which a fine layer of
of a deer in its beak. Finials with design strongly suggests Chinese leather has been applied. A
animal motifs like these were influence, formed part of the leather piping strengthens the
common in the ancient steppe applique decoration of the edges and an ornament of thick
cultures and may represent clan funeral can cover. The cart was leather has been sewn to the
totems. dismantled and buried with the crown. Both practical and
occupants of the grave. decorative, headdresses of
Right A leather flask from Although robbed in antiquity of similar shape, with long side
Pazyryk. It is made of four any precious metals, the use against the
flaps, are still in
pieces of leather stitched ice-filled Pazyryk tombs have biting cold of the steppe; the felt
together with sinews and is preserved remarkable textile would also have offered some
decorated with applique work, remnants showing influences protection against head wounds
also of leather. The stylized from both China and Iran, in battle.
plant motif indicates the flask's including by far the oldest
use as a container for herbs or known pile carpet.
seeds.
PART TWO
HIST
—
RUS
The early tribes quite remote from each other. The better-known
Documentation the land that
of the inhabitants of group followed the Black Sea coast to modern Bul-
is now Russia begins with Herodotus in the 5th garia, where in the 7th century they formed a war-
century bc. He and subsequent ancient historians rior elite amid the recently settled South Slavs. The
were interested in what lay north of the Black Sea resulting ethnic mix produced a powerful Balkan
littoral on which there were already long-estab- state, Slav-speaking within a few generations,
lished Greek colonies. The people beyond were the sometimes an ally but more often an irritating rival
Scythians, nomads who had conquered the steppe to the Byzantines right up to the Ottoman conquest
country apparently around 700 bc and had in part at the end of the 14th century. This Bulgaria was
sen led along the great river valleys. They grew Christianized in the 9th century by followers of
grain which they exported, along with slaves, wax Cyril and Methodius, an event that had an impact Above This gold coin, carrying
an image of a bearded satyr,
and other commodities, to the Greek colonies. on the early Russian state, which was in close con-
comes from the ancient city of
They, or at least their ruling class, were of Iranian tact with its South Slav neighbors. The other "Bul- Panticapaeum, on the site of
stock, and therefore in Greek eyes barbarians, but garia" was established in what is now east-central modern Kerch, and dates from
about 360 to 340 bc. Kerch
over the course of several centuries they estab- Russia, at the very important junction of water-
commanded the "Cimmerian
lished a modus viuendi with the Greeks, in which ways where the Kama flows into the middle Volga. Bosphorus," a narrow waterway
Scythians became partially Hellenized. The beauti- Its capital was a city not far from modern Kazan giving access to the Sea of Azov,
the mouth of the River Don and
fully made grave goods (mostly objects of personal known as Great Bulgar. It too survived with the Scythian-dominated steppe.
adornment) that have been found in the numerous vicissitudes until the late Middle Ages. Unlike Greek colonies on the Black
burial mounds of the steppe country testify to this their cousins in the Balkans, these Bulgars con- Sea— trading in corn, slaves,
gold and other commodities
mixed culture. The cultural mingling and the trad- verted to Islam at an early date and remained for date back to preclassical times.
ing connections persisted when the Scythians were centuries the only Islamic people in direct contact Kerch is on the Crimea, which
remained a Greek outpost till the
displaced by another Iranian nomadic people, the with the Russians.
late Byzantine period; opposite it
Sarmatians, around 200 bc. Their federation of Meanwhile another Turkic people with Mongol the early Russian principality of
tribes eventually seems to have included a strong admixture, the Avars, occupied the Pontic steppe Tmutorokan flourished in the
10th and 11th centuries.
Slavonic element, though the detailed history is and Danube valley from the mid-6th century,
uncertain. before collapsing suddenly two-and-a-half
From the 3rd century ad, a disturbed period in centuries later. They came within the Russian
the history of the south Russian lands ensues. In Primary Chronicler's horizon of historical con-
Obolensky's words: "the picture we obtain from sciousness, and he quotes as a proverb the phrase
the written sources is that of a bewildering "disappeared like the Obry (Avars)." Their eclipse
procession of tribes and nations which every few was due to the rise of yet another Turkic people:
centuries succeed each other on the steppes, only the Khazars. The Khazar state, to which many of
to sweep each other off the map." (Some were to their neighbors, including the Volga Bulgars and
settle permanently elsewhere than in the Russian some East Slavonic tribes, were tributary, was cen-
steppe: there are still Avars in the Caucasus, tered on cities at the lower reaches of the Volga
Magyars in Hungary, Turks in many parts of the (Itil), of the Don (Sarkel) and of the River Terek at Right: Eastern Europe and the
Byzantine world in the 10th
Eurasian landmass.) It is best, perhaps, to dis- its approach to the Caspian Sea (Samandar). They
century.
tinguish the successive broad groupings of peoples showed a strong instinct for geopolitics. Despite an A number of powers, mainly of
involved. (1) In the early 3rd century an eastern expanse of desert at the center of their territory, Turkic origin, successively
established themselves along the
branch of the Germanic speakers, the Goths, agriculturally productive river valleys threaded steppe belt that separated Kievan
migrated southeastwards to the Black Sea coast, their way through it, and these were also among Rus from the Byzantine empire.
and some settled there. (Others moved westward to the most vital trade routes in the Near East. The The largest and most powerful
was Khazaria, which controlled
menace the Eastern Roman Empire, overwhelming ancient portage between the Volga and the Don, the important Don-Volga trade
the Emperor Valens in 378 near Adrianople.) There which approach to within 60 kilometers of each route and the strategic neck of
was still a residual Gothic population in the Crimea land north of the Caucasus.
other near modern Volgograd, was theirs; so was
The Byzantines, always
till recent times. (2) The Huns, who moved across the whole "isthmus" between the Caspian and diplomatically astute, took care
the steppe and deep into Europe in the 4th to 5th Black Sea, and the Kuban steppe to the north of the to maintain good relations with
the Khazars. For a long time the
centuries, achieving under Attila a particular repu- Caucasus.
Khazars brought peace and
tation for ferocity, are hard to categorize ethni- This region was of great strategic significance, as stability to the region, but in the
cally: they seem to have included Turkic, Mongol the Byzantines (who tried to keep on good terms 960s Prince Svyatoslav of Kiev
challenged the Khazars' right to
and Finno-Ugrian elements. (3) Thereafter, with the with the Khazars) well understood. It was the Kha- tribute from some East Slav
solitary exception of the Finno-Ugrian Magyars in zars who in the 8th century suffered and blunted tribes. His successful campaigns
the 9th century, whose language is distantly related through Khazaria and later
the eastern thrust of the two-pronged Arab Islamic
westwards against the Danubian
to Finnish and Estonian, all invaders from the east assault on Europe (the simultaneous westward Bulgars brought huge swathes of
were Turkic peoples. Their differing fates invasion through Spain met with more success). land into his realm. His removal
of the Russian capital
depended on where, how and for how long they The Khazars brought peace, stability, an "inter- southwards to Pereyaslavets
succeeded in turning from a mobile to a settled national" outlook and religious tolerance. The last unnerved the Byzantines who
existence. point brings us to the unique feature of the Khazar forced him to retire to Kiev; en
route he was ambushed on the
Early successors to the Huns were the Bulgars, state. When, probably in the 9th century, its ruling
Dnieper and killed by steppe
whose territories subsequently split intotw o parts,
r
class decided to adopt one of the world's developed nomads.
|
Kievan Rus. c.960
I |
Byzantine empire, c.960
I Knazaria. c.960
political boundary.
1 1 end 10th century
—- Svyatoslavs campajgn route Buigare tnbe or people
300mi
MEDITERRANEAN SEA ^ town sacked by Svyatoslav «- trade route
religions, it was to neither of the obvious alterna- southeastern corner of this triangle was repre-
tives —
Christianity or Islam— that it turned, but to sented by the Khazars. Their pax Khazarica stabil-
Judaism: the only such conversion of a non-Jewish ized the turbulent steppe frontier, but their
nation in history. Various historians, including imposition of tribute and controls on trade was evi-
Arthur Koestler, have speculated that the large dently resented by the Slavs. The southwestern
Jewish population of Eastern Europe in later corner was represented by the Byzantine Empire,
centuries was partly a legacy from Khazaria. which from the early 9th to the mid-1 lth century
By the 9th century the circumstances were right was at the height of its earlv-medieval glory.
for the coalescence and political development of Constantinople, its capital, was more than just the
the East Slav tribes into a great nation: Kievan Rus- major entrepot of east Mediterranean trade: it was
sia. This happened within a triangle of disparate the greatest city of the world, the metropolis of
cultural-political forces, to each of which the nas- Christianity, where, if anywhere, it was thought
cent East Slav nation reacted differently. The that God's kingdom on earth might be realized.
Russia and the Vikings.
The amazing expansionist urge
that led the Scandinavian
peoples (Vikings) in the 9th and
10th centuries to colonize many
parts of northern and western
Europe had profound effects too
in eastern Europe. By the early
9th century adventurers from
Sweden had crossed the Baltic in
search of trade routes first to
Samarkand and China (via the
Volga), then to the Byzantine
empire (via the Dnieper),
exploiting too the resources of
the northern lands through
which they passed (amber,
honey, beeswax, slaves, furs).
The number of Viking settlers
(known to the Russians and
Greeks as 'Varangians") seems
not to have been large, and
relations with the local Slav and
Finnic peoples were usually
cooperative.
The descendants of the
semilegendary Ryurik
established themselves as the
ruling dynasty of a more-or-less
unified Rus first at Novgorod
(860s); by 900 the capital had
shifted southwards to Kiev.
Though the Ryurikids and their
retainers (druzhma) were soon
Slavicized, contacts with
Scandinavia persisted until the
12th century, while
intermarriage with the royal
houses of central and western
Europe was normal. The career
of a mid- 11th-century Viking,
Harold Hardradi, could thus
embrace service in the imperial
bodyguard at Constantinople
and marriage to the daughter of
Yaroslavl the Wise as well as an
attempt to seize the throne of
England.
This was the great age of Byzantium's missionary earlier: what they were after was trade. A famous
endeavor, closely linked with diplomatic and mili- passage in the Russian Primary Chronicle describes
tary efforts to secure its northern frontier. Trade, their trade route to Constantinople: "There was a
religion and politics brought the early Russians way from the Vikings to the Greeks ." This way
. .
into the orbit of Byzantine interest. The Russians led from the Gulf of Finland, up the short River
alarmed the Byzantines with a series of freebooting Neva to Lake Ladoga, south along the Volkhov to
raids on the empire and the City itself from the 9th Novgorod and Lake Ilmen, up the Lovat to the Val-
to the 11th century, but more constructively they day Hills, across a portage to the headwaters of the
established the famous trade route down the River Dnieper (flowing from the great source of Russian
Dnieper and thence to Constantinople. It is memor- rivers, the Okovsky Forest), down the Dnieper to
ably described by Emperor Constantine Porphyro- the site of Kiev. Constantine Porphyrogenitus
genitus of Byzantium in the mid-lOth century, and continues from this point: assembling at Kiev, the
from a different perspective in the Russian Primary flotilla took the Dnieper downstream in the high
Chronicle. water after the spring thaw; where the river breaks
through an outcrop of metamorphic rocks in the
The coming of the Vikings southern Ukraine a series of rapids had to be cir-
The third corner of the triangle was occupied by the cumvented; reassembling at an island, the flotilla
Vikings to the north and northwest. The history of passed down the Black Sea coast to the "Great
their penetration into Russia is unclear and contro- City" of Constantinople (to the Vikings "Mikla-
versial. Vikings (in Russian sources "Varan- garth," to the Slavs "Tsargrad," City of the
gians"— compare Norse Vaeringjar and Anglo- Emperor). How they got back, upstream, is passed
Saxon waerengs, wanderers) had crossed the Baltic over in silence. In Constantinople they sold their
by the start of the 9th century, and perhaps much cargoes of furs, wax, honey, amber and slaves.
There is something rather strange about the The word "Rus" itself, appearing generally at
geography of this great Viking trade route. If the and referring both to a land and to its
this period,
Vikings simply wanted to get from Scandinavia to some explanation. Serious historical
people, needs
Byzantium, it is scarcely credible they should add questions about the origins of Russia have tended
many hundreds of kilometers to their journey by to focus too narrowly on the etymological deriva-
going via the Gulf of Finland. The Vikings, no fools tion of its name: since the modern controversy
when it came to orientating themselves, can only about it erupted in the mid-18th century, much
have established a route along the Neva in conse- nationalistic emotion, pro- or anti-Slav, has sur-
quence of already having depots set up in that rounded what has come to be known as the "Nor-
area: certainly at Aldeigjuborg (Russian Ladoga), manist" issue. Even for the Primary Chronicler in
probably already at Novgorod and Staraya Russa the 12th century the matter had political signifi-
(at the other end of Lake Ilmen). It is clear, in fact, cance, affecting the legitimacy of the dynasty
that the first sorties of the Vikings on the farther under whom (and for whom) he wrote and the
shores of the Baltic led them not south, but east- status of his city of Kiev: "these particular Varan-
wards: to the upper Volga, through Bulgar and gians were known as Rus, just as some are called
Khazar territory, to the Caspian. The natural Swedes, and others Norsemen, English and Got-
magnet in that part of the world was the Islamic landers ... on account of these Varangians, the
caliphate, whose center of gravity had shifted east, Russian land received its name." The most striking
to the newly founded capital city of Baghdad, in independent testimony to this comes from Constan-
the early 8th century. The most obvious route from tine Porphyrogenitus, who lists the "Russian" and
the Gulf of Finland to the Volga passed via Lakes the "Slavonic" names of the cataracts over or
Ladoga and Onega, the White Lake (Beloozero) and around which the Dnieper trade route had to pass:
the Sheksna; almost as good (though by more tur- the "Russian" names turn out to be Scandinavian
bulent rivers) is the more southerly route via Nov- linguistic forms, the "Slavonic" early Russian
gorod, then either the River Msta and the portage (they are among the earliest written specimens of
at Vyshniy-Volochek to the Tvertsa, or through Russian words). Certainly, therefore, there were
Lake Seliger. The northern route would scarcely, if well-informed people in the 10th century and later
at all, pass through territory then inhabited by who equated Russians and Varangians.
Slavs; the southern route impinged upon the land A very early and most curious story in a
of the Sloveny. Western source (the Bertinian Annals) recounts
The Viking turn to the south is certainly bound how in 839 some "Russian" envoys from the Kha-
up with the development of Novgorod (literally, zar kagan arrived at the court of Louis the Pious at
"New Town") as a strongpoint and trading post. Ingelheim, via Constantinople; on being interro-
There is no record of bloodshed and terror, and it gated they turned out to be Swedes. The Finnish
seems that a deal between Vikings and Slavs was word for Sweden, Ruotsi, is brought in as evidence-
struck at an early stage. The Primary Chronicle so too is the name of a stretch of Swedish coastline,
tells a curious story of how the Vikings were first Roslagen. Yet "Rus" as a term for Viking or Vik-
ejected, then invited back by a coalition of Slav ings is unknown in the Viking lands. The "anti-
and Finno-Ugrian tribes to "bring order" to the Normanist" case, apart from some Chronicle ambi-
land. This they did, for a time at least, but they guities, concentrates on evidence that the Greek
were not (as was once widely believed) great "Rhos" and similar forms were known in the south
bringers of culture too. On the contrary, early Rus- before Viking penetration. Also, "Rus" tended to
sian law, religion, literature and language bear at be applied in early sources to southern Russia,
most only slight and haphazard traces of Viking around Kiev, and not to the Novgorod area where
influence. There cannot have been much coloniza- the Vikings arrived. Near Kiev there is a river with
tion. Place names of Scandinavian origin (ubiqui- the significant name of Ros.
tous in eastern England) are virtually nonexistent There are some curious complications. Arab
in Russia: by contrast north-central Russia is full of sources, generally geographically reliable, give
place names derived from Finno-Ugrian, including certain strange items of information: "Russia is an
even Moskva, Moscow, itself. The well-known island, around which is a lake, and the island in
personal names Igor, Oleg and Olga, however, are which they dwell is a three days' journey through
Scandinavian and associated with the Viking forests and swamps ..." (Ibn Rusta, early 10th
dynasty; even Vladimir, thoroughly Slav in form, century). The Byzantines apocalyptically equated
has a perhaps fortuitous resemblance to Valdemar. "Rhos" with a sinister prince mentioned (through
The Vikings certainly found the Slav tribes in a translation error) in the prophecy of Ezekiel,
the process of civilization; they called the land Gar- which perhaps accounts for the otherwise odd
dariki (realm of enclosures or of cities), presumably change of vowel from "Rus," and certainly for
from the numerous towns or fortified citadels they their fright when Russian raiders appeared at their
encountered there. What the Vikings brought, or walls in 860 AD. What is beyond doubt is that the
encouraged, were military, political and commer- name came into general use to describe a new
cial skills. Hoards of Anglo-Saxon, Byzantine and entity in the Europe of 1100 years ago, a state, its
Arab coins found all over Eastern Europe bear land and population, whose Slav basis and Viking
testimony to their commerce. Their extraordinary admixture were inextricably fused, together with
mobility broadened horizons. A perhaps surprising Estonian and Finnish elements (known to the Old
aspect of the Viking-Slav partnership was that Russians as Chud, Merya, Ves). This entity quickly
Russia was then in closer touch with the whole of advanced in cultural terms beyond the level of any
the rest of Europe than at any time till the end of of its previous component parts. When the first
the 17th century. Kievan princes and princesses treaty between Russia and Byzantium came to be
married into all the royal houses of Europe. written in 91 1, it seems that it was written down in
two languages, Greek and Slavonic, though most of the manner in which Viking settlers established
the Russian signatories' names can be identified as themselves in, orwere invited into, Old Russia. But
of Scandinavian origin. Those Norsemen perma- in certain limited areas a great deal can confidently
nently resident in Russia were becoming culturally be said about early Russian life.
Slavonicized. First,there are material remains. Standing build-
ings from pre-Tatar Russia number only a tiny pro-
Sources for Kievan Russian history portion of the surviving Romanesque buildings of
In general, the history of premodern societies Italy, France or England, yet they include a hand-
yields, as we go back in time, proportionately less ful of remarkable churches whose architecture,
and less of the material remains and general quality pictorial decoration and even graffiti can yield up
of "everyday life," while information is still avail- information about Old Russia, its wealth, ideology
able about political events, official decrees and so and external contacts. On the secular front, modern
on. With Kievan Russia things are not so straight- archaeology, developed systematically only in the
forward. The copious state archives that in many Soviet period, has revealed immeasurably more
Western countries stretch back to the early Middle about Old Russian cities, their architecture and
Ages have not survived, not only because of Rus- way of life (in some cases with the baneful assist-
sia's turbulent history but because of the extreme ance of Hitler's bombs). Domestic artefacts, grave
its largely wooden cities to fire.
susceptibility of goods, coins (including Arabic, Byzantine and
Later copyists have fortunately reproduced and Western European) have turned up in considerable
preserved a few official documents: the first numbers. But one area of recent archaeological dis-
written law code, church statutes, two very early covery in Russia has produced a cache of objects so
treaties. Gaps remain at several crucial points: the abundant, unexpected and revealing of the life of
early organization of the church, the succession early Russia as to put it in a class of its own.
system of the Kievan rulers and, most notoriously, The generally unfavorable geographical
conditions of the Russian forest zone —
short sum- recently supposed, literacywas widespread and
mers, acid soils, poor drainage —
mean that several taken for granted (the "throwaway" character of
anciently inhabited sites are situated on what the documents is significant), at least in the milieu
amount to peat bogs with a permanent water table of urban traders. The purposes of these documents
not far below the surface. The northern metropolis were evidently various. They do not seem to have
of Novgorod is the classic example of such a been primarily connected with local bureaucratic
location. Wooden objects that find their way into administration. Though the majority are late
the ground are excellently preserved in this medieval, some go back to the early days of Chris-
Left: Eastern Europe and the environment, although much care is needed in tian Rus, and if inscriptions on other objects
Mediterranean in the their conservation once they are exposed to air (wooden tally-sticks, ceramic fragments) are taken
mid-1 lth century.
again. Since in the forest zone wood was the into consideration, Russian literacy can be shown
Until the turn of the millennium
the Christian patriarchates of normal material not only for house-building but to predate the conversion to Christianity.
Constantinople and Rome —the also for a wide range of domestic utensils, for
futureOrthodox and Roman
competed to shoes, for the paving of roads, for fortifications, the Literary sources
Catholic churches
win converts among the pagan excavations in such areas have given us a remark- Despite the lack of official documents, the literary
peoples of the Slavonic world. sources for knowledge of Kievan Russia are in fact
ably comprehensive view of the conditions of early
By the mid-1 lth century the
spread of Christianity across this Russian life. Novgorod has proved particularly rather rich, and of course are not limited to what
region was virtually complete favorable not only because of its soil conditions, archaeologists have managed to uncover. From the
and in the future would lead to
but because of its decline after the Middle Ages late 10th century the newly converted and newly
strong antipathies: the
Orthodox-Catholic dividing line, (hence little disturbance of the archaeological educated nation took readily to the forms of medie-
even if subsequently somewhat record) and the wholesale reconstruction, accom- val literature as they had developed in the
blurred, remains an important
panied by careful investigation, that has been Christian East Roman empire of Byzantium. Not
cultural boundary on the map of
Europe to this day. Of the necessary as a result of World War II. A well- surprisingly, the religious element predominates.
non-Christian peoples, the Volga Ideological intentions can be discerned in a
validated dendrochronology assists dating; up to
Bulgars remained for centuries
the only Muslims in direct 25 layers of wooden paving have been found remarkable piece of religious rhetoric, the Sermon
contact with Russia; the superimposed on the sites of some ancient streets. on the Law and the Grace by the first Russian metro-
Lithuanian ruling class remained politan of Kiev, Hilarion (mid-1 lth century); Grand
It was in this context that around 1950 numerous
pagan until dynastic union with
Poland (1385). small and tightly rolled strips of ancient birch-bark Prince Vladimir Monomakh's Instruction to his
began to emerge. When it was realized that they children (c. 1 100) reads as if it were a piece of auto-
bore traces of scratched writing they were pains- biography; and the beginnings of certain idiosyn-
takingly unrolled and, where possible, deciphered. cratic paths that the Russian Orthodox Church was
Thus Novgorod began to make its unique contribu- to take can be traced in the various Lives of two of
tion not just to our evidence about medieval Rus- Russia's first martyrs, the Princes Boris and Gleb
sian life, but to world archaeology of the last (d. 1015). In some works towards the end of the
half-century. So astonishing did the discovery and Kievan period the secular impulse overwhelms the
its implications seem in the atmosphere of the last religious: for example, the learnedly witty Suppli-
years of Stalin that some Western historians were cation of Daniel the Captive and above all the most
skeptical, suspecting a hoax in the spirit of Russian remarkable relic of Kievan literature, the anony-
nationalistic chauvinism. Any such doubts mous Tale of the Armament of Igor (or Igor Tale, c.
however have long been stilled. 1187). This work, in highly rhythmic prose
The birch-bark documents, in Cyrillic characters crammed with effectively deployed rhetorical
inscribed with a stylus (pisalo), using the vernacu- devices, is also a powerful vehicle for contempor-
lar Old Russian language, are brief personal letters ary political messages. It has the peculiar interest
or notes, most often concerning money transac- that it seems to be a written, indeed highly literary,
tions, debts, legal claims, landholdings and family adaptation of the age-old unwritten forms of the
matters. By now several hundred have been pub- Such epic poems, known as byliny,
oral heroic epic.
lished,and a Soviet expert (D. Yanin) estimates that were recited and reworked through the centuries
over 20 000 may still lie in the Novgorod subsoil. until they were transcribed in the last couple of
Very recently the first examples in Latin, Runic hundred years; in many cases they refer back to
(Scandinavian) and Greek scripts have been dis- the Kievan period and evidently preserve much
covered, while a number of specimens have now archaic material.
been identified from half-a-dozen other ancient All such works, as primary documents of their
Russian cities as far south as Smolensk. This was a time, telleven if indirectly or unintentionally of
their society and its concerns. It should however
Right This is the first birch-bark society in which, contrary to what was until
document to be identified and
deciphered from Novgorod
excavations in 1951, by A.
Artsikhovsky. It is still one of
the longest known, with 1 3 lines
of incised script; it lists village
feudal dues payable to one Foma,
and dates from the 14th century.
These "throwaway" documents,
preserved in the anaerobic
environment of peat bog, were
r
so unique and unexpected a
discovery that it took time for
their authenticity to be accepted
outside Russia. Now many
hundreds have been published
(some from other ancient sites),
and thousands more still lie in
the Novgorod subsoil. They
testify to widespread literacy
among urban townsfolk.
RUS
wm
— —
abundance greater than from any other medieval The Primary Chronicle, save for its first few north-south trade route from the
Baltic via the Dnieper to the
nation of historical chronicles, produced in all pages, is set out in the form of separate entries for
Black Sea. This was the birth of
important and many obscure places up to the early individual years, measured from the supposed Kievan Russia; the largest
18th century. Chronicles were not kept and creation of the world in 5508 BC. But it is not the country of early-medieval
Europe, it was by no means
updated as a diary or similar record might be, mere annalistic record this format might suggest. It economically or culturally
though they would doubtless partially derive from is a huge compendium of diverse materials: Byzan- backward.
notes of such a nature. Rather they were compiled tine, Russian and probably Scandinavian; religious The prince of Kiev (later
termed "grand prince") was
afresh on the basis of as many earlier chronicles as and secular; learned and folkloric. At several considered senior member of the
could be collated and of any additional material points there are self-contained narratives several royal house, whose junior
princes ruled (with frequent
available, as the result of a special commission, pages long, such as the stories of the death of Oleg
changes of location) in other
perhaps from a new ruler, perhaps to celebrate a and of the blinding of Vasilko; at others, entire cities: Chernigov was considered
great occasion. Monasteries were the main but not documents, legal or literary, are inserted (the two second in importance,
Pereyaslavl third. (The
the sole center of such activity. The aim of any famous treaties of 911 and 944, the "Speech of the independent existence of some
chronicle was, roughly speaking, to link the events Greek Philosopher" to Prince Vladimir I, the of the principalities, for
of one's city, monastery or principality with "Testament" of Vladimir Monomakh). There are example, Turov-Pinsk, has been
doubted by some historians.)
universal history. To this end almost all later diverting anecdotes, sententious digressions, edify- There was an unexpected Kievan
chronicles began with much the same integrated ing ruminations, notes on signs and portents, sum- outpost at Tmutorokan on the
maries of the lives of individual princes, saints and Black Sea. Though strong Kievan
narrative, recounting the course of world and Rus-
princes (notably Vladimir I,
sian history from biblical times up to the early 12th monks inserted, sometimes appropriately, some- Yaroslav the Wise, Vladimir II
century: the Tale of Bygone Years. times inappropriately, under a given year. Yet this Monomakh) could maintain the
integrity of the whole realm,
Taken as an independent entity, this Primary encyclopedic work is shaped by an underlying
persistent local traditions of
Chronicle is a work whose significance to our purpose: the uncovering of Russia's identity and independence asserted
knowledge of Russia and to the Russian national historical destiny. The chronicler himself boldly themselves during less forceful
reigns. The lower Dnieper region
consciousness can scarcely be matched by any "These
states his intentions in his first sentence:
and Kiev itself were vulnerable
comparable work, not even by the Anglo-Saxon are the narratives of bygone years regarding the to attack from tribes such as the
Pechenegs to the east, and in the
Chronicle, which is probably its closest rival in origins of the land [i.e., nation] of Rus, the first
mid-12th century Kiev yielded
these respects. Any educated Russian will recog- princes of Kiev and from what source the land of primacy to Vladimir in the
nize many quotations from it. Without it, know- Rus emerged." northeastern forests.
The surviving version of the Primary Chronicle tinople. For what happened before then, in Russia
was written in the 1110s, but the chronicler based at least, is dependent on undated
the chronicler
himself probably on a lost original of the 1050s. and mythologized oral sources, but he is not
Byzantine Greek historians, notably George daunted: in a single highly interesting "essay" he
Hamartolos whom he cites by name, helped him to takes us from the biblical account of the division of
establish a secure chronological framework. From the world among the three sons of Noah, to the
the reign of the Byzantine Emperor Michael III territories of the Slavs and their tribal divisions, to
(842 67) the chronicler has precise, if not always an account of the land of Russia itself, its geogra-
accurate dates for the events he records, and phical and ethnic situation, to the foundation of its
arranges his material accordingly. This reign marks main cities and to the establishment of a ruling
a crucial stage in the history of the Slavic peoples: dynasty of Viking origin in a unified state.
it witnessed the great Christianizing mission of
Cyril and Methodius to Moravia (see p. 28) and the Kievan Rus in history
irruption of the Russians into European history At its zenith, around the turn of the millennium,
with the raid (860) of Askold and Dir on Constan- Kievan Russia (Rus, as it was known to its inhabi-
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tants) was the largest state of early-medieval Eur- ambushed and eventually terminated the trade
ope, and by no means isolated from the rest of convoy southwards to Constantinople and dis-
Europe culturally or politically. It had a recorded rupted settled agricultural life. Kievan history
history of nearly 400 years, ending with the Tatar begins with Rus as tributary to one great steppe
conquest of 2 37 40. This history can be taken to
L power (the Khazars) and ends with conquest by
begin with the attack on Constantinople by the another (the Tatars or Mongols). Even more fatally,
Kievan rulers Askold and Dir (18 June 860), or per- early Russia was sapped by internecine civil war,
haps a little later, with the forcible unification sometimes on a trivial level, sometimes a fight to
of Kiev with Novgorod by Oleg around 882. Cul- the death. Such civil strife, resulting normally from
turally it is easily subdivided into a "pagan" and a rivalries, greed or feuding within the ruling
"Christian" period by the official conversion to dynasty, became the more deeply ingrained in Old
Christianity of 988/9. From the political point of Russia as its branches proliferated after the reigns
view a dividing line can be drawn at 1132-35, of Vladimir I and Yaroslav: it would take until the
when a more or less unitary state seemed rather late 15th century for a permanent solution to the
suddenly to fall apart into more than a dozen com- problem to be found in ruthless centralization
ponent parts, with the role of Kiev itself as capital under Moscow. Meanwhile the more farsighted
shortly to be usurped by Vladimir. among the Kievan Russians were not slow to make
A more shadowy division of Kievan history can a connection between each type of chronic and
be made around the middle of the 11th century. debilitating warfare. Agreement among the princes
Culturally Russia "came of age" in the long and to sink their differences would free them to apply
prosperous reign of Yaroslav (1019-54); a learned their effortscooperatively in beating back the
Russian, Hilarion, was astonishingly chosen as raiders from the steppe. This is the ideological sub-
metropolitan (head of the Russian Orthodox text of the late-Kievan Igor Tale; politically, it was
Church) in 1051; a national consciousness was most successfully, though briefly, realized under
beginning to be forged with the probable first com- the influence of Vladimir II Monomakh at the
pilation of a comprehensive Russian chronicle; the beginning of the 12th century.
"Great Church" (St Sophia) of Kiev was completed.
It happens that from that time onwards many archi- The Kievan princes and Christianity
tectural and literary relics of Kievan Russia sur- The early rulers of Russia are shadowy figures; in
vive, from before it very few. But at the same particular the founder of the dynasty, Ryurik
period future political difficulties can be sensed (unattested in any source before the Tale of Bygone
with the uneasy division of Yaroslav's heritage Years) seems to belong almost wholly to myth. The
among his sons after his death in 1054, and with next princes of Kiev — Oleg (d. 913), Igor (d. 945),
the appearance of a new enemy in the steppe Svyatoslav (d. 972), Yaropolk (d. 978 or 980) and St
country, the Polovtsians or Cumans. Vladimir (978 or 980-1015) for all that their
To understand the history of Kievan Russia is to recorded doings are wrapped in a good deal of folk-
understand the polarities and tensions that under- lore, gradually take on clearer outlines as historical
lay it and gave it both its dynamism and its weak- personages. Though they "ruled" Russia, in the
nesses. Some are the geographical factors that have sense of being able to impose their will through
haunted all Russian history: the contrast between force of arms, it was only slowly that they began to
forest and steppe, between the exploratory and govern in any methodical way, and that Russia
sedentary ways of life. Some are geopolitical: became recognizably a "state" rather than merely
particularly the tension between the forcibly their realm, or their field of exploitation.
linked partners, Novgorod and Kiev, who respec- Presumably, however, the Vikings' East Slav
tively controlled the northern and southern parts subjects were quite capable, within the limits of
of the trade route that was the axis of the first Rus- tribal society, of arranging justice, religion, agri-
sian state, the "way from the Vikings to the culture and perhaps trade according to custom.
Greeks." Some are national: between the native Long before the Vikings arrived, Byzantine sources
Slavs and Scandinavian incomers, and between the (Procopius, Pseudo-Maurice) speak of the Slavs'
different tribes with their varied customs. Some are "democracy": "everything which involves their
social, as during the Kievan period clan relation- welfare, whether for good or ill, is referred to the
ships gave way to a strongly differentiated class people." Quite early in the Kievan period, as the
structure and eventually to an approximation to main towns began to attract a significant popu-
feudalism. Perhaps the greatest tension —
as is only lation, a rough-and-ready democratic institution
to be expected in a huge territory with difficult emerged in the form of the popular assembly or
—
communications is between centralizing, unify- veche. In some cities, notably Novgorod, its power
ing forces on the one hand and centrifugal provin- grew to such an extent that from the early 12th
cialism on the other, a tension that is still far from century the role of the prince became marginalized:
resolved in the 20th century. the Novgorod princes were thereafter regarded as
Kievan Russia projected an image to later ages of little more than military commanders, to be hired
comparative peace, stability and prosperity, yet, or fired at will by the citizens. It seems clear that
like most states at most times, it existed and flour- social differentiation, the concept of landowner-
ished in an atmosphere of incipient or actual war- ship and similar preconditions for a medieval
fare. Most of its non-Russian neighbors posed a rather than tribal or clan society were developing
military threat at one time or another, but the most among the Slavs, irrespective of the Viking
strength-sapping and unrelieved menace came at presence. The political heritage of the latter in Rus-
the southern steppe frontier, to which Kiev itself sia has had a baneful aspect: the great gulf between
was dangerously exposed. Year after year the the interests of the rulers and the ruled, the exploi-
Pechenegs and subsequently the Polovtsians tative relations of the one towards the other. Some-
times this was overcome by statesmanship or the while establishing his capital as one of the great
influence of more sophisticated political and cities of Europe. With the consequent flourishing
religious ideas, but it reappeared often in Russia's of the Kievan realm the question of the choice of a
history, particularly in the way that "patrimonial" state religion posed itself in an acute form. The
authority was exercised in the Muscovite state. time was ripe: paganism was on the retreat
The first moves in the direction of systematicallv throughout northern and central Europe, and Vla-
organized government seem to have been taken bv dimir's neighbors, the Poles, accepted Christianity
Olga, widow of Igor, who was regent of Russia for in the 960s. Vladimir resolved the issue in 988/9 by
some 17 years during the childhood of her son pledging his adherence and that of his people to
Svyatoslav. She regularized tax gathering, pacified Christianity on the Byzantine pattern, what has
the rebellious Drevlyane tribe (who had killed Igor come to be called the Orthodox Church.
for his arbitrary exactions) and established a Curiously, Byzantine sources are silent on the
network of fortified posts. She was also a Christian events of 988/9, while speaking glowinglv of the
convert, and made a visit to Constantinople, of reported conversion of the Russians in the 860s,
which we have a Byzantine account. Svvatoslav over a century before. The circumstances are
however was a remarkably different character: the unclear, but in some way the aftermath of the raid
epitome of the pagan Viking wanderer-warrior, on Constantinople in 860, led bv Askold and Dir,
even though he bore a thoroughlv Slavonic name. had resulted by 867 in the official adherence of
This rare gold coin from the
r.-ign of Vladimir I (978/80-1015)
For a hundred years the ruling dvnastv and its their followers to Christianitv. When Oleg seized
shows the prince with a heraldic band of retainers [druzhina) had used Kiev not onlv Kiev around 882 paganism must have been rein-
emblem above his shoulder: the
as a trading depot for the annual southbound stated, but there was a Christian presence —
indeed
inscription reads "Vladimir and
this is his gold." flotilla, but also as forward base for occasional far- a church — there in the first half of the 10th
ranging raids of plunder throughout the Black Sea century, even before Olga's conversion. Olga mav
area and even bevond. Svvatoslav, placing have tried to establish an autocephalous (indepen-
princely relatives to look after the main Russian dent) church organization, and to have plaved off
cities in his absence, devoted his reign to a series of the Eastern and Western branches of Christendom.
such exploits, becoming doubtless the most suc- In any case a would-be bishop, Adalbert, arrived
cessful Russian military commander till Suvorov in Kiev from the German Emperor Otto I in 962,
800 years later. only to encounter the pagan reaction when Svya-
In the mid-960s, learning that a Russian tribe toslav assumed power and to retire home
still paid tribute to Khazaria, Svyatoslav sacked the embittered.
Khazars' cities and destroyed their power for ever. Vladimir, understanding that a centralized and
Then he turned westwards, incited rather rashlv developed religion was a prerequisite of civilized
bv the Bvzantines to attack Bulgaria. For a few states in the world he knew, first instituted a svn-
vears he was ruler of a colossal empire, successor to thetic pantheon of the various pagan deities of the
all the ephemeral steppe-country powers: it seems Russian lands, to whom he set up idols. Their chief
that he and two or three subsequent Kievan grand was to be Perun, god of thunder. Other gods
princes even adopted the Khazar rulers' title of appear to have had Oriental antecedents. This arti-
kagan. The Balkans suited Svvatoslav, who ficial religion proved unsatisfaetorv, and soon Vla-
announced in 969 that he was shifting his capital dimir carried his investigations farther. The
from Kiev to Perevaslavets on the lower Danube: Primary Chronicler recounts the whole process at
"since that is the center of my realm and all mer- understandably great length, and with embellish-
chandise is brought there: gold, silks, wine and ments that have a mythical ring. Emissaries came
various fruits from the Greeks, silver and horses from various lands to expound their faiths in Kiev:
from Hungarv and the Czechs, and from Russia Islamic Bulgars (from the Volga), Germans, Jews
furs, wax, honev and slaves." But after a couple of (from Khazaria), Greeks (from Byzantium). The
years a new, militarily skilled Byzantine emperor, "Greek Philosopher" summarized Christianity at
John Tzimisces, forced him and his retinue to considerable length and finished by unveiling an
retreat to Kiev. At the Dnieper cataracts he was icon of the Last Judgment; this should have
killed by the Turkic nomad Pechenegs, an ominous clinched the matter. But, according to the chronicle
irony, since it was preciselv his destruction of Kha- account, Vladimir then summoned his elders,
zar power that would enable the dangerous steppe reported his conversations and sent 10 "good and
peoples to harass the southern flank of the Kievan wise men" to experience the faiths at first hand.
state for the remainder of its existence. In the responses, first by Vladimir, then by his
Svyatoslav was last of his kind, though the rul- investigators, a note of surely intentionalcomedy
ing dvnastv sporadically kept up contacts with can be heard. The Islamic version of paradise
Vikings overseas till well into the next century. sounds good, but the prohibition of alcohol is too
Even before his time it would seem that the much, and, anvhow, the Volga Bulgars stink. The
composition of the druzhina was ethnically mixed: Germans are drab. The Jews are losers, without a
while the signatories to the 911 treaty with Byzan- homeland, the Khazars having been routed by
tium were overwhelmingly Scandinavian, those to Svvatoslav 20 vears before. But in a Greek church,
its successor of 944 include a significant proportion the 10 report, "we did not know whether we were
of identifiable Slavonic and even one or two Eston- in heaven or earth. For on earth there is no such
ian names. A new commitment to the Russian land splendor or beauty, and we are at a loss to describe
is already visible in the reigns of his sons Yaropolk it. We only know that God dwells there among
and Vladimir. Having overthrown Yaropolk after a men ..." Even this powerful aesthetic argument,
somewhat confused civil war, Vladimir refused to much quoted to this day, did not finally decide the
allow his retinue to sack Kiev, sent some to serve in issue. Vladimir's advisers preferred a more pragma-
Constantinople and gave others grants of land, tic argument: "If the Greek faith were evil, it
would not have been adopted by your grand- —
from the transaction even at the price of a
mother Olga, who was wiser than anyone." Even "purple-born" (imperial) princess, a rare privilege
then Vladimir delayed. He went off to capture the for the Russian ruler. Many souls would be
vital Byzantine city of Cherson in the Crimea and brought into the Orthodox fold, not just to their
demanded the emperor's sister Anna in marriage: own benefit but to that of the Constantinopolitan
all ended happily when he accepted baptism, got patriarchate. A warlike and barbarous people
his princess and handed back Cherson as the bride would be at least civilized and become imperial
price. This extraordinary and protracted drama taking their place in the hierarchy of peoples
allies,
ended with Vladimir's return to Kiev and a mass headed by the empire, the "oikoumene" or
baptism in the Dnieper. "Byzantine Commonwealth." For Vladimir things
The acceptance of Christianity on the Byzantine must have looked more of a gamble: not only was
model as state religion was not just a confessional there a risk of social upheaval, but by adhering to
choice. A medieval religion was a "package deal" Byzantine Christian ideology he was also to some
involving many elements. Vladimir's Russia was extent reducing his own unfettered sovereignty.
importing, together with a doctrine, the abstract But the benefits of joining the international family
literary language in which that doctrine could be of civilized nations evidently outweighed these
expressed, the literature and "high culture" other worries.
(including much that was ultimately of classical
origin) that already existed the language; an
in Vladimir and Novgorod Below In the late 1 5th century
architecture adapted not just to different purposes, Vladimir I's long reign is the "classic" age of Kie- Russian icons began to portray
van Russia, the moment when everything, or most complex scenes without
but employing new materials (masonry, mosaic); an
traditional iconographic models,
art of enormous theological as well as aesthetic things, went right. Much of the surviving oral epic and sometimes to have
import; a whole new music; a sophisticated folk poetry of Old Russia (the so-called byliny) is set publicistic purposes. A
singularly interesting subject in
political theory, involving not just the ruler's in the court ofVladimir the "Bright Sun" [Yasnoye view of Russia's political history
responsibility to his subjects but his international solnyshko). When he died, confusion set in, as his isone that became popular in
status; certain aspects of law; and an educational numerous sons battled for supremacy. Two, Boris Novgorod when the ancient
city's independence was under
system. The Chronicler describes how, immedi- and Gleb, were murdered at the instigation of their threat from Moscow. It depicts
ately after founding churches and establishing a elder brother Svyatopolk (reigned 1015-19). Con- an earlier, 12th-century
medieval skirmish in which the
clergy, Vladimir "began to take the children of the sciously choosing non-resistance to evil, they
Novgorodians drove back the
best families and send them for instruction from became celebrated as the first Russian martyrs. army of Suzdalia (the Vladimir
books," to their mothers' distress. Literate Eventually (1026) the two most powerful brothers, Land, predecessor to Muscovy)
with the miraculous assistance of
personnel were needed quickly, and it seems the Mstislav and Yaroslav, established a diarchy,
a cherished icon, the "Virgin of
already Christian and Slavonic Bulgarians obliged; dividing Russia between them along the line of the the Sign.'' The narrative unfolds
many early manuscripts in Russia are of Bulgarian River Dnieper; with Mstislav's death (1036) Yaros- in three stages: in the middle
register, shown here, we see the
origin. lav, a tough and probably ruthless survivor,
icon, unharmed, repelling enemy
It is easy to see what Byzantium stood to gain reigned alone until his own death in 1054. This was arrows from the citv walls.
princes held at Lyubech in 1097, where the princes
WHITE SEA
I
Russian principality. 1200 said to one another: "Why do we ruin the Russian
Tatar invasion, with date land by quarreling? The Polovtsians plunder our
|
coniferous forest country and rejoice that we wage war among our-
I mixed forest selves. Let us rather hereafter be united in spirit
Finns ."
marsh and watch over the Russian land . .
i Onega
steppe Such unity proved fragile in practice, but was
| |
NOVGOROD ;
_- ^osio?
Monomachos family. He himself married Gytha,
aSulda)
daughter of the King Harold of England who was
*Uj 9 killed in 1066. He was architect of the Lyubech
^ I
MOSCOW.
The "Great Church" of Constantinople, built (532-37) StSophia, Kiev, built in we imagine it without its present staircase towers that were soon
1037 39, is one of the handful of baroque accretions. The domes added led to the palace.
under Justinian in substantially the form that has
great middle-Byzantine churches were helmet-shaped rather than Externally, the patterned brick
survived to this day, was dedicated to Hagia Sophia, that are among the glories of semicircular in section. The and stone courses would not
"Divine Wisdom." In the early 11th century the East European art. Though pictorialscheme unusually originally have been plastered.
thoroughlv Byzantine in concept integrates mosaic and fresco: the
newly converted Russians used the same dedication and in its comprehensive former, as befits its cost and
for cathedrals in three major cities: Kiev (1037), internal scheme of decoration, it prestige, in the more "heavenly"
Polatsk (1044) and Novgorod (1043), in south, west is in some respects quite parts of the building: main dome
individual, and looks forward to and main eastern apse. Broad
and north Russia respectively; St Sophia, Kiev, was specifically Russian architectural internal upper galleries were for
grandest, as befitted the capital. Half-abandoned after developments. It has 1 3 of the grand prince, his
:
I
JC
fXm
$ \ p\
Left The ground plan of St
Sophia, Kiev, is an elaborated
version of the "cross-in-square."
Probably five
originally intended,
naves were
surrounded
^
bv arcaded galleries: by the
early 12th century the'latter
were enclosed to make extra
naves, and further galleries
added (eventually also enclosed).
A building surprisingly broader
than long resulted.
ST SOPHIA. KIEV
^UKRAINE
, \
w
MUSCOVY
The Tatar invasion assaultwas aimed at the southern cities, Chernigov Below: Russia and the Asiatic
world, 13th-14th centuries.
The end of Kievan Russia came suddenly and cata- and Kiev. It is with this event that Tatar rule in Contacts between Russia and its
strophically, though not without warning. In 1223 Russia is generally taken to begin. Asiatic neighbors have
armed horsemen appeared on the southeastern steppe The Tatars, or Mongols as they are more often fluctuated through the centuries
according to political
frontier. The Polovtsians, Russia's old nomadic called outside Russia, were a confederation of clans
circumstances. Since before
enemies, warned the Kievan authorities, but there living in the land still known as Mongolia, a tree- recorded Russian history began,
the River Volga and the Caspian
was little time. A Russian army was hastily raised lessregion whose harsh climate is unfavorable to
Sea have been important links
by three princes (all, coincidentally, called Msti- settled agriculture but adequate for horses. As connecting Russia and the
slav) and marched into the steppe country to give transhumant pastoralists they lived in tents, had Scandinavian world with the
Middle East.From earlv times,
battle. On the bank of the Kalka River, after a no towns until the 13th century, and were well too, there was east-west
dogged fight, they were overwhelmed. The prince equipped for a mobile existence. All the men bore movement across the steppe: not
who led them was killed, despite a safe conduct, an arms, so their military potential was disproportion- so much a trade route (though
some detours of the silk route
ominous sign: these people made war by different ate to their meager numbers. Their explosive pass that way), the steppe was
rules. Then the invaders left, their reconnaissance impact on the outside world was initiated by more an unobstructed highway
completed, leaving the shocked Russians to Temuchin (1 167-1227), who united the Tatar clans, for nomadic or migrant raiders
and invaders on horseback. The
wonder who they were, whence they came, gathered together the people in a great Kuriltay last such great movement,
whither they departed and what they purposed. (popular assembly) in 1206, was given the new title cataclysmic for the Kievan lands
as for settled states over a vast
The people in question were the Tatars, and 14 Genghis (Chingis) Khan, and embarked on world swathe of Eurasia from China to
years passed before they reappeared. In 1237 they conquest. Genghis Khan centralized the Tatar army was that of the
the Balkans,
descended unexpectedly on the Ryazan land, des- and administration, partially feudalized the clan whose leader Genghis
Tatars,
Khan embarked on world
troyed the city of Ryazan so thoroughly that when system, established stringent discipline and set out conquest at the end of the 12th
it was refounded it was on a different site, sacked on his career of conquest. In 1215 Peking fell. Then century. Kiev fell to the Tatar
severaltowns including Moscow and Vladimir, came the turn of Central Asia, Persia and the Trans- general Batu in 1240. Thereafter
the Golden Horde ruled Russia
headed towards Novgorod and then turned back caucasian lands: it was a battle-hardened force that until 1480 from its capital at
eastwards: the swampy conditions of the spring traveled up through Azerbayjan to victory on the Sarav on the Volga.
.-_.- --_ - ,-
Tatar
I Right Genghis Khan (d. 1277),
the great ruler who united the
Mongols (Tatars) and set them o
their path of world conquest, is
here represented in a Persian
miniature of the 14th century.
| He is seen enthroned in a
stylized nomad tent in a garden,
'
surrounded bv his retinue whicl
\
includes his sons Ogaday and
|
Juchi. Ogadav was Genghis s
immediate successor; Juchi's son
|
Batu devastated Russia in
1237-42. The Mongol dynasty ir
Persia lasted from 1256 to 1344;
Tatar rule in Russia is reckoned
to have lasted from about 1240
to 1480.
f
Above Yaroslav Vsevolodich was
j
grand prince of Vladimir at the
• time of the imposition of Tatar
'
rule. He succeeded his brother
i
Yury who was killed in a major
I battle against the invaders in
1238. This donor-portrait of him
comes from the church on
Nereditsa Hill outside Novgorod
I and dates from around 1246, the
|
year of his death. The Nereditsa
church itself dated from 1 199
and had a complete set of
! frescoes, unique in Europe, but,
I like several other early
Novgorodian churches, it was
I
destroyed in World War II; it
What did the Tatars want? Plunder, obviously, tradition bound the Tatar leaders together despite
and power; but beyond these it was, surprisingly, the vast extent of their empire; all had to travel
not territory that they sought— certainly not agri- back to Karakorum in Mongolia when death occa-
cultural land for their own use— but people, and sioned the election of a new Great Khan. But
the skills people brought. Manpower could be gradually the far-flung regions of the Tatar realm
exploited in situ through efficient taxation, as became more or less autonomous, sometimes in
generally was the case in Russia, or else by rivalry with each other. For most of its Tatar period
impressment into the ranks of Tatar soldiery, Russia was ruled not from Mongolia or Peking, but
bureaucracy and craftsmen. Large numbers of Tur- from Saray, the new city established on the lower
kic people thus quickly became assimilated into course of the Volga (at that time well beyond
Tatar society, with consequent linguistic mingling settled Russian territory) by the rulers of the
(such "Tatar" words as have passed into Russian western branch of Tatar dominion, the Golden
vocabulary are usually Turkic in origin). To some Horde. The Horde controlled not only central,
extent the Tatars settled as a ruling elite in the southern and eastern Russia, but the steppe
lands they first conquered, but this scarcely country from Siberia to the western shores of the
happened in Russia. A strong awareness of national Black Sea, much of central Asia and Caucasia.
There are no statistics to estimate the loss of life gov and Kiev, Alexander defeated the Swedes, who
caused by the Tatar invasion, but the destruction were already much interested in territorial expan-
of cities, forced levies of manpower and financial sion on the far side of the Baltic, beside the River
exactions were an economic and social catastrophe, Neva, whence his honorary surname "Nevsky."
while sudden and total military defeat at the hands Later he became the patron saint of St Petersburg,
of the infidel was a great psychological trauma. The built almost 500 years afterwards near the site of
only Russian principalities that escaped devas- this victory. In April 1242 Alexander fought his
tation were those that submitted and paid tribute other great battle, partly on the frozen Lake Pei-
without offering resistance, notably Novgorod and pus. The so-called Teutonic Knights, semireligious
Pskov. Daniil of Galicia, in the extreme southwest, crusading military orders of German origin, bent
attempted to rally Western European assistance, on conquering the Orthodox lands and bringing
offered obedience to the pope and received a them into the Catholic fold, had been working their
—
crown but no armies. The consequence was a way up the Baltic and had reached Pskov. In the
devastating Tatar raid in 1260, and tight control "Battle on the Ice" Alexander's forces destroyed a
thereafter. Yet though the Tatars were Russia's mixed army of Germans and local Estonians, and
overlords, they did not rule there as they ruled in the Knights advanced no farther. Subsequently
China until 1368. Political authority remained, as Alexander submitted to Batu, leader of the Golden Above Frescoes of the glorious
before, in the hands of the princely families. The Horde, thereby averting any Tatar assault on Nov- progenitors of the Moscow line
Tatars at first stationed a small number of baskaki gorod. The Tatars later placed him on the throne of of grand princes adorn the
Archangel Cathedral (1505) of
(overseers) in the Russian towns, but presumably Vladimir. the Moscow Kremlin, the last
the vast majority of Russians, almost all the rural Within a couple of generations Alexander had and externally the most ornate of
the series of great buildings that
population in fact, never set eyes on any Tatar or become a legend, was canonized in the 14th
ed to enhance
experienced any change in legal or social status. century and was made the subject of a heroic bio- their new independent capital
For the princes and their retinues the situation graphy. The First Novgorod Chronicle makes him by Ivan III and his son Vasiliy.
This fresco depicts Alexander
was very different. Their patent to rule [yarlyk) more than life-size: "His stature exceeds that of Nevsky. Prince of Novgorod,
was dependent on undertaking the humiliating and other men, his voice is like a trumpet ... his who was canonized in the 14th
—
hazardous journey to a Tatar capital sometimes to strength is like the strength of Samson; God has centurv (hence his halo). In 1240
he defeated the Swedes, and in
Karakorum, a monstrous distance, usually to Saray, given him the wisdom of Solomon and the courage 1242 the German Teutonic
which was bad enough. From such a journey the of the Roman caesar Vespasian ..." His heroic Knights, in battles whose
prince, if his loyalty was suspect, might never image was evoked under Stalin in World War II, significance was subsequently
built up (as was Alexander's
return. At any moment the Tatars might launch a not only in Eisenstein's famous film, but in, for own personality) to heroic
punitive raid. This did not need to happen very example, the attaching of his name to a tank corps status.He made a probably
unavoidable accommodation
often. The princes, understandably if not very raised from the donations of Orthodox believers.
with the Tatars, who later had
nobly, acted as the khan's agents, generally sup- Some modern historians have looked with a him installed as grand prince in
pressing discontent occasioned by tax-gathering beadier eye at contemporary sources that treat Vladimir.
methods, levies or censuses among the populace. Alexander's campaigns in a more matter-of-fact
While from one point of view Russia can be seen way, observing that the victory over the Swedes
as enslaved by an alien and merciless conqueror, was no more than another skirmish in a centuries-
from another it was business as usual, with the long process of boundary definition. They also
Tatars a considerable but occasional menace. But, rather damningly point out that Alexander's
as reflected in the surviving literature of the time, submission to the Horde was more the result of
the Russians had difficulty in coming to terms with political maneuvering and ambition within the
their loss of sovereignty. Any given defeat could princely family than of military necessity; had he
be recorded and bitterly regretted as a sign of made common cause with his brothers, Alexander
God's displeasure; the permanent overlordship of would have had a good chance of successfully
infidels was another matter, passed over in silence resisting Tatar occupation of the forest zone. What-
or alluded to in terms more adequate to the steppe ever bargain Alexander struck with the khan, it
skirmishes or inter-princely feuding of the brought advantages not just to him personally, but
previous age. Later, of course, a whole historical- to Russia, in mitigating the harsher aspects of Tatar
ideological theory of the "Tatar yoke" would be rule, and to the Orthodox Church, which was even
constructed, involving the image of Russia as a sort permitted to set up a diocese at the Tatar capital of
Right Mount Athos is a
of European punchbag, absorbing dazedly the Saray in 1261. precipitous peninsula projecting
vicious onslaught of barbarians and thereby pro- Folklore hauntingly allegorized the lost glory 70 kilometers into the Aegean
tecting the progress of Western civilization, at its Sea east of Thessaloniki. Remote
and independence of Kievan-Vladimir Russia in the
today, it was in the late Middle
own expense. There is some measure of truth in legend of the Invisible City of Kitezh, which rather Ages the religious heart of the
this picture, yet it does not really correspond to than fall to the infidel sank below the waters of its Orthodox world, a "monastic
republic" (as it still is), meeting
how things looked to Russians at the time. lake, to reemerge in better times. It is the subject of
place of many nationalities:
one of Rimsky-Korsakov's most spectacular operas. Russians, Bulgarians, Serbs,
Alexander Nevsky and the Kievan legacy Sophisticated literature lamented the conquest in Romanians and Georgians, as
well as Greeks, had monasteries
Tatar domination meant different things at several works, of which the most memorable is the on the "Holy Mountain." The
different times and in various circumstances, while fragmentary Tale of the Ruin of the Russian Land, Russian monastery of St
Russian responses were far from uniform. The which starts with the most idyllic and poetic of Pantaleimon, shown here, is an
ancient foundation, but now
interpretation of such responses can be a minefield, apostrophes to Old Russia: "O brightly brilliant looks a rather anonymous
and nowhere more so than when we consider the and splendidly adorned Russian land! Many beau- conglomeration of 19th-century
buildings: under the last tsars it
figure of St Alexander Nevsky, eldest surviving ties have made you marvelous .
." The bright
.
clerical or lay, from the exactions and conscription official prayers. Patriarch Antonios sent a long something of a reformation when
he moved north into the remote,
that the rest of society suffered. The Tatars, who letter of rebuke, pointing out that church and
densely forested lands to pursue
were themselves shamanistic pagans at the time of empire were inseparable. One of the classic state- an ascetic and intellectually
ments of Byzantine political ideology, it was rigorous life. He attracted a
the conquest and long afterwards, followed Geng-
following of monks, and
his Khan's example of tolerance towards the written in the 1390s when the empire itself had between 1340 and 1440 nearly
various developed religions they encountered, been reduced to little more than the City and a few 200 monasteries were founded
along the principles he laid
perhaps for superstitious reasons. Their own islands, with the Ottoman Turks already sweeping
down for his Trinity Monastery
choice of religion depended on where they were. In all before them. The Russians apparently accepted (see pp. 68-69). Many of these
Mongolia they remained pagans. Many in the west the rebuke, and it was only after 1448, a decade new foundations were in the
Trans-Volgan regions, stretching
toyed with Christianity, until in the early 14th after the Council of Florence had patched up a
to the Urals and as far north as
century the Golden Horde as a whole adopted union between Eastern and Western churches, the great Solovki Monastery on
causing grass-roots outrage, that they cautiously the White Sea (founded 1429).
Islam. Despite comparative Tatar benevolence, the
The monastic movement
church in this period became more strongly took the destiny of their church into their own pioneered the opening-up of the
identified with the Russian nation than before; it hands, appointing their own metropolitan without northeast and was accompanied
Russia and the wider world. There was consider- of Radonezh; his "wilderness," symbolically rather Alexander Nevsky, Dmitriy was
canonized and made the subject
able movement, including some revival of trade, than physically remote, soon attracted other her- of an extravagantly eulogistic
between Russia and the east Mediterranean lands mits. Against his will he was persuaded to organize biography.
in the 14th and early 15th centuries, no longer his hermitage into a monastery, of which he became
using the Dnieper, but normally via the River Don abbot. The town of Sergiyev Posad (Zagorsk under
and the Crimea. Pilgrims and church delegations the Soviet regime) grew around it.
traveled to Constantinople (where their graffiti Sergius's monastery, dedicated to the Holy
have recently been identified in the galleries of St Trinity, became before his death the leading intel-
Sophia), but the great spiritual powerhouse of the lectual center of resurgent Russian culture. Its
Orthodox was the monastic republic of Mount early monks founded remoter monasteries, and
Athos in the northern Aegean, where the Russian from these remoter ones still were established. It
monastery of St Panteleimon still exists. Here has been estimated that nearly 200 arose in the
books were translated and copied, icons painted century 1340-1440, reaching eventually to the
and ideas exchanged. Emissaries too traveled in the White Sea and the Urals. Peasant colonists
other direction: senior Byzantine churchmen followed: not surprisingly the Moscow grand
several times went to Moscow and the other Rus- princes did their best to profit by the whole pro-
sian lands in effect to beg for alms, usually so as to cess. Ideologically the friendship between Sergius
repair the buildings of Constantinople —a striking and Grand Prince Dmitriy Donskov stood the latter i mi
/
/ 1
.
>/ 1
1
.
1 Lm
V
i »UHGA R y
~^
~ under Islamic rule
in good stead at a crucial moment, whether or not family of resident princes begins with the youngest
Sergius actually blessed Dmitriy's successful mili- son of Alexander Nevsky, Daniil. From the start,
tary challenge to the Tatars. Another friend and the dynasty was concerned to add to its territory,
contemporary of Sergius was St Stephen of Perm, whether by peaceful means (purchase, marriage,
whose single-handed missionary activity managed inheritance) or force. In or about 1318 Prince Yury
to convert theKomi people (Permians) to Orthodox Danilovich married the sister of the khan of the
Christianity. In imitation of Sts Cyril and Golden Horde, receiving the title of grand prince.
Methodius he devised them an alphabet and a Thereafter his successors tenaciously struggled to
literature. Muscovite centralization extirpated keep the title in their own family. Moscow had
both a few generations later, and an icon of the tough rivals. Lithuania too was growing fast and
Trinity carrying Permian script is a unique surviv- intervening frequently in central Russian politics.
ing relic. Novgorod was at the height of its commercial
The story of Moscow's aggrandizement is com- power. The chief opposition, however, came from
plex, but its general outlines are clear enough. Its another newcomer to the political scene, the city of
—
v-/
/
fs
/
/
*
|
|
Grand Principality of
by Grand Principality ol
by 1462
Moscow, 1300
Moscow
Vasiliy III, Ivan IV) enjoyed reigns that spanned under Ivan III (1462-1505)
—
|
225 years (30, 36, 37, 43, 28, 51 years respectively), under Vasiliy 505-33)
political
III
boundary, 1462
( 1 .
<L
Above Muscovite embassies In the event Vasiliy succeeded to the throne, and some days, simply going their separate ways. Ivan
excited the unbridled curiosity
of Western Europeans, who
continued his father's policies. He was in turn suc- ceased to pay tribute to the Horde, but did not stop
were much taken with their ceeded by Ivan IV "the Terrible," who put his gathering it his countrymen, merely diverting
from
participants' fine robes, stamp on the 16th century as his grandfather had it to his own
purposes. Several decades before the
outlandish hats and unfamiliar
manners. This early woodcut on the 15th. Between them, over a total of 94 years, non-event on the Ugra the Moscow princes had
(1576) by Michael Peterle shows the two Ivans established a society whose insti- already been subverting Tatar power by taking
an ambassadorial procession of
tutions were so powerful that even the extinction "dissident" Tatar nobles into their service, with or
boyars to the Austrian Emperor
Maximilian II, followed by of the Ryurikid dynasty in 1598, and the without conversion to Orthodoxy. Ivan Ill's father,
merchants carrying furs. subsequent anarchy of the "Time of Troubles," did Vasiliy II, had even set up a small vassal Tatar
Members of Russian embassies
not prevent its reinstatement under the Romanovs principality at Kasimov on the Oka, ruled by
generally had no cash, and
maintained themselves by fur in 1613 —
as a complete anachronism on the Euro- Kasim, a descendant of Genghis Khan. In certain
sales as best they could while
abroad.
—
pean scene, since times had moved on and its sur- respects the Muscovite rulers apparently saw
vival for another century. Peter the Great was themselves as heirs to the khan (just as some Kie-
paradoxically the last great Muscovite ruler in van rulers had been dubbed kagan). In a bizarre
both his major goals and many of his methods, and episode in Ivan IV's reign, a Kasimov ruler,
genuinely admired his strong-minded Muscovite Semyon Bekbulatovich, would officially (if jocu-
predecessors. larly) be made tsar of Russia for a few months in
Ivan fundamental aim was the restoration of
Ill's 1575-76.
his full patrimonial authority as Grand Prince "of
all Russia" (often mistranslated in the West as "of The crushing of Novgorod
allthe Russias"), which implied vigorous attention Ivan III faced a much tougher and more invidious
to the strength, security, independence and pres- task in settling accounts with those of his Russian
tige of his realm. These in their turn had many compatriots who did not accept his title to supreme
more implications: a protracted struggle against the authority over the Russian lands, or whom he at
expansionist pretensions of the Grand Duchy of least perceived as a threat to his supremacy. Chief
Lithuania, by this time in dynastic alliance with among them were the Novgorodians and Tverians,
Catholic Poland; the ostentatious upholding both or at least their ruling circles. The suppression of
of Orthodoxy and of his own sovereign title; Novgorod in 1478 is the most notorious single act
careful diplomacy with foreign powers that might of Ivan's reign. Novgorod's political situation had
lend their weight to the struggle; the concentration long been a balancing act. Although acknowledg-
of forces in the non-Lithuanian territories (that
all ing the theoretical supremacy of the grand prince
is, northern, eastern and central Russia) into the — and hiring as its own princes members of the
hands of the grand prince; the casting off of the last —
Ryurikid family the Novgorodians maintained
vestiges of subjection to the Golden Horde; the complete independence through their
practical
marshaling of all sections of society into the pur- development of and efficient
city-state institutions
poseful organism that historians have called the management of huge territories. In the veche
their
Muscovite "service state." This was a considerable or assembly (which anybody could summon by the
agenda, even for a reign of 43 years. ringing of a great bell) the citizens held ultimate
The Golden Horde proved the least of Ivan's authority, but this large and argumentative body
worries. Russia's 240-year subjection to the Tatars could not make day-to-day decisions. These were
ended not with a bang, but a whimper: what might left to an oligarchic council and elected officials:
have been a bloody showdown in the autumn of the mayor, the head of the city militia and the arch-
1480 ended with a Russian and a Tatar army con- bishop (also a city appointment).
fronting each other across the River Ugra, south- In the earlier part of the Tatar period Novgorod,
west of Moscow, and, after staring at each other for with its wealth, geographical seclusion and smooth
I
Novgorod. 1450
|
other Russian prmcipalties '450
• other trading c
3 Paderborn
4 Lippstadt
5 Hiidesheim
functioning, must have seemed unassailable. By gorod, still richer and probably more populous
the mid-1 5th century the situation was danger- than Moscow (a figure of 30 000 inhabitants is the
ously fluid. With the slackening of the Tatar grip usual estimate), had two great handicaps: it could
and the polarization of the Russian heritage neither reliably defend itself, nor feed itself. For its
between Moscow and Lithuania, Novgorodian army it had only its imported prince and his
aloofness was becoming harder to maintain. Vasiliy retainers, together with a small city militia. As for
II made a demonstration of authority in 1456 when food, the Novgorod climate (adequate only for
he scored a military victory over the city and fined growing flax and hemp) was marginal even for the
it for backing the wrong side at a late stage of the hardy cereals, rye and oats. In the frequent years
Moscow civil war. Thereafter Novgorod could not of bad harvests, Novgorod was fatally dependent
treat independently with foreign powers and had on grain shipments from middle Russia, which
to use the grand prince's seal. Nevertheless it pre- could be cut off by whoever controlled the rivers
served its institutions, and it seems that neither and portages.
Vasiliy II nor, at first, Ivan III intended to extin- In the years after 1456 the Novgorodian leaders,
guish them. notable among them the tough-minded Marfa Bor-
However, as so often in city-states, rivalry etskaya, widow of a mayor, made the fatal mistake
between the wealthiest families (from whom the of parleying with Lithuania. Ivan sent a punitive
mayor usually came) and the mass of townsfolk expedition in 1471, but gave the city a last chance
was becoming steadily greater. The economic posi- to recognize his authority. Equivocation and panic
tion too was shaky: the Hanseatic League, of which sealed the Novgorodians' fate. Ivan proved to be
Novgorod was the important eastern terminus, was extremely touchy about the exact title by which
by now siphoning off ever more of the profits of the Novgorodians would recognize him, and when
Novgorod trade, since Novgorod merchants had slighted besieged the city in 1478, demanded the
largelystopped shipping their goods. Simulta- abolition of all its separate institutions, and hauled
neously the bottom had dropped out of the off the veche bell to Moscow. He exiled the arch-
European squirrel fur market. Above all, Nov- bishop, who was replaced subsequently by a Mos-
cow strongman, Gennadiy, and confiscated large of serfdom during the 16th centurv could take
amounts of church land. place almost unnoticed. It started with the occa-
In addition to these confiscations, some thou- sional, then regular, abrogation of the peasants'
sands of the better-off Novgorod citizens were for- traditional right to change their employment
cibly deported during the 1480s to other parts of during the two weeks around St George's day in
Russia. They were replaced by a smaller number of November; the motive was to ensure that land
Ivan's servitors, whose somewhat larger estates would have the necessary hands to work it.
were intended to be sufficientlv remunerative for With the sack of Novgorod the "gathering-in" of
Novgorod: lands and trade them to equip themselves for military service. Most the Russian lands became more like a mopping-up
connections. significantly, they were not granted outright title operation. Tver, Moscow's old rival, capitulated in
Novgorod was a crucial trading
post between Viking, Slavonic
to the land, as had been normal up to then (a tenure 1485: its last independent prince had turned des-
and Finnic peoples from the 9th known as votchina, patrimonv), but only for their perately to Lithuania, while his bovars, sensing
centurv. if not earlier. The name
and conditionally upon their satisfactory
lifetimes, the need to salvage what they could, flocked to
means "New Town." "new"
perhaps in comparison with the performance of duties. Some 1-2 million hectares Moscow. Ivan, whose first wife had been a Tverian
older settlement of Ladoga. were disposed of in this manner, and the new princess, treated it relatively leniently. There
Between the 12th and 15th
Novgorod enjoyed
system, known as pomestye, was quickly extended. remained two other lesser city-states with free
centuries
effective independence as the Under Ivan Ill's successors even votchina holders institutions that followed the Novgorod pattern.
northernmost of the great had to serve, under threat of expropriation: thev One was Pskov, an ally of Moscow, on which it
European city-states, more or
less democraticallv ruled, were better off than pomestniki onlv insofar as thev relied for military support against the German
controlling vast tracts of could sell their land or bequeath it in their wills. In Baltic colonists. The other, a remarkable offshoot of
northern territory as far as the
Muscovy there was only one true, unconditional Novgorod's farthest domains, was Vyatka, a large
Urals; this so-called"empire"
was exploited for the fur trade votchina left: Russia itself, over which the ruler had but thinly populated land of hunters and free-
by the five kontsy ("ends" or what the Romans termed dominium, unfettered booters in the far northeast, with traditions as
"wards") into which the city
right of disposal. libertarian as Novgorod's, if not more so. The Vyat-
itself was divided. Major trade
routes ran from Novgorod The svstem of land tenure in 15th-century Mus- kans were quite ready to make common cause with
eastwards to the Volga basin, covy may seem arcane, yet it is the chief founda- their neighbors, the Kazan Tatars, against Moscow,
southwards to Kiev (and
ultimatelv Constantinople) and
tion of the practices and one of the foundations of and Ivan suppressed them, again with deport-
westwards to Sweden and the
lands of the Holy Roman empire.
the ideologv — of the Muscovite realm, a source ations, in 1489. At the end of Ivan Ill's reign only
of both its strengths and its weaknesses. It affected two independent Russian lands remained: Pskov,
Novgorod was the terminus of
the Hanseatic League and had its the attitudes of the tsars towards their lands and the buffer-territory to the west, and a truncated
own important entrepot on subjects up to Nicholas II. It equallv affected their principality of Ryazan, performing the same func-
Gotland (where probablv
attitude to the international scene and promoted tion at the eastern steppe fringe. Vasiliy III finished
Novgorodian fresco paintings
survive). Two Novgorod the arrogance for which the Muscovite monarchy them off in 1510 and 1520 respectively, deporting
cities —
Pskov to the southwest was also noted. A letter from Ivan IV to Queen Eliz- Pskovians and the veche bell as his father had done
and Vvatka in the east became — abeth of England (1570) complains that he had in Novgorod, if less brutally despite Pskov's
independent in the late Middle
Ages until forciblv incorporated, assumed she was truly sovereign, "but now we traditional friendship with Moscow.
likeNovgorod itself, into perceive that there be other men that do rule," that Lithuania was a harder nut to crack. Ivan moved
Muscovy.
is, that she recognized that her subjects had rights. cautiously and craftily. At one stage he married off
The use of land, that apparently limitless resource his daughter to the Lithuanian grand duke, appar-
in a state otherwise far from wealthy, as reward for ently in the hope of establishing a political and
service long outlived Muscovy, continuing religious foothold in the Lithuanian court. He
throughout the 18th century. Moreover the exploi- regained several border territories, though not the
tation of the land —for trapping, mining, manufac- chief prize of Smolensk. The continued existence of
turing, distilling, salt-working and so on —
was also an independent Lithuania was, however, a greater
generally regarded as a royal prerogative, even if danger to the Muscovite political svstem than mere
farmed out into private hands. questions of territory would suggest. The oldest
It was not onlv because of the consequent insti- and most stubbornly maintained right of the upper
tution of por&estye that the sack of Novgorod is a class of the Old Russian principalities was that of
great punctuation mark in Russian history. Nov- free service: at a moment's notice the servitor was
gorod represented "the possible other case," an entitled to transfer his allegiance to another prince.
authentic part of Russia that shared the same Kie- With the "gathering-in" of Russia there was no
van and pre-Kievan antecedents as its rivals Mus- one but the Moscow grand prince left to serve,
covy and Lithuania, yet grew into a society mere except for Lithuania, Moscow's deadly rival. Not
attractive than either to modern minds: it com- surprisingly, from Ivan Ill's time departure from
manded the loyalty rather than the fear of its citi- Moscow's service began to be regarded as treason.
zens, was freedom-loving, relatively democratic, Suddenly the aristocrats of Russia found them-
famously resourceful and hardworking, tolerant in selves as defenseless as peasants or even slaves
its law code and penal practice, artistically prolific. against the ruler's whims. There was no "feudal
It was also a "window on the West," like its suc- contract," as in Western Europe, whereby the
cessor St Petersburg, past whose site Novgorod stronger as well as the weaker party pledged him-
merchants once used to Ivan III closed the
sail. self toobserve certain obligations. It is significant
shutters bv ejecting the Hanseatic merchants in the that Western Europeans in 16th-century Muscovy
1490s. The suppression of Novgorod was ruthless often particularly noted the self-abasement of the
in itself, though understandable in terms of Ivan's bovars and service class generally before the ruler.
fear of Lithuanian power, but it was made more A late and most dramatic defection from Muscovy
ominous by the forced deportations that accompa- took place in the 1560s, when Ivan IV's successful
nied it. In Muscovy human life and dignity were commander and personal friend, Prince Andrev
held cheap, and people became adjuncts to the Kurbsky, went over to Lithuania. This event,
land; in such an atmosphere the gradual institution which gave rise to a long correspondence between
—
Above Ivan IV's great state sea). Right In 1564 Ivan IV suddenly Above A miniature from the
The crowned double-headed withdrew to the small town of illustrated chronicle of Nikon
eagle is of Byzantine origin, Aleksandrov, 100 kilometers (15th century), shows the
representing Old and New Rome; northeast of Moscow, and building of a new palace in
on it is superimposed a shield threatened to abdicate. He made Moscow to house Ivan IV's
with the Moscow emblem of St his resumption of rule oprichniki. The tsar himself
George. Twelve seals of conditional upon being able to monitors progress from inside a
principalities incorporated into punish his enemies at will and to fancifully depicted Kremlin.
Muscovy, together with the setup the oprichnina. The central
Orthodox cross, surround it; the corps of oprichniki, when not out
inscription round the rim devastating the countryside,
records Ivan's full titles. lived a pseudo-monastic life
centered on Aleksandrov. In this
contemporary drawing they are
shown feasting in the presence
of the tsar, as they did every
morning at 10.
Below The main banner of Ivan the two, probably helped to unbalance Ivan's
IV's troops at the siege of the
city of Kazan: can also be seen
it
personalitv. It signalled the total subjection of the
depicted imaginatively in the boyar class, which had grown in numbers with the
background of the miniature of absorption of so many old principalities into Mos-
the siege (bottom right). It carries
a representation of an icon of the cow and might well have proved a counterweight
face of Christ— the traditional to autocracy.
"first icon."
years. The last and most ornate became current in Russia: that Moscow had mother died, possibly poisoned (in 1538) and his
of these was the Cathedral of the
become the "Third Rome" (to supersede Constanti- boyars proved themselves self-seeking and unreli-
Archangel Michael (1505), burial
I church of the tsars. It was nople, "New Rome"), "and a fourth there shall not able. It is curious that Ivan's great predecessor,
designed by Alevisio Novy ("the be"; it would represent the convergence of all the Ivan III (during the Moscow civil war), and later
1
teers, streltsy. the war in the west dragged on, going from bad to lastof the Ryurikid dynasty,
precipitated a period known as
In the wars that followed, the Russians achieved worse. Sweden joined in, and eventually, by trea-
the "Time of Troubles," in
some remarkable successes. The two Tatar relict ties in the early 1580s, Russia had to give up its which rebellion, the lack of a
kingdoms controlling the Volga, Kazan and Astra- gains of 20 years before. All hope of a port on the united government and foreign
intervention threatened the very
khan, fell in 1552 and 1556: not only did Ivan thus Baltic was lost until the time of Peter the Great.
statehood of Russia. Two major
greatly increase his territory and prestige, gaining On Ivan IV's death in 1584, probably from rebellions —
one of Russian
two populous cities with their fisheries, trade and poisoning, his second son Fyodor came to the peasants under Bolotnikov and
another of non-Slavs from the
agriculture, but he opened the doorway to Siberia throne. Fyodor was pious and unassertive, but his —
Volga basin came in the wake
and the east. In 1558-63 considerable gains were chief minister and brother-in-law, Boris Godunov, of a severe famine at the
beginning of the 17th century.
made in the west against the Germans of the Livo- of partly Tatar descent, was a "new man" of great Poland and Sweden strove to
nian Order (successors to the Teutonic Knights) ability Fyodor's reign at last saw some military take advantage of the political
and it seemed only a matter of time before Russia successes again. Domestically it was notable for the and social chaos by occupying
areas in the west and northwest.
would have unfettered access to the Baltic. Mean- upgrading of the head of the Russian Church to the For a Moscow and
time both
while Ivan recruited foreigners to work in Russia, rank of patriarch, on equal terms with the five Novgorod were under foreign
and in 1553, by a remarkable stroke of fate, ancient patriarchates (Rome, Constantinople, domination. It was the rallying
efforts of the church in the face
encountered Richard Chancellor, captain of an Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem). of growing anarchy that created
English ship washed up on the coast of the White Fyodor, the last of the Ryurikid dynasty, died a spirit of common cause. A
Sea while seeking a northern passage to the Indies. childless in 1598, and the country faced an unpre- force was assembled by Kozma
Minn and Prince Pozharsky to
Trade links with England through what soon cedented succession crisis. Another son of Ivan IV, repel the Poles from Moscow.
became the great Russian port of Archangel, at the Dmitriy, had indeed survived him, but died in Although order was restored in
1613 with the accession to the
mouth of the Northern Dvina, were set up: cities 1591 at the age of nine in the out-of-the-way town
throne of Mikhail Romanov,
between Archangel and Moscow, such as Yaro- of Uglich. To this day the circumstances of his Russia had lost access to the
slavl, prospered. To exploit this windfall, the death are completely unclear, but at the time Baltic Sea and a large amount of
territory in the west.
English established the first ever joint-stock rumors started that Boris, ambitious to gain the
company, and they retained for years a near-mono- throne himself, had had Dmitriy murdered. Since
poly of Russian trade. The 16th-century English Boris could not at that time have known that Fyo-
trading house and embassy in Moscow has recently dor would die without heir, the rumor is prima
been unearthed. facie improbable, but it was to have disastrous
The style and atmosphere of Ivan's reign consequences for Russia. Boris was duly elected to
changed dramatically after the sudden death of the vacant throne, to the annoyance of old boyar
Anastasia in 1560. Ivan was shattered and thought families such as the Shuyskys. The subsequent
she had been poisoned. He broke with his council events are well known from Pushkin's play and
and turned on those closest to him with great sava- Musorgsky's opera. Boris's reign (1598-1605) wit-
gery. Prince Kurbsky and some others wisely nessed a series of disasters, in particular crop
defected abroad. Ivan's character, studious, intelli- failure and famine. Though he attempted enligh-
gent and eager as a boy, became more and more tened measures (which included sending a batch of
subject to fits of rage and equally unpredictable students to Western Europe, one of whom settled
remorse, prone to superstition, blasphemy and in England and became an Anglican country
extreme piety In 1564 the most remarkable episode parson) and revived building activity, he could not
in his reign began. First, without warning, he retain popular support. A pretender claiming to be
retreated to a monastery in the small town of Alek- the miraculously saved Dmitriy appeared in
sandrov, 100 kilometers northeast of Moscow. He Poland, and advanced upon Moscow with a motley
then wrote to the metropolitan, abdicating the army that grew despite defeats. Boris suddenly
throne, denouncing his aristocracy but praising died, his young son, Fyodor II, was lynched and
the common people. The bluff, if such it was, "False Dmitriy" was acclaimed tsar. This was the
worked: stunned populace begged him to resume
a beginning of nearly a decade of the Time of
the throne, on whatever conditions he might set. Troubles fsmutaj.
This he did, on condition that he could punish
whomsoever he wished and set up a separate The Time of Troubles
realm-within-the-realm, to be managed at his own Dmitriy, whether or not he believed in his own
discretion. authenticity, proved a capable ruler. However, the
This extraordinary institution, known as the Moscow boyars, for whom he had served his
oprichnina, "the place apart," was a mosaic of purpose in toppling Boris's family, no longer sup-
estates, towns and even parts of Moscow, inter- ported him, and he made the mistake of marrying a
locking with the zemshchina, "country" in a giant Pole, Marina Mniszek, occasioning widespread
jigsaw puzzle, with parallel administrations. Little unpopularity. He was unseated in a boyar rebel-
is known of the workings of this scheme, for lack lion, killed and his ashes fired from a cannon in the
of surviving documents, but it is notorious that direction of Poland. Vasiliy Shuysky became tsar
Ivan instituted in the oprichnina a reign of terror, (1606-10) but without much general support. In
manned by a force of bullies known as the oprich- the last year of his reign, before he was deposed by
niki charged with destroying the tsar's enemies. a Moscow assembly, Russia was in turmoil, with no
Among many acts of savagery, the worst was the acknowledged authority. Only the soldier Prince
massacre of the Novgorodians (descendants in the Skopin-Shuysky could hold the country together,
main of Muscovite settlers drafted in by Ivan III) but he died suddenly. The next couple of years
on an unfounded rumor that they were negotiating saw Swedish and Polish claimants for the throne. A
with Poland. In 1572 the oprichnina was abruptly second "False Dmitriy," bizarrely recognized as
Left A stylized portrait of Boris authentic by Marina Mniszek, set up an alternative people's army. Commanded by Prince Dmitriy
Godunov (tsar 1598-1605) with court and government at Tushino, just outside Pozharsky, it ejected the Poles and created condi-
regalia. Boris —of partly Tatar
Moscow. He was the most successful of several tions in which a zemskiy sobor could elect a new
descent, and not from a
traditionalboyar family was — pretenders. In 1610-12 a Polish garrison held Mos- tsar. A relative of Ivan IV's popular first wife, six-
one of the "new men" who
cow: armed bands, particularly of Cossacks, teen-year-old Mikhail Romanov, too young to have
emerged in Ivan IV's reign. He
was a capable chief minister to roamed and terrorized the countryside. Only the been compromised in the factionalism of the Time
Ivan's unassertive heir, Fvodor I great walled monasteries, notably St Sergius's of Troubles, was chosen for the throne. His father,
(1584-98). Elected tsar on the
extinction of the Ryurikid
Trinity Monastery, were strongholds of Russian who had been forced under Tsar Boris to become a
dynasty, he proved a resistance to anarchy. monk, was at the time a prisoner of the Poles.
well-intentioned, intelligent but
Instead of falling apart completely, Russia rallied When a truce was negotiated he returned as the
unlucky ruler: crop failures
brought famine and popular and met the challenge. It became obvious that newly elected Patriarch Filaret, and became the
discontent. Boris revived national unity and the election of a generally guiding light of his young son's reign. So ended the
building activity (completing the
acceptable Russian tsar were needed, and it was Time of Troubles, an exhausting and devastating
great Kremlin belfry) and sent
students abroad, anticipating leaders of the church, the last remaining respected period, with no one social group emerging as clear
Peter I. Russian institution, who sent out this appeal. The "winners," but leaving behind it a strong image of
Russian response centered on the eastern city of the need for national unity, and a terror of anarchy
Nizhniy Novgorod, where Kozma Minin, a butcher and foreign intervention, that the Russians have
with remarkable organizational abilities, gathered a never forgotten.
The Trinity Monastery of
St Sergius
Far left The interior of the small Above Among the smaller
Trinity Cathedral. The great structures within the Trinitv
iconostasis of the later 1420s Monastery are this 19th-centurv
Kremlin
rivals that of the open
(stylistically eclectic)
Annunciation as the most rotunda above the holy spring,
important that exists. Painted and the elegant round
under the general direction oi well-chapel in the Moscow
the elderlv Rublyov, it shows a Baroque manner of the late 17th
stylistic diversity testifying to century. Over them looms the
the varied potential of Russian cliff-like wall of the central
art before Muscovite Dormition cathedral, beside
centralization absorbed and which is the burial vault of Boris
homogenized local schools Godunov and his familv.
(notably that of Novgorod).
Beside the central "roval doors"
'* '
rshipers with candles
stood the most revered of inside the main Dormition
Russian icons. Rublyov's OU cathedral. The roomy interior
Testament Trinity (see p. 72): it suggests the Moscow Dormition
has been replaced with a Cathedral, but at Sergiyev Posad
facsimile since the original was there are fine 17th-century
put in the Tretyakov Gallery. frescoes in Yaroslavl manner,
The frescoes have not vet been bright and rather small-scale.
cleaned, though it is assumed
that those of Rublvov's period
have not survived.
Left The gush, a stringed musical Right This metal reliquary cross
instrument, made of wood, was probably belonged to a
popular in Novgorod. It could Novgorodian cleric. It is hinged
vary in size from 20 to 70 cm in at the bottom, with a pendant
length, and could have between loop at the top for pectoral wear.
three and eight strings. The peg The crucified Christ has the
end was carved with traditional Mother of God to his right, St
decorative motifs Gus/i were John the Evangelist to his left
used to accompany recitation of and St George above.
oral epics.
T.
.
e r
*p-
m
E
The Great Age of Russian Art
Muscovy under the early Romanovs period of Muscovy is simply one of decline, still The expansion of Muscovy in
the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Muscovite state, with its basically medieval less of ruination. Already easily the largest country
The most spectacular expansion
system of government, way of life and artistic cul- in the world in terms of territory, though not of of the Russian lands took place
ture, was revived almost in defiance of the march population, Russia was beginning — after the debi- in the last century of Muscovite
of history, with the ending of the Time of Troubles litating wars of the 1650s and early 1660s — to
rule, by far the most substantial
advances being made to the east.
and the establishment of the Romanov dynasty in achieve a modest prosperity. The chief visible The successful campaigns of
Ivan IV against Kazan and
1613. It survived for nearly another century, but legacy of this prosperity is in the considerable
Astrakhan in the 1550s were
its apparently unshakable, timeless stability turned quantity of late 17th-century buildings still to be followed up in the later 16th and
out to be subject to disruptive factors that in the found in Moscow itself, in several great monastic 17th centuries. Once the
Russians were across the Urals,
second half of the 17th century led step by step to ensembles and in some provincial towns, notably the vast Siberian plains with
its end. Two generally sensible rulers whose long Yaroslavl and Archangel. Measures to modernize their extensive river systems and
reigns spanned more than half of the century Russian life— what would later be thought of as easy portages were open to
modically but violently, during the last quarter of the establishment in Moscow of the so-called Slav- became known as the Bering
Straits.
the century, in a welter of dynastic confusion, mili- Greek-Latin Academy (1687). Progress to the south, west
tary insubordination and popular discontent. Emblematic of the piecemeal extension of hori- and north was less
straightforward. Tsar Aleksey
It should not be thought that the story of the last zons in late 17th-century Russia is the manner in
brought much of present-day
THE LAST CENTURY OF OLD RUSSIA
which each of the arts began to absorb into itself Expansion and diplomacy
disparate "modern" elements, assimilating them The political history of Muscovite Russia during its
more or less successfully into medieval patterns. last century of existence is largely a story of how a
Thus literature acquired the new form of syllabi- centralized autocracy, unwilling in general to
cally based verse, coming ultimately from France change its ever more antiquated principles and
via Poland; church music, notably in the reign of methods, coped with huge internal stresses. Exter-
the highly musical Fyodor III' (tsar 1676-82), nal politics were of secondary importance; Russia
underwent fundamental changes, particularly in was little known, and of small diplomatic interest,
the field of harmonization; icon painting moved to the nations of Western Europe, and it played no
towards secular portraiture, itself a new genre part in the great settlement of European frontiers
(known to Russians as parsuna, a derivative of the and religious claims at the Peace of Westphalia
Latin "persona"); wall painting particularly of the (1648), unlike its then still powerful neighbors
Yaroslavl School became saturated with pictur- Sweden and Poland.
esque detail, often of secular inspiration, and some- This picture of non-involvement can be modified
times of Western iconographic origin. In in some important respects as Russia expanded
architecture, pediments and other reminiscences of territorially to the west, the south and the east.
the classical order system were grafted on to Old Westwards, the chief friction was with Poland-
Russian forms, and secular building in stone and Lithuania. In the immediate aftermath of the Time
Ukraine and Belarus (Belorussia) brick rather suddenly acquired an importance and of Troubles, an exhausted Russia negotiated a 14-
under Muscovite rule, and the dignity it seems not to have had before: the tsar's year truce with Poland; when it ran out, incon-
push southwards towards the new palaces and a few great houses (notably that of clusive fighting broke out again, chiefly over the
Black Sea continued slowly.
Attempts to expand north- V.V. Golitsyn in the 1680s) are imbued with great fortress-city of Smolensk. Tsar Aleksey was
westwards into the Baltic regions Western notions of comfort and privacy. A quite more successful: the anti-Polish Cossack-Ukrainian
met with strong resistance from
Sweden, which would ally itself
— —
new art form literary drama had already estab- popular revolt of 1648 and his own campaigns of
with Poland-Lithuania against lished a toehold in the Russian court during Alek- 1654 onwards brought the "left-bank" Ukraine
the common enemy; permanent sey Mikhaylovich's last years. (that is, east of the Dnieper), with the cities of Smo-
conquest of these lands would
have to wait until the time of
Several factors from the mid- 17th century lensk and Kiev, into Muscovy. Later there was talk
Peter the Great. onwards facilitated these developments. The first is of a Romanov candidate for the elective throne of
the absorption into Muscovy, partly through war, Poland, which interested even the papacy, ever
partly by voluntary submission, of much of what is hopeful of bringing Russia into the Catholic or
now Ukraine and Belarus, including the ancient Uniate fold. Aleksey educated his children in
capital, Kiev. These historic Russian lands, though Polish and Latin, regretting his own lack of
well on the way to the linguistic differentiation languages.
that has since led to the recognition of independent Southwards too, Muscovy's settled territories
Ukrainian and Belarusian languages, had remained crept on, over the "Wild Field" (Dikoye pole) of the
largely Orthodox in religion, and supplied Mus- nearer steppe, towards the Black Sea. In the south-
covy in the last third of the 17th century with a ern territories the key population of this think' set-
number of churchmen, intellectuals and artists, not tled area was that of the independent Cossacks,
to mention simple builders and craftsmen, who had some already landed agriculturists, some still
grown up in the post-Renaissance, in effect West- mobile freebooters. Russians by origin and
ern, society of the Polish-Lithuanian common- language, the Cossacks were mostly content to
wealth, and had in many cases undergone a place themselves under the tsar's protection so
humanistically based Jesuit education. long as their ancient rights were guaranteed, but
Despite late medieval Russia's seclusion and their often over-adventurous harassment of Turks
xenophobia with regard to the rest of Europe, for- and Persians brought Muscovy headaches rather
eigners were no novelty in 17th-century Muscovy: than advantages. Several times in the 17th and 18th
hundreds, eventually thousands, of Westerners centuries the fortress-city of Azov, at the mouth of
were at any given moment resident in Moscow, liv- the Don, gateway to the sea, was captured from the
ing in their own suburb after 1652 and playing a Turks, only to be lost again.
vital role, particularly in military matters. Western Eastwards, Muscovy made far more spectacular
books, too, found their way into 17th-century advances in the 17th century. Early in his reign
Moscow libraries. Intermarriage, though rare, was Ivan IV had conquered Kazan and Astrakhan,
not unknown: Artamon Matveyev one of the most gateways to the East. The gentle passes through the
powerful figures in the later years of Tsar Aleksey, Urals presented no barrier. Once across, Russians
married Mary Hamilton from Scotland, and it was had ahead of them a great plain intersected by a
in this thoroughly Westernized household that the river system that could take them with easy por-
tsar'ssecond wife, Natalya Naryshkina grew up. tages to the vicinity of Lake Baykal. The merchant
To her influence Aleksey 's growing taste for things Stroganov family, empowered by Ivan to exploit
Western in his last five years is usually attributed. Siberia, hired a band of less than 1000 men, mostly
As it happens, Aleksey, in his Polish and Swedish Cossacks under Yermak, who in the 1580s captured
wars of the 1650s, was the first tsar to cross the western Siberian khan's citadel of Isker on the
Russia's western frontier. It is interesting, perhaps River Irtvsh. They established nearby the new-
surprising, that each of the three de facto Russian Siberian capital of Tobolsk, nowadays a compara-
rulers immediately preceding Peter (Aleksey Fyo- tively insignificant and out-of-the-way place since
dor, the regent Sophia), though far from rejecting the railroad bypassed it to the south. The forward
either traditional religion or regal ceremonial, were momentum of the Russian fur-seeking explorers
in their various ways "Westernizers," concerned, was extraordinary. In 1632 Irkutsk, near Lake
however cautiously, to widen Russia's cultural Baykal, was founded, and in the 1640s the Russians
horizons. pushed on through mountainous territory to the
THI- LAST CENTURY Oh OLD RUSSIA
mounting upon meeting the senior official at the (6) the mutinies of the Moscow streltsy militia in Olearius has noted are the
double-headed imperial eagles
Russian frontier. 1682 and 1698. In the first decade of the next on the tsar's throne and the
Russian envoys in the West attempted to export century there were to come the Bulavin rebellion sharply differing styles of dress
their own protocol, which did not go down well. on the Don (1707) and what amounted to a national worn by the tsar's attendants
and the Western European
They were poor negotiators, since they had to stick war of independence by the Turkic Bashkirs, last- visitors.
closely to inadequate briefs and could not take ing several years. In addition, from the 1660s
unauthorized initiatives. Their intelligence about onwards there was a perpetual grumbling rebel-
what was going on abroad was utterly inadequate. liousness connected with the schism in the church
The methodical Tsar Aleksey eventually put the (see below, p. 77-78).
gathering of information on a sounder, if still fairly Rebellions were of the most varied nature: some
primitive footing, but in the 1650s he still valued urban, some rural; some associated with a clearly
an embassy to Venice in terms more of the fascinat- defined social group, some not; some involving
ing tales of foreign customs it brought back than of Russians, some non-Russians, some mixed; some
hard results. well led, some anarchic; some with a positive
program, some without. They originated in the
Crisis and church schism north, the south, the east and the west of Russia,
The internal crisis of late Muscovy expressed itself though it was the southern and southeastern bor-
throughout the 17th century in violent explosions derland that was particularly notorious in this
of civil disorder. The most notable of these were: respect. Some put forward pretenders, often pretty
(1) Bolotnikov's rising in 1606-07 (the first of many implausible, to the Russian throne. All sprang from
whose heartland was the recently settled, turbu- popular grievances, fears or ambitions: taxes,
lent wooded-steppe lands of the south) that threat- shortages, inflation, social and religious inno-
ened Moscow and came close to toppling Tsar vations, national oppression, the exactions of land-
Vasiliy Shuysky; (2) a series of rebellions during lords or the general severities of serfdom and of the
the 1620s and 1630s in Ukraine directed against service state.
Poland, and culminating in 1648 with Bog dan In the circumstances it seems rather remarkable
Khmelnitsky's successful "liberation" of the Cos- that the state was able to survive at all. However it
THE LAST CENTURY OF OLD RUSSIA
perhaps half the population of Russia and a situ- Nikon, by nature imperious, assured and
ation close to civil war, has often seemed to out- impatient of delay, immediately on becoming
siders a rather grotesque and uniquely Muscovite
patriarch put in hand reforms to ritual and pre-
business, whereby a monstrous legacy of antagon- scribed revised service books, starting with the
Psalter, the biblical book with which all Russians
ism and bloodshed was occasioned not by any
serious doctrinal differences but by ritualistic and were most familiar. An uproar of dissent followed,
formalistic squabbles. Notoriously, there was the largely from his erstwhile zealot companions. The
question of whether one should cross oneself with fact that these reforms followed Greek models was
two fingers or three. The schism's most heroic no reassurance; the Greeks after all were contamin-
figures were precisely those who were most ated with Latinism (many of their books were
benighted and backward-looking. Altogether it has printed in Venice), and God had deprived them of
seemed the deplorable but natural consequence of their city of Constantinople. A variety of means
a superstitious, hidebound and intellectually inert was used to try to silence objectors, at first persua-
religious culture. sive, but as the century progressed more and more
The background to the Great Schism is that of a coercive. Avvakum was exiled, first to Tobolsk,
new self-consciousness and self-examination in the then on a lengthy and distant expedition to Dauria
Orthodox Church, aware in the 17th century not (eastern Siberia) and finally to the Arctic north at
only of its particular mission but of its inter- Pustozyorsk, where he compiled his Life. In 1682,
national standing and general credibility. The having consistently refused to retract, he was
question of relations with Catholicism on the one burned at the stake.
hand, and with the new Protestant churches on the Nikon meanwhile was scarcely popular with any
other, would not go away. Many of the tsar's new
section of society, though he commanded reluctant
Ukrainian subjects were, as a result of the Union of obedience. From Aleksey's point of view Nikon
Brest (1596) Uniates, in communion with Rome; yet had admirably succeeded in bringing order to the
precisely those northern European countries with Russian church and to its books, yet showed dis-
which Russia conducted most trade and on which turbing signs of claiming special status, perhaps
it relied for immigrant skills were the
strongholds superior to the tsar himself. A curious and signifi-
of Protestantism. The Orthodox clergy had the cant early (1652) sign of this was his insistence on
worrying task of defending their own faith in moving the relics of the Metropolitan Philip from
debate when, in the early 1640s, the Danish prince the northern Solovki monastery to Moscow. Philip
Valdemar seemed likely to marry Tsar Mikhail's had been martyred for resisting Ivan the Terrible, a
THE LAST CENTURY OF OLD RUSSIA
predecessor whom Aleksey revered. Nikon clearly the new order. Avvakum came briefly back from Right: Russia in the reign of
Tsar Aleksey.
wished toemphasize Ivan's offense; Aleksey saw Siberian exile to Moscow and met with abundant
Aleksey was more successful
the occasion as one of reconciliation. signs of the tsar's favor. The new service books, than his predecessors in
For half-a-dozen years, however, tsar and though in use for a decade, were not yet compul- expanding the frontiers of
Muscovite Russia. His campaigns
patriarch cooperated closely in a remarkable late sory. Nikon's downfall in 1666 looked like a
of 1654 onwards, on the back of
manifestation of the Byzantine ideal of symphonia triumph for the anti-reformers, but caused yet the popular uprising led by the
(harmony); omens of discord seemed negligible. further strains, since some of those churchmen who Zaporozhian Cossacks against
their Polish overlords, brought
Indeed, this harmony had a lavish visible manifes- condemned Nikon personally disapproved even "left-bank" Ukraine into the
tation in the great monastic foundations that tsar more of dethroning a patriarch. Muscovite realm. Support for
the Cossacks made inevitable a
and patriarch jointly sponsored, culminating late Even in Nikon's absence, the council however
confrontation with Poland and
in 1657 in Nikon's extraordinary project known as proceeded to back the liturgical reforms, behind the resulting war lasted until
New Jerusalem, 60 kilometers west of Moscow near which of course the tsar had thrown his own 1667, when the Treaty of
Andrusovo confirmed Russian
the modern town of Istra. In the summer of 1658 weight, and condemned the ignorance of the
possession of the land on the east
however things were clearly going wrong. Nikon councils convened by Ivan IV. This was too much bank of the Dnieper, a small area
did not cooperate with Aleksey in the politically for Avvakum and other Old Believers, some of on the west bank around Kiev
Russian Orthodox authorities could participate and mass suicide, immolating themselves by setting fire
give disinterested judgment. Aleksey appealed to to their wooden churches. Peter I doubled taxation
the four traditional Eastern patriarchates: Constan- on Old Believers; his successors put them under
tinople and Jerusalem refused to get closely punitive legal disabilities. Only under Catherine
involved, but Antioch and Alexandria fortunately the Great were these disabilities reduced and an
agreed, and at the end of 1666 the council got attempt, apparently Potemkin's instigation,
at
under way. In its personnel, its spirit and in the made at The schismatics soon
reconciliation.
arguments adduced this remarkable event was divided and subdivided among themselves. The
entirely Byzantine: doubtless it was the last major dominant faction, from which many further sects
political event in European history of which this is were born, were the "Priestless" [Bezpopovtsy],
true. The clinching point came from the Byzantine who held that, since no bishop had renounced the
canon law book [Nomokanon): "Whosoever church reforms, there could be no further valid
troubles the emperor and disturbs his empire has ordinations; their views resulted in a communal
no defense." Nikon was formally deposed from religious life remarkably different from that with
office, reduced to the status of an ordinary monk clergy to celebrate the liturgy.
and exiled to the north. Old Believers in the next two centuries provided
Strangely enough, this was not the end of all Russia with many of its hardiest colonists, traders
contact between tsar and former patriarch: Aleksey and free peasants, as well as many rebels; by the
even sent Nikon gifts, but did not receive the mid- 19th century there was a very prosperous Old
formal blessing he sought. Nikon outlived Aleksey Believer merchant class. In contrast, the closed
and was permitted to return to New Jerusalem, as nature of some Old Believer communities has led to
Aleksey had desired, but died on the way back; his the bizarre phenomenon of remote Siberian villages
cell-church (skete) still stands, having survived the where old sectarian battles are continually refought
general destruction of the monastery in World War on the paper of manuscripts copied and recopied in
II. In the 1680s, after Nikon's death, a hagiographic peasant scriptoria, a 17th-century way of life sur-
Life was written by one of his disciples; in his old viving into the late 20th-century in one or two
age as a monk Nikon was credited with healing parts of the region. The extraordinary durability,
powers. communality and steadfastness of the schismatics
The deposition of the patriarch was only the first command respect, but beyond that modern histori-
and indeed briefest task of the church council of ans have not come near to agreeing what to make of
1666-67; it had to choose a new incumbent and the whole phenomenon.
generally to bring order, asthe tsar so much
desired, to a disorientated church. In the years Political structures
immediately before, with Nikon removed from The absolute claim to power of the tsar may have
Moscow and Aleksey desperate for solutions, it continued unshaken throughout the last Muscovite
seemed as if the "Old Believers," as they came to be century, and indeed into the new age of Peter I,
known by the orthodox (in Russian starovery, but the system of government did change, even if
staroobryadtsy), might find accommodation with not very obviously. No one person of course could
THE LAST CENTURY OF OLD RUSSIA
Left A mid-19th-century English take all the decisions needed to manage Russia various estates: boyars, servitors, clergy, towns-
drawing of an Old Believer,
characteristically in Old Russian single-handed, and in fact Muscovy was governed folk and on occasion even peasants. Sometimes
clothing. The Old Believer sects by the tsar in council, the council being the "Boyar they took crucial decisions: such an assembly put
originated in the schism caused
Duma," an assembly of notables that seems to have Mikhail Romanov on the throne and brought the
by resistance to reforms initiated
by Patriarch Nikon in the been in permanent session, on call at all times in Time of Troubles to an end. In the first half of the
mid-17th century, which were the Kremlin. The standard formula for the opening 17th century assemblies met frequently, debated
intended to bring Russian
Orthodoxy more closely into line
of a decree was "The tsar indicated and the boyars issues of peace or war, probably took some
with the Greek Orthodox assented . .
." Such boyars were, of course, per-
. decisions on finances. Early in Aleksey's reign a
Church.
forming a specialized kind of state service for the great assembly was summoned to bring order and
tsar, rather than representing separate interests in codification to the chaotic legal system; it is quite
the manner of a parliament, but as there are no sur- unclear how far the tsar "used" the assembly, or
viving minutes of their debates it is impossible to the assembly used the tsar, or how far they fruit-
know how far any incipient pluralism developed fully cooperated. But the work was efficiently
or might have developed. done, for the great Ulozheniye or Code of 1649 was
Even more tantalizing is the role of the other quickly promulgated. It was the first officially to
great advisory body, the Zemskiy sobor (Assembly recognize the already existing institution of serf-
of the Land). Such assemblies, summoned for a dom, but also the first to proclaim the principle of
particular purpose, included representatives of "equal justice for all."
THE LAST CENTURY OF OLD RUSSIA
In the second half of the century, however, con-
vocations of the assembly sharply declined as
Aleksey's administration became more centralized
and better organized. In 1682, we are told, "a host
of men of all ranks from the whole of the Musco-
vite state" ratified, or maybe instigated, the
arrangements for the regency that followed; this
seems to refer to such an assembly, and if so it was
the last known one, since Peter the Great had no Fyodor III (tsar 1676-82): a
typical late 17th-century
use for it and it is never recorded as having met "iconic" portrait by a Russian
again. Perhaps its distant descendants were the painter, B. Saltanov. Fyodor, a
great Legislative Commission of 1767 and Gorba- child of Aleksey by his first
marriage to Maria
chev's Communist Party Congress of 1988. Miloslavskaya, succeeded his
On a lower, day-to-day level Russia was admin- father at the age of 14, but he
istered through an array of fifty-odd "offices" was sickly and died at 20,
leaving no descendants.
(prikazy). Some,like the Ambassadorial Depart-
ment mentioned above (p. 76), dated from well
back 16th century; others dealt with new
in the
territorial acquisitions such as Siberia and the
Ukraine and were set up in an ad hoc way, fre-
quently overlapping in function. The local self-
government of provincial towns, encouraged,
perhaps surprisingly, by Ivan IV, disappeared with
the Time of Troubles. Large provinces were run by
royal governors or "representatives." These were
basically tax-farmers who delivered up income to
the treasury while enriching themselves at the local
expense, a completely medieval arrangement
known to Russians as kormlenie (literally "feed-
ing"). In this autocratic but disorganized state
system it is not surprising that a succession of
Dynastic turmoil
The end of Muscovy —
and simultaneously of "Old
Russia" —came with another protracted crisis, this
time of dynastic origin. At the time of Aleksev's
death there survived, out of his 16 children by two
marriages, three boys and six girls; ultimately four
of them were to rule. Despite the endemic Russian
uncertainty about the royal succession system and
the relative newness of the Romanov dynasty, it Dramatic events erupted at Fyodor's death
was clear who the heir apparent was, since Aleksey without an heir. Next in succession was the 16-
had had his eldest surviving son Fvodor cere- year-old middle brother, Ivan (a Miloslavsky), but
monially "presented to the people" and crowned he was mentally retarded, or, at least, defective in
as his successor. But Fyodor was known to be in speech, and could not rule alone. His half-brother,
delicate health; he was intelligent, pious, well read Peter, was ten, evidently bright, healthy and a
and artistic, but unassertive and still very young. budding future ruler. Tensions between the boyar
He died at the age of 20 after six years' reign, his groupings were matched, if not exacerbated, by
wife and only child having predeceased him. There the general tensions in society. At the center of
developed a fight to the death (literally, for some of these tensions, as it transpired, was the Moscow-
those involved) for the spoils of the realm between based militia, some 20 000 strong, known as
various boyar family groupings headed by the streltsy (musketeers). Founded in the mid-16th
Miloslavskys, Aleksey's first wife's family, to century as an up-to-date army, by the 1680s they
which Fvodor belonged, and the Naryshkins, were a force of dubious value, only semi-
family of the widowed Natalya, mother of the professional (they engaged in trade and agriculture
future Peter the Great, who was still under four when not campaigning), under-educated and prey
years old at his father's death. Under Fyodor a pre- to rumor, potentially mutinous and uncertain of
carious balance was held, though the vengeful their loyalties, anachronistic compared with
Miloslavskys were dominant, and the major foreign-officered standing troops, irregularly paid,
political figure of Aleksey's time, Artamon Mat- inclined to the Old Belief, suspicious of foreigners,
veyev (former guardian of Natalya Naryshkina), with their own ambitions and anxieties about the
was exiled. preservation of their privileged status.
THE LAST CENTURY OF OLD RUSSIA
The streltsy were one element bidding to fill the cal he abolished mestnichestvo, the
significance:
power vacuum after Fyodor's death; the other was ranking system whereby boyars would only accept
one rather unexpected member of the royal family. service positions equal to or above those held
Fyodor died on 28 April 1682: the patriarch previously in their families, and according to their
instantly proclaimed young Peter tsar, with his status within their families. It was a constant
mother Natalya regent. Matveyev was already on source of quarrels and inefficiency and often had
his way back from exile. The politically inexper- to be temporarily suspended in time of war. Fyo-
ienced Natalya made the mistake of ordering 16 dor's dramatic gesture not only in abolishing the
streltsy colonels to be flogged. Rumors circulating system, but also in burning the great manuscript
among the streltsy that both Fyodor and Ivan had books [razryadnye knigi) in which the whole rig-
been poisoned by the Naryshkins provoked them marole was recorded, thus preventing its return for
into a riot. Matveyev returned and took his seat at ever, opened the door for Peter's service
the head of the boyar council on 15 May, but by meritocracy.
that evening he had been brutally lynched by The single figure most responsible for ending
streltsy, and for three days the murderous hunt for mestnichestvo in the last months of Tsar Fyodor,
Naryshkins was on. Ten-year-old Peter with his and thereafter the dominant politician during the
mother, prisoners in the Kremlin, though spared regency of Sophia, the outstanding Russian of the
by the rioters, witnessed some of the killings. 1680s, in fact, was Prince Vasiliy Golitsyn. Head of
The outcome was a modification to the the Old Russian equivalent to the Foreign Ministry,
succession arrangement, proclaimed on 26 May, he was Sophia's favorite and de facto prime
whereby Ivan and Peter were to be joint tsars. The minister. Foreign policy in fact loomed larger in the
unexpected figure who eagerly filled the power 1680s in Russia than had ever previously been the
vacuum was their 25-year-old Miloslavsky sister, case, and the period deserves note as one of peace
Sophia. Well educated, unlike other Muscovite in comparison with the expensive Polish war of
women but like the other children of Tsar Aleksey, Aleksey and the lengthy northern wars of Peter.
she saw her chance with considerable perspicacity; The atmosphere in Moscow under both Fyodor and
in the crisis-ridden atmosphere she was proclaimed Sophia was distinctly pro-Polish: Poland, still
regent. Not only was she the first woman to rule powerful and prosperous, offered the most readily
Russia since Olga in the 10th century, she was not accessible models of cultural progress and what we
even the senior princess of the family (Yevdokia would now call Westernization. In 1685 Sophia's
was seven years older, Marfa five). But she was government concluded an important treaty with
Top A gold coin of about 1682
shows the crowned figure of the
quick-witted and decisive and had the support of Poland; from the Russian point of view most signi-
Tsaritsa Sophia, regent to her the leading Russian statesman V.V. Golitsyn. At ficantly it confirmed in perpetuity what had been
younger brother Ivan V and first decrees were issued simply in the names of the the temporary acquisition of Kiev.
their half-brother Peter I. The
joint tsardom of the two young
curious child diarchy of Ivan V and Peter I: a The Polish alliance, however, had unwanted and
half-brothers under the regency throne that still survives in the Kremlin Armory disastrous complications. For the first time in its
of their older sister was an Museum has a double seat and a small "prompt history Muscovy was brought into an alliance of
arrangement reached in response
to the succession crisis that window" behind, presumably for Sophia's whis- European states that carried military implications.
erupted on the death of Fyodor pered instructions or answers. Soon Sophia was The last great thrust of Ottoman expansion had
III. Another gold coin of the
using grander titles such as "Great Sovereign" brought the Turks to the outskirts of Vienna in
same period (above) shows the
two child tsars with the emblem (curiously, there were no special terms for 1683, and Russia was drawn into war against an
of the double-headed eagle. "regent" or "regency" in the Russian of the Ottoman empire with which it had no specific
Seven years later Sophia's
probable designs upon the
period), and was portrayed in grand regalia, devis- quarrel. An Ottoman vassal-state existed north of
throne led to her forcible ing special ceremonies appropriate to a queen. the Black Sea: the so-called Crimean Tatars, Turk-
retirement to a convent at the
Meanwhile Ivan V was married at 17, and fath- ized remnants of the Great Horde, who had irregu-
instigation of Peter, then 17
years old. Peter and Ivan then ered a string of daughters, one of whom, nearly 40 larly harassed the Muscovite state for over 200
ruled as nominal co-tsars until years later, would come to the throne as the Tsar- years. A reluctant Golitsyn had to launch and lead
Ivan's death in 1696.
itsa Anna. Peter, though at 16 he was still little two large expeditions against the Crimean Tatars in
interested government, seems to have been
in 1687 and 1689. Neither could force the Perekop
nudged by and family into attend-
his supporters isthmus into the Crimea itself, nor indeed make any
ing the boyar council from 1688; in January 1689 gains that could plausibly offset their considerable
he too married, and late that summer moved human losses. Both were presented in Moscow
against his half-sister, objecting to her presence in however as triumphant victories, and it is probable
ceremonies and denouncing her in a remarkable that no one factor so discredited Sophia's rule (and
letter to his co-tsar Ivan: "And now, sovereign strengthened Peter's hand when, immediately
brother, the time has come for us to rule the realm afterwards, he instigated the showdown that termi-
entrusted to us by God ... It is disgraceful that in nated her regency) as this double defeat and cover-
our majority this shameful person should rule the up. As for Golitsyn, he lived out the rest of a long
state in our stead." Sophia lived out the rest of her life (until 1714) in exile after Sophia's downfall.
days, until 1704, in the Moscow Novodevichy Thus Russia lost, at the outset of Peter's reign, the
Convent. person who represented the best hope for a
Squeezed as they are between the long and gradualist and perhaps painless approach to
eventful reigns of Aleksey and Peter, Fyodor's and Westernization.
Sophia's periods of rule often get no more than a Golitsyn was a man of great erudition and intel-
passing mention from historians of Russia, yet they lect, well read and fluent in several languages,
Academy and the impetus he gave to the rebuild- (1641-91), adviser to and historian of the regent
ing of central Moscow, so often ravaged by fire, as Sophia, himself executed subsequently at Peter's
a city of brick and stone rather than wood. His orders, there are no giant intellects at work, on sur-
own great pedimented house, which survived in viving evidence, in this "Russian Renaissance."
Moscow into the 20th century before being wan- Folklore and the vernacular arts flourished, and
tonly demolished, was noted for the taste and opu- were at times able to interact with, or revivify, the
lence of its furnishings, though his own preferred rather stilted, ossified forms of "sophisticated" art.
way of life was modest, even spartan. Golitsyn was One literary masterpiece emerged from such an
unusual among Muscovite political figures in aim- interaction, and from the social and personal
ing not merely at the establishment of good order circumstances of crisis in which Muscovy dis-
and the strengthening of hallowed institutions; he solved: the Life of the Archpriest Avvakum,
envisaged the development and education of his written by himself and dating from his incarcer-
society, its economic growth and financial stabil- ation in a northern monastery in the 1670s. To take
ization, freedom of religion and even the end of the hallowed religious genre of the vita, the saint's
serfdom. life, and to turn it into autobiography, was a daring
Late Muscovite culture seems to have had a self- 1861. It is significant and paradoxical that Avva-
consciousness and at times an aridity about it that kum's Life is, despite its individuality and
has given it mostly rather a bad press, both then complete stylistic originality, a last flare-up of
and later. Travelers' accounts, though certainly not Muscovite culture, not at all a product of the new
uniformly hostile to the Muscovites, reacted more Westernizing trends of its time.
critically than ever before to the limitations of their Plenty of 17th-century prose writing has come
religious and general outlook and to the absolutism down to us: historical accounts of that turbulent
of their state system. Occasional individual Musco- age and secular tales, fictional and semi-fictional,
vites also raised critical voices. Grigoriy Kotoshik- fantastical, parodistic and picaresque. Such works
hin, a civil servant in the Ambassadorial Office, only catch fire as literature when, as with
fled Muscovy and entered Swedish service in 1666. Avvakum, the full, albeit still rather chaotic
He wrote most valuable, because detailed, though
a resources of the Russian language are employed to
and
also strongly hostile account of Russian society surprise and influence the reader emotionally. A
government. Despite his contention that "The men fine example is the Tale of the Siege of Azov, written
of the Russian state are arrogant by nature and by a participating soldier in the 1640s, weirdly
untrained in all things, because they do not and blending the dry and factual manner of the mili-
cannot receive a good education in their country/' tary tale with highly rhetorical, folk-influenced
Kotoshikhin and others nonetheless somehow purple patches. Even more remarkable is the Tale
obtained sufficient education to scrutinize their of Woe and Misfortune (Povest' o Gore-Zlochastii), a
own condition. highly metaphoric and poeticized variant of the
Only in the last half-century has a reassessment theme of the Prodigal Son, pursued through life by
The Patriarch Nikon in
of late Muscovite culture been made in terms not a personification of Woe. Generally, though, the
ceremonial dress, depicted in an
merely of its impoverishment and backwardness, most readable 17th-century Russian literature, earlv 19th-century drawing.
but also of a complexity that increased as the 17th often not closely datable, is anonymous poetry,
century proceeded, intellectual strivings and, on more or less suffused with the spirit of folklore: in
occasion, aesthetic achievements. In particular, the particular the so-called "spiritual verses" (dukhou-
so-called Moscow Baroque period, which reached nye stikhi), deriving from biblical and apocryphal
its height in the 1680s, has attracted much recent stories, are refracted in the prism of Russian folk-
attention. To one of the greatest modern cultural consciousness and popular religious concepts.
historians, D.S. Likhachov, this period represents Musical life of the period is an elusive topic.
the belated Russian equivalent of the Renaissance, From what was noted down we might assume that
although it should be noted that this implies nothing but unaccompanied church music existed,
depriving the subsequent Petrine period of such a though in this area too, large changes had occurred
role. Some interesting "Renaissance" figures of by the end of the century under the influence of
many-sided cultural significance indeed emerged polyphonic Kievan chant. V. Titov set Simeon
in, and helped to shape, this period. Polotsky's popular rhymed translation of the
The chief of these was Simeon of Polotsk (1629- Psalter to music in 1680. Beyond that, of course,
80), a West Russian of wide Latin-based education, there was folk music, some of it, naturally, instru-
both theological and secular. He came to Moscow mental. Yet we can also be sure that Western
in 1664, was influential in court circles, becoming European music too was performed in 17th-
tutor to the royal family, and almost single- —
century Moscow though how much, how well
handedly established a new Russian literature and in what circumstances are matters of conjec-
largely on western Baroque, particularly Polish ture. In 1648, for example, the Moscow rioters des-
models. His copious writings include secular odes troyed several cartloads of Western musical
and shorter poems introducing a syllabically based instruments. Even earlier, in the 1630s, the Hol-
metrics usually now considered to fit rather awk- stein diplomat Olearius remarked casually in his
wardly with the strongly stress-accented Russian well-known travel notes that Nikita Romanov,
language. He also wrote plays on biblical subjects kinsman of the tsar, was "a friend of German
and an influential rhymed translation of that favor- music." By the 1670s Tsar Aleksey was watching
ite among the Russians of all biblical books, the the ballet Orpheus probably to the music of Schiitz,
Psalter. But despite Simeon's activities and those of the greatest German composer of the time; three-
some of his circle, notably Silvester Medvedvev year-old Peter had his own clavichord.
THE LAST CENTURY OF OLD RUSSIA
Western immigrant portraitists and engravers most spectacular, until its demolition in the early
(not, admittedly, of the first quality) are
frequently 19th century, must have been his planned new
recorded as plying their trade in Russia in the 17th town, Borisov Gorodok, near Mozhaysk, which
century; native Russian painting mostly stayed had the tallest of all "tent" churches (at least 73
within the medieval territory of icons and frescoes, meters). Under Tsar Mikhail there was a gradual
though tentatively reaching out into the iconic renewal of building activity after the interruption
secular portraiture known as the parsuna. The and destruction of the Time of Troubles: a memor-
same Patriarch Nikon who is reported to have ial to this grim period is the most elegant of "tent"
personally destroyed icons that seemed too sen- churches, the triple-spired "Marvelous Church" at
suously painted was realistically depicted together Uglich (1618; properly called the Church of the
with his attendants by a Dutch portraitist. Assumption in the Alekseyev Monastery). By the
However, Western-inspired mannerisms took ever 1630s a Moscow merchant, Grigoriy Nikitnikov,
firmer root in the court icon workshops of 17th- was rich enough to build the Trinity in the Nikit-
century Moscow, with more emphatically modeled niki, adjoining his own house: it is a calculatedly
faces and limbs, architectural backgrounds using picturesque and asymmetrical agglomeration of
Renaissance perspective and slick handling of the varied spaces, highly decorated inside and out,
paint imitative of, and occasionally in fact employ- baroque in spirit though Old Russian in its forms.
ing, oil pigments. More regularized, at least outwardly, is the Terem
A great deal of 17th-century Russian painting Palace in the Kremlin, also built mostly in the
survives. Much is perfunctory, but it varies greatly 1630s by Bazhen Ogurtsov.
in quality, and the most skilled practitioners of the The most spectacular building of Tsar Aleksey's
time were considerable artists; it is characteristic reign is (or was, until it was largely destroyed in
that in this last stage of medieval Russian art we World War II —
it is now under restoration) the
often know them by name. The most important is Patriarch Nikon's monastery of New Jerusalem
that of Simon Ushakov (1626-84). From 1664 he (1658 onwards). Nikon was a keen builder: he dis-
was head of the major artistic workshop of late approved of ornate Muscovite accretions and
Muscovy, based on the Armory building in the patronized a rather severe architecture based on
Kremlin. He could handle secular subjects in a the traditional Byzantine five-domed cubical
Western manner (he engraved the title page for church. He declared that "tent" churches were
Simeon Polotsky's translation of the Psalter) but is uncanonical, yet at the center of New Jerusalem
remembered above all for the numerous icons he there stood one of the largest and most daring deri-
and his team produced. The most interesting are vatives of the type, surmounting the Cathedral of
those that delve into new subject matter, particu- the Resurrection. Nikon had ordered from Pales-
larly with political import: one in particular, The tine an inlaid wooden model of the Church of the
Planting of the Tree of the Muscovite State, is a Holy Sepulcher to use as his prototype; this model
still survives. Many Belorussian workmen assisted
highly unusual work, incorporating depictions of
Tsar Aleksey and his family with 20 medallion por- in the construction of New Jerusalem, and there is
traits of his great predecessors, arranged like fruits a significant infiltration of elements of the Western
on a vine surrounding an icon-within-an-icon of order system into its architecture. Its great tent-
like rotunda collapsed in the 18th century and was
the Virgin and Child. Some late 17th-century icons
have a finicky delicacy derived from the earlier reconstructed in its final form by the major mid-
Stroganov School, incorporating much naturalistic 18th-century architect Rastrelli. The last and most
detail; they unexpectedly, though accidentally,
astonishing "tent" church in Moscow was the
evoke the world of Western International Gothic of Church of the Nativity in Putinki (1649): its six cal-
—
around 1400 it too the last bright flare-up of an culatedly irregular fleches greeted travelers on the
Novgorod road at the entrance to the city.
over-refined art. This delicacy is seen to best effect,
however, in the frescoes of the school centered on The opposite approach, from the southeast along
Yaroslavl, brilliantly hued and swarming with the Moskva River, led past the old royal estate of
miniature figures; they are at the opposite extreme Kolomenskoye, and here Tsar Aleksey commis-
from the muted, uncluttered monumentality of sioned and planned the most extraordinary Rus-
sian building of the age: the great wooden palace of
early Russian wall painting. Most secular painting
of the period, incidentally, is lost, giving us an
—
200 or more rooms an anthology of the wood-
builder's art, a fairytale jumble of disparate and
unbalanced view of the whole artistic scene. Much
elaborate, sometimes over-ornate but always splen-
picturesque elements — built to royal specifications
in only three years (1667-70). This was the tsar's
didly crafted metalwork survives: icon casings
favorite place of relaxation during his second mar-
book covers, railings, metal folding icons,
(oklady),
riage, but it fell into disrepair in the St Petersburg
enameled and damascene objects.
era and had to be demolished a hundred years
later. Luckily Catherine II had a large model of the
Late Muscovite architecture
palace made, which can still be admired.
The art that thrived above all others in the last
Building activity reached its climax in the often
century of Muscovy was building. The 17th
ignored period of Fyodor Ill's reign and Sophia's
century begins with Boris Godunov's attempts to
regency. This was the time of the flowering of the
equip Muscovy with a monumental architecture
that would pick up where Ivan III and Vasiliy III
Moscow Baroque, in whose extremely distinctive
structures Western and Old Russian elements are
left off a century before. The most prominent
heritage of this is the present form of the great so teasingly balanced that they cannot be categor-
ized as ancient or modern. Churches are often in
Moscow Kremlin belltower, "Big John" (Ivan
Velikiy, not named as is often thought after Ivan III
several diminishing stories, with centralized
or "Great," but after St John Climacus), while the
ground plans and rich ornamentation along the
THE LAST CENTURY OF OLD RUSSIA
the frozen Lake '• Aleksey had a sense of Russia's national interests "most-gentle," that was attached to him in his life-
that flowed from his own enthusiasms. A keen time and since has usually been taken to reflect his
gardener, he put large-scale experiments in agricul- personal qualities, though it is in fact a Russian
ture and manufacture under way on his estates; he version of the title serenissimus or its Byzantine
was passionately enthusiastic and well informed equivalent galenotatos. More than anyone else he
about geography at a time when Russia was hugely formed the nostalgic image of the ideal tsar in the
expanding. His way of life, despite some modifica- popular imagination. In any case he had a great and
tions in his last five years, was still thoroughly usually underestimated effect on his son Peter—
mediesal, revolving around lengthy ceremonies of and it is the same Peter to whom we ov
court and church. His chief relaxation, an age-old unique opportunity to know Aleksey, since it .vas
occupation of rulers, was hunting and in particular he who ordered the preservation and cataloging of
falconrv. Yet backward-looking as he may seem, his father's private papers, many years after his
part of his greatness was that he was flexibly death.
.
Wooden Buildings
of Northern Russia
Nowhere is the creative genius of the common people
in Russia more immediately evident than in the
wooden architecture of the forest zone. Throughout
the Old Russian period stone and brick were reserved
for occasional use in churches, monasteries and a few
important town houses: wood was overwhelmingly
the predominant constructional material, even for
fortresses and palaces. The climax of domestic
wooden architecture came as late as 1667 in the large
and picturesque royal palace built for Tsar Aleksey at
Kolomenskoye: it was still in use in the 1760s, and
when it was demolished a model was made of it.
The age-old Russian log house (izba) is based on a
simple square module that could be, and usually was,
prefabricated and put up with great speed. Logs were
always laid horizontally, their ends often lapped.
Insulation would be provided by close-packed wad-
ding; but wooden buildings would still "breathe,"
and were considered healthier to live in; wooden
living rooms often surmounted a brick foundation
story used for storage. The development of a specta-
cular folk church architecture in wood, using the
simplest tools, is shrouded in mystery. Since wood is
vulnerable to fire and decay the earliest surviving
churches are late medieval. Yet we know, for
example, that a wooden cathedral with "13 heads"
(domes?) was built in 10th-century Novgorod.
no foundation story.
WOODEN BUILDINGS OF NORTHERN RUSSIA
Below The greatest treasure elaborate showpieces: Kizhi was apse. The Transfiguration, a the lake, saying "There was not,
house of wooden architecture is an important parish and trading steep (38-meter) tiered pyramid, is not and will not be such a
at Kizhi, an island on Lake Onega post. Its renowned carpenters, has the staggering total of 22 one."
in the far north. Its two working largely with axes, domes; it resembles a vast
spectacular churches are "followed their eye," needing no Christmas tree. It was built on
dedicated to the Transfiguration blueprints. The Intercession rises the virtuoso "twenty-walled"
(1714) and the Intercession in an octagon above a cube: each plan: an octagonal core with four
(Pokrov; 1764). Here the latter is rib of the octagon supports a side-projections producing a
seen from the shingled domes of decorative dome, with one more cross. Its builder, Nestor,
the former. Both are highly in the middle and another on the supposedly flung his axe into
instigation, about to move threateningly against ruler among the conservative (though not Old
Preobrazhenskove, Peter and his immediate Believer) group in late 17th-centurv Russia — both
entourage fled in the middle of the night and estab- the Orthodox xenophobes around the patriarch
lished themselves in the strongly fortified Trinity and the major boyar families whose position was
Monasterv some 70 kilometers northeast of the undermined bv the abolition of mestnichestvo
city. There he precipitated a showdown with his under Fyodor III. Peter with his boats and war
half-sister bv sending letters demanding that the games seemed obviously content to leave politics to
streltsy colonels and foreign mercenary officers others. He had, however, the bad habit of consort-
should come in person to pledge their loyalty. He ing with Western Europeans in the Foreign
also sent the remarkable missive, quoted earlier (p. Quarter, situated at only strolling distance from
81), to his co-tsar Ivan denouncing Sophia as a Preobrazhenskove (particularly with the Dutch,
usurper. Peter's initiative caused shock and but also, for example, with the Scot Gordon and
consternation in Moscow, particularly among the the Swiss Lefort). It was not that Westerners
foreign officers who were genuinely uncertain offered him some sort of vision of higher civiliza-
whom they should obev. The decisive move was tion (far from it, given the reputation for debau-
made by the veteran Scot, General Patrick Gordon chery of the Foreign Quarter). What he found there
(1635-99), who sensed the indecision of Sophia's were experts of a sort in the skills and technologies
government and went to Peter. Sophia's chief that fascinated him; he also found an alternative,
ministers had no choice but to follow. Sophia was unbuttoned and carnivalistic wav of life.
forciblv retired to the Novodevichy Convent on Tsaritsa Natalva died, to Peter's great sorrow, in
the outskirts of Moscow. Gordon was to save Peter's 1694. Ivan V died in 1696. Peter seems always to
A mid-18th-century view of the
main channel of the River Neva throne for him again in the abortive streltsy rebel- have got on amicably with his brother and treated
in St Petersburg. The nearest lion of 1698. him punctiliously as co-tsar. Now he was left as
building on the left (south] bank
It is seldom-noticed irony that the regency of
a sole ruler, and events began to move rapidlv. In
is the Imperial Winter Palace,
Peter Is Great Embassy and him at dinner and left a celebrated description of seaman and drinking cronv of Peter's, landed an
Northern War. him. She praised his good looks, quick-spiritedness immenselv valuable tobacco supply monopoly in
The Great Embassy to western
Europe, including visits to and repartee, but wished his manners were "a little Russia. His offering of £28,000 in cash kept the
Prussia, the United Provinces less rustic"; he was "a prince at once very good embassy going when it was draining the Moscow
(Holland), Great Britain and
Vienna, was symbolically a
and very bad," who "if he had received a better treasury almost dry (it eventually cost 26 million
break with past Muscovite education, would be an exceptional man," with roubles). The encouragement of a tobacco industry
traditions, which were "great qualities and unlimited natural in Russia brought, conveniently for Peter, both
characteristically xenophobic.
The primary ostensible purpose
intelligence." financial and ideological rewards: tobacco was
of the embassy, which lasted 18 The embassv, naturally, attracted much atten- considered a grossly sinful substance by the Ortho-
months, was to instigate an tion and provided the first obvious demonstration dox Church hierarchy. On a more systematic foot-
alliance against the Turks, from
whom Peter had recently of what those who knew Peter well in Russia must ing Peter recruited approaching 1000 foreign
captured the fortress town of alreadv have realized: his insatiable, almost manic officers, technicians and experts to work in Russia,
Azov. This gave the landlocked
enthusiasm for doing things himself. His greatest and sent home many shiploads of varied purchases.
Russians their longed-for
opportunity of access to the efforts were of course devoted to shipbuilding and A specter at the feast, Romodanovsky's mes-
Black Sea, with all that that related skills, at Zaandam Holland and Deptford
in senger arrived hotfoot for Peter as the embassy was
implied in terms of naval
near London, but he it were in passing,
also, as packing up to leave Vienna for Venice. To the sur-
potential; hence Peter's interest
in the shipbuilding and learnt watch-mending skills and, when delayed prise of his hosts Peter and his retinue left north-
dockyards at Deptford and unexpectedly at the East Prussian port of Pillau, eastwards rather than southwestwards, heading
Zaandam.
During the Great Embassy took a certificate course in gunnery. Among the home through Poland. Romodanovsky's alarming
Peter conceived the bolder skills he developed in Russia were boot making, news was that four regiments of streltsy, ordered to
notion of a war against Sweden, march from Azov to the western borderland to
woodcarving (a constant, time-consuming and
which controlled the eastern
Baltic lands, blocking Russia's probably therapeutic diversion) and, notoriously, make the Russian presence felt during the election
access to western trade. After an
defeat at Narva, Russian
the pulling of teeth —
woe betide any of his of a new Polish king, had disobeyed orders and
initial
subjects who mentioned their toothache in his turned towards Moscow. Peter sent a command
forces managed to hold a post on
an island that was to become the presence. It was an ancient tradition that every that the rebellion should be suppressed with the
heart of Peter's new capital of St ruler should learn a trade: this one, with character- utmost severity. Soon afterwards another message
Petersburg. With Charles XII of
istic arrogance or exuberance, evidently wanted to confirmed that the rebels had been defeated and
Sweden fighting Prussia and
Poland as well, Peter was able to learn them all. disarmed, largely thanks to the Russian armv com-
consolidate his hold on the east
Revelry accompanied the embassy's progress mander Shein and to General Gordon's cool-
Baltic coast as far south as Riga.
Important Russian victories at through Europe, reaching its spectacular climax headedness. Thus Peter, instead of hurrying the
Lesnaya and Poltava finally with a great masked ball in Vienna. It is notorious remainder of his homeward progress, could stop
contained the menace of for several pleasant days at Rawa with the new
that, when the entire embassy had been accommo-
Sweden, although the war
dragged on for some years more dated for some months in the fine house of the Polish king Augustus and plot war against Sweden.
until the Treaty of Nystad (1721) diarist John Evelyn at Deptford, there was a huge Nevertheless his arrival in Moscow on 25 August
confirmed most of Russia's gains.
repair bill (footed by the English government): it 1698 was sudden and unheralded. The date (O'd
seems that the Russians particularly enjoyed Style) deserves to be mentioned, although among
driving wheelbarrows through holly hedges. What modern historians only Boris Uspenskv seems to
could Laetitia Cross, a leading London actress who have noted its significance: a week before New
moved in with Peter at Lord Carmarthen's sugges- Year's Day (until 1700, reckoned as 1 September) of
tion, have made of it all? Carmarthen, a brilliant 1699, the year in which Antichrist was expected
PETER THI (.HI Ai
group of cronies, partly overlapping with his inner his library was of religious books, he even
full
circle of state advisers, headed by Romodanovsky, enjoyed singing in church. When, during the first
who gave themselves the name of "All-jocular wave of reprisals against the streltsy, the Patriarch
Synod" [yseshuteyshiy sobor: alternatively vsepya- Adrian (Ioakim's successor, elected in 1690 against
neyshiy "All-drunken"). Orgiastic carousing took Peter's wishes) tried to appeal to Peter's sense of
place in a context that parodied church rituals, mercy, he was rebuffed, according to Korb, with a
with mock dignitaries and mock ceremonies that remarkable speech in which he told the Patriarch
sometimes, notably in the winter of 1698-99, "Know that I reverence God and honor his most
became destructively public. What is Lmportanl holy Mother more earnestlv perhaps than thou
about this club, apart from its scandalous shock- dost . .
." The mock synod was, to put it simply,
.
value in a traditionalist society, is that Peter him- dn adventure in blasphemy, from motives one can
self found it important. He was at the center oi its only guess. Peter's actions were interpreted by
activities, making out its "statutes," devising its some as an attempt to live up to the role of
rituals, from before the age of 20 to his death. His- Antichrist which so many of his subjects assigned
torians have interpreted the significance of this to him, particularly in his "usurpation" of the role
"synod" in diverse ways, or have avoided inter- of patriarch after Adrian died in 1700 and was not
preting it save as horseplay or relaxation (its name replaced. Peter's chief clerical apologist Feofan Pro-
has been softened into "the Jolly Company"). That kopovich explicitly saw him as pontfex maximus,
the public hooliganism associated with the mock high priest. Foreigners did not quite understand
synod reached its climax in the winter of 1698-99 this: sensing his dissatisfaction with the Orthodox
is doubtless connected with the fearful vengeance hierarchy, they tried to interest him in Catholicism,
on the streltsy that was simultaneously in progress. Protestantism, even Anglicanism and the Society of
The tensions of the time seem to have somewhat Friends (Quakers). But the blasphemer cannot do
unbalanced Peter, and commentators noted there- without the object of his blasphemv.
after an alarming facial tic that frequently distorted
his features at times of stress. The Great Northern War
If Peter had been, as some writers imply, indif- The year 1700 marked another moment of transi-
ferent to religion or even atheistically inclined, the The internal terror was
tion in Peter's reign. for the
mock synod's activitiescould have been dismissed moment over and done with. A peace treaty with
as simply tasteless buffoonery. Actually this was Turkey meant the cessation of tribute payments to
far from the case. His writings continually invoke the Crimean Tatars. But a more protracted,
divine approval, he quotes the Bible frequent v. 1 dangerous and financially draining war was
declared the same year: the Great Northern War were among Peter's more lasting innovations. Great
against Sweden, that eventually established Russia levies of forced labor were raised for the tsar's
as a force to be reckoned with on the European public construction works: fortresses, canals and,
stage. The eastern Baltic provinces that formed part more and more demandingly after 1703, the build-
of Sweden's empire were full of discontent; ing of St Petersburg on its swampy, chilly and
Sweden had overreached itself and was generally unhealthy estuary.
disliked or envied in northern Europe; its new Apparently unworried by his east Baltic
king, Charles XII, was still a teenager. But Sweden reverses, Charles XII meanwhile applied ever
proved to be no pushover and more than once greater pressure on the combined armies of Poland
dealt Peter nearly mortal blows. First the fighting and Saxony. This was a grim time for Peter's Rus-
(.entered on the old fortress-city of Narva, where sia: the treasury was empty, the army still semi-
modern Estonia and Russia meet on the Gulf of Fin- trained, and a series of great popular revolts broke
land. Almost at once the Russian army besieging it out in quick succession: the Astrakhan and Bulavin
was crushingly defeated by a much smaller (Cossack) rebellions and the Bashkir civil war. This
Swedish force. Thereafter, fortunately for Peter, decade culminated nevertheless in Peter's most
instead of advancing into Russia Charles XII turned famous success, the battle of Poltava (1709), that
to deal with Augustus the Strong. routed Charles's army and is indeed usually
In the breathing space Peter's forces recuperated considered one of the great punctuating events of
sufficiently over the next couple of years to move European history. The first major Russian victory,
in on the easternmost and least populous of maybe the one that decided the war, took place
Sweden's Baltic provinces, Ingria. This was, as however the year before (1708). Charles, having
Peter proclaimed, ancient Russian territory, vital as dealt with his westerly opponents, moved
a trade route, despite its inhospitability, to the gradually east into Belorussia, keeping the Rus-
Novgorod state in the Middle Ages, and its recap- sians guessing as to where he would aim his next
ture was a declared war aim. Here, in Charles's blow. Subsequent historians have blamed him for
absence in Poland, Peter's forces met with success, not heading directly towards Moscow. In the event
taking back the old Russian towns Yam and he swung his armies south, towards the richer
Koporye, and in May 1703 knocking out the two lands of the Ukraine, where the hetman (Cossack
Swedish fortresses on the great River Neva that leader) Ivan Mazepa had secretly gone over to his
connects Lake Ladoga with the Baltic. A few miles side. This extended his supply lines, leaving him
downstream from the only Swedish town on the all too dependent on the arrival of a vast reinforce-
river, Nyenskans, the Neva fanned out into a low- ment of over 12 000 troops with a large baggage
lying delta, too prone to flooding to tempt inhabi- train. In September 1708 a roughly equal Russian
tants, through which it found its way to the Gulf of force managed to intercept the Swedish reinforce-
Finland. Here, immediately after the capture of ments at the village of Lesnaya and comprehen-
Nyenskans, Peter took part for the first time in his sively defeated them, the first time skill rather than
life in a successful naval engagement, capturing numbers had brought Russia victory. Peter called
some Swedish vessels that came to relieve the this first true victory "the mother of the battle of
town. Suddenly Russia once again had direct terri- Poltava."
torial access to the Baltic and the West. Peter The battle of Poltava was hard fought but over
marked the occasion by establishing a fort on Hare in half a day. Charles, badly wounded in the foot,
Island, a small patch of land near the head of the escaped southeastwards with a few hundred
delta: so St Petersburg was born. During the 17 followers, helped by Mazepa. Peter was hit by
years of fluctuating fortunes that marked the gunfire but remained unscathed. Charles's only
remaining course of the war, Peter hung doggedly hope, thin as it seemed, was to survive, reach Otto-
on to this vulnerable patch of coastline, and long man territory, reactivate the old hostility of the
before the war was over the Peter-Paul Fortress Turks and their strongly anti-Russian dependants
on Hare Island was the heart of his new capital the Crimean Tatars against Peter, restart the war
city. with his tiny army and somehow make his way
As the Northern War continued, Charles XII across the breadth of Europe to his northern home-
(reckoning Augustus to be his more threatening land. All this, incredibly, he managed, though it
opponent) slowly consolidated his grip on Poland, took him five years. Meanwhile it was Peter's turn
while Russian forces raided the ill-defended Baltic to overstretch himself. Only two years after Pol-
provinces. Peter desperately reorganized and tava, pursuing the dream that for over 200 years
trained his numerous but inexperienced and intermittently haunted Russian rulers of an —
undisciplined armies in an attempt to match the uprising of Balkan Christians against the Turks,
Swedish fighting machine. More and more money —
under Russian leadership Peter almost suc-
that the treasury scarcely knew how to find was cumbed on the River Prut in Moldavia. Forced, in
pumped into the military effort, rising at times to the face of defeat, to sue for peace on almost any
over 90 percent of the state income. Everything terms save losing Petersburg, he, like Charles
imaginable was taxed, from bath-houses to coffins. before him, escaped by the skin of this teeth. Skill-
Eventually, in 1718, the fundamental land or ful negotiation by his diplomat P. Shafirov, who
household tax of Muscovite Russia was done away was of Jewish origin, bribery of the pasha, perhaps
with, and a poll tax on all adult males of the pea- instigated by his wife Catherine, and more impor-
sant and working class, to be collected by land- tantly differences between the local and central
owners, was substituted. This squeezed three times Ottoman authorities, the Crimean Tatars and the
as much revenue out of the unfortunate populace Swedes let Peter off the hook, at the expense of
as the taxes it replaced; regularized conscription Azov and some other forts and, to his bitter regret,
for life of peasant soldiers was also instituted: both the southern fleet he had built up.
—
PETER THE GREAT
In 1717 Peter made his second After Poltava the exhausted Swedes would have made his second journey to Western Europe, this
journey to the West, this time
choosing (partly because of the
been as happy as the Russians to make peace. time to Holland and France. Again there were dip-
recent death of Louis XIV) to Charles XII's survival however ensured that the lomatic motives: with the War of the Spanish
visit France. This canvas by
war dragged on, but after the Prut it was com- Succession over and Louis XIV recently dead, it
L.M.J. Wersent shows Peter at
Versailles, holding up the child paratively undramatic. The Russians gradually seemed a good moment to strike commercial and
monarch Louis XV. Diplomatic consolidated their Baltic gains, occupied Finland, military bargains with the still enormouslv power-
results of the visit, again seen as
an embassy, were negligible.
won more naval engagements and finally sent raid- ful and prosperous French. Once again his diplo-
ing parties into Sweden itself. Charles was killed in macy bore little fruit, though a vague treaty of
Norway in 1718, and eventually the Peace of friendship was signed, and specialists, though
Nystad" (1721) secured Russia's new territory, fewer than before, were recruited to work in
though, curiously, Peter had to purchase Livonia Russia.
(the larger part of modern Latvia). Nystad was Again, too, a crisis involving real or perceived
probably the crowning moment of Peter's life treason erupted dramatically on his return. This
literally so, since to celebrateit he was proclaimed time the central victim was his own son Aleksey, a
emperor, "Father of the Fatherland" and "the quite intelligent but shallow, confused and
Great." After it, Peter neither enjoyed the fruits of indolent character. The divergence of their person-
peace nor found that Russia itself ran smoothly. In alities had long been apparent: Aleksey vvas not
1722 he started a war against Persia, making some only, and with reason, scared of his dominating
territorial gains that ultimately could not be held. parent, but handled their differences quite
It was, however, in these last few years of his life wrongly, alternately submissive, obstinate and
that many of the institutional changes for which evasive. Several missives that passed between them
his reign is remembered were made. Notable survive, helping to chart a complex and trulv
among these was his ordering of his entire "service tragic story. When in 1716 Peter sent an ultimatum
class" according to a table with corresponding col- threatening Aleksey with retirement to a monas-
umns of ranks (for army, guards, navy and civil tery (echoing his mother's fate), the latter went
service), originally 14 in number, representing a abroad and simply disappeared for many months.
ladder of promotion up which the servitor had to He resurfaced in Austria, whose diplomatic rela-
proceed step by step; the top eight rungs conferred tions with Russia were poor. The Austrians were in
hereditary nobility. a quandary: would Peter use force to get his son
back? They permitted the experienced and unscru-
The succession drama pulous envoy Peter Tolstoy to interview him: on a
In 1717, 20 years after the Great Embassy, with the spurious promise of safe conduct Aleksey was
critical stages of the Northern War past, Peter unwise enough to return. He had been a focus for
PEThR THE GREAT
the hopes of malcontents in high places, and Peter founded. By taking over the east Baltic provinces
sensed a dangerous plot. Aleksey and those who Peter made himself heir, in a sense, to another
were supposed to have helped him, were sentenced empire, that of Sweden, and in the process incor-
to be executed for treason; before the sentence on porated some sizeable non-Slavic national groups
Aleksey was confirmed, however, he died in — Letts and Estonians, with some Jews and a
prison, doubtless as a consequence of the current German upper class. These, when added to the
methods of interrogation. scattered Finnic, Turkic and Palaearctic people and
Aleksey 's death was a relief, and Peter hardly the various Caucasian groups and Persians around
pretended otherwise. His infant son Peter (Pyotr the Caspian, made Russia by 1725 a remarkably
Petrovich) by his second —
in Orthodox eyes ques- multi-ethnic empire. Peter's constant warring
tionable— marriage to Catherine was the new heir. impoverished and exhausted the country but it
But the child soon died, to Peter's misery, and by a did at least make it secure and provided the basis
trick of fate his only grandson, the last male in the for some fairly long peaceful interludes in the rest
Romanov line, was another Peter (Pyotr Alekseye- of the 18th century; the same is true of his develop-
vich), son of the ill-fated Aleksey. There is another ment of a fleet, however minor its impact at first.
curious twist in this family saga. When Catherine Despite his recruitment of foreign officers he
(born Marfa Skavronskaya in Livonia) converted to actually assisted the Russification of the army, as
the Orthodox Church, Aleksey had stood godfather well as its greater efficiency. But the militarization
to her, so that she was "reborn" into Orthodoxy as of society was the price paid, and the new Guards
Yekaterina Alekseyevna: to many believers Peter's regiments acquired at times controlling political
subsequent marriage to her was the grotesque power.
symbolic blasphemy of marrying his "grand- Peter's reforms flowed out of the military and
daughter." politico-economic situations in which he found
After the crisis there was a dynastic problem: himself, and also out of his personal dislikes and
since so much in the "Petrine revolution" clearly enthusiasms. After the turn of the century,
depended on the tsar's person, how could a worthy however, and particularly in the last decade of his
inheritor of his title be guaranteed? In the secular- life, they began to have a more ordered character,
ized state God's grace was scarcely to be relied on. implying a vision of a properly run society. Many
In any case Peter promulgated a law that each ruler recorded remarks and letters testify to his concern
could nominate his or her successor. He did not with the common good of Russia, to be manifested
avail himself of it, and legend recounts that just in its prosperity, orderliness and international
before he died he managed to scrawl on a paper the glory. There was nothing particularly subtle, let Above This engraving from
words "I leave all ." without getting farther. To
. . alone revolutionary, in this, but it was pursued Johannes Korb's Diary shows
ships that Peter the Great had
whom? "To the people," some later guessed. Be with a tenacity and assiduousness that made it built at Archangel. This town,
that as it may, he had not long before his death had extraordinary; Peter would work for months draft- situated where the Northern
Dvina flows into the White Sea,
Catherine crowned empress with lavish ceremony, ing regulations and decrees personally, rising to
close to the Arctic Circle, was
suggesting a conscious evocation of the Byzantine work normally at 4 a.m. Particularly interesting is Muscovy's only direct point of
system of crowning one's heir in one's lifetime. She the habit in his later years of prefacing decrees by access to the sea until the site of
St Petersburg was captured from
was tough, sensible, not over-subtle and a loving explanations for them in terms of public benefit. It the Swedes in 1703. Archangel
interpreter of Peter's wishes; she was unlikely arbi- seems that he was the first ruler of Russia to have, was established in the 1580s to
trarily to dismiss his favorites or have any dis- or anyhow to express, a clear concept of the state as cope with the growing volume
of trade first with England, then
turbingly innovatory ideas of her own. An ad hoc an entity separate from and superior to the current with Holland and other
council of Peter's servitors —
notably Menshikov, ruler. A famous instance is the exhortation he is countries. The Archangel
—
who stood to gain or lose much started to press reported to have delivered to his troops on shipyards expanded Peter's
interest in shipbuilding which
her claim to rule even before Peter had breathed his the eve of Poltava, urging them to think not of dated from his activities at Lake
last, but the clinching factor was the support of the "Peter" but of "Russia." Pleshcheyevo in the early 1690s.
Guards regiments. These regiments had been The Petrine reforms modernized the way society
Peter's own first creation and the focus of his was administered and, to point up differences with
power: they were henceforth to have a deciding Muscovite practice, brought in a new nomen-
voice in all accessions to the throne until that of clature. The 50-odd government departments (prik-
Alexander I in 1801. azy) yielded to a much smaller number of
"colleges" or ministries, more clearly demarcated
The legacy of Peter from each other. The committee of each was to con-
How are Peter and his reign to be summed up? The tain at least one foreign expert. The old Boyar
problem is almost too enormous to grapple with, Duma, or permanent council of notables, had no
since it is perhaps the central problem of all Rus- place in the new order; still less had the Assembly
sian history. Here we can limit ourselves to a few of the Land. Instead, a "Ruling Senate" was set up,
comments and conclusions, viewed from four at first to govern when Peter was away fighting: its
angles: that of military success and concomitant real boss was his own supervisory official, the pro-
territorial acquisition; of domestic reform; of Wes- curator, who was to be the tsar's "eyeand proxy."
ternization; and of legacy to Russia and the world. The church, deprived of its patriarch, was to be
Naturally, these aspects are interlinked. governed by the synod, in effect another depart-
Peter's reign saw only small gains of territory ment of state, chaired by a layman. The structure
compared with those of his grandfather Mikhail of society itself was not so much changed as more
(across Siberia), of his father (into Poland and starkly, probably less organically delineated.
Ukraine) and of his 18th-century successors (into Beards and Russian clothes marked out the peasant
Central Asia, and subsequently southwards to the but so did payment of the poll or "soul" tax,
class,
Crimea). Yet those small gains were crucial, and not which homogenized the various lower social
only because they enabled St Petersburg to be groupings that had characterized the old system.
PETER THE GREAT
by Peter and the view of the styles promoted in architecture and painting. image and impressed non-Russians greatly. An
Neva at St Petersburg in the Sometimes things Western had a glamor for Peter unpublished English manuscript describes a
vignette above.
and his associates that sprang simply from their not merchant's impression of the tsar's approachability
being Muscovite. Very often, however, one senses in Archangel: "He's no proud man, I assure you,
that the prime merit of Westernization for Peter for he'll eat or be merry with anybody ... He
was shock-value, emphasizing to the mass of the invited all the nasty tars to dinner with him." He
population the spirit of newness that his propagan- was one of the first great political voluntarists of
dists assiduously promoted. modern times, one of those believers in the power
Nevertheless 'there are also those who claim of will and effort to change the world. Such strong-
plausibly that Peter had a "modern mentality" men normally believe that ends justify means, and
(which in the context would have to mean the means usually involve cruelty. Peter, though
Western). His world was no longer statically able to be cruel, was not sadistic: except in the case
J t i O >l O C T II.
of the streltsy, he did not apply the death penalty
medieval: he was aware of historical progress, of
HsB 6EpAIHA 1 6 Osm»6pa. frequently, indiscriminately, or without warning.
the rise and fall of great nations, of the possibility
Bt npoiHAOH Rmof Hint KoPcmb Bo!.
that Russia's turn for greatness had come, or could Yet memories of the harsh effects of an unbend-
KoepiniaHcKia. npocmUca Bb Ulapjio-
meHoyprb ct> Kopo.\eeoio npyCRoro,
be made to come. The desires for increased trade ing will lingered on, and became fused (as with
cb ec\ikImh ^OKasamCACniBbi ycep,ii* and for military success were scarcely "modern or Ivan IV) with the great achievements, as if some-
BmpcB cro Bc-uie-
Western in themselves, but the active encourage- how glory and cruelty were inseparable. This was
j.i-'-2i/ jmoAbcTjKopo.vcMli
rifycKI>il ment of capitalistic commerce and the intense well expounded by Alexander Pushkin in the early
interest in the natural sciences were so. An opening 19th century, most memorably in The Bronze
up of horizons, a sense of new possibilities, much Horseman (a poem haunted by the powerful ghost
as in the post-Renaissance West, was part of the of Peter) but also in the epic Poltava. The effects
Petrine atmosphere. Yet here too ambiguities lurk. for Russia were not, on the whole, for the best. Nor
There was greater access to information, admit- were other aspects of the Petrine cult: the "deifi-
tedly, and a sort of public newspaper was pub- cation" of pure power in the person of a tsar no
lished from 1703, yet there was unprecedentedly longer under divine sanction and the belief in the
tight control on the expression of divergent views, efficacy of a single superhuman or monstrous effort
and Peter was more concerned with the dissemina- to make everything suddenly new and better. But
tion ofpropaganda (particularly abroad) than with the period, however much it cast a shadow on
the free flow of knowledge. The gates of Russia subsequent Russian history, has assuredly become
were thrown open to foreign experts (among whom a potent source of myth.
—
Russian throne on acceptance of a series of In retrospect it, and the following short reign of
conditions that would make her what we would Ivan VI, were thought of as a time of total ascend-
now call a constitutional monarch — in effect, that ancy of the "German party." This is an exagger-
important policy decisions should be approved ation or oversimplification: the Germans in
all
or instigated by the privy council. question were of varied origins and by no means in
The was a brilliant one. Though other
idea agreement with each other. They included Miin-
women had ruled Russia before, they had all done nich (in Russian Minikh), a soldier and technical
expert who eventually engineered Biihren's
so in the capacity of widows of tsars (Catherine I)
THE EMPIRE AFTER PETER
taking Germanization too far. First Munnich and secretly married. The statesman of the family was St Petersburg in 1703. It was the
scene of most of the sad, short
Manstein deposed Biihren and handed the regency Aleksey 's brother Kirill. Among the Shuvalovs the life of Ivan VI, who had been
to Ivan's frivolous and feather-headed mother, outstandingly capable and enlightened figure was nominated by Anna as heir
Anna Leopoldovna. Then, after some months' Ivan, a prime mover in the foundation of the while still an infant, but deposed
interest that thereafter, throughout the 18th and Frederick the Great was saved only by Elizabeth's
19th centuries, the death penalty was normally death.
applied only in cases of treason or armed rebellion; Both Anna and Elizabeth consciously tried to
however, sentences of, for example, 50 blows of the associate themselves with the achievements of
knout, normally sufficient to cause death, were Peter the Great, just as Catherine II, rather more
sometimes passed. Her reputation for kindness is plausibly, was to do later in the century. This had
somewhat vitiated by the treatment of Ivan VI and the practical consequence that St Petersburg was
his family; torture was not abolished, nor indeed firmly re-established, after Peter II, as the seat of
were the secret police, which had been suspended government, and indeed began to grow in this
by Peter II, but reintroduced under Anna. Favori- period into a great European city. As far as the
tism was less capricious and blatant, but certainly more unbuttoned aspects of court life were
THE EMPIRE AFTER PETER
vast and intricate palaces the bones of a grand clas- maintain some vestiges of special status. At the
sicism show through. This age is known above all same time commoners could, and at first frequently
for the palace architecture that produced, most did, become ennobled through service, auto-
splendidly, Tsarskoye Selo and the Petersburg matically so, once Peter's Table of Ranks was estab-
Winter Palace, but Elizabeth was in her own way lished. The 18th-century Russian hereditary
pious, and her reign also witnessed a signal revival nobleman could easily feel insecure, threatened by
of Orthodox church building, marking incidentally ambitious "new men" (especially sons of clergv)
the reinstatement of the dome as its culminating who might be mentally better equipped to rise in
feature. service, impoverished (despite Peter's salary scale
for ranking servitors, pay was low and not always
The 18th-century gentry regularly received), remote from the country estate
Both Anna's government and Elizabeth's under- he was in no position to watch over and from the
standably but fundamentally subverted the Petrine family he might seldom see, alienated by virtue of
heritage in their tinkering with the balance inher- education and "foreign" ways from surrounding
ent in Peter's severely just service state. A series of society and its age-old values.
measures, none very decisive in itself, had the
cumulative effect of making life considerably less The serfs
onerous for the servitors and simultaneously Changes one part of the service state naturally
in
harder for the peasants. Maybe Anna was repaying affected other elements. The good fortune, such
its
the gentry class for the support it had given her as it was, of the 18th-century gentry class was
against the privy council. The unpopular Petrine matched and to some extent occasioned by a
law of undivided inheritance was abolished; the tightening-up of the conditions of serfdom. Some
length of compulsory service was reduced; long of this was simply the effect of greater efficiencv: it
leaves for landowners to live on their estates were became harder for serfs who wished to evade their
awarded in rotation; one male member of a land- lot simply to fade into the countryside. Those who
owning family could avoid service altogether; it took in such serfs and gave them work there has —
became possible to inscribe the children of the always been a manpower shortage in many parts of
nobility in elite regiments from early childhood, at Russia —would be prosecuted. Serfdom was also
THE EMPIRE. AFTER PETER
Kazakhs ;nbe
|
Russia. 1700
temporary acquisitions
[J
£Ji|2 nominal sovereignty
Sm^
political boundary.1800
: *** DOMlN,0NS
much extended in this period. Anna started the extra work and risk; he might with varying success Expansion of the Russian
habit of handing out large areas of state land as institute quasi-military rules and routines. empire in the 18th century.
Once Peter the Great had secured
rewards to servitors: the inhabitants, state peasants More
insidiously damaging to the old fabric of the Baltic lands of Estonia and
who had been bound to the soil but who other- society in the 18th century was the uprooting of Livonia and had moved his
capital to St Petersburg, the basis
wise, given that they paid their soul tax, were free more and more serfs from the land. In the first
was laid for prosperitv arising
to arrange their own lives, found themselves over- place there was the enforced military recruitment from increasing trade with the
night turned into personal serfs, at the command of instituted by Peter. Recruits admittedly became West. The greatest territorial
and strategic gains however
their landowner. Anna's successors enthusiasti- freemen after service, but at too high a price; they were achieved under Catherine
cally continued the practice: it was a tempting would already be old and probably alienated from the Great. Access to the Black
resource in a country where cash, even at court, their former lives. More generally there was the Sea was finallv secured for the
first time since the 12th century.
was in short supply, but where there was still unwelcome uprooting of serfs for domestic service The Crimea was annexed in 1783
much expansion taking place, including,
territorial in the towns, for factory work and other non-agri- and quickly Russified under
Potemkin's program for settling
in the west, across well-populated and fertile cultural employment. Life in the ancestral village
and incorporating newly
lands. With the slackening of gentry service might be monotonous and laborious, but at least acquired territories. When
requirements, serfs everywhere had to face the one would be surrounded by one's own people, hostilities with the Ottoman
empire ceased in 1791 the port of
likelihood of their landlord's considerably greater living in one's own house, to a large extent manag- Odessa was founded as the
interference in their lives. The landlord would be ing one's own life. In the 17th century, when serf- southern complement to St
dom first formally appeared in the law code, the Petersburg. The enormous
physically present for much of his life, while under
expansion to the west resulted
Peter his enforced absence led to a decline in pro- government still regarded the serfs as people under from the partition of Poland
ductivity; the landlord might meddle with time- itsspecial care, even if bound to a location and its bet%veen Prussia, Austria and
honored agricultural practices, causing the peasant landlord. As the 18th century progressed the serfs
THE EMPIRE AFTER PETER
were put more and more into the landlords' power. themselves; considerable riches were sometimes
They could be, and were, bought and sold in — thus amassed, and even serf millionaires were not
theory only with land and in families, in practice unknown. Talented serfs might be sent by their
sometimes like chattels. Landlords could physi- landlords for professional training: among their
cally punish serfs for disobedience, though to kill number were several leading painters, musicians,
them remained illegal. Late in Elizabeth's reign actors and architects of the 18th and early 19th
(1760) a decree permitted the exile to Siberia, with centuries. Those who achieved such fame might
government assistance, of insolent or recalcitrant purchase or be granted their freedom, but if not
peasants. This has been described by Vernadsky as would still remain at the arbitrary command of the
the nadir of the serf's legal status, even though it master. Indeed it was the arbitrary nature of the
should be noted that rather little use was made of serf system, rather than the exceptional cases of
it. outright cruelty, that made it generally objection-
Such a pattern of social relations had become, able. In other respects the later 18th century seems
potentially if not actually, a corrupting force. Not to have been a time of comparative prosperity for
only foreigners but Russians quite often referred to Russian peasants, whether enserfed or not: their
serfs as "slaves" around this time: agitation for the condition was often favorably compared by wit-
abolition of slavery in the Western world made the nesses at the time with that of, for example, the
terminological point a delicate matter. Nevertheless Irish and Scottish rural poor or English factory
there was always a dividing line between serfdom workers.
and slavery, tenuous as it might at times have
seemed: it was not so evident in legal status, The events of 1762
though serfs and slaves were never legally This remarkable year opened with the death of
against Denmark in pursuance of his Holstein at least among those who could afford to devote
interests. His German, or at least Protestant, sym- themselves to it. Such people could now travel
pathies had an even more palpable impact on his abroad at will and no longer be regarded as curiosi-
subjects when he began to confiscate church ties, or themselves regard all they saw with naive
property; his lack of respect for Orthodox ritual wonderment. New standards of comfort and inter-
was evident, and it was rumored that he was about national levels of aesthetic taste were to make the
to burn almost all religious images and to force the last third of the 18th century the golden age of the
clergy to shave and dress in the Western manner. Russian country mansion and landscaped park.
Despite having alienated the army and the church, There were other sides to the liberation decree,
he does not seem to have been totally stupid however. When it was promulgated it was thought
insensitive, rather —and two of the measures he of by some, including evidently Peter Ill's wife and
promulgated in February 1762 have gone down in successor Catherine, as a dangerously destabilizing
history as strikingly progressive. The more unam- measure. Destabilization indeed ensued, and on
biguously liberal was the closing down of the two separate fronts, though it only slowly made
"Secret Chancery," the much-feared office that had itself felt. The sudden dissolution of the tie
charge of all investigations into treason and related between ruler and service class hastened the alien-
crimes. Its brief had been wide, its powers great ation of the latter from the former. The most fatal
and its methods depended usually on verbal rift occurred however between state and pea-
denunciations and routinely involved torture. santry. Not only the Russian intellectual class but
Security organs continued to exist but carried out equally and more immediately the huge class of
their tasks in a better-regulated and more humane serfs came to feel that Peter Ill's decree had gone
manner. only half way. Serfdom after all was in its origin
The other decree —one of the most famous in and essence but another form of state service:
imperial Russian history, promulgated on 18 equity demanded that the serfs be freed and given
February, though anticipated in a speech in title to their land if the landlords' compulsory
—
January liberated the entire class of the gentry services were no longer required. When a comple-
from obligatory service. The document is a curious mentary decree about the freeing of the serfs failed
one. Its preamble attempts to place gentry service to materialize, rumor was rife: perhaps the power-
in the historical context of the Petrine reforms, and ful landowners had banded together to stop such a
sonorously bestows "on the whole Russian noble decree's publication. When Peter III was shortly
dvoryanstvo [gentry] freedom and liberty ... for all afterwards first deposed, then killed, it seemed like
time and for all generations," even to the extent (a confirmation of such a conspiracy. In the end, of
strange throwback to Kievan Rus) of permitting its course, the decree of full emancipation came — on
members to go into the service of foreign rulers. 19 February 1861, 99 years and a day late. In the
Then it starts to back-pedal: if "particular neces- interim every Russian ruler and government had to
sity demands" (probably war is envisaged) the face, solve or shelve the ever-growing problems
sovereign can still decree compulsory service, and that continuing serfdom entailed. Peter III himself
arrangements are made for the obligatory lived an extraordinary consequent "after-life" as
education of children. It ends with a curious appeal the most popular guise for Russian pretenders, and
that members of the gentry out of gratitude should rallying point for their revolts, in the remainder of
be inspired "not to absent or hide themselves from the 18th century: this totally Prussian-orientated,
service": if they "spend all their time in sloth and Lutheran-minded ruler of a land to which he never
idleness" they must be despised, scorned and adapted became a symbolic figure for those who
excluded from court and public events. had not accepted Petrine Westernization. It was in
It is impossible to know the extent to which the person of "Peter III" that Yemelyan Pugachov
either or both of these February decrees represent unleashed his peasant war in 1773-74.
Peter Ill's personal initiatives or, as is likely, swift Meanwhile the real Peter Ill's days were num-
moves by the gentry-based bureaucracy to bered as the summer of 1762 drew on. Despite his
improve its lot. Certainly the liberation of the wooing of the gentry, he had antagonized too many
gentry, and the extent to which it should be econo- people and interest groups, had threatened worse
mically privileged, were under high-level discus- changes and had struck those who knew him as
sion towards the end of Elizabeth's reign; the capricious, tactless and unstable. The return of the
decree as published looks like the result of uneasy Germanization of Anna's days looked all too likely.
compromises. But it probably took a new, not over- Worse still, he had alienated and threatened the
sensitive ruler, much in need of gentry support, to person whose support he most needed, his popular
gamble on gaining it with these measures. and strong-minded wife Catherine. It proved
Peter III personally lost this gamble, since he absurdly easy for Catherine's supporters in the
lasted less than half a year more, but in the longer Guards regiments, notably the Orlov brothers, to
term it paid off for Russia; the liberation decree isolate him and force his abdication on his name-
achieved, more or less, its apparent objectives of day, 29 June. Put under guard at a country estate
increasing the gentry's sense of self-worth and of his choosing, he was killed a week later, appar-
expanded opportunity while preserving a linger- ently in a drunken brawl: a frantic scribbled note
ing sense of moral obligation to do something from Aleksey Orlov to Catherine, throwing himself
useful for society and to educate its progeny. on her mercy for the deed, survives, suggesting the
Though by and large the gentry continued to new tsaritsa did not instigate it. Peter's death was
serve, it did so from a new position of strength and publicly ascribed to "hemorrhoidal colic," but its
choice. Provincial life and agriculture gained, as violent nature was no great secret, and it cast a
more landowners put down roots in all parts of the shadow over the start of Catherine II's reign both at
countryside; so too did intellectual and artistic life, home and abroad.
THE FLOWERING OF IMPERIAL RUSSIA
the end of Elizabeth's reign, a more than the extent of the Soviet Union in the 20th
long period of waiting for Peter century). It also attained the status of a great world
III (standing) and his wife
on this score: it was clear that if Catherine were truth is that these monarchs, in theory all-power-
ever to be deposed Paul would be waiting to step ful, were themselves caught in a mesh of circum-
forward as emperor. In fact theirs were very stances from which they could never wholly
different personalities, and Catherine silently disentangle themselves and which hampered their
demonstrated her reservations about him by every political movement.
refraining in her turn from declaring him as her Wars were an obvious external constraint upon
official successor. In her last days, indeed, it was to their freedom of action: Ivan IV, Catherine II and
become clear that her choice was likely to fall on Alexander I were all, though in varied circum-
one of her already almost grown-up grandchildren, stances, deflected from the restructuring of their
and Paul's eventual succession was secured only society by one or more wars. But domestic con-
thanks to the fact that she ended her life in a coma straints were more pervasively problematic. As
after a stroke. A document expressing Catherine's Richard Pipes has neatly observed, these monarchs
wishes for the succession was probably destroyed realized "as he or she accumulated experience that
by Paul or his supporters at this stage. they simply lacked the capacity to lead their
The reigns of both Catherine II and Alexander I empire where they wanted and that the best they
can easily be seen to divide into a "good," liberal could hope for was to keep it from sliding into
or at least reformist and modernizing first part and chaos." Any just assessment of the Russian
a "bad," reactionary or illiberal later period. In political situation in the period under considera-
this the two monarchs would seem not only to be tion will have to take account of such factors.
following a common human progression from radi- No Russian ruler, however, managed to keep
calism to conservatism with age, but also a pattern national buoyancy and a sense of gradual social
particularly noticeable among some other strong- progress going longer than Catherine the Great: for
minded Russian rulers: Ivan IV and Boris Godunov nearly 30 years, until in her last half-dozen years
before, Alexander II later. Such observations can things began to go sour. Most of the negative
be extended to moralizing conclusions about the evaluations of Catherine's reign among her
Russian monarchs themselves: that their younger contemporaries and among later historians
THE FLOWERING OF IMPERIAL RUSSIA
though with sights set lower than had earlier been their captive in such an eventuality —
and immedi-
exploits as pirate and freebooter
on the lower Volga and along the
expected. The year itself was eventful in varied ately did so. Mirovich was executed; the whole Caspian to Persia. Early in 1670
his flotilla sailed up the Volga,
but important ways. One war ended, but the civil episode, though in one sense strengthening Cather-
stopping to slaughter officials
war against Pugachov reached its climax. Phil- ine's position, put another weapon in the hands of and landowners and to proclaim
osophy encountered practical politics when, with her detractors, particularly abroad. liberation. His band grew hugely
until government forces inflicted
the arrival of Diderot in St Petersburg, Catherine
a heavy defeat on it at Simbirsk.
finally met major philosophe face to face over a
a Church and government under Catherine His base at Astrakhan held out
period of several months. Most significantly for In the first couple of years of her reign Catherine for a time, but then Razin was
captured and subsequently
Catherine's private and indeed public life, she was learning how to rule, taking advice on insti- executed at Moscow. His name,
embarked on her liaison, probably marriage, with tutional reform and setting up committees to and that of his supposed "son,"
Grigoriy Potemkin (c. 1739-91). This was immeas- examine recent measures such as the liberation of lived on in countless folk
legends and songs as a deliverer
urably the most significant of her dozen or so love the gentry and the secularization of ecclesiastical who would bring freedom and
affairs over 30 years that have exercised the fanta- land. The latter point was delicate. She needed the justice.
church's goodwill, which had already accrued to Ukrainian Grigoriy Skovoroda. The latter, famous
her as supplanter of the Lutheran-inclined Peter as teacher, philosopher and religious poet, took to
III; though she wore religion lightly, she seems to the life of a wandering sage and ascetic, digging his
have been a sincere convert to Orthodoxy. Yet as a own grave before dying (in 1794) and leaving his
"Voltairean" she could hardly be an uncritical sup- haunting epitaph on himself: "The world hunted
porter of an organized religion that at the time was but could not catch me" [Mir lovil menya ne poy-
i
The Pugachov rebellion. a byword for ignorance and sloth; moreover, it had mal). The sectarians began at the same time to
Yemelyan Pugachov, a Don
Cossack like Razin a century a great deal of land without much in the way of recover from decades of persecution: in 1769 Cath-
before, led the greatest of the educational activity or other socially useful results erine in effect restored their citizenship by permit-
Russian peasant rebellions. This
to show for it and on this land there was consider- ting them to testify in court. A new mid- 18th-
time the source of the revolt was
among the Yaik Cossacks who able peasant unrest. Many interests in Russia stood century sect were the Dukhobors or "spirit-
held specific grievances against to gain from secularization. When, in 1763, it went wrestlers," formed partly under the influence of
the Russian authorities. Further
strength was gathered among
ahead, only the bishop of Rostov denounced it, in Quakerism and similarly persecuted for disobe-
Old Believers and in the terms altogether too thunderous for his or the dience to the state.
populous mining communities of church's good; he was unfrocked and, when he The main reforms of Catherine's early years were
the Urals, where there was a
plentifulsupply of firearms. As persisted, imprisoned. Catherine tried to soften the in the apparently humdrum but important area of
pretender to the throne of the blow, but the fact remained that the loss of its land, local government. The vast country, 90 percent
tsar, Pugachov also won following on Peter I's secularization of ecclesiasti- rural, with a low level of literacy and tenuous com-
allegiance from non-Russian
tribes in the east, notablv the cal administration, spelled the end of two-and-a- munications, was undergoverned and haphazardly
Bashkirs. By the summer of 1774 half centuries of the "Josephite" compact between policed: the central administration not only had
he was able at times to muster a
church and state. little idea what was going on, but had no certainty,
huge force and seemed poised to
attack Moscow. But the From the spiritual point of view this may have for example, that its decrees would even be pro-
commitment of his followers was been no bad thing for Russian Orthodoxy, which mulgated throughout the land. With the liberation
always uncertain and his
fortunes waned. Before long he underwent something of a renaissance in the later of the gentry in 1762 the government could no
was forced to turn south toward; 18th century. Hesychast mysticism revived, pro- longer regard it as a conscripted class of its own
his homeland, but was unable to
ducing the notable figure of Paisiy Velichkovsky, agents in the countryside. Catherine had to secure
drum up support among the
better-off Don Cossacks. Almost translator into Russian of the very influential its cooperation by persuasion and reward, culmi-
alone now in his venture, he was Philokalia, and a little later St Serafim of Sarov. nating in a Charter of the Nobility in 1785 (the first
eventually handed over to the
Intellectuals began to play a role in Russian Ortho- ever to recognize outright title to land). Catherine
authorities by his erstwhile
adherents. doxy again: notably St Tikhon Zadonsky and the upgraded and regularized local government
administration; subsequently in her reign there
would be a deliberate policy of instituting new
regional urban centers and markets. The chief
series of reforms, including the setting-up of
judicial institutions independent of the administra-
tors, came in the wake of the greatest explosion of
rural discontent, the Pugachov rebellion, in 1775.
But questions connected with serfdom proved
intractable. Catherine herself preferred the pros-
pect of a gradual ending of peasant bondage,
perhaps by granting freedom when estates changed
hands or by freeing all children born after a certain
date. The general subject of peasant rights was
publicly —
discussed not least by the Free
Economic Society, set up in 1765 and the first such
autonomous society in Russia.
Late in 1766 Catherine made the most dramatic
political announcement of her career. She sum-
moned the various social estates in all parts of her
realm, together with government offices, to send
representatives to a huge gathering, over 500
strong, in Moscow. There they would explain the
situation and needs of their communities and
participate in the drafting of a new law code. This
gathering is known as the "Legislative Commis-
sion," though it was really a great assembly (zem-
skiy sobor) in the spirit of 17th-century Muscovy, a
curious political throwback, hinting that the whole
style of Catherine's politics was a development
more of the traditions of Alekscv Mikhaylovich
than of Peter the Great.
In a sense nothing came of it. No law code
emerged, nor did the assembly reach any conclu-
sive point in its deliberations, since it was sus-
pended sine die when Turkey declared war on
Russia in the summer of 1768 and never recon-
•/
Got9 an
vened (though subcommittees on various topics
continued to meet). Some commentators have
therefore considered the whole business a sham,
THE FLOWERING OF IMPERIAL RUSSIA
An allegorical engraving of
Catherine the Great, made early
in her reign, depicts her in
triumphal progress across her
empire. Above her are the
figures of Peace, who offers to
bestow garlands upon the
empress, and Fame, who
trumpets her virtues; prosperity
is symbolized by the child
chov had. Proclamations with strange seals and rebellion was the ending of the war with Turkey;
even stranger language were issued, and give an the rebellion in turn helped to persuade Russia to
idea of the simple, archaic political ideology of the bring that war to an end. Until then Russian suc-
rebels. cesses, though not overwhelming, had been
None of the peasant rebellions, even Pugachov's, considerable. The Crimean khan was declared inde-
became true wars of liberation. It has often been pendent of Ottoman vassalage, and Russia estab-
observed that, of the two Russian words for lished a toehold on the Black Sea for the first time
The social composition of "freedom," the peasantry had a strong attachment since the 12th century. The Russian fleet (with two
Russia in the late 18th to volya ("existential freedom," unconstrained Scots among its admirals) sailed from the Baltic past
century.
exercise of will), but little concept of svoboda Gibraltar to score a remarkable naval victory at
Large-scale social upheaval
through the 18th century (political freedom). Hugely successful Pugachov's Cesme (1770) against the much larger Turkish
brought a changing demographic rebellion may have been for almost a year, but its navy. Though many Greek islanders swore allegi-
pattern by the end of Catherine
the Great's reign. Much
appeal to the common people is hard to judge: ance to Catherine, it proved impossible to organize
migration resulted from the anyone who did not declare allegiance to him was a general Greek uprising against the Turks, and the
flight of serfs from central liable to be put to death on the spot. The commit- fleet did not try to force the Dardanelles to Con-
Russia, despite continual
government attempts to halt
ment of the Bashkir and other non-Russian stantinople. So passed the Russians' best chance of
this. Some joined the Cossacks of peoples, where tribal leaders were involved, was sponsoring a Balkan uprising that would bring
the Dnieper, Don, Volga, Kuban
and Ural regions, whose control
probably deeper. Some intrepid government com- down the Ottomans and recapture Constantinople
of the southern and eastern manders managed to withstand sieges: eventually for Orthodoxy. It was only later in the 1770s that
~ones was rapidly growing; they Pugachov withdrew southwards, failed to take Potemkin's vision would crystallize such ideas into
prized their independence and
often set themselves up as
Tsaritsyn and could not mobilize the better-off the "Great Project," for a Russian revival of the
mercenaries. The German Don Cossacks. After exactly a year of rebellion he Byzantine empire. As it was, he organized "New
element in the population was handed over by erstwhile followers to a "just Russia" out of the vast, potentially rich lands,
increased considerably as
Catherine invited Germans to judge" at Yaitsk. He was subsequently executed in haunt of disorderly Cossacks, frontiersmen,
colonize the area north of the Moscow. The empress ensured that torture was not nomads and pirates that Russia inherited from the
Black Sea, to which they Turkish war, becoming "Prince of Tauris."
used, that he was beheaded rather than mutilated
brought social stability and
efficient agriculture.Although (to the surprise of the crowd) and that reprisals Russia annexed the Crimea in 1783 and the
urban communities were against his followers were kept to a minimum. Turks declared war again in 1787. Events assumed
beginning to grow around
factories and mines, 95 percent
Among the factors that enabled the government a worrying aspect for Catherine when Sweden,
of the population was still rural. to deploy effective forces against the Pugachov backed by Prussia and Great Britain, entered the
hostilities. Diplomatic complications, deriving ulti-
mately from the French revolutionary ferment,
made all parties ready for peace in 1791, but not
before Russia was menacing Constantinople after
taking the key fortresses of Ochakov and Ismail,
had confirmed possession of the Crimea and estab-
lished protectorship over Georgia. This peace led
immediately to the founding of the great inter-
national seaport of Odessa, southern complement
to St Petersburg.
The Turkish question was, at least at the outset,
entangled with the Polish question. Both countries
contained large numbers of people whose religion
and language differed from those of their rulers,
and whom outside powers considered it their duty
to protect. As Muscovite and Petrine Russia had
strengthened central autocracy and homogenized
society, so opposite processes were at work in the
united state of Poland and Lithuania. There the
landowning class (some 8 percent of the popu-
lation) immensely strengthened its own autonomy,
while central authority was weakened by the
notorious right of "free veto," whereby a single
dissenting voice could paralyze the business of the
sejm or governing diet. The elected, often non-
Polish kings could seldom act as more than military
leaders. It is probable that the Polish example
considerably affected the 17th- and 18th-century
Russian rulers' attitude to their own exercise of
power.
The partition of Poland came in 1772. For
first
Russia merely meant reestablishing approxi-
it
Russian parties, then made an effort to put their Rousseau: Catherine made her own synthesis of
house in order. Reforms would have included a ideas. She carried on a copious correspondence
hereditary monarchy and a proper parliament with with several philosophes: with Voltaire (who had a
middle-class representation. Though its neighbors great interest in Russia as supposedly a "new civil-
scarcely preferred a strong Poland to a weak one, ization"), with Grimm (editor of the enlightened
all might have been well for Poland but for the dis- rulers' "house journal," Correspondence Litteraire)
turbing factor of the spread throughout Europe of and with Diderot, whom she saved financially at a
French revolutionary ideas. The Polish constitu- critical moment in his career by purchasing his
tion, promulgated in May 1791, seemed altogether library, lending it back to him and installing him as
too Jacobin for Catherine's taste and even for some its permanent salaried curator.
Poles, who formed the Confederation of Targowica Diderot was the one famous philosophe with
to defend the old system. Russia, invited by the whom she talked at length, when, after long hesi-
Confederation, occupied a great swathe of eastern tation, he went to Russia to signal his gratitude in
and southern Poland (most of the former Russo- the winter of 1773-74. The full story of this great
Lithuanian lands). encounter between intellect and politics is richly Two remarkable self-made men
from the Russian north came
The second partition of Poland, in 1793, comic, sad and revealing. Their discussions ranged
together in this fine portrait
followed, with Prussia advancing almost to War- over every kind of social topic, without the philo- bust: its sculptor. F.I. Shubin
saw. In 1794 the Polish national uprising led by sopher ever being able to persuade the empress (1740-1805) and his subject,
Mikhail Lomonosov (1711-65),
Kosciuszko attempted to resist the annexations; its that his enlightened observations represented any who incidentally was long dead
defeat led to the third partition, or end of indepen- kind of practical politics. Eventually, by Cather- when it was made (1792). Shubin
dent Poland, in 1795. As a result of the final parti- ine's account, she pointed out to him that "You grew up among peasant bone-
and wood-carvers, to become the
tion Russia obtained all Lithuania, Courland and work only on paper, which can stand anything . . .
greatest neoclassic Russian
the ancient Kievan province of Volhynia: "not a whereas I, a poor empress, work upon human skin sculptor. Lomonosov, from a
fisherman's family, was an
single Pole," as Catherine wrote in self-congratula- which is very different: irritable and quick to take
astonishing "Renaissance man,"
tion. Catherine undoubtedly saw her conquests offense." Diderot meanwhile, holed up in chilly St strong-willed and pugnacious:
partly in terms of restoring the Old Russian patri- Petersburg, feeling ill and homesick, found it the outstanding baroque poet, he
was also literary theorist,
mony, though it meant the incorporation into the impossible to get straight answers when he wanted historian, economist, artist,
Russian empire of Lithuanians, Latvians and in to find out statistical information about Russia, but geographer, but most notably a
particular a large Jewish population, mostly but was not blind to his surroundings: "It seems to me polymath scientist, far ahead of
his time in physical chemistry.
not wholly urban. Catherine's successor, Paul, for- that your subjects err on the side of one extreme or He was inspiration too for the
bade any use of the term "Kingdom of Poland"; the other, either in believing their nation too considerable scientific,
exploratory and scholarly
after the Napoleonic wars the rump Duchy of War- advanced or too backward ." Outside in the
. .
observes, expatiates on and digresses from scenes escence. Catherine's tastes in personal life were
of country life, which add up to a generally grim relaxed and modest, if not spartan, but she liked a
picture of serfdom. His appeal aims to touch the party, and court entertainments were splendidly
heart, in Rousseauesque manner; his journey ends done. The court theater was free and open to all
rather unexpectedly with a paean of praise to who were respectably dressed, as were the palace
Lomonosov, representing the genius of the people, parks. Music flourished under Potemkin's patron-
and an "Ode to Freedom." The book is often naive age, with a series of composers, from Galuppi to
—
and ill-coordinated the fastidious Pushkin dis- Paisiello, making their names in Russia. A native
Synod buildings bv K. Ross anonymous author identified, arrested, at first sen- music, but her visual sense was acute. She founded
(1829) a late (Russian-born) tenced to death for treason, then exiled to Siberia. the collection of paintings that forms the core of the
neoclassicist. It fronts the Neva,
Five years later, under Paul, Radishchev returned great Hermitage collection in St Petersburg. Russia
with the Academy of Arts (1765)
bevond. Here 3000 soldiers drew to take some part in public life, then to commit sui- produced three major portraitists (Dimitriy
up in the failed "Decembrist" cide for what seem to have been ideological Levitsky, F. Rokotov, V. Borovikovsky), catering
revolt of 1825. The Bronze
for the newly built country houses and city man-
Horseman has had since— reasons.
Pushkin's narrative poem — Among intellectuals who crossed Catherine's sions of the gentry rather than the grand aristo-
central role in the "myth of path in those final years, Novikov too was arrested, cracy, who stand comparison with any in Europe.
Petersburg." Its great granite
plinth, mostly underground,
in 1792. Here the trouble seems to have stemmed Sculptural portraiture flourished too, notably in the
suggests a breaking wave. from his involvement in freemasonry, specifically person of F.I. Shubin, who grew up among peasant
—
THE FLOWERING OF IMPERIAL RUSSIA
wood-carvers in the far north. of the French Revolution, and marked by Paul's Right: The Napoleonic wars.
Buildings were the great visual expression of the abrupt changes of mind. First having proclaimed Up to 1807 the war against
Napoleon had been fought by
age. The Petersburg Baroque of Rastrelli and his peace, he then joined the anti-French alliance: Great Britain and its allies in a
school ended rather suddenly at the beginning of Russian forces under the great undefeated com- series of coalitions against
France. Both Austria and Prussia
the 1760s, and Catherine's Russia developed an mander Suvorov (already nearly 70) had total had become pawns in a power
unusually clean-cut, proportionate and unclut- success campaigning in Italy, then managed a struggle whose ramifications
tered version of international neoclassicism, remarkable crossing of the Alps. His fleet (in affected even such distant lands
as Egypt and India. Russian
equally adaptable to the grandeur of Pavlovsk or alliance with the Turks) seized the Ionian islands,
campaigns into the Balkans and
the Tauride Palace as humbler porticoed provin-
to and, as the 19th century dawned, Russia had an Italy were a warning to
cial town houses or market rows. An early neo- empire that stretched from the Adriatic Sea to the Napoleon of the power that lay
to the east, but in 1807, after the
classical practitionerwas the Frenchman J.-B. Val- west coast of North America. What Paul really heavy losses inflicted on the
lin de la Mothe, and other immigrant architects wanted, however, was Malta, where he had been Russian forces at Austerlitz and
Friedland, Tsar Alexander I
included the Scot Charles Cameron. There was a elected Grand Master of the Knights of St John in
withdrew from the war. This
galaxy of native talent, among whom two demand 1798. Napoleon had occupied the island and, to temporary withdrawal left him
mention: Matvey Kazakov (1738-1813) and Vasiliy Paul's disgust, his own allies the British then cap- free to invade Finland (1808),
forcing the Swedes to cede the
Bazhenov (1737-99). The former worked only in tured and held it. Paul, coming round to the idea of
territory to him. Another
and near Moscow, building copiously and setting Napoleon as a bastion of strong rule and orderli- Russian gain as the result of the
his seal on the calm informality of Moscow classi- ness, abruptly changed sides in 1800, and sent off a Napoleonic wars was Bessarabia,
built includes the incomparable Pashkov House in British popular suspicions about Russia's Asiatic consequences for Napoleon's
army, was the decisive turning
Moscow, and St Michael's Palace in St Petersburg, intentions (still going strong 180 years later when
—
commissioned by Paul in 1797 a strange manner- Brezhnev occupied Afghanistan) presumably date
point in the protracted war;
within 18 months of his retreat,
Russian troops were in Paris.
istic interpretation in classical terms of a moated from this episode.
castle. The disgruntled and scared aristocrats around
But perhaps the period's most worthy architec- the court had been plotting Paul's overthrow since
tural memorial is St Petersburg itself, "one of the 1799. Catherine had once told him that if he
most consistently neoclassic cities in the world," as planned to counter ideas with gunfire his reign
it has been called. Catherine gave it an aesthetic would be short, and short it was. One of Paul's first
focus unmatched for its simplicity of concept actions had been to commission Bazhenov to design
combined with multiple symbolic resonances: the the remarkable St Michael's Castle. At its gate he
equestrian statue of Peter the Great, executed over placed a baroque statue of Peter I (by C.-B. Ras-
16 years (1766-82) under the supervision of E.-M. trelli, father of the great architect) inscribed "To
Falconet, who was recommended to Catherine by great-grandfather from great-grandson"— an
V.
Emperor Paul, by
Portrait of the
Borovikovsky (1757-1825).
Diderot. The rearing horse crushes a snake "answer" to Catherine's Bronze Horseman. Borovikovsky, from the Ukraine,
Peter's enemies — under its hooves; beneath is a Anxious to shut himself away from his enemies, he was the last in the trio of fine
chamber portraitists (the others
250-ton block of red granite, shipped in a huge moved into the castle before the walls had dried were F. Rokotov and D.
operation from lower down the Gulf of Finland. Its out: there, in the chilly damp, his enemies tracked Levitsky) who made the most
top suggests a breaking wave. This is the statue him down a few weeks later and in a scene worthy lasting contributions to Russian
18th-century painting. A touch
known universally as the Bronze Horseman, from- of opera pulled him out from behind a screen, cere- of Romanticism or
Pushkin's finest narrative poem. monially deposed him and, in unclear but brutal sentimentalism characterized his
circumstances, killed him. His eldest son Alex- best work (of the 1790s); he
portrayed Catherine informally
The reign of Paul ander, then in his early twenties, though warned as a comfortable matriarch
When, after his long and sometimes tense wait, by the governor of St Petersburg that Paul was to strolling in the park. The
neurotic and ill-fated Paul,
Paul came to the throne in 1796, it was made clear lose his throne, was unprepared for murder; he was
however, cannot be prettified
that the style of his reign was intended to differ peremptorily told "Enough childishness: now go either by Borovikovsky or in
from that of his mother's in every way he could and rule." Paul's end saved the bewildered Cos- Shubin's remarkable bust; he
stands on his dignity as
think of. This was good news for dissident exiles sacks looking for India from a thirsty death, as they military-minded emperor and
such as Radishchev, Novikov and Kosciuszko, who were promptly recalled. Grand Master of the Knights of
were freed, but there was no great emptying of the Malta.
Foreign policy was dominated by the aftermath within it (1805-07 and 1812-14), and Alexander
THE FLOWERING OF IMPERIAL RUSSIA
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had plenty of time to concentrate on domestic mountain valleys would yield their independence),
issues. At the start of his reign he made a method- from the Turks, Bessarabia and part of the eastern
ical attempt to work out what needed to be done, Black Sea littoral. Further successes against Sweden
in the company of an unofficial committee of (1808-09) gained the whole of Finland. The first
reform-minded friends. No minutes were taken, French war however went a lot less well either
but it is clear the ending of serfdom and even of the than these or the campaigns of Suvorov under
autocracy was discussed. Such momentous Paul. After Austerlitz and Friedland, Alexander
measures would have required a degree of state- realized how great his losses threatened to be, and
craft and patient preparation that Alexander pulled out of the war. The legendary conference
lacked: by 1805 he had lost interest. Measures to and treaty negotiated at Tilsit followed (July 1807).
improve government were nevertheless under- Napoleon and Alexander decided to confer person-
taken, and the freeing of serfs by landlords was ally and secretly on a raft in the middle of the River
facilitated, though not widely practiced. Neman, with a show of bonhomie that could
The war with France that Russia joined in 1805 scarcely cover their differences. At least they
was not the only one in Alexander's reign. Hostili- readily agreed on their dislike of England. Who
ties with Persia (1804-15) and with Turkey (1806- outwitted the other? Alexander salvaged some
12) both resulted from the annexation of Georgia. concessions from the Napoleonic debacle, and
In each, as in the two previous reigns, Russian mili- gained time. Napoleon thought Alexander a "cun-
tary skill was able to deliver notable successes: ning Byzantine,'' and his devious charm seems
from the Persians, much of the Caucasus area was generally to have been deployed to best effect in
gained (though it was to be decades before the wild foreign policy.
THE FLOWERING OP IMPERIAL RUSSIA
~
The five-year breathing space after Tilsit
allowed attention to be redirected to domestic
concerns. Alexander followed and perhaps outdid
1812
his grandmother in his far-sighted investment in
education, both at school and university level.
Particularly famous is the elite Lycee at Tsarskoye
Selo where Pushkin and other literary luminaries
were excellently taught. But the most remarkable
The events of 1812 and their consequences for Russia Bottom left Prince Mikhail
event of those years was the first coherent attempt Kutuzov, Russian military
can only properly be appreciated in the context of a
to produce a constitution for Russia. This was commander in 1812, already had
society whose educated class was intensely Franco- (at 67) a distinguished career
worked out in 1809 by Mikhail Speransky (1772-
phile, irrespective of political inclination. Russia had behind him. Napoleon continued
1839). Speransky of humble clergy origin, was a from Vilnius not towards St
vacillated in Paul's and Alexander I's reigns in its
firm monarchist who believed equally firmly in the Petersburg, the capital, but
attitude to Napoleonic France. When Napoleon and Moscow, Russia's heart. Russian
rule of law and participation of society in govern- public opinion was alarmed, and
Alexander concluded peace at Tilsit (1807), it is
ment. This would have been the chance for a Kutuzov was put in command.
unlikely that either secure in the alliance; what
felt
reform-minded emperor to direct the gradual One battle was fought, at
each got was a breathing space. When Napoleon's Borodino (which Napoleon seems
liberalization, or at least modernization, of the to have thought was for
assault eventually came he set out, disastrously, at
state: but Alexander hesitated, and meanwhile Moscow, though well over 100
midsummer, to be caught in autumnal Moscow. The kilometers away). It was
anti-Speransky forces built up. In 1812 Speransky,
retreatfrom the empty and incinerated city in early indecisive, with great slaughter,
thought to be a Francophile, was dismissed. Later though ultimately worse for the
winter reduced the "Great Army" to a twentieth of
he was to come back to the political scene to some French with their extended
its initial size. supply-lines. The wily Kutuzov
effect, but his grand scheme was never revived.
Napoleon's war on Russia might have been a war of continued to retreat, luring the
The story of 1812 is well known, not least to French into a trap. For the
liberation. It was quite uncertain how the enserfed
readers of War and Peace. Tensions between deterministic Tolstoy it was the
population would react to a self-proclaimed liberator, down-to-earth Kutuzov, not
fiance and Russia had been building up in many Napoleon with all his
particularly in the extensive western areas reincor-
different areas, and the renewal of war could only pretensions, who understood
porated into Russia only a generation before. Polish the march of history.
be a matter of time. Napoleon's "Great Army
—
numbered nearly half a million more when rein-
irredentism was a strong political undercurrent of
—
forcements came against a far smaller Russian
the Napoleonic venture, and Poles fought better than
his other troops (under half were French). Some "Old
force, at least at the outset. Over half Napoleon's
Believer" schismatics became Napoleonovtsy ("Napo-
men came not from France but from willing or
leonites"), on the basis that the man declared
reluctant allies: there was a large Polish contingent,
"Antichrist" by the Orthodox must be their salva-
hoping the war would lead to a reintegrated Polish
tion. But the bulk of the population held firm to the
state. Napoleon advanced, and later retreated,
tsar. The psychological and political consequences
along the traditional highway into Russia, the great
for Russia of defeating Napoleon were great. It was
series of moraine ridges that lead through Smo-
Russia's most "European" moment: Alexander, con-
lensk towards Moscow, striking at the country's
vinced of divine approval, attempted to order
heart rather than at its administrative capital.
Europe's destiny.
Outside Moscow the indecisive battle of Borodino
was fought in a mist, with huge losses (ultimately
worse for the French) on both sides. Though Mos-
cow could not be held, Alexander, his old and wily
commander Kutuzov and the Russian people at
large had no intention of suing for peace. Napoleon
had left his entry into the deserted and soon incin-
erated city too late: he was undersupplied, and it
was already September; no anti-tsarist peasant
uprising had materialized; he could not live off the
land, even though there was no systematic
scorched earth policy. The retreat, starting in mid-
October at the onset of the Russian winter was
disastrous; disease was even more effective than
Russian partisans at reducing the Great Army, of
which scarcely a twentieth returned home. By the
end of the year Russia had been cleared of the
invaders. The Russian army continued in pursuit
of Napoleon, and in 1814 occupied Paris where
they left, supposedly, a linguistic memento behind
in the word bistro, a drinking-place (from Russian
bystrol, "quick!").
The saga of 1812 has remained high in the Rus-
sian historical consciousness; it was termed ote-
chestvennaya voyna, "the Fatherland War" (often
mistranslated "Patriotic War") from the fact that it
unrolled on Russian soil. Hitler's invasion in 1941
was to be given the same appellation. As for Alex-
ander, he was awarded the title blazhenny, "the
Blessed," with the implication that he was a living
saint. In the general euphoria of the conservative
Left Great artists were moved by
the pathos of the retreat from
Moscow: this is Gericault's
drawing of wounded French
soldiers. Napoleonic veterans,
however, were few, even at the
outset: the Great Army consisted
largely of allies.
deliberately — —
Moscow, burnt out probably
and empty of
population, began on 19
October. The Russian forces
harassed it more and more as the
retreat became chaotic. Disasters
such as that of the crossing of
the Berezina River in Belarus
reduced both numbers and
morale, but in the end disease
and hunger took the greatest
toll. By the end of 1812 the
painting by E. Meissonier.
Below The Decembrist rebels
Reaction and stagnation plished the task of codifying all the Russian laws
Nicholas I came to the Russian throne in his thir- since 1649. Order was brought to the chaotic state
tieth year, and reigned another 30: the period has finances. There was growth in the economy, and
entered the Russians' consciousness as an age of grain exports (largely through Odessa) gained in
reaction, of political stagnation and social significance, particularly after the repeal of the
repression. It ended in the first war the Russians British corn laws. The lot of state peasants nearly —
had lost since the ill-fated Crimean campaigns of half the total —
was improved; when they were
the 1680s, with Nicholas aware at his death of the given title land, they were effectively
to their
crumbling of all he had stood for. The black freed. Serfdom remained untouched, though
itself
picture we get of the period is largely the work of end landlords quietly
in anticipation of its eventual
the regime's eloquent opponents, notable among transferred over half a million serfs from the land
them the amiable emigre Alexander Herzen (Gert- into domestic service during the 1840s and 1850s,
sen). From the point of view of Russian culture, in the hope of minimizing the effect of any share-
however, there was much remarkable achieve- out of their own estates. Meanwhile Nicholas's
ment: above all in literature, to some extent in the personal commitment to the maintenance of social
other arts and also in the sphere of socio-political discipline, not to mention mistrust of the gentry
thought. class that had spawned the Decembrists, meant that
Nicholas was a soldier and the chief engineer of he preferred to rule not through the established
his own army. Countering any threat to Russia's state organs, but less formally through special
good order and discipline was his life's work. He committees of a few like-minded assistants. "His
had the "parade-ground" character that with Majesty's Own Chancery" grew in size and power:
startling regularity revealed itself in each alternate its Third Department (headed by Count Bencken-
monarch from the mid-18th century to the end of dorff) was effectively Nicholas's political police,
the dynasty. Queen Victoria summed him up in existing in rivalry with the real police, highly
1844: "He is stern and severe with fixed principles intrusive in all areas of life, recipients of countless
of duty which nothing on earth will make him anonymous denunciations, yet at the same time
change ... he is sincere even in his most despotic ludicrously inefficient. Censorship of print and
acts, from a sense that is the only way to govern." tight restrictions on foreign travel were
Nicholas was certainly not by nature brutal, but characteristic.
ruled in a way that encouraged a general brutaliza- Nicholas made it his personal concern to investi-
tion. A notorious episode was the mock execution gate the whole Decembrist revolt and its rami-
of the Petrashevsky Circle, an informal discussion fications. Overhundred participants were
a
group of vaguely utopian-socialist inclinations: 21 brought were executed (including the
to trial, five
of them, including the young Fyodor Dostoyevsky, considerable poet Kondratiy Ryleyev) and most of
were sentenced to death in 1849. When the first the rest sent to Siberia. The Decembrists, always
batch had already been tied up to be shot, a stage- ready to speak their minds, spelled out their hopes
managed reprieve was granted; one victim was per- and beliefs in answer to long questioning under
manently deranged. Dostoyevsky remained in arrest, and in some cases in personal missives to the
Siberia until 1856. emperor. When Nicholas behaved mercifully there
The beginning and end of Nicholas I's reign was sometimes a catch. Pushkin, friend of many of
were marked by wars against Turkey: the first was those arrested, told Nicholas personally that had he
successful, the second unsuccessful, though only been in St Petersburg at the time of the revolt he
after the British and French had joined in on the would have been with his friends on Senate
Ottoman side. The war of the 1820s, in continua- Square. Nicholas responded that he would pardon
tion of Alexander's policies, eventually brought Pushkin and act as his personal censor: the poet
guaranteed independence to Greece and autonomy was delighted at this show of magnanimity till he
to other Balkan Christian provinces. In between realized he would in fact have to take his works to
came peace and good relations with the Ottomans, Benckendorff, a more alarming prospect than the
to the extent of Russia's helping to defend Constan- ordinary censorship. Later he was appointed humi-
tinople against the Egyptian rebel Ibrahim Pasha in minor court post, subject not just to
liatingly to a
the 1830s. In 1848-49, the European "year of revo- boredom but to ultimately fatal intrigue.
lutions," Russia helped another foreign empire, The Decembrist uprising differed profoundly
Austria, to crush rebellion, this time the Hungarian from previous Russian rebellions, elemental explo-
national uprising led by Kossuth. The French revo- sions of popular discontent, in having an ideologi-
lution of 1848 and subsequently the accession of cal basis. Thus the authorities were greatly
Napoleon III made a clash of some kind with France concerned to counter its ideas with ideas of their
unavoidable; the Crimean war was the outcome. own: out of this immediate need, and out of the
In domestic policy, Nicholas's pursuit of good more general early 19th-century European effort to
order had many negative results and one or two harness the new revolutionary forces of national-
more positive. Speransky (who had been Alex- ism in the interests of established order, was
ander I's "prime minister" 20 years before) accom- hatched the doctrine of "Official Nationality." Its
I HI LAST FOUR EMPERORS
Gogol's progeny.
THE LAST FOUR EMPERORS
Below left Portrait of Pushkin bv Below Mikhaylovskoye, in the friends were involved), with
thinkers from Chaadayev to Solzhenitsyn to talk
O.A. Kiprensky (1782-1836). Pskov region'(much damaged in company save his old nurse
little
Kiprensky was one of the last in 1941 but restored) was the Arina Rodionovina, from whom sweepingly of "the West" as if it were a single
the unpretentious yet Pushkin family's estate and the he acquired his lasting interest entity). "Slavophile" does not necessarily imply an
distinguished line of Russian
18th-century portraitists. This,
poet's burial place. Here he was
exiled for a couple of years in
in folklore; like two or three
other periods of isolation, it was
interest in fellow Slavs, or "Panslavism" —rather a
one of the finest Russian the mid-1820s (thus avoiding the a most productive period in his concern with Russia's non-Western individuality
portraits, invests the poet with a Decembrist uprising in which writing. and its deep religious and historical roots. The
subdued Romantic tension and
loneliness.
movement's leading writers, Ivan Kirevevskv
(1806-56) and Aleksey Khomyakov (1804-60),
developed a theory of history that saw the West's
rationalism as having fatally "atomized" society,
rendering social relationships sterile and legalistic.
By contrast, the Russian people were and are in
possession of "inner truth" and freedom, values
inherent above all in the village commune [mir or
obshchina) and the Orthodox Church. Khomyakov
went on to develop his famous concept of sobor-
nost, "communality" — an attempt to define the
essence (rather than the mundane reality) of Ortho-
doxy, which stood for voluntary agreement and
brotherhood, as opposed to papal authoritarianism.
A practical consequence of Slavophilism was the
methodical investigation of folk culture and creati-
vity, manifested notably in the great collection of
folksong made by Kirevevskv's brother Pvotr.
After its "heroic period" in the 1840s and 1850s,
during which it championed the cause of the eman-
cipation of the serfs as essential to the revival of
Russia's unique social and cultural heritage, Slavo-
philism was fragmented and to some extent passed
into common currency; some of its survivors
became establishment figures. Under Nicholas I,
however, leading Slavophiles were often subject to
censorship on account of an underlying note of
anarchy and libertarianism in their ideology.
Censorship, not surprisingly, clamped down
harder still on radical thinkers of the period,
including several of those considered to be West-
ernizers. Even a work of an earlier generation,
Gribovedov's Woe from Wit (1824), was unpub-
lishable, though it circulated in thousands of
manuscript copies and has become as quotable as
Shakespeare. Alexander Herzen (1812-70), one of
the great liberal thinkers of Europe, emigrated to
—
England in 1847 not that he found "the West"
—
wholly congenial and issued a stream of uncen-
sored writing, notably his vast discursive auto-
biography My Past and Thoughts. The first great
Russian revolutionary anarchist, Mikhail Bakunin
(1814-76), also emigrated. It was characteristic of
the period that social thought and literature over-
lapped: partly because of the difficulty of express-
ing heterodox views directly in conditions of
censorship, but also because of a general Russian
sense of the indivisibility of culture.
over manuscripts, and beyond
that a deft producer of album Social determinists, however, might find diffi-
sketches and caricatures, culty in explaining how the period 1820-40, politi-
not averse to mordant or bawdy
wit. His own face, often
cally so unpromising, came to be considered the
emphasizing the "Afric Golden Age of Russian literature. The phenomenon
features he inherited from one of can be seen in two perspectives: either as the
his forebears, Peter the Great's
Ethiopian servitor Hannibal,
beginning of the modern flowering of Russian liter-
constantly recurs. ature that continued after mid-century with the
classic age of the novel, or as the culmination of a
Left In contrast to the dashi
Pushkin, Gogol, perhaps long time of preparation. The latter view has much
flatteringly portrayed here, was to be said for it, since the leading genre of the
unprepossessing, gauche, scared
period is lyric (and to some extent narrative)
of women, unself-confident yet
manically egotistical. Unsure of poetry, the end product of a tradition that had
his own superabundant but been developing from the 1750s onwards. The
uncontrollable talent, he
attributed to Pushkin the ideas
forging of the Russian literary language into a thor-
for his best works. oughly modern, yet flexible and multivalent
THE LAST FOUR HMPERORS
nz\ by 1739
m
1740-74
1775-1800
1801-28
CD 1829-53
CU
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gained from Ottoman emp
campaigns 1853-55
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Turkish
Anglo-French
K SERBIA
medium for poetry is above all the work of Alex- Russian Byron, Lermontov substituted biting wit
ander Pushkin (1799-1837), still considered the and rhetorical self-projection for Pushkin's cool "0*TfN£GR0
greatest of Russian poets. Yet in his day he was ironies and delicacy of feeling. But his single Sola
only the leading luminary of a whole Pleiad, of mature prose work, Hero of our Time (1840), is his
whom the greatest is probably Yevgeny Bora- masterpiece, and one of the first great truly
OTTOMAN
tynsky (1800—44), a gritty, paradoxical pessimist. European works in Russian literature, a psycholo- EMPIRE
In his thirties Pushkin turned to prose, writing the gical novel that looks forward to the 20th century.
first notable Russian short stories (The Queen of The visual arts in this period did not match the
Spades being outstanding) and doing serious efflorescence of literature: the 18th-century
research into the history of the Pugachov rebellion. tradition of portraiture continued to flourish, but
Gogol developed prose in a different and idiosyn- the grander visions of Alexander Ivanov (1806-58)
cratic way, but Pushkin both as poet and prose- and Karl Bryullov (1799-1852) did not quite live scale 1:8000 000
writer had a successor of remarkable brilliance in up either to the foreign works from which they 200km
Mikhail Lermontov (1814-^11). Trying to avoid derive or to their own ambitions. The long-lived 150m
Pushkin's long shadow, and seeing himself as a late neoclassicism of Russian architecture was still
I HI I AS I IOI/K F.MPF.RORS
The Crimean War. producing masterpieces of laconic grandeur in states of Europe in connection with the decline of
Since the 1820s the major
—
European powers Austria, Alexander I's reign, such as the Admiralty in St the Ottoman empire. The chief participants were
Britain. France and Russia had— Petersburg as remodeled by Andreyan Zakharov in Austria, Britain, France and Russia; each was
become increasingly concerned gradually faded out into the eclectic styles concerned to secure its influence over certain parts
1806. It
about control of the Balkan
region as the Ottoman empire characteristic of all Europe in Nicholas I's time; a of the Ottoman domain in Europe in order to facili-
began to lose its grip there. highly visible example is the Great Kremlin Palace tate its wider imperial interests. For Russia these
Russia was particularly
in Moscow by Konstantin Ton, dated 1838. Music interests were the neutralization of a centuries-old
concerned to establish its access
to the Mediterranean through was splendidly represented in the person of Mik- enemy in the Turks and the dream of securing a
the Black Sea. It also saw itself as hail Glinka (1804-57); he was not, as is sometimes passage from the Black Sea into the Mediterranean.
the natural protector of its
Orthodox coreligionists under assumed, the first Russian composer but rather the The struggle began in the mid- 1820s, was convo-
the Ottoman yoke. summation of much that had been prepared during luted in the extreme and had by the early 1850s
When Russian troops marched the 18th century. His two great operas, still very created a volatile atmosphere of mutual suspicion.
into the Turkish provinces of
Moldavia and Wallachia in 185 3. much in the repertory, use folksong imitation in an The immediate cause of the war was connected
Britain and France sent a large "international" musical context. However, it is the with events in the Holy Land. In 1852 the French
expeditionarv force to the aid of
instrumental Kamarinskaya, which, in its approach persuaded the Turks to give the Roman Catholic
the sultan. The Turkish fleet
suffered heavy losses at the to the transformation of folk-derived material, is Church custodianship of the Church of the Nativity
hands of the Russian navy, and the embryo from which the later 19th-century in Bethlehem, a right traditionally held by the
the Anglo-French force sailed to
attack Sevastopol on the national school of Russian music grew. Greek Orthodox. Nicholas I, as the patron of the
southern tip of the Crimea, home Orthodox population under Ottoman rule,
base of the Russian fleet. Once The Crimean War and its consequences demanded that the right be returned to the Ortho-
the expeditionary force had
landed it was pinned down bv The Crimean War served as catalyst for the most dox. When the Turks refused, Nicholas ordered
the Russian armv and a stalemate profound political and social changes introduced in Russian troops into Moldavia and Wallachia.
developed, with heavy casualties
Russia during the 19th century. Perhaps ironically, Britain and France suspected that Nicholas I might
on both sides. However, Tsar
Nicholas I died in 1855 and his itscauses, course and resolution were all peripheral next launch an all-out war to destroy Turkey.
successor realized that he could to the internal condition of the empire. The back- When in 1853 Turkey declared war on Russia,
not realisticallv continue the war
in the face of growing social
ground and general causes of the war were all Britain and France quickly came to the sultan's aid
discontent at home. The Treaty bound up in the Eastern Question, the complex and dispatched a large expeditionary force to take
of Paris, concluded in 1856, was international power struggle between the major the fighting to Russia.
very unfavorable to Russia.
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THE LAST FOUR EMPERORS
The force sailed for Sevastopol in the Crimea, was that the
particular spread like wildfire; this
home base of the Russian Black Sea fleet, which new whose open-mindedness and goodwill
tsar,
had inflicted a major defeat on the Turkish fleet had become widely known prior to his accession,
soon after hostilities began. The Russians scuttled had proclaimed an end to serfdom but that the
their fleet and mounted a stubborn land resistance news had been suppressed by the landowners.
against the expeditionary force when it landed in Popular uprisings against landowners ensued.
1854. The war that followed was essentially a stale- When these were put down, the peasants were
mate, with terrible casualties on both sides. seized with rumors of a "promised land" without
In 1855 Nicholas I died and was succeeded by serfdom that existed somewhere in Russia; large
Alexander II. Almost simultaneously the Russians spontaneous migrations in search of it disrupted
suffered new reversals in the Crimea and, despite the countryside.
initial determination to continue the war, the new The strain brought on bv the war
political
tsar soon accepted that Russia at all costs needed affected the opposite end of Russia's social
peace. The Treaty of Paris, concluded in 1856,
proved very unfavorable: Russia lost territories on
spectrum, —
the urban intelligentsia journalists,
educators, bureaucrats and the lesser nobility.
the Balkan frontier, naval rights in the Black Sea, Here the cause was two-fold: first, the intelligent-
right of sea passage into the Mediterranean and sia's awareness of how badly the war was going and
protectorship over the Orthodox Christians in the how badly Russia's prestige was suffering,
Ottoman lands. The damaging loss of influence and and, second, the heavy wartime taxation imposed
prestige was greeted with public resentment in on the cities, with resulting economic disruption
Russia. In reality, as Alexander II and his advisers and price rises. The intelligentsia's disillusionment
recognized, it was necessary to end the war in and anger erupted into popular demonstrations in
order to ease the severe social and political strains it Moscow. The liberals were having their first
was generating. experience of shaping reasoned literary comment
The war had witnessed growing social unrest on pressing political matters. Much of this took the
among the peasants of rural Russia. This was dir- form of extended articles and letters which were
ected not against the war and the government, but circulated in samizdat form, and exercised a strong
against serfdom and the landowners. The condition influence on the liberal wing of the press.
of serfdom had grown especially oppressive in the Alexander II was aware of these social and
decades before the Crimean War. One of the few political strains and sensed that Russia's well-being
ways out of serfdom was through long military depended on their being defused. The tsar's per-
service, upon completion of which a soldier serf ceptivity was matched by resolution, and in his
was made a freeman. The war was therefore proclamation announcing the end of the Crimean
popular among the serfs, but at the same time War, he hinted clearly at his determination to
fueled wild rumors to the effect that new forms of abolish serfdom. This and other reforms which he
recruitment and civil guard duties would give initiated during the early 1860s were the most
more types of freedoms. These rumors caused pop- ambitious attempt to transform Russia's political
ular meetings and even mass migrations, which and social structure undertaken before the revolu-
had to be stopped by force. One rumor in tions of 1917.
THE LAST FOUR EMPERORS
Alexander II and the "Great Reforms" without simultaneously undermining the rural
Beginning in 1857, Alexander appointed a series of nobility and gentry. It provided for a gradual and
commissions to start preparatory work on reforms partial emancipation of the serfs, together with
of serfdom, local government, the judiciary and the indemnification of their former masters. Emancipa-
military. This work progressed with dispatch, tion was to be gradual, going through a number of
despite complex consultative and drafting pro- stages over 20 years. Whereas the peasants would
cesses, but with the tsar's close personal involve- get their personal freedom immediately, the
ment and encouragement. The result was a series of question of dividing land betwen former master
four reform acts promulgated from 1861. and serf was extremely complicated and entailed
The first reform dealt with the abolition of serf- provisions for protracted handover. The peasants
dom. Of immense complexity, the statute tried to were entitled to an agreed proportion of the land
give the peasants a measure of independence they had worked as serfs, but the land had to be
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bought at prices effectively fixed by the existing Right This Romanov iamilv
portrait shows Emperor
owners. The freed peasants, having no capital of
Alexander II seated opposite his
their own, had to accept unreasonable repayment empress, Maria Alexandrovna of
conditions stretching over a 49-year period. the ducal house of Hesse.
Standing behind them is the
Besides, the freed peasants were not permitted to Tsarevich and future Emperor
own land individually: land was sold to peasant Alexander III. His father's
assassination made a powerful
communes or villages, who took on collective
impression on Alexander III.
responsibility for repayments and had the right to whose reign was as a result
redistribute the land between their members. Thus deeply conservative, in contrast
to his father's reformism.
the peasants were free in principle, but economi-
cally dependent in practice; also communal owner-
ship deprived them of individual control over their
land.
The high principle guiding the reform was thus
obscured and, to a large extent, nullified by the
provisions of its enactment. The peasants remained
dependent and impoverished, obliged to seek tran-
sient work during the winter in order to meet the
repayment debts which their agricultural work
alone could not meet; this transient work took
them to the cities, where they became politicized to
a new degree. The emancipation of 1861 managed
both to disappoint the Russian peasantry it was
intended to benefit and to alienate the intelligent-
siawho had championed it.
The second reform (1864) instituted the first real
system of local government in Russia since the
Muscovite period. This rested on the zemstvo, an
institution consisting of an assembly plus execu-
THE LAST FOUR EMPERORS
No Russian of the 19th century became so colos- Right Powerful and active still in
his sixties, Tolstoy took his
sally famous and revered, both outside his country populism to an extreme
and within, as Lev Nikolaevich Tolstoy. By the end conclusion, attempting to live by
of his long life (1828-1910) he was the "uncrowned peasant values and emulate
peasant labor. Clearly Ilya Repin,
tsar" of Yasnaya Polyana (his estate, south of in this portrait of Tolstoy
Moscow), much as the elderly Voltaire had become plowing in 1891 - the year he
renounced his literary royalties -
"uncrowned king" of Paris on his final visit in painted him as he wished to be
1778; in each case they were names that abroad seen. But Tolstoy's rural
were taken as emblematic of their country's cul- interests were no mere
publicistic fad of his old age: he
ture, while each was a thorn in the flesh of a had plunged himself deeply in
nervous government and established church at the rural concerns, particularly
causality.
THE LAST FOUR EMPERORS
learn by their mistakes and become the progenitors worked smoothly The radicals began searching for
of the Socialist Revolutionary Party. Others con- other revolutionary methods.
cluded that launching a revolution required more The search took roughly two decades. The 1880s
than just raising popular consciousness among the saw Marxism emerge as a new revolutionary theory
masses; these people turned partly to terrorism, in Russia. The founding father was Georgiy
and partly to the rationalized revolutionary Plekhanov, an ex-populist who studied German
politics of which Lenin was the prime practitioner. Marxism in Switzerland and adapted its theory to
The decline of populism was paralleled by the Russian conditions. His principles were that Rus-
rise of terrorism. The underlying perception of sia, like all countries, had to pass through a period
help from many in the elite which raised them. Lenin was born into a civil servant's family in reaffirming the imperial
principle and dynastic mystique.
From 1878 onward Land and Freedom succeeded in the Volga region in 1870. He became politicized in An ornate neo-medieval
assassinating numerous senior police and govern- 1887, when his elder brother was executed for cathedral, the so-called "Church
on the Blood," was built on the
ment officials throughout Russia. Their campaign complicity in a plot to assassinate Tsar Alexander
spot of the assassination. The
culminated with the assassination of Alexander II III. After some flirtation with narodnichestvo, he contemporary photograph shows
in 1881, but the consequences spelled the end of developed an interest in Marxism and became a fol- the funeral procession with
imperial catafalque crossing the
terrorism. Land and Freedom was rooted out in a lower of Plekhanov. In 1895 Lenin was put in Neva River, with the Academy
security clampdown, but, more significantly, its charge of the first Marxist operational cell in St of Arts in the background.
method was discredited: even the tsar's assassina- Petersburg: its objective was to propagandize the The far quayside is thronged
with crowds, probably marking
tion did not lead to any uprising, the government capital's workers, but the cell was discovered and the previous route of the
remained stable and the imperial succession Lenin arrested. He was sentenced to three years' cortege.
—
THE LAST FOUR FMPFRORS
Siberian exile (1896-99). The conditions of exile indicate educated people) also included significant
were very lenient, and Lenin spent the time writ- numbers of re those who were neither
ing his major political tracts and developing his of gentry origin nor peasants, in other words a nas-
own variant of Marxist theory. Immediatelv upon cent middle class. Politics had become more polar-
release, he was allowed to travel to Europe. The ized, with the radical thinkers impatient of the
Russian social democrat emigration there was in liberal compromises of their predecessors. The
discord, Plekhanov's position had weakened and great wave of populism thai (lowered the "To the
Lenin succeeded in rising to a position of joint People" movement in the 1870s variously affected
leadership with his former mentor. Significant main major figures in the arts, from Tolstoy to
differences were emerging between the two men Musorgsky. The younger generation characteristi-
about the nature and pace of revolutionary stra- cally had, or affected, a no-nonsense attitude that
tegy. These differences led to a clash at the second dispensed with all metaphysical baggage, precon
convention of the Russian Social Democratic Party ceived ideas and even ordinary politeness in a
in 1903, with Plekhanov's camp being labeled the search for worthwhile secular and scientifically
Mensheviks and Lenin's the Bolsheviks (from the based values. The classic portrayal of this menta-
words menshe, "less" and bolshe, "more"). lity is Ivan Turgenev's Fathers and Children (1862),
While the Russian Marxist movement was devel- which popularized the word "nihilist."
oping abroad, other movements for political There were still excellent poets writing, includ-
change were becoming active in Russia. Among the ing the veteran Fyodor Tyutchev (1803-73); the
revolutionaries, remnants of the old narodniki "civic poet" N. Nekrasov (1821-77); a rare propo-
metamorphosed into the new Socialist Revolu- nent of "art for art's sake," Afanasy Fet (1820-92);
tionary Party in 1900, and revived political terror and the interestingly versatile Aleksev Tolsto)
operations in 1901. More importantly, it developed (1817 75). But they formed no school and pro-
throughout rural Russia an extensive organization jected no sense of common purpose. The first truly
dedicated to propagandizing the idea of a socialist professional Russian playwright, Alexander
revolution among the peasantry. The Socialist Ostrovsky (1823 86), wrote copiously throughout
Revolutionaries made an effort to convey their the period. Several fine storywriters —Vsevolod
message in terms suited to the peasant, tailored it to Garshin (1855-88), the satirist" Mikhail Saltykov-
the peasant's grievances and became the dominant Shchedrin (1826-89), and best of all Nikolai
revolutionary party in rural Russia. —
Leskov (1831-95) also became known.
The first years of the 20th century also saw the The novel emerged as the great Russian art form
liberal opposition to the government organize into with peculiar suddenness at this time. Its senior
a political force. The prime movers were liberal practitioners were Ivan Goncharov (1812-91) and
politicians who dominated
the zemstvo local Ivan Turgenev (1818-83). The former, though he
government system, the authority and develop- wrote three novels, is remembered for one master-
ment of which were severely cut back in the early piece, Oblomov (1859). One of the great "plotless"
1900s. These were joined by liberal landowners in works of European fiction, it explores the inner
the countryside and liberal academics in the cities, landscape of a hero whose retreat into apparent
who had hoped that the zemstvos would lead to a idleness and seediness assumes the character of a
gradual spread of parliamentary government in metaphysical crusade against the pain of activity.
Russia. In 1903 the liberals formed a Union of Was there anything specifically "Russian" in such
Liberation, which formulated a program demand- a character? Certainly contemporaries thought so,
ing full civil liberties; equality of all citizens before and took up the term "Oblomovism." Turgenev
the law; democratization and expansion of the came gradually to the novel, through early poetry
zemstvos; withdrawal of recently introduced and the Sportsman's Sketches (1845-52), a series of
restrictive legislation; full political amnesty; and brief scenes from rural life that at their publication
the creation of a truly representative legislative were seen to carry a strong message against serf-
assembly. Their aim was to convert Russia into a dom. His relatively short, delicately crafted novels
constitutional monarchy with a social order resting of human relationships, notoriously featuring
on the principles of a liberal democracy. strong-willed heroines and ineffectual men, were
The government reacted to the revolutionaries the first works of Russian literature widely read
with further repressive measures, and to the liber- abroad (a seminal influence, for example, on
als with indifference. The latter response was Henry James).
largely due to the personality of Nicholas II, who Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821-81) was a rather can-
ascended the throne in 1894; he saw little differ- tankerous and unstable personality, a compulsive
ence between the two challenges and particularly gambler, the ideologist of a right-wing Slavophile
disliked representative government of any kind. tendency He used certain personal experiences
Consequently, the revolutionaries were streng- his near-execution and subsequent exile in the
thened in pursuing the cause of violent revolution, Petrashevsky affair, his epilepsy, his father's
while the liberals became increasingly hostile to violent death, a turbulent love affair — to great
The classic age of the Russian novel was short, in present and future finances) he dictated the work
fact almost coincident with the reign of Alexander in a month, then married his stenographer. He is
1830s, the reading public had become larger and Crime and Punishment (1866; the best known and
better educated: in addition to the gentry, the intel- most straightforward), The Idiot (1868-69), The
ligentsiya (a quasi-Latin word coined simply to Devils (1871; sometimes called The Possessed, a
THE LAST FOUR EMPERORS
cally, and the working class remained largely fore put a very high premium on education and the
outside the interest of the revolutionary move- arts. Some became major patrons of the arts and
ment, except for the nascent Social Democrats. theater, as well as collectors of Russian and
The urban commercial class derived largely from European art: many of the major Soviet collections
the earlier merchants, who were highly accom- today, including the Tretyakov Gallery, were
plished traders with business methods and habits originally private collections of such men.
THE LAST KHK h.MPhRORS
among the new intellectual generation that it was composer of the period was Alexander Scriabin painting moved
rather suddenly
into abstraction; otherswere
time for Russia to look to what was going on in the (1872-1915). A post-Symbolist generation only going same direction, but
in the
rest of Europe. The young poet Valeriy Bryusov slightly younger (Stravinsky, Prokofiev) would Kandinskv was trailblazer.
again put Russians among the foremost European Figurative elements from his
(1873-1924) began publishing in 1894 a series of
intense, emotional, folkloristic
volumes called Russian Symbolists, containing composers, just before World War I. The strong world dissolve into writhing
translations from (and poems in the spirit of) the development of Russian ballet gave great composi- shapes, yet vestiges of them can
still be detected here; lances,
French Symbolist movement that had crystallized tional opportunities (already exploited by Tchai-
rainbow bridge,
riders, a a citv.
in the 1880s. Symbolism had enormous impact kovsky), and performing standards were high;
across the spectrum of the arts and intellectual life Russia produced one of the world's greatest Left A
photograph, taken in
1914, of Ilya Repin painting the
in Russia, leading not just to new, and divergent, singers, Fyodor Shalyapin (or "Chaliapine,"
celebrated singer Fvodor
artistic paths, but to a reassessment of Russian cul- 1873-1938): Shalyapin (1873-1938).
ture overall. Literary Symbolism in Russia is The remarkable reinvigoration of the visual arts
Below right Sergey Prokofiev
usually considered to have produced two genera- was signaled by the establishment in 1898 of World (left), Dmitriy Shostakovich and
tions. The younger Symbolists provided the most of Art (Mir Iskusstva), the name both of a group of Aram Khachaturyan together in
brilliant talents: Andrey Bely (1880-1934), whose painters, led by Alexander Benua (or "Benois", a photograph of 1945. The three
internationally known Soviet
fragmented, allusive and alarming novel Petersburg 1870—1960), and of a luxuriously produced jour- composers (Khachaturyan was
(1913) is the climax to nearly a century of evoca- nal. The latter was the brainchild of Sergey Diaghi- Armenian), tuneful, popular and
prolific, were far from immune
from criticism. Prokofiev
(1891-1953), known before the
Revolution, had emigrated but
returned when Stalin appeared
to have reestablished order and
prosperity in the 1930s.
Shostakovich, 15 years younger,
enjoyed a precocious triumph in
the 1920s, but ran into Stalin's
personal displeasure in the late
1930s with the 4th Symphony
and Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk (an
opera based on Leskov's grim
tale). His 5th and 7th
Symphonies, however, won
public adulation. A general
assaulton "formalism" (roughly,
any modernist techniques) in the
music, as in literature, followed
in the late 1940s.
S'[ KICK I
'.
m. MmS&m
Below Terrorism continued also commanding officer of the
"Battle Organization"
assassination unit, operational
since 1902, succeeded in early
1905 in killing Grand Duke
Sergey, the tsar's second cousin
and brother-in-law, who was
substantially distot ts
REVOLUTION AND THE BUILDING
OF THE COMMUNIST STATE
The Russo-Japanese War and Revolution government's credibility declined further with the
of 1905 news of the Tsushima disaster. Discontent peaked
The underlying tensions in Russian society in October 1905 with Russia's first general strike.
remained in check until 1904-05, when the The strikers' original demand was for a constituent
combination of a foreign war and social crises at assembly, the repeal of repressive emergency legis-
home set off Russia's first revolution. The Russo- lation, civil liberties and reduced working hours.
Japanese War (1904-05) was a thorough failure for However, the control of the strike soon passed to
the Russians. causes lay in Russia's and Japan's
Its radicals, and the demands were changed to revol-
conflicting aspirations to establish control over utionary ones. In St Petersburg leadership was
Manchuria and Korea after the collapse of Chinese taken by a newly created Soviet of Workers' Depu-
authority following the Boxer Rebellion (1900-01). ties, an extremist council claiming to be representa-
Hostilities began when Japan attacked Port Arthur, tive of the proletariat; it was dominated by the
the new Russian naval base on the Liaodong Penin- Mensheviks under Leon Trotsky.
sula, in north China, without declaration of war. In October, despite the tsar's stubborn oppo-
The war which followed was from the start unpop- sition, the imperial government acceded to the
ular in Russia, largely because Russia's strategic main demand of the majority of the opposition by a
interests in the Far East did not fire the popular proclamation transforming the autocracy into a
imagination. constitutional monarchy. The work of the eminent
The land campaign in Manchuria resulted in a statesman Sergey Witte, the October Manifesto
string of Russian defeats, but after Mukden (Febru- provided for basic civil liberties (including those of
ary 1905) the Russian war machine succeeded in the person, freedom of thought, assembly and
stopping further Japanese advances. The sea organization), democratic franchise and legislative
campaign, in contrast, was disastrous. The Russian power vested in a new national assembly. The
fleet, blockaded at Port Arthur, tried to break out
and was largely destroyed by the Japanese navy.
The tsar ordered a quixotic and foolhardy expedi-
tion to relieve Port Arthur. This involved sending
Russia's Baltic Sea fleet to Korea, via the Atlantic
and Indian Oceans and the South China Sea. The
fleet set sail in October 1904, reaching its destin-
ation in May the following year. Meanwhile, Port
Arthur capitulated in December 1904, so when the
Baltic fleet arrived, it had no refuge when con-
fronted by the Japanese navy. The ensuing sea
battle in the Straits of Tsushima ended with the
entire Russian fleet sunk. The war ended in
September 1905 with the Treaty of Portsmouth,
where the tsar's chief negotiator, the redoubtable
Count Sergey Witte, succeeded in extracting
reasonable conditions. However, acute domestic
disappointment with the war had before then
helped set off the 1905 Revolution.
The capitulation of Port Arthur sent shock
waves throughout Russia and coincided with a
wave of industrial strikes in St Petersburg. These
strikes were initially concerned with working
conditions and related to social, rather than
political, issues.In January 1905 a huge loyalist
demonstration concerning the conditions of the
proletariat massed at the Winter Palace with the
intent of presenting a petition to the tsar. The
troops cordoning the palace fired into the crowd,
killing 130 and wounding many more, on a day
that became known as "Bloody Sunday." The
security disaster led to a national calamity.
A wave of revulsion swept all levels of Russian
society, inflaming the simmering consternation
over governmental slowness with reforms and the
failures of the war. Political opposition of varying
shades intensified its activity and found much
greater public receptivity to its message. The
REVOLUTION AND THE BUILDING OF THE COMMUNIST STATE
Left An outstanding Russian assembly, to be called the Duma, was to be nation- parts of the electorate.
statesman at the turn of the ally elected on the basis of party political affiliation The third Duma, as a result, was dominated by
century. Count Sergey Witte
(1849-1915) held different
which extended to all parties, including the most the parties of the right, and comfortably served out
ministerial appointments and left radical revolutionary ones. This innovation gave its full five-year term (1907-12). Despite its
mark in many areas. His
his
Russia a representative democracy on a par with conservative bias, this Duma introduced many
achievements ranged from
economic reforms and the the best constitutional monarchies of contempor- reforms, for example by extending full civil rights
creation of the Duma at home, to ary Western Europe. The first elections were sche- to the peasants, by improving local justice and by
successful negotiation of the
Treaty of Portsmouth which
duled for spring 1906. expanding the educational system. The fourth
concluded the Russo-Japanese The majority of Russia's population responded Duma (1912-17), still more conservative than the
War on reasonable terms for with great excitement to the October Manifesto third, was occupied largely with wartime matters
Russia.
and to the prospect of the Duma. The general strike and the beginning of the 1917 revolutions.
lost momentum and support, both because it had Despite constant government interference, the
caused mass unemployment and hardship and idea of the Duma as a valuable participatory forum
because the Duma promised tangible change of a was widely accepted. The political participation
kind the revolutionaries had not formulated. Also, remained broadly based, as evidenced by the large
the mood of the country had calmed with news of number of parties, spanning the full spectrum of
Below Boris Kustodiev's
painting, The Bolshevik, 1905, the unexpectedly favorable terms of the Treaty of political views and also some representing
conveys the romantic image of Portsmouth. particular ethnic and regional groups. The results
the Bolshevik revolutionaries
adopted by many Russian
The revolutionary leadership decided, despite may have been patchy, but the commitment to par-
intellectuals and artists. losing its hold over the proletariat, to intensify its liamentary government was manifest. This
Kustodiev is noted for his exotic activity. A new
general strike called for November evolutionary mood of the country was illustrated
treatment of provincial Russian
failed, did forcible attempts at preventing
as in another way by a dramatic decline in revolu-
scenes and peasant and merchant
life, suffused with an underlying workers from returning to work. The St Petersburg tionary activity and a sharp increase in economic
sense of life force and the soviet led these disruptive measures, and in productivity between 1905 and 1914.
dynamism of national character.
The allegorical giant in the December was disbanded by the police. An The same years witnessed a considerable diversi-
painting represents Bolshevism attempted protest strike failed totally. The final, fication in all forms of Russian culture. The unpre-
worker, striding
as a typical
rearguard act of the revolutionaries was an armed cedented variety of choice available to the cultured
with red banner and determined
expression over a selectively workers' uprising in Moscow, which lasted for a Russian reader is illustrated by the existence in
assembled townscape of week in December. The Revolution of 1905 failed 1912 of 2167 periodicals, spanning virtually every
Moscow, whose streets are
because its revolutionary leadership was out of shade of opinion. Censorship was lax, even
shown filled with swirling
revolutionary masses. tune with the more liberal and gradualist political towards those calling for revolution: the Bolshe-
aspirations of the great majority of Russia's people. viks and Mensheviks alone legally published 3300
titles between 1906 and 1914.
had little experience of actual power. However, Ivan Bunin (1870-1954), whose short stories and
most people were essentially satisfied with what novellas about the decline of the gentry combined
the manifesto promised, the revolutionary momen- realism with deep psychological insight. Other lit-
tum declined and the government was able erary developments ranged from the growth of lit-
gradually to reestablish full authority. erary and political monthlies, comparable with the
The first Duma was elected in March 1906 and best in Western Europe, to the appearance of sen-
convened the following month. Over 40 political sualist, even voluptuary, fiction, the most popular
parties and groupings were represented, with writer of the genre being Mikhail Artsybashev
dominant control held by the liberal Constitutional (1878-1927).
Democrats (Kadets). The Duma proved too liberal The most and diversified areas of culture
creative
in the period 1905-14 were the arts of the stage.
for the tsarist administration and for the right-
wing parties which supported it. When the Duma Theater grew in influence and popularity,
proposed to pass fundamental land-law reforms, to following the innovative lead of the Moscow Art
the detriment of the conservative nobility, the tsar Theater under Konstantin Stanislavsky (1863-
exercised his prerogative to dismiss the assembly. 1938) and the Imperial Alexandrovsky Theater in
St Petersburg under Vsevolod Meyerhold (1874-
The second Duma was elected and convened in
March 1907. It proved even more hostile to the grew in stature and inventiveness,
1942). Ballet also
imperial government than the first; this was in part inspired by the choreography of Mikhail Fokine
because Lenin and the Bolsheviks were present in (1880-1942) of the St Petersburg Ballet and epito-
this assembly. The second Duma was
dissolved mized by the Ballets Russes of Sergey Diaghilev.
Both theater and ballet gave unprecedented atten-
even more quickly than the first, after which the
the provisions of tion to decor and stage sets, thus stimulating a
government, acting contrary to
flowering of the decorative arts. The painters
the manifesto, changed the electoral system so
as to
Imperial twilight
Political and cultural trends after 1905 left Nicholas
II and the imperial court increasingly alienated
from the mood of the time. The causes lay largely in
Nicholas's own personality and in the eccentric
life-style of the imperial family. The tsar was
throughout his life a man of limited intellect and
vision, strongly conservative by inclination and
susceptible to like-minded influences and manipu-
lation. He bowed to the inevitability of the 1905
October Manifesto without grace and without
goodwill towards the institution of parliamentary
monarchy. The ministers he appointed all shared
his wariness of the Duma and were people of
limited abilities who failed to deliver innovative or
successful leadership on domestic or foreign
policy. The single, striking exception to this rule
was Pyotr Stolypin, prime minister from 1906 until
his assassination in 1911, who introduced major
land reform regulations not unrelated to changes
advocated by the first Duma. Politically, the tsar
became increasingly identified with extreme
conservative forces. Public sentiment generally
favored the constitutional experiment and set much
hope in the Dumas, imperial hostility towards
which only rebounded against the tsar
and his administration. The tsar's image tarnished
badly over this period, with indifference gradually
giving way to contempt throughout most of Russia.
The waning of Nicholas lis popularity was ex-
acerbated by the domestic circumstances of the
imperial family, above all by the eccentric beha-
vior of the tsaritsa. Alexandra, born a German
REVOLUTION AND THE BUILDING OF THE COMMUNIST STATE
princess, was a woman of strong character and Germany, as Austria-Hungary's stronger ally, Right: Europe: alliances and
personality, who exercised a powerful influence chose this action as a pretext for declaring war on frontiers in 1914.
There were two main power
over her weaker husband in all matters, including Russia, and immediately thereafter precipitated the blocs in Europe in 1914: the
Her personal interest was not in
affairs of state. full-scale world conflict by declaring war on Central Powers (Germany,
Austria-Hungary) and the Triple
politics, but in fashionable cultic mysticism, France. Great Britain was consequently drawn in,
Entente (Britain, France and
psychic phenomena and the occult. Through her, and Russia's commitment to the conflict was final- Russia, soon to be joined by
the royal household was suffused with seers, ized by its treaty obligations to the allies. The out- Italy).The foreign policies of
both Russia and Austria at this
mediums and The tsaritsa's predilection for
oracles. break of war was greeted with a great wave of time were directed towards the
such charlatans became the subject of widespread patriotism throughout Russia. Party differences Balkan peninsula. The 1913
gossip and ridicule even before her infamous dis- were set aside (by all except revolutionary parties), Balkan War saw the end of
Turkish domination in the
covery of Grigoriy Rasputin. Rasputin, a Siberian social differences overlooked, strikes called off and region, and Austria stepped into
peasant supposedly possessing spiritual powers, even the tsar regained a measure of popularity. the resulting power vacuum,
annexing Bosnia and
became the dominant personality in the imperial War began in the first week of August, and over Herzegovina. The independent
household and at court from 1905 onward. His spe- the rest of 1914 Russia experienced both defeats South Slav Orthodox kingdoms,
cial position was due primarily to his ability to stop and victories. A major offensive against the Serbia and Montenegro, were
fearful of Austria and had
the internal bleedings of Aleksey, the hemophiliac Germans in East Prussia ended in a crushing defeat Russian support. The
tsarevich. The crude and salacious Rasputin at the battle of Tannenberg, but the other big assassination of the heir to the
enjoyed Alexandra's full confidence. His manipula- offensive against the Austro-Hungarians in Galicia Austrian throne in Sarajevo,
capital of Bosnia, by a South Slav
tive habit of commenting on matters of state meant was successful. In addition, a German offensive nationalist thus precipitated
that his views were indiscriminately imposed upon aimed at Warsaw was checked by the Russians. Austro-Russian conflict and
consequently, on account of the
the tsar by Alexandra. Rasputin came to interfere Fortune swung against Russia in 1915. The
system of alhances, World
directly with the running of the state when his per- Germans heavily reinforced their armies in the War I.
sonal favor or disfavor determined minsterial east, and in the spring a massive offensive soon
appointments. The Rasputin presence at court did forced the Russians into general retreat: by the
untold damage to the Romanov image, already autumn they were driven out of Poland and the
diminished by the dullness and weakness demon- Baltic areas and had lost large parts of the Ukraine
strated by Nicholas II; among the people, however, and Belorussia. Fortunately for the Russians, the
he became something of a folk hero. Germans soon outran their supply lines, and their
advance therefore came to a halt. The following
Russia and World War I year the Russians' counteroffensive against the
Russia's entry into World War I resulted from its Germans brought no results, but another against
complex involvement in Balkan affairs and its obli- the Austro-Hungarians was successful. The latter
gations within the Triple Entente alliance with was the famous summer offensive under Brusilov,
France and Great Britain. Russia's foreign policy in which drove deep into Galicia.
the Balkans was guided by its determination to The war put a great economic and social strain
check the extension of Austro-Hungarian influence on Russia. The Russian armies suffered heavy
over the Balkan states, recently emerged from Otto- losses and were chronically undersupplied in
man domination. When Austria-Hungary threat- —
every way weapons, munitions and food. The
ened Serbia's independence, Russia felt compelled government's inability to anticipate the demands
tocome to its aid. A full mobilization of Russia's of war caused dissatisfaction in the ranks and also
army was decreed, but without declaration of war. on the home front, whose well-being deteriorated
KI VOLUTION AND THE BUILDING OF THF. COMMUNIS I !
Far left Russia's popular mood sharply. Russia's economy was quickly distorted as of leadership in the tsar; nor did it arrest what was
was generally stable and assured
on the eve of World War I. High it was put on a war footing. Manpower shortages by now the terminal decline of the Romanovs and
society events such as the Rose resulting from the huge mobilization meant that the venerable concept of tsardom.
Ball,given by the Countess
military production could not deliver the combat The internal state of Russia at the end of 1916
Shuvalov, brought together the
Russian elite whose life would equipment and supplies. Similarly, food supplies was dangerous. The tsar was politically isolated
be disrupted by the war and diverted to the front meant shortages in cities. Tax and the object of widespread disdain. The Duma
then destroyed by revolution.
The seated guests include
revenues declined as most men were at the front, was moving, without sufficient confidence and still
military officers and civilians, state expenses increased while incomes fell and within the framework of constitutional monarchy,
probablv both civil servants and inflation accelerated as shortages intensified. toward the role of central government. In society at
industrialists. Younger officers
like these would, after the world Social morale began breaking down in 1915, in large, economic hardships and insecurity, disen-
war, have joined the White part from economic difficulties and in part from chantment with the war and dismay over the con-
movement to fight the political ones. The military failures of 1915 meant fusion in the country's political leadership spelled
Communist regime during the
civil war. that the Duma began effectively to usurp the a breakdown in national morale. Liberal and left-
imperial administration's role in managing the war wing politicians could anticipate a fundamental
Left The foreign view of Russia effort, and to make more insistent demands that the political transformation; they planned for it,
before the world war was at administration assemble a credible cabinet to head assuming that the change would be in the direction
times skeptical. The French
political cartoon shows Russia, the government. Nicholas sought to sidestep the of pluralistic, parliamentary government. A smaller
in the person of Nicholas II, political crisis by assuming the mantle of com- group of radical politicians, committed to violent
accepting financial aid from
mander-in-chief: his indecisiveness in this role revolution and including the Bolsheviks under
France, in the person of a
caricatured governmental diminished his image still further. A desperate Lenin's control, were cultivating the defeatist
minister: their cozy exchange is
loyalist attempt to purge the court was made with a sentiment in public opinion and organizing the
observed by Germany,
represented bv the Prussian
plot to murder Rasputin; although successful as an strike movement which reemerged and intensified
eagle. assassination, it did not stimulate any new qualities in 1916.
Central (
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REVOLUTION AND THE BUILDING OF THE COMMUNIST STATE
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Dec 1917
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REVOLUTION AND T HI BL II DING OF t HE COMMUNIST STATE
Right A
Russian Orthodox priest
blesses the wounded in a
Russian field hospital on the
German front during World War
I. The conditions are primitive,
The February Revolution and the provisional ing a series of fundamental reforms. The most
government important of these created the foundations for the
Civil disorder increased sharply in the capital, convening of a constituent assembly, the freelv
Petrograd (St Petersburg Russified), during the elected and fully representative national parlia-
Left: World War 1.
winter of 1916-17. The Duma again demanded of ment which would institute the structure of a new
Russia was drawn into the war Nicholas the formation of a new cabinet, acceptable democratic government in Russia. The electoral
under the obligation to support
to itself, which could aspire to popular confidence. reforms provided for a universal and equal voting
Great Britain and
its allies.
France. At first successes The tsar issued a decree disbanding the Duma, but franchise, together with a secret ballot. This con-
balanced defeats and sustained a the latter refused to comply and on 27 February trasted with the election of the Dumas, which had
morale that was temporarily
effectively assumed the role of government. Nicho- been indirect and on the basis of a limited fran-
boosted by the unifying effect of
a patriotic war. But after las, isolated and powerless, abdicated on 2 March. chise. The system of local government, or zemstvos,
Germany sent reinforcements to The February Revolution was thus an essentially was reorganized and charged with drawing up
the eastern front and inflicted
crushing defeats in 1915 the war
nonviolent resolution of the struggle for control electoral registers for the elections to the consti-
brought enormous economic and between Duma and tsar which began in 1905, and tuent assembly, planned for the autumn of 1917.
social strain. By the autumn the which culminated in the triumph of parliamentary Throughout, the provisional government was
Russians had been driven out of
Poland and the Baltic areas and government over the monarchy. The Duma concerned with strict observance of legality in the
had lost parts of the Ukraine and assumed for itself a caretaker's role, paving the political process and exact observance of parlia-
Belorussia. In spite of some
successful counteroffensives in
wav for a completely new and directly elected par- mentary procedures in the conduct of its business.
the following year, notably liamentary government, and therefore reconsti- The soviet was an entirely different political
under Brusilov into Galicia. tuted itself as the provisional government. But its institution, a haphazard assembly of representa-
heavy losses on the battlefield,
coupled with severe food and
ability to govern was severely hampered bv the tives chosen by popular acclamation; its composi-
ammunition shortages, emergence of a parallel form of government, the tion was highly fluid, it operated without any
demoralized the Russian army to network of councils called Soviets. declared jurisdiction and it lacked any fixed rules
the point of mutiny, a situation
encouraged by Bolshevik The provisional government consisted mostly of or procedures. Sessions of the soviet tended to be
propaganda, and there were the liberal and moderate conservative forces which chaotic, with the real control and the administra-
massive desertions. Once the
Bolsheviks came to power on a
had been dominant in the Dumas. Representatives tion being concentrated in a small group of leaders.
policy of ending the war, vast of the socialist forces, especially the more radical The political composition of the soviet was almost
tracts of Russia were conceded to type, looked for another base from which to exer- exclusively socialist, together with a few small
Germany by the Treaty of
cise power. Such a base existed in the emerging radical groups that claimed to represent the real
Brest-Litovsk (March 1918). The
Ukrainian republic, which had Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Depu- interests of labor. The Soviet's aims were two-fold:
been declared in July 1917, came first, the creation of an exclusively socialist order
ties, a loosely structured and fluid popular council
under German and Austrian
influence in its bid to defeat espousing a radical socialist form of government. in Russia; second, the undermining of all non-
Bolshevism. With the same end The Petrograd Soviet became effectively an altern- socialist political forces, which were labeled "bour-
in view, the British forces,
ative government. The provisional government geois" or "capitalist," and which included all those
originally sent to guard
munitions dumps at Murmansk was supported largely by the educated and com- participating in the provisional government.
and Archangel against German mercial classes, while the soviet depended on the The largest group in the soviet were the Socialist
attacks, stayed on in 1918 in a
marginally literate factory workers and soldiery. Revolutionaries, a radical populist party strongly
vain attempt to help the
anti-Bolshevik Russian generals. The provisional government set about formulat- attached to the peasantry. Next in importance were
REVOLUTION AND THE BUILDING OF THE COMMUNIST STATE
the Social Democrats, a party split into two groups, leadership. He was able to mobilize only a group of The revolutions of 1917 saw-
and soldiers from the Petrograd garrison, many
popular assaults upon
the majority Mensheviks and the minority Bolshe- sailors
prisons, in order to release
viks. In the spring of 1917 the Bolsheviks under and this was defeated by a cavalry division from detainees. This prison in the
Lenin's leadership broke away to form an indepen- the front. Lenin and Trotsky, the co-organizers of imperial capital of Petrograd has
been stormed and left a
dent party. The Bolsheviks were a small minority the uprising, fled the country to await another burnt-out shell. It was probably
in the soviet, but, being better organized and more opportunity of seizing power. The second crisis a minor transit prison: the
dvnamic, they began exercising influence out of came with a revival within the disorganized Rus- location directly on a city street,
without any surrounding
proportion to their numbers. They consistently sian army under its new commander-in-chief, compound, suggests could not it
took the extremist line that the soviet should seize General Lavr Kornilov. Kornilov was a dynamic have been a high-security
The collapse of
all power immediately. and successful front-line commander, with views establishment.
municipal services during 1917
The soviet concept spread rapidly through Rus- that appealed to the conservative and moderate ele- meant that large areas of
sia, with local Soviets appearing in virtually every ments in the provisional government. Kerensky, Petrograd and Moscow were
in this way. leaving
city, town and village, as well as within the ranks who was made prime minister after the suppression gutted
widespread urban dereliction.
of the army. All these bodies acknowledged the of Lenin's uprising, was increasingly packing the
ultimate national authority of the Petrograd Soviet. provisional government with socialists, and Korni-
By mid- 19 17 the Soviets effectively constituted a lov's rapidly growing popularity and political
functioning prototype of national, regional and involvement threatened Kerensky's position. In
local government apparatus, spanning Russia in its September Kerensky tried to dismiss Kornilov, but
entirety. By comparison, the provisional govern- the general refused to comply, appealed for public
ment rested on a much narrower base of support in support and dispatched an armed force towards
Petrograd and exercised a far more tenuous Petrograd. Kerensky turned for help to the socialist
authority over the established zemstvo local organizations, all of whom came to his aid; thanks
government in the country. especially to the transport workers, he was able to
The soviet movement's potential as a national impede the movement of Kornilov's forces and
government was confirmed with the All-Russian therefore to survive as prime minister.
Congress of Soviets in June. The Bolshevik Party Kerensky's proved a pyrrhic victory. He had lost
accounted for only 16 percent of more than 650 credibility with the moderate forces in the
delegates; their extremist positions were repeat- provisional government and by overreliance on the
edly rejected, and Lenin was unable to impose his socialists had fatally undermined the government's
views on the assembly. Indeed, it was not Lenin independence. By rebuffing Kornilov he alienated
but another socialist politician, Alexander Keren- the only force which could have defended his
sky, a vice-chairman of the Petrograd Soviet, who government. Meanwhile, the Soviets were gaining
emerged as the leader in Russian government and new momentum, popular opinion had swung mas-
October 1917, and who brought about
politics until sively in their favor and bv September the Bolshe-
a temporarv convergence between the Soviets and viks were dominant in the Petrograd Soviet.
the provisional government.
Late summer saw two major threats to the The October Revolution and civil war
provisional government. The first was an attempt Lenin's plans for seizing power were timed in such
at a violent coup d'etat launched in Petrograd a way as to undermine the constituent assembly,
during July by the Bolsheviks under Lenin's whose election and convocation were the
R] VOLUTION AND T HI WILDING OF THE COMMUNIST STATE
ARCTIC OCEAN
'
*
RUSSIA
—_.
boundary olflussian empire,
U July-Sept 1917
TURKEY
government emerged in Omsk, and a similar one m sustained last stand under Wrangel's command in
Yekaterinburg. The Samara and Omsk govern the Crimea, but was forced to eva( uate to Istanbul
ments were eventually merged to form a single in November 1920. With the opposition govern-
anti-Bolshevik authority under Admiral Kolchak. ments gone and the last White bastion abandoned,
The Caucasus also rejected Bolshevism, with the Communist regime held undisputed authority
socialist governments being established in Georgia, in Russia.
Armenia and Azerbaijan. All backed the reinstate The Communists still had to suppress popular
mem of the provisional government and recall oi resistance movements in the countryside. The pea-
The revolutions and civil uat the constituent assembly. Eventually the three sants had suffered greatly from the forcible food
The Revolution of 1905 (wsel) governments united into a single Transcaucasian expropriations, as well as from the extension of
brought a strong upsurge of
nationalist feeling in several Federal Republic, still dedicated to the ideal of Red Terror into the countryside; the latter was
parts of Russia, as well as federative affiliation with a democratic, non- especially severe because most peasants favored
widespread revolts bv the
Bolshevik Russia. Ukraine went a separate path, the socialist Revolutionaries, whom the Commu-
peasantrv against their
landlords. Ruthless suppression proclaiming an independent nationalist republic, nists were intent on exterminating. Numerous anti-
bv the tsarist forces as well as but in fact heavily dependent on German support. Communist resistance movements emerged, culmi-
the apparent promise of
constitutional change held out
Some governments and movements tried to
local nating in massive revolts in Russia's central pro-
bv the Duma defused the survive by flirting simultaneously with the Reds vinces, the Volga region and in Siberia during
situation. However, after vears
and the Whites. The most notable of these was the 1920-21. These were well organized and led, the
of conflict with the Duma and
his disastrous leadership during
Green Army led by the charismatic Nestor biggest being in western Siberia and the Tambov
World War I. Tsar Nicholas II Makhno. Makhno's territory spanned southern area of central Russia. The full force of the Red
was finally forced to abdicate by
Russia and northern Ukraine, and his forces com- Army and Red Terror was necessary to suppress
the Februarv Revolution of 1917.
The lack of strong central prised Cossacks and peasants. Makhno, an anar- and eradicate these popular uprisings. With this
government allowed the new chist leaning towards socialism, was dedicated completed in 1921, the Communist government
political phenomenon of local
Soviets to gain influence
primarily to the idea of local autonomy. Lenin was finally in complete control.
throughout the countrv. The made an unsuccessful personal attempt to convert Following the October Revolution and civil war,
well-organized, dynamic and him to Bolshevism in summer 1918. there was a wave of emigration from Russia. It con-
uncompromising Bolsheviks won
increasing power in spite of
The Bolsheviks in mid-1918 renamed themselves sisted of the broad anti-Bolshevik sector of the
relatively small numbers. the Communist Partv and moved the capital from population- the White military, liberal and
Crystallization of varied
Petrograd to Moscow. Through the first half of the conservative politicians, writers and journalists,
anti-Bolshevik forces
(collectively termed "Whites"! year, fortune favored the Whites. Their forces, lawyers and academics, scientists and engineers,
under leaders such as Denikin though much smaller than the Reds, were much officials and professionals, numbering probablv
and Kolchak mainly took place
inremoter areas, while the
more professional and better led, under the overall over a million. The greatest concentration settled in
"Reds" held the central cities, command of the experienced General Anton Berlin up to the mid- 1920s; the center later shifted
where they controlled Russia's Denikin. The Communists, although experienced to Paris.
war industries and
communications network. The
in urban combat, had difficulty adapting to the A small part of the emigration, particularlv the
Whites in some parts of the complexities of campaigning and warfare outside scientists and engineers, assimilated readilv into
north and south of the countrv
the cities. Finally, the Whites benefited from some the foreign environment. The intellectual majoritv
were aided bv the British and
their allies, fearful of the spread
equipment and assistance from the Allies, with the created a Russian society and culture in diaspora.
of Bolshevism, but this British, Americans, Japanese and French sending Emigre Russian literature developed with vitality,
intervention was half-hearted.
small expeditionary forces into Russia. The Com- the leading authors being Ivan Bunin (who won the
Even Polish intervention in
Ukraine was insufficient to munists were meanwhile deflected bv the attempt Nobel Prize for Literature in 1933), Boris Zaytsev,
defeat the Reds. to defuse the German offensive still under way on Ivan Shmelyov and the voung Vladimir Nabokov. A
the Russian front. In mid-July the former tsar and few writers, including Ilya Ehrenburg, chose to
his family, who had been interned for months, return after a few years abroad.
were murdered at Yekaterinburg by their Commu- Some emigres remained staunchlv anti-Commu-
nist jailers. nist, perceiving their mission as preserving pre-
Bv late 1918 the Communists were in the revolutionary Russian culture while it was being
ascendant. Initial successes by the Whites had rooted out at home. The more ambitious formed
faltered, exposing their military and logistical limi- organizations to infiltrate anti-Communist views
tations. For the Reds, an armistice with the into the Soviet Union. Of these, the most resilient
Germans freed front-line troops under Communist was the NTS (National Labor Alliance), founded in
influence, and Leon Trotsky succeeded in trans- Belgrade in 1930. Others came to believe that the
forming the Red military into the highly organized Communist regime was mellowing into a benevo-
and efficient Red Army. In September the Cheka, lent successor to tsarist Russia, and some therefore
under Lenin's guidance, instituted the "Red chose to return; of these mam were sent immedi-
Terror," a highly organized program of extermi- ately or eventually to concentration camps.
nation of all political opposition, relying on syste- The divided attitude towards modern Russia was
matic mass arrests, interrogation under torture, epitomized in 1921 by a split in the emigre Russian
hostage taking of family and children and sum- Orthodox Church over whether to continue to
mary and mass executions. accept the authority of the metropolitan of Mos-
The South Russian government, which had cow, who, in the face of brutal persecution, had
evolved out of the Volunteer Army, achieved some made some accommodation with the Communists.
major advances against the Red Army during the One faction opted to continue accepting Moscow's
winter of 1918-19, but this was a last success. primacy; this became the so-called Synodal
Unable to sustain their effort, the Whites fell into Church, dominant in the European emigration. The
retreat in southern Russia and collapsed in Siberia. other faction decided that Moscow had abrogated
The socialist opposition governments in Russia had its religious mission and declared itself sole custo-
perished by then and the Transcaucasian Republic dian of Russian Orthodoxy; this Church in Exile
was in peril. The South Russian government made a dominated the emigration in America.
REVOLUTION AND THE BUILDING OF THE COMMUNIST STATE
Building the Communist state: first attempt goods to the population, thereby introducing a Above The clo
two earlv Communist leaders is
The first attempt to create a new Communist order socialist non-profit operation to replace the market seen in this photograph, taken
in Russia spanned the years 1918-21, under a mechanisms of capitalism. All organizations admin- on Red Square in Moscow
during 1919 festivities marking
program called "War Communism." Its aims were istering the new order were staffed by Communists
the second anniversary of the
to exterminate all vestiges of the old order, to chosen on the basis of their qualities as revolu- Bolshevik Revolution. Lenin
introduce sweeping and radical institutional tionaries; it was assumed that the new order could strikes a Napoleonic pose, while
Trotskv salutes, probably in
changes in accordance with an extreme vision of not fail to succeed, and that the skills of govern- acknowledgment of a passing
socialist utopianism, and to concentrate all power ment could easily be picked up. The Communist contingent of the Red Army. The
in the hands of the Communist Party. The old order functionaries were accorded extensive special scene is posed, with the cleared
opening in the crowd focusing
was destroyed with the abolition of the existing privileges, making them from the start into an elite on Lenin; the opening is lined
governmental institutions, administrative organ- class separate from the rest of the population. with security men watching the
ization, legal system, money and banking, commer- photographer and token children
The new order was intended to be highly
are placed near the leaders to
cial system, trade, educational system, all non- centralized, under the administrative control of the create an informal mood. The
socialist political parties and family rights. People Soviet government, which in turn was to be fully poster at the left reads "Radiant
glory to those who died for
who served the old order in any way were controlled by the Communist Party. The public
Communism."
identified as enemies of the new and subjected to structure of government consisted of the same
wide-ranging persecutions, including regular soviet councils which had been the main catalyst of
summary executions. These, together with a large the revolutions. Even though controlled by Com-
part of the peasantry, were officially classified as munists, these somewhat unpredictable assemblies
lishentsy (disfranchised people) and stripped of all included in their membership a residue of Menshe-
civic and political rights. viks and Socialist Revolutionaries. The Communist
Simultaneously, the new order was introduced. Party and Lenin were intent that all real power
This brought a total nationalization of industry, a should be held by them, and Lenin was equally
total communalization of property, a system of determined that, within the Communist Party, full
ration cards to replace money, political education authority and power should be vested in a small
and the creation of political agencies to perform elite. To achieve this, he created an institutional
intermediary and service functions. Economically, pyramid of ascending authority: an irregularly
the overall aim was for the government to control convened national Supreme Soviet assigned the
all national production and all distribution of function of national government to the Communist
REVOLUTION AND THE BUILDING OF THE COMMUNIST STATE
Party, immediately in the form of its permanent and the sailors there were a major pro-Bolshevik
Central Committee, which was in turn supervised force during the revolutions of 1917. By 1921 the
by the Party's permanent Politburo (Political same sailors were incensed at the Communists'
Bureau). All ultimate power and decision-making abuse of power and disregard of their revol-
rested with the Politburo, a tiny group of the top utionary pledges. The rebels' program called for
leaders: the first Politburo consisted of seven, new elections to the Soviets, on the basis of a secret
headed by Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin. ballot; freedom of speech and press for all revolu-
Ideologically, the new order was justified by the tionaries and radicals; release of all socialist
concept of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat." political prisoners; a relaxation of trade restrictions
This posited that the Communists were acting in to help feed Petrograd; and a lifting of restrictions
the name of the proletariat, which was still fluid in on the peasantry. The program was essentially a
the post-revolutionary situation, and therefore broad socialist protest against the Communists'
needed dedicated revolutionary cadres to assist it repressive monopoly on power. The latter
along the predestined path towards workers' responded by labeling the rebels as counter-
socialism. The Communist Party therefore assigned revolutionaries, and the uprising was brutally sup-
itself the role of the "Vanguard of the Proletariat." pressed by forces under Mikhail Tukhachevsky,
Economically and socially, "War Communism" later the Red Army's chief of staff.
proved a disaster. The removalof market The famine and the Kronshtadt incident spelled
incentives spelled the death of work incentive and the end of "War Communism." Lenin decided that
hence the effective collapse of industrial and agri- less doctrinaire and more practical means were
cultural production. This led to critical shortages, needed in the short term to halt the slide into chaos
runaway inflation and social disruption, all intensi- and revive the nation's economy. In 1921 he pro-
fying just as the civil war drew to a close. The claimed the abolition of "War Communism" and
Communists safeguarded their privileged position introduced instead the New Economic Policy, NEP
Below The 1917 revolution left in the cities by requisitioning the scant supplies for short, a series of economic and related insti-
great destruction throughout
and launched systematic requisitioning expedi- tutional reforms which replaced the impracticali-
Russia, and especially in its
cities. Repairs and clearances tions into the countryside in order to seize food ties of "War Communism" with more conventional
were usually piecemeal, and in from the peasants. These expeditions and droughts measures. Economically, a modicum of private
crucial places performed bv
units of Red Army out of
resulted in a massive rural famine in 1921, initiative was reintroduced into agriculture and
security considerations. This Red probably the greatest famine Russia had experi- manufacturing, while the government maintained a
Guard detachment is at work enced until that time. monopoly over heavy industry, foreign trade and
inside the Moscow Kremlin, the
Communist
seat of the
Hostility towards the government grew in both finance. Peasants were given limited rights to sell
government. The rampart wall in cities and countryside, meeting with increased produce privately, and small-scale private manu-
the distance overlooks Red
repression and terror from the Communists. A facturing concerns were permitted. Conventional
Square; the domes of St Basil's
cathedral loom beyond the wave of peasant uprisings swept the country in trading practices were revived, banking reintro-
smaller tower to the right. The 1920-21, and in March 1921 the Communist regime duced and normal financial instruments and trans-
small neo-Gothic chapel near the
larger gate at the left, a famous
faced its greatest threat in the Kronshtadt uprising. actions returned.
sanctuarv, was soon torn down. Kronshtadt was Petrograd's principal naval base, Private initiative was applied effectively to
small-scale manufacture, retail trade and service
industry. These sectors accounted for a minor pro-
portion of the total economy, but their spectacular
growth helped stabilize the national economy and
generate some social tranquillity by meeting at
least part of starved consumer demand. The small-
scale entrepreneurs, nicknamed the "Nepmen,"
who catalyzed this growth, were essentially a final
incarnation of the traditional Russian merchant,
who had flourished particularly in the last decades
before the October Revolution. The state monopoly
sectors showed at best marginal improvements
under NEP.
The flexibilityintroduced into economic matters
under NEP was not matched by any similar politi-
cal changes. The reverse was in fact true. Commu-
nist control and power were extended and severely
tightened in 1921-22. The last remnants of non-
Communist socialist parties, the Mensheviks and
Socialist Revolutionaries, were abolished in 1921.
Internal control became more rigid within the Com-
munist Party, which had until then been relatively
tolerant of internal debate. Members whose views
differed significantly from Lenin's were accused of
"factionalism," a charge tantamount to ideological
treachery. The summer of 1921 saw the first syste-
matic political purge of the Communist Party. The
membership of the party at this time was less than
1 percent of the total Russian population; even the
cent. The Communist security police were strength- tralization of the party organization and increased
ened and
to safeguard the party's minority position discipline within its The first group
ranks.
internal discipline; in 1922 the Cheka was reorgan- controlled the Central Committee and the Politburo
ized as the GPU, with much greater powers, a remit of the party; the second was labeled the Left Oppo-
to operate outside the law and responsibility for sition. Trotsky's Left Opposition tried to mobilize
security within the party, including the arrest and the Moscow proletariat, but this failed due to the
interrogation of party members. Thus, security workers' indifference. The failure proved that
policing was extended to thought policing. Trotsky was no longer a charismatic mass leader,
It seems clear that Lenin saw increased flexi- even though he commanded strong influence
bility in the economy and increased repression in within the party's ranks. Stalin succeeded in erod-
politics as two sides of the same necessary coin: the ing that influence by launching a new recruiting
former was a temporary, regressive measure to drive, which nearly doubled party membership to
shore up the economy, while the latter would guar- over a million. By controlling the selection pro-
antee absolute power for the Communists. But cesses behind the recruitment drive, Stalin was
Lenin did not clarify his thinking about what to do able greatly to strengthen his power within the
after NEP, and in May 1922 he suffered a stroke expanded party. In mid-1927 Stalin accused the
which left him partly paralyzed; in early 1923 Left Opposition of plotting to split the Communist
another took away his speech and in January 1924 Party and organized a purge of its adherents,
he died. This was effectively a period of interreg- including Trotsky, from the party's ranks. Trotsky
num in the Communist Party, with NEP continuing was sent into internal exile and deported from the
on borrowed time. Soviet Union early in 1929. With this masterstroke,
Among aspiring successors, Stalin and Trotsky Stalin became the sole and undisputed leader of the
were the leading figures. Stalin had risen to power Communist Party, and therefore of the Soviet
through exceptional organizational ability and Union.
loyal obedience to Lenin, who had cultivated him At the end of 1927 Stalin proclaimed his design
as heir apparent. Trotsky had risen as a charismatic for the future economic development and social
leader, especially of the military, and an ideologue engineering of the Soviet Union. This was based on
whose views could complement and at times the concept of a planned economy: strategies and
diverge from Lenin's. Stalin inclined towards con- targets for national development were to be formu-
centrating on the development of a Communist lated by centralized planning bodies, with imple-
order in Russia, while Trotsky was dedicated to the mentation and fulfillment of the plans being passed
belief that Russia should catalyze worldwide Com- as orders to industry. The planned economy was to
munist revolution. Both men were, however, operate on the basis of successive five-year plans,
equally committed to monopolistic Communist which applied to every sector of Soviet industry
power, doctrinal unity and discipline within the and enterprise.
party and intense security policing. The First Five-Year Plan, authorized in early
Stalin had the advantage from the start, due both 1928, centered on two radical objectives: the intro-
to Lenin's favor and to his own control over all duction of an industrial revolution and the collecti-
appointments within the Communist Party. Shortly vization of agriculture. The industrial revolution
before his death, Lenin rejected Stalin as his suc- was to include a total restructuring of the country's
cesor, but without indicating who should be industrial base, an intensive expansion of heavy
chosen instead. It is unclear whether this repudia- and manufacturing industry and a concentration of
tion was the last flash of Lenin's insight or a sign of new industrial development in the Urals and
confusion in his terminal illness. In either case, it western Siberia. The ultimate aim was two-fold.
had no effect on the Communist Party- Stalin First, the Soviet Union was to become a modern
strengthened his position with a masterful orches- and self-sufficient industrial state. Second, the
tration of Lenin's funeral and a memorable oration accompanying growth of the proletariat would
in which he established himself as sole custodian of expand that class base in whose name the Commu-
Leninism. nists claimed to rule. The latter consideration was
especially important since Russia was still predomi-
Building the Communist state: Stalin the nantly a peasant country.
creator The collectivization of agriculture was to
The actual content of Leninism was far from clear. reshape peasant Russia to conform with the Com-
Lenin had shown himself to be an authoritative munist order. The peasants had not responded
theoretician, a successful revolutionary leader and favorably to either Bolshevism or Communism and
an effective crisis manager during the civil war. were treated with suspicion by all Communist
However, he had proved an inept state builder. ideologues. They had reacted with particular
Stalin proved to have the vision and determination enthusiasm to NEP, and the increase of their
to shape the Soviet state and system as we know it, private production under those conditions allowed
adapting Leninism to that image. normal food supply and provisioning to be reestab-
Stalin consolidated his position gradually lished. The five-year plan now did away with the
between 1924 and 1927, while the Communist private initiative permitted under NEP. All peasant
Party debated about what course it should take communities and landholdings were to be merged
after Lenin. One group, headed by Stalin as leader into collective farms, which were to be run as
and Bukharin as ideologue, favored continuing a industrial complexes under centralized Communist
program of pragmatic compromise, as exemplified Party administration. All indigenous social and
in NEP. Another, led by Trotsky, favored a radi- administrative institutions were to be abolished,
cally doctrinaire program, not unlike a return to and any slight differentiation of wealth that
"War Communism," together with increased cen- remained in peasant society was to be erased. The
REVOLUTION AND THE BUILDING OF THE COMMUNIST STATE
I I
'9"
I I
W
1 lano lost by Russia alter
I
I I
World War I
Russia, 1922
~J
political bounaary 1916
—
darkened varnish to the point that their very
existence was in doubt. The cleaning of Rublyov's
Old Testament Trinity icon in 1903 signaled the
Communism
start of this rediscovery: 1913 saw a remarkable
exhibition of restored ancient icons. The effect was
overwhelming. Russian artists, however they
might feel about the Orthodox Church, understood
that they possessed a rich and sophisticated paint-
erly tradition that owed nothing to the post- For much of the 20th century people spoke of "the
Renaissance West. It was an art of transcendental Communist countries," and throughout the world
spiritual purpose, yet also one of everyday use, not there are "Communist parties," but from the 1920s
produced for commerce or for the enjoyment of to the 1980s neither the Soviet Union nor its allies
connoisseurs. Above all it was Russian, a heritage claimed to live under Communism. Communism is a
to be built upon. future order of society, postulated in the theories of
Together with the impact of icons, there came to Karl Marx, wherein means of production will be
Russian art in the years around 1910 an interest in under communal control, social distinctions w
neo-primitivism, in a range of uncanonical forms have been obliterated and each will receive accord-
(children's and peasants' art, woodcuts, shop ing to needs. Marx was understandably imprecise
signs), a movement only partially inspired by Gau- not only about details of this desired condition, but
guin, Matisse and other Western artists. The about how it would be attained, though believing
younger generation, notably David Burlyuk (1882- that laws of history predicated its development. He
1967) and Mikhail Larionov (1881-1964), enjoyed thought Russia an unpromising location for revolu-
not just the direct expressivity but the consider- tion, though Russian followers later interested him
able public shock value of "crude" primitivism. in the traditional peasant commune. Lenin's Bolshe-
Burlyuk became one of the founders of Russian viks, suddenly attaining power, had to make theory
Futurism; Larionov went on in the 1910s to deve- practicable. Far from "withering away," the state
lop an abstract manner that he called "Rayism" was fortified into Stalinist totalitarianism: perhaps
(Luchizm). a logical outcome, perhaps a hideous aberration.
The history of Russian avant-garde artistic
movements becomes complicated after 1910 as the Right Karl Marx (1818-1883).
"left" (that is, experimental) subdi-
artistic forces with Friedrich Engels, worked
out the historical, economic and
vided further, depending on how extreme or how political theory that implied
anti-Western the artists in question saw themselves Lenin's revolutionary action:
to be. Leading new talents were those of Kazimir "Philosophers have only
interpreted the world; the point
Malevich (1878-1935), Pavel Filonov (1883-1941) however is to change it." Out of
and Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953). All three went their ideas Lenin developed his
theory of "dialectical
through a complex evolution in which French
materialism.
Cubism played a part. These and some of
artists
their contemporaries, such as Burlyuk
the Below "Long Live Worldwide
Red October,", a poster of 1920.
brothers, can all with some justice be termed The left panel shows Bolshevik
"Futurists," at least in the early 1910s. But in a triumph over domestic enemies;
Russian context the name is more generally applied the right reflects a naive
expectation that Red Guards
to the avant-garde writers associated with the
would lead a workers' revolution
painters, the best-known group of which called across Europe.
themselves "Cubo-Futurists." The extent to which
Italian Futurism influenced them remains conten-
tious, but the Russians could fairly claim that their
leading poets, notably the ascetic and eccentric
Velimir Khlebnikov (1885-1922), had developed an
independent post-Symbolist manner by 1908.
Literary Futurism as a movement was hatched
(by his own account) when a young art student,
Vladimir Mayakovsky (1893-1930), walked out in
disgust from a concert of Rachmaninov's Isle of the
Dead and met David Burlyuk who had done the
same. The cross-arts contacts were strong: the
other major poet of the same tendency, Boris
Pasternak (1890-1960), was the son of a' leading
painter, who studied philosophy and then became
a composer under Scriabin's influence switching — i§l
suddenly to poetry chiefly because of Maya-
kovsky's example. Both were major figures in
20th-century European terms.
1 §^Mrit
Poetry also flourished elsewhere. A school of
i
m
"peasant poets," a specifically Russian pheno-
menon, had as its senior figure Nikolai Klyuyev
(1887-1937): his work is complex, modern, yet
\-Ai.X *>ip
rooted deeply in the countryside and in the folk-
songs and hymns of Old Believer sectarians. His
4
# ^1
*•
i
^m>
—— .
* s « * **
Above "Prolitanans of the world
''1 fo*.
5s unite!" The famous slogan from
the communist Manifesto (1848)
5 5
appears, perhaps unexpectedly,
HSBS3
on a plate made in Leningrad (St
Petersburg) in 1921. After 1917
itemerged that a vast stock of
blank unglazed porcelain was
held at the Imperial Factory:
leading artists (even abstract
Suprematists) produced new
designs, often propagandists
F
It a
/i/WUv
REVOLUTION AND THE BUILDING OF THE COMMUNIST STATE
sense of the Russian people's potential for both like Constructivism), partly from Malevich's geo-
goodness and anarchic villainy. His revolutionary metricity: it put stamp on architecture,
its stylistic
novel The Mother (1907) became a Soviet classic. on stage, book and poster desicn, on objects of
His autobiographical trilogy (1913-23) was made everyday use (including clothes), on photography
into three of the most memorable early Soviet (with the development of photomontage) and on
movies by Mark Donskoy. In music too there was sculpture. Constructivist architecture was of
something of a pause until two composers of world particular interest for its integrated plans in which
stature, Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) and Sergey factories, housing, clubs, shops, schools and trans-
Prokofiev (1891 1953) burst precociously upon the port were designed as a whole. Other tendencies
scene. were often strongly opposed to Constructivism's
World War I did not, as in some Western utilitarian aims: the spiritual concept of art realized
European countries, bring Russian artistic inno- in Malevich's Suprematism and the "Makovets"
vation to a halt, though some leading figures were group; Filonov's "Analytic Art," which attracted
called up for military service. These years saw the many pupils in the late 1920s; the Realists; younger
beginnings of a "proletarian movement" in litera- "Proletarian" groups. The hub of activity was the
Left Sergev Rachmaninov
(1873 1943) in a photograph of
ture,with A. Gastev's strange prose poems, exalt- new artistic organization started in Moscow in
1908. Almost all his major ing the toiling masses, published in 1917. The 1920 under the acronym Inkhuk: there were other
compositions predate the revolution of that year neither disconcerted nor newly established or reorganized art schools in
Revolution, after which he
found fame in emigration as
surprised the Futurists; several figures from the Petrograd and in Vitebsk, where the dominating
a
virtuoso pianist. Symbolist generation emigrated (but not Blok or spirit was L. (El) Lisitsky (1890-1941). There was
Bely)- Stravinsky was abroad during the war, and considerable contact with the West, notablv with
Below As great a pioneer of
modernism as Malevich or stayed; Prokofiev emigrated but returned in the the German Bauhaus.
Tatlin, vet even less known, 1930s; both Kandinsky and Chagall left in the Prose revived in the 1920s. One of the greatest
P. Filon'ov (1883 1941) lived in
20th-century masters of the short story was Isaak
1920s. Other major artists to emigrate were Lario-
Leningrad as an ascetic visionar
and teacher. In a series of nov and Natalya Goncharova. Babel (1894-1941) who made his mark with the
paintings between about 1915 The 1920s were a period of complexity and cycle known in English as Red Cavalry (1926);
and 1920 he developed his
excitement in Soviet cultural life: the promise of a Babel's uncompromising objectivity in the face of
principle of "universal
flowering," discarding normal new order attracted many who were not necessar- the brutalities of war caused an uproar. Less
composition in the attempt to ily Bolsheviks. The broad-ranging Constructivist known, but very subtle and strange, are the short
represent every atom of natural
movement partly took its cue from Tatlin's "cul- stories of Andrey Platonov (1899-1951), the finest
processes through i
brushstrokes. ture of materials" (though Tatlin himself did not authentically proletarian writer to emerge. Yevge-
niy Zamyatin (1884-1937), a naval engineer and
committed revolutionary, had written his master-
piece, the anti-utopian fantasy We, by 1920. When
late in the decade it appeared in the West, it was
furiously denounced as anti-Soviet satire: Zamva-
tin, boldly appealing to Stalin, was able to emi-
grate. We clearly influenced George Orwell's 1984.
Zamyatin was earlier an organizer of the uncom-
mitted group of excellent writers fancifullv named
the "Serapion Brotherhood." An important aspect
of the literary scene was the development of a
modern critical theory in the hands of the so-called
Formalists, whose liveliest spirit was Viktor
Shklovsky (1893-1985).
The Soviet government (with bigger worries to
contend with) did not commit itself to anv faction
for over a decade. Censorship was mild, but at the
end of the 1920s it became clear that the balance of
approval was tilting against "left art" and towards
the "proletarians" (RAPP). Experimentalism was
still not dead: a new wave of Soviet-educated
writers, notablv the poet Nikolai Zabolotsky
(1903-58), formed the witty and anarchic moder-
nist circle OBERIU in Leningrad in 1928. Theater
too was full of innovation, notablv under the
inspiration of Meyerhold. The first important
Soviet playwright to emerge was a doctor turned
writer Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940). His even-
handed drama of the civil war, Days of the Turbins
(1926), somewhat surprisingly attracted Stalin
(who saw it some 20 times), thus saving Bul-
gakov — whose sympathies were far from revol-
utionary — from possibly unpleasant
a fate. The art
form most encouraged bv the Soviet government
(because of Lenin's enthusiasm) was film: early
Soviet directors, notably Sergey Eisenstein, devel-
oped the powerful "montage" techniques that
influenced cinema throughout the world.
Below Nijinsky in Petrushka
Poulenc) and artists (Larionov, Goncharova, Pevsner). with his nanny (1903) by Leon
(Lev) Bakst. Bakst (1866-1924),
Stravinsky, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov, was pro- nowadays well known
fessionalized as a composer by Diaghilev's commis- thoughout the world for stage
and costume designs, was, like
sions and enthusiasm. Stranded moneyless in
several World of Art painters,
Switzerland in 1914, he devised a contemporary initially an accomplished
7w
A
Left Diaghilev and Stravinsky. Above The ugly, small, dynamic
No greater physical contrast Stravinsky, with animated
could be imagined than between egglike face, disproportionate
the stocky, dominating Diaghilev hands and natural aristocratism,
and the mercurial shrimp-like was a gift for artists, and '
Below Costume design bv Bakst painters were masters of eclectic emergence of Stravinsky as over the preceding winter in
for Firebird (1910). With a stylization, with a liking, in major composer and of the close collaboration with the
mastery of line not inferior to Bakst's case, for oriental motifs. Diaghilev Ballets Russes its designers and with Diaghilev's
(and probably influenced bv) Golovin, Bakst's collaborator on true originality. The greatest choreographer, Mikhail
Beardsley. Bakst turned Firebird, produced with Vrubel a score— intensely Russian, as Fokine.
utilitarian theatrical design into remarkable narrative ceramic befitted a folk tale, but also
high, an: this costume
if jovial, frieze that adorns the
still thoroughly modern, already
sketch is an exquisite small Moscow Metropole Hotel. leaving Borodin and
study in gouache and gold paint The production of Firebird in Rimsky-Korsakov well
He and other World of Art Paris in June 1910 marked the behind —
was hammered out
2< 5
* #a
«<
Two Paths to Modern Art:
Malevich and Tatlin
Russian artistsplayed a considerable part in the Right Malevich: The
Knife-Grinder, 1912. This
history of the European modern movement in the dazzling work is doubtless the
early 20th century. Vasiliy Kandinsky (1866-1944), culmination of Malevich's early
working in Munich, simplified the forms of his apo- development, during which he
underwent the very disparate
calyptic late-Symbolist paintings to the point of influences of Matissean
abstraction before 1910, and was probably the first to primitivism, Russian icons.
Cubism and Futurism. Cubist
do so. Several other Russians were almost as radical,
dissection of the object into
but possibly the strangest and most spectacular "metallic" segments (as with
painter of all was Kazimir Malevich (1878^1935). Leger) combines here with
Futurist dynamism. But there is
From folksy art-nouveau decorativeness he passed in no cult of modernity or of the
rapid succession through coarse primitivism, Cubism —
machine as so often, Malevich
is concerned with the age-old
and Futurism to what he called "alogism," a manner
rhythms of peasant life. The
anticipating the Surrealists. In 1915 he developed a painting's geometricity and clear
purely abstract, geometrical manner which he called patches of color look forward to
Suprematism.
"Suprematism." By about 1920 he was engrossed in
constructing idealized "architectonic" models; before Above Malevich: Girl with Rake, Below Malevich: Suprematist
his death he returned to figurative painting with 1930s. Malevich returned to Composition, 1916. At the
figurative, but not anecdotal Zero-Ten exhibition of 1915
strong Suprematist overtones.
mode in the 1920s and 1930s. Malevich revealed his
Vladimir Tatlin (1885-1953), Malevich's colleague Peasant toil is afrequent theme. Suprematist works: free-floating
and rival, developed under futurist and cubist Suprematism has left its mark in geometric forms in white, black
the formal simplification of these and unmodulated primary hues.
influence; after visiting Picasso (1914) he launched works and in the frequent High in a corner (the location for
into a series of abstract sculptural constructions of compositional element of the an icon) he hung a simple black
cross. Most characteristic is the square, the "zero of form"
metal, wood and "found objects," developing his
uncompromising dualistic through which the new art had
"culture of materials." division of the human face and to pass.
figure into light and dark halves.
TWO PATHS TO MODERN ART: MALEVICH AND TATLIN
Right Tatlin: The Sailor. primitivisticand subsequently
1911-12. This is a probable cubist elements. At Zero-Ten he
self-portrait: Tatlin earned his broke violently with Malevich;
living at sea till The
nearly 30. while Malevich's Suprematism
sailing ship was perhaps his was "dematerialized," Tatlin
ideal work of art (beautiful and was fascinated by the materiality
functional, dynamic, curvilinear, of objects, and exhibited
in harmony with natural forces). abstract three-dimensional reliefs
His paintings and drawings are exploring the potentialities of
bold, simple, with iconic, wood and metal.
BL A
> *
iimm
1 Wl&
1 Mfr J 1^,
Jt 3§E*^
9m :,
Religion in Russia and the Soviet Union
Left Archbishop Pitirim, who Above The intense antireligious Right The Torah being read in
subsequently became a leading fervor cultivated bv the one of the few synagogues
Orthodox Church figure: editor Communist during the
state allowed to function during the
of the Journal of the Moscow 1920s is encapsulated by this Soviet era. Jewish settlement
Patriachure and a People's cartoon entitled "The Hoi}' was encouraged in Belarus and
Deputv(1987). Ghost descends upon the Ukraine under the late-medieval
Apostles." Framed as an icon, it Polish-Lithuanian state, and
mocks the major faiths in the large communities grew up. In
Soviet Union by depicting their imperial Russia Jews were
spiritual leaders as grotesque restricted to specific areas of
and avaricious. The Holy Ghost, settlement, where they enjoyed
depicted as a flying purse under relative religious freedom. In the
a capitalist top hat, showers Soviet Union, settlement
coins upon a scrabbling mullah. restrictions were lifted, but
Orthodox priest. Catholic priest Jewish worship and culture
and rabbi. Each is caricatured were repressed and teaching of
according to stereotypes used to the Hebrew language and
stir loathing and hatred. religion was forbidden. Despite
this, the Jewish tradition
endured and revived somewhat
during the 1970s and 1980s.
i'l !
K.ION IN THfc SOVItT UNION
Below Buddhism was the least great monastery and lamas, Bottom Friday prayer in the it were much less effective than
significant world faith in Russia whose stature north of China Khajezud Murad mosque in in the case of other faiths.
and the Soviet Union, but under was similar to that of the Tibetan Samarqand. Most of the Central Asian Islam derives from
Communism it suffered lamas to the south. Urga was worshipers are in traditional the medieval culture of
persecution along with the rest. destroyed after the Communists dress, but one man in the front Transoxanian cities such as
Buddhists in the Russian empire seized power in Mongolia in the row is in modern garb. In the Samarqand, Bukhoro and Khiva
existed along the southern edge late 1920s. Buddhism survives post-Soviet era Islam remains Recently Shiite influence has
of eastern Siberia, adjoining among the Turkic and Mongol very strong in Central Asia and grown among Muslim groups,
Outer Mongolia. Their nearest populations of Soviet Siberia, in the eastern Caucasus. leading to a major revival of
holy city was Urga, with its particularly Buryats. Communist attempts to suppress Islamic culture.
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Kl I [GIO I l.NION
stroyed or desecrated and converted to secular use, Demolition of this kind was
widespread, culminating with
and nearly 30 bishops and over 1000 priests Moscow's Cathedral of Christ the
arrested or executed. Savior,which in the 1990s was
During World War II Stalin found it expedient rebuilt.
to allow a revival of the church, as part of his plan Bottom left Churches not
to rekindle nationalist patriotism. This policy destroyed were usually
converted to secular uses, as
permitted the church to make a partial recovery
social clubs,movie theaters and
from virtual annihilation, to expand the numbers warehouses. This church is
of priests and to elect a patriarch. Repressions being converted into a grain
store. A ladder and rough
returned under Khrushchev, who was determined
scaffolding to the right show
to eradicate the church while he loosened restric- that the building's ecclesiastical
tions on secular culture. During the 1970s govern- interior is being torn out.
edbao?py<)b/o
mompaytmeiwi
6pma
Left An imperial poster, dating Above "Away with muddlers Right "Let us meet fully the
from World War I, announces and wreckers in the industrial grain collection plan in specified
the sale of war bonds. The supply sector." This early Soviet time!" The positive call for
caption reads, "If you are not poster was part of a constant industrious agricultural work
repelling the enemy with your propaganda campaign against which dominates this poster is
body, then buy war bonds at bureaucratic interference, either set in the context of the
5% interest." Early Soviet as the real or the imagined collectivization of the early
propaganda owed something to culprit responsible for industrial 1930s, The colossal toiler
the simpler and less artistic and consumer shortages. An emptying a full sack is backed
propaganda of imperial Russia; obese bureaucrat, clutching a by a field crew of harvesters
both display a similar huge official file, guards supplies bringing in more grain for
xenophobia and fanaticism. The of fruit and vegetables for threshing.
obsessed faces of Russian speculators, who are carrying off
soldiers going into attack for personal gain crates of goods
anticipate similar images on intended for the state supply
Soviet propaganda posters system. A huge spade, guided by
during World War II. The level a worker's boot, is poised ready
is incomparably
of artistry to uproot the bureaucrat. Posters
inferior to Soviet posters, like this were intended for
evidence of a low appreciation of display in public places and,
propaganda's potential for especially, factories and
influencing public sentiment. warehouses.
THE ART OF PROPAGANDA
Below Communist propaganda Far right top An appeal for Far right center "Where's my Bottom Porcelain commemora-
"
often adapted Russian folk art to increased metal production, this money? What's lor my family: 1
tive plates were very popular
immediate political themes, as in poster depicts a massive Soviet propaganda fought a propaganda items in the Soviet
this civil war Bolshevik ironworks, with the slogan never-ending campaign against Union during the 1920s. The rim
recruiting poster. The "More metal!" repeated three al( < "holism. The drunkard oi this one is inscribed "Long
conventions of peasant lacquer times in receding formation to fumbles for money, having live Soviet rule." The central
decoration are used to show a convey the echoing of the call already spent on drink everything motif combines the conventional
charge of the Red Cavalry through the metal labyrinth of intended for his family. The hammer and sickle emblem with
against the background of a the plant. The poster was huge bottle symbolizes the scale pliers, all set against a
burning town. printed in 40 000 copies. <>l the problem. background ollactones
farmland region of European Russia. The result was indeed every part of society.
a massive and unprecedented famine, deliberately Statistics originally prepared for Khrushchev
sustained from 1930 to 1932. The areas most and only recently published record that 3-75 mil-
affected were the Volga, Don and Kuban regions of lion people were sentenced for counter-revolution-
Russia proper, and also Ukraine, where the famine ary crimes in 1930-53, of whom nearly 800,000
was used to exterminate Ukrainian nationalism as were shot; but these figures cannot be verified.
well as the traditional peasantry. Half the membership of the Communist Party,
The human cost of collectivization and the about 1-2 million individuals, were purged, and a
Terror-Famine was immense. Recent estimates put large number of these died in the camps. With the
the "excess" deaths of the period 1926-39 at 3-5 fall of the police-chief Yezhov in the summer of
million, though some specialists go much higher. 1938 the terror eased somewhat.
food-processing and textile
industries. New rail links were
As a result numerous villages, towns and entire The dynamics and purpose of the Great Terror
made, mainly running west-east, regions were left uninhabited. The economic cost derived from Lenin's use of extensive political
while the long south north was also enormous. Agricultural production col- terror against all non-Communist opponents: the
rivers could carry the exchange
of raw materials and finished
lapsed both in terms of crops and livestock, culti- party had extended this in repeated internal
products between the vation contracted and food shortages intensified purges during the 1920s. In this sense, the Great
mineral-rich Arctic and the
nationally. Despite this, the Communists were tri- Terror and its purges were a logical extension of
newly developed manufacturing
regions. The threat from Hitler umphant: the peasantry were subjugated, and and sophisticated improvement on Leninist prece-
in the early1940s forced the rural desolation provided ideal building ground for dent. The party had deliberately cultivated
pace of economic growth east of
the Volga. Hundreds of factories
new collective farms. political paranoia concerning domestic and foreign
and associated new towns were Systematic terror during the 1930s was applied enemies, so public opinion accepted the fabricated
moved from western Russia to with equally devastating effect in the realm of charges of sabotage and conspiracy and willingly
the Urals, central Asia and parts
of Siberia, though most of Siberia
politics and government. The successive purges joined in wild denunciations rather than in protest-
remains sparsely inhabited. that culminated in the Great Terror of 1936-38 dis- ing against the excesses. Stalin's own purpose in
rupted the entire fabric of Soviet society and the launching the Great Terror was to rid the Commu-
Communist Party itself. The first purge trials nist order of all potential opposition to his sole
occurred in the autumn of 1930. Government control of it. Mass destruction of the hostile peas-
officials, technicians and economists were accused antry and massive bloodletting in the infrastruc-
of counterrevolutionary activity in league with ture were means to ideologically correct state
nonexistent subversive organizations. The accused building. But whatever further extremes of state
confessed to improbably fabricated charges and building Stalin may have envisaged, they were
were executed. The purpose of these early trials shelved with the advent of World War II.
was to create scapegoats for the inherent failures in
the industrial development provisions of the First Stalin and World War II
Five- Year Plan. The Soviet prelude to World War II did not pre-
The major purges began in 1934 and reached sage what followed. Stalin's foreign policy of the
their peak in 1936-38. The assassination in 1934 of late 1930s centered on increasingly close relations
Kirov, a prominent Politburo member, signaled the with Nazi Germany, culminating in the Nazi-Soviet
beginning of the Great Terror; the murder was Pact of 1939. This was effectively an alliance, for-
probably instigated by Stalin, fearful of Kirov's mulated as an agreement of nonaggression and neu-
popularity. There followed a wave of arrests in the trality, and linked with a trade treaty plus
upper levels of the party, including Kamenev and extensive exchange of raw materials and arma-
Zinovyev, two other Politburo members. They were ments. The pact also provided for the two powers
brought to court in 1936, in the first of the to carve up Eastern Europe between them.
great show trials. They were accused of sabotage Germany was thus free to overrun western Poland,
and state treachery, on the basis of a fabricated while the Soviet Union simultaneously took control
charge of international conspiracy, supposedly of eastern Poland and the Baltic states. Finland
designed to topple the Communist government and proved a failure for the Soviet Union. The tiny
replace it with a semicapitalist order; the conspira- country fought the much larger Red Army to a vir-
tors were allegedly supported by the German tual standstill during the Winter War of 1939 40,
government and led from exile by Trotsky. Kame- and the Soviets had to settle for limited territorial
nev and Zinovyev were condemned on this charge gains by way of a treaty. The Nazi-Soviet rapport
and executed. Purges then spread through all was broken only by Hitler's personal decision to
levels of the government and party, from the Krem- invade Russia.
lin to the most provincial level. These always The German invasion began on 22 June 1941.
involved fabricated accusations of sabotage and The attack was launched secretly, catching the Red
treacherous conspiracy, arrest and interrogation Army unprepared; what resistance it could offer
under torture and sentences of either execution or proved woefully inadequate. The Germans'
—
long-term penal labor with or without a staged advance was on a massive scale, and by November
trial. This mass terror was crowned with two their troops had captured the entire Ukraine and
further great show trials of leading Communists: of were threatening Moscow and Leningrad. Only
Pyatakov and Radek in 1937 and of Rykov and desperate rearguard action by the Red Army and
Bukharin in 1938. Another distinguished victim the early onset of a severe winter checked the
was Tukhachevsky, appointed one of the first five German steamroller. Three factors however
marshals of the Soviet Union in 1935 and shot three ensured that the Germans would not regain full
years later on charges of leading a military conspir- momentum. The first was the German policy
acy. The purges cut a swathe through the upper towards conquered populations. The Russian and
ranks of the Red Army and the professions, rang- Ukrainian populations of occupied areas mostly
ing from industrial managers to academics, and greeted the Germans as liberators from Communist
1KOM STALIN TO VI II SIN
rule.Nazi policy, however, classified all Slavs as Central Europe. The Tehran and Yalta conferences
subhuman, and the local population was subjected agreed to an effective partition of Europe between
to atrocities and forced labor conscription little the Allies, with the Soviets given administrative
different from that meted out by the Communists. control over the eastern parts, on the understand-
Popular sentiment, in desperation, shifted back to ing that they would supervise free elections allow-
its own kind and national patriotism was rekin- ing each country to determine its destiny. In fact,
dled. The second factor was Allied lend-lease, the Soviets used local Communist parties either to
which gave the Soviets massive supplies of military manipulate elections or to seize power when elec-
World War II. technology and munitions which the Red Army tion results went against them. By 1948 almost all
In June 1941 Hitler reneged on lacked and which the Soviet war industry could Eastern Europe (except Greece and Finland) was
the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 and
invaded Russia. The Red Army, not at first manufacture sufficiently. This meant under Communist governments loyal to Moscow,
still recovering from Stalin's that the Red Army was fully resupplied soon after and the Soviet Union had extended its domain over
purges and from a costly war
the initial debacle and the Soviet war industry half of Europe. World War II thus left the Soviet
with Finland, was
underequipped to offer any given breathing space to gear up to full produc- Union more powerful than before, with a better
effective resistance. The German tion.The third factor was Stalin's own leadership. industrial base, and with Stalin enjoying an unpre-
forces advanced relentlessly: by
December they had marched
He had not at all expected the German attack, and cedented popularity and total power.
through the territories of eastern suffered a short nervous collapse when it Immediately the war ended, Stalin reimposed
Poland and the Baltic states, happened. Recovering quickly, he assumed the upon the Soviet Union a rule as rigid and coercive
assigned to Russia under the
1939 pact, had captured the
posts of commander-in-chief and head of the war as any during the 1930s, but with major new inno-
entire Ukraine and were on the effort. In these roles, he proved a most able wartime vations geared to the conditions of the time. Under
outskirts of Moscow and
leader, choosing good subordinates and delegating the repatriation policy agreed by the Allies, Soviet
Leningrad. Many Russians and
Ukrainians greeted the Germans effectively, analyzing situations astutely and mak- prisoners of war and civilian forced labor held in
as liberators from Communism ing decisions which subsequent events mostly Germany were all repatriated, all declared traitors
until they were pressed into
hard labor to service the German
proved right. and mostly shipped directly to distant concen-
war effort. Many others fled or Stalin sensed that old-fashioned nationalistic tration camps. Large numbers of Russians and
were moved en masse eastwards. patriotism, as opposed to Communist principles, Ukrainians, who had either fought against the
Late in 1941 the German advance
slowed, and blitzkrieg became a
would inspire the Russian people to a united Communists during the war or had resided as
war of attrition: Leningrad was defense of their homeland. Many traditional Rus- emigres in Europe since the revolution, were for-
besieged for two-and-a-half sian institutions, previously suppressed, were now cibly repatriated by the Americans and British into
years.
Military aid from the Allies reintroduced; the Russian Orthodox Church, Soviet hands. Many of these were either executed
was channeled via the Arctic heavily repressed since the revolution, was or incarcerated in concentration camps. Well over
and the Persian Gulf, and slowly
permitted a partial revival. Stalin astutely dubbed two million people were repatriated in this way.
the tide began to turn. The
German thrust eastwards was the war as "the Second Great Fatherland War" For Stalin, this was a great security coup, cauter-
resisted, then repelled, at (rather than World War II), invoking the precedent izing the nation of Western impressions and exter-
Stalingrad in late 1942. The last
of Russia's resistance to the Napoleonic invasion of minating many representatives of the non-
major German assault, around
Kursk, was defeated the 1812. The result was a massive wave of popular Communist Russian tradition surviving in the
following summer. Thereafter an patriotism. emigration.
inexorable German retreat was
enforced until the Russians
The Soviet Union was revived and rearmed, pre- Another concern was to check the modest
captured Berlin itself in 1945. senting the Germans with severe opposition in the measure of initiative and independence which the
The war was won at enormous Russians, and especially the educated elite, had
east at the same time as the Allies were registering
cost to Russia: up to 20 million
lives were lost and huge their first successes in the west. The need to fight a developed in wartime conditions. To this end,
industrial and agricultural multifront war sapped German capacity in Russia, Stalin authorized a new campaign of purges, plac-
resources destroyed.
which was also handicapped by Hitler's inept ing this under the direction of Andrey Zhdanov.
decisions. The farthest German thrust reached Launched in 1946, these purges targeted the world
Stalingrad on the Volga in mid-1942, with disas- of the arts, the theater, academics and the creative
trous consequences. Thereafter the German armies professions. The aim was to root out "cosmopoli-
were in steady, if slow, retreat before the Red tanism," seen as any hint of disposition towards
Army, whose capture of Berlin in May 1945 contemporary European culture. Zhdanov died in
brought the war to a close. Its cost to the Soviet 1948, but the campaign continued, extending
Union was huge. About seven million Russians deeper into academe to include such specialized
were killed in battle, while the total mortality may disciplines as linguistics, archaeology and theoreti-
have reached 20 million. Industrial and agricultural cal natural sciences. Simultaneously, Stalin built on
destruction was also catastrophic. In two important the rekindled Russian patriotism to create a fabri-
respects, however, the benefits of victory out- cated history of scientific achievement that would
weighed the costs. fire nationalist sentiment into chauvinistic p;ide.
First,the Soviet Union acquired a really modern The fabricated history presented Russia as a nation
industrial base in the form of German industry of great inventors during the 18th and 19th
seized as assets and war reparations. A great many centuries, whose discoveries predated Western
German industrial plants, especially in Silesia, European ones; only the backwardness of pre-
were dismantled and shipped to Russia for reas- revolutionary Russia prevented exploitation of
sembly. A large number of German engineers, tech- those inventions. The conclusion was that the Rus-
nicians and industrial managers were taken as sians were brilliant enough to do without Western
prisoners to Russia to man the booty industry. Europe, and under Communist leadership their
Thus, the destruction of war cleared out much of brilliance would be fully realized.
the Soviet Union's ineffective industry, while the The nationalistic bunker mentality was well
spoils of war gave substantial, piecemeal suited to the expanding membership of the Com-
modernization. munist Party. The party, decimated by the purges
Second, the Soviet Union succeeded in extend- of the 1930s, had expanded its intake during the
ing its control over the countries of Eastern and war in order to broaden its base of support.
IKOM SI A1.IN K) VI I-IS1N
Between 1940 and 1947 membership doubled, but earlierwestern estimates of the numbers in camps
the quality oi newcomers, particularly in terms of were considerably higher. These numbers covered
education, was significantly lower than before. the full sweep of society: kulaks, intellectuals,
This was both bad and good: bad in the sense that engineers, technicians, scientists, professionals,
they needed training, good in the sense they were Communist Party members. The
scholars, officials,
malleable. The stjlmist precedent seemed safe with mortality rate in camps was high; many consider
such people. that the average lifespan was about two years. Few
he Soviel Union's postwar economic problems
I prisoners were actually released at the legal end of
win' severe. Heavy industry was in relatively good their sentences.
shape and growing, owing to the acquisition of Until 1930 the camp system was administered
German planl and expertise and the development directly by the NKVD (which succeeded the GPU
ol Soviel capacity in war-related production. Agri- and indirectly preceded the KGB). In that year a
culture, however, was ina parlous state, both Special Administration of Camps (Gulag for short)
because much
of the war was fought in the farming was established what was effectively a
to control
anas and because the peasantry was demographi- separate administrative region. The camps were
cally crippled due to government policies of the located primarily in the north of European Russia,
1930s. All other sectors of the economy were also Siberia, Central Asia and the Far East. Living
precarious. Stalin addressed these problems by conditions were deliberately kept primitive and
reimposing the planned economy with a degree of brutal, prisoners were treated inhumanely and
severity as great as during the 1930s. The first deprived of all rights and food rations were fixed
postwar five-year plan was launched in 1946: it set at starvation levels. Most people were quickly
unachievably high industrial production targets, broken, in body or spirit or both, and reduced to
coupled with severe restrictions and penalties subhuman level before perishing.
upon the work force, and aimed to reform agricul- Politically, the camps served to break whatever
ture by merging collective farms into much greater real or imagined opposition the Soviet government Above A relaxed, informal
agro-industrial complexes. Results were to show could perceive and to isolate opponents from the meeting between Stalin and
Churchill at Yalta reveals the
that the plan was unrealistic. rest of society. Economically, the camps proved of human side of Stalin's
A second wave of emigration followed World great value as a large and constantly replenished personality. Quick and astute
mentally, he could be humorous
War II, and consisted of Russians and many other supply of slave labor. The heavy industry in the
and charming at will. His smile
Soviet nationalities variously determined to escape Urals and the major transportation systems in the atsuch moments was famous,
the Soviet Union. In general, these were people of Russian north created during the 1930s were all and was repeatedly depicted by
both official portraiture and
lower education and standing than the first wave, built with work forces from the camps. The camp
Western cartoonists. The latter
but with few romantic delusions about the realities population was assigned primarily to heavy con- saw behind its immediate
of Communism. Many had been victims of struction work —underground and surface mining, beneficence a sharp cunning,
such as a tough antireligious policy that closed Events, which appeared from 1968 onwards. Also isclear upon Nixon, who is left
with no choice but to listen
down nearly half the operational Orthodox in 1968, the dissidents initiated regular contact mutely. The entourage includes
churches. But the period saw the demise of totali- with Western journalists in Moscow. In so doing, the youngish Leonid Brezhnev,
tarianism —
at least in the strict, Stalinist sense —
an the dissidents exposed themselves to another second from the right. In the
early 1970s he and Nixon, both
event whose psychological jolt to the Soviet system severe provision of the criminal code, which by then presidents, were to
cannot be overestimated. defined as subversion any link with the Western pursue a more substantial
attempt at detente.
media which was detrimental to the officially pro-
Politics and society in theBrezhnev years jected image of the Soviet Union.
Leonid Brezhnev came to power as the leader of a The dissident movement was formed of many
conservative reaction against Khrushchev's policy strands, chief of which were: a Leninist revivalism,
of de-Stalinization and his attempts to weaken the which argued for a return to the supposedly pure
official bureaucracy. The bureaucracy was politi- form of Communism that had existed in Lenin's
cally strongly pro-Stalin and socially hostile to time; a humanistic liberalism predicated on non-
Khrushchev's populist attempts to create social ideological politics; and a Russian nationalism
homogeneity. Brezhnev himself believed that an linked to pre-revolutionary Russian culture and
iron discipline needed to be reimposed on the the Orthodox Church. In addition, strongly natio-
country and viewed social critics as political nalist dissident movements existed in most
deviants and renegades. Khrushchev's liberal- republics, with the strongest in Ukraine; there
ization policies were replaced by a sustained and were also fundamentalist religious movements,
systematicpersecution of the people of the such as Baptists and Pentecostalists. The Jews
"Thaw," beginning with the arrest in 1965 of formed a distinctive movement, concerned primar-
Andrey Sinyavsky and Yuly Daniel, two writers ily with the right of Soviet Jews to emigrate to
who had published pseudonymously in the West. Israel. There was close cooperation and liaison
In 1966 the authorities staged a show trial, the first between the various groups, creating an integrated
since Stalin's time, where the authors were con- if varied movement of opposition.
victed of "anti-Soviet propaganda." This charge, Intense Western interest in the dissidents frus-
taken from the criminal code and previously not trated Soviet attempts to solve the problem with
used against intellectuals, was thereafter used fre- traditional Stalinist methods. Indirectly, it also
quently against dissidents. The criminal code was seems to have defused a movement within the
extended, also in 1966, to cover "violations of Soviet bureaucracy towards a full rehabilitation of
public order," a clause also to be used extensively Stalin. However, the crushing of dissent remained
against the dissidents —
as they came to be called. a top priority, and in 1972 the government
n 1966-67 a wave of show trials swept the launched a new and more effective campaign of
country, with major ones in Moscow, Leningrad (St repression, based on different methods for break-
FROM STALIN TO 1
ing up the dissident movement, whose success entrenched bureaucracy, combined with reformist
until then relied on good internal organization and momentum aimed at industrial modernization to be
communication. The campaign was planned by the achieved with only logistical administrative
KGB chief Yury Andropov, who was elected to full changes.
Politburo membership in 1972 and in due course The the Brezhnev era was
political stability of
followed Brezhnev as head of state. Dissidents were achieved the cost of social stratification and stag-
at
subject to intense and overt personal surveillance nation. The upper elite within the bureaucracy
by the KGB, whose methods included intimidation attained a position of unprecedented influence and
and physical violence directed against individuals, privilege. Known as the nomenklatura (the list of
their families and associates. Simultaneously, they nominees), it remained effectively a political and
were encouraged to emigrate, often after the com- social oligarchy, living separate from the rest of the
pletion of a jail term resulting from a staged trial. population and enjoying luxuries and privileges
One method of separating and isolating dissidents unavailable to others. Their total number in 1970
was internal exile to provincial towns, where was slightly over 400 000, or 0-35 percent of the
detainees lived under blanket surveillance. total population. The other social groups favored
Another was to expel people from their jobs while under "developed socialism" were the military and
ensuring that they would be unable to find the technical intelligentsia, the latter only so long
another; then they could be accused of "parasit- as its political loyalty was absolute and actively
ism," a jailable offense. Finallv, dissidents were demonstrated. The rest of the population was in
subjected to the old practice of long sentences to contrast restricted.
hard labor in the camps of Gulag. The Brezhnev years saw an intensification of
An ominous new method of repression was pio- existing restrictions on social and geographic
neered by the KGB in the early 1970s: the use of mobility. The system of internal passports and liv-
mental hospitals to imprison dissidents. Fabricated ing permits, introduced by Stalin during the 1930s,
diagnoses were used to certifv dissidents as insane: was made more rigid. People were more tied than
the victims were then isolated in mental hospitals before to their original place of residence or to their
and treated with mind-altering or physically debi- work, so that moving to major urban areas, above
litating drugs. This method bypassed the legal all to Moscow, Leningrad (St Petersburg) and Kiev
system: no term of sentence was imposed and the (Kyyiv), became increasingly difficult. The major
prisoner could be detained indefinitely. Soviet centers were always magnets to the population, pri-
>VIET UNION '
psychiatry was internationally ostracized for com- marilv because they were much better supplied
plicity in such repression and in 1983 was forced to with food than elsewhere, but also because they
withdraw from the World Psvchiatric Association. provided the few opportunities for job mobility
Bv the end of the 1970s the dissident movement available. The severest restrictions were imposed
was reduced and fragmented; its members either on the agricultural workers on collective farms,
isolated in internal exile, or terrorized into passiv- who were deprived of all right of unsupervised
itv or public recantation. By far the greatest num- movement.
ber, however, were incarcerated in prisons and The leaders of the Soviet economy knew already
camps or assigned to penal labor elsewhere; the for- in 1965 that development prospects were ominous.
mer numbered at least three million and the latter Agriculture was the major problem area. Organiza-
two million. These especially included nationalist tional and administrative innovations were intro-
and religious dissidents, such as Valentin Moroz duced by Aleksey Kosvgin, Brezhnev's virtual
among the Ukrainians and Anatolv Sharansky co-ruler in the late 1960s; these failed to produce
among the Jews. The dissident movement and the results, due in part to their limited scope, in part to
government's reaction illustrated two salient bureaucratic opposition. The Kosvgin approach
points. First, it showed the resilience and variety of was abandoned in the wake of the Prague Spring of
opposition to doctrinaire Communism that sur- 1968; the government never attempted any innova-
vived in the Soviet Union through decades of Stal- tive reform, however mild, thereafter. Food pro-
Above This poster illustrates the inist repression and extermination, and which had duction and agricultural development declined
new replacing the old in Moscow
manifested itself quickly under Khrushchev's sharply in the late 1960s.
during the Stalinist period. The
building being erected is one of "Thaw." Second, it showed that the Communist In contrast, sustained heavy investment in mili-
the ornate skycrapers scattered practice of governing continued to rely on repres- tary production allowed the Soviet Union to
around the periphery of central
Moscow sion, ingenious new methods of which could be expand and modernize its armed forces on a mas-
to create a grandiose,
thrusting horizon for the city. invented in changing times. sive scale, achieving superpower parity with the
The skyscrapers were The forces that deposed Khrushchev were United States by the early 1970s. The military
surmounted with pinnacles in a
style partly classical and partly guided by three main concerns: to reestablish the simultaneously gained much higher influence than
17th-century Russian. preeminence of the entrenched bureaucracv in before within the government and the Communist
government and within the Communist Party; to Party. The increased military might of the Soviet
pursue administrative efficiency within the frame- Union became a major factor in Soviet foreign
work of administrative stability; to rationalize and policy, with important domestic implications too.
make permanent the responsibilities of officialdom. Within the Soviet sphere of influence, the practice
The domestic policies pursued by Brezhnev were of military intervention was revived along lines
formulated primarilv to ensure stability by appeas- followed during the 1950s. Dubbed the "Brezhnev
ing the vested interests of the bureaucracy and doctrine," it began with the Warsaw Pact invasion
other entrenched interest groups such as the mili- of Czechoslovakia in 1968. The object was to crush
tary, and to justify this conservatism, Brezhnev the social and economic experiments launched by
developed the ideological doctrine of "developed Dubcek's innovative brand of Communism. The
socialism" to describe the time and to guide policy lesson, both for the East European Communist
In practice, it meant a conservative deference to the states and for the Khrushchev liberals and dissi-
I-KOM STALIN TO YHLTSIN
dents at home, was that any deviation from Shortly before Brezhnev's death, sharp criticism
conservative doctrinaire Communism would be of his leadership began appearing among younger
suppressed. The "Brezhnev doctrine" was also Soviet economists. Their general view was that the
used to justify the intervention in Afghanistan in traditional, centralized mechanisms of planned
1980. economy were too rigid to generate the required
On the international scene, Soviet military might results and were beyond hope of improvement. By
was put to diplomatic rather than operational use implication, they hinted that the bureaucratic sta-
in the detente process of the early 1970s. Detente bility cultivated by Brezhnev was antithetical to
was devised by Brezhnev to encourage economic the country's need of economic development. In a
cooperation with the West, in order to accelerate few years, with Gorbachev in power, such critics
internal Soviet modernization by the acquisition of were to be drawn into the state's attempt to reform
Western technology and expertise. The diplomatic fundamentally its ailing economy.
incentive offered was arms limitation talks.
Western willingness to pursue detente on this basis The 1980s: from conservatism to change
brought the Soviet Union considerable technologi- Brezhnev's two immediate successors were in a
cal benefits at small military cost. Conservative similar mold, old men dedicated to the perpetu-
Soviet instincts, however, undermined detente. ation of the established order, suppression of dis-
The process ended in 1975 when the Americans sent and cautious experiment aimed at improving
insisted on linking further economic cooperation the efficiency of the system. The first was Yury
with human rights in the form of freer emigration Andropov, who mastermined the crushing of the
for Soviet Jews. 1956 Hungarian uprising. Andropov intensified
A third wave of emigration occurred in the state repression of dissidents and religion, while at
1970s, largely in connection with the process of the same time cultivating an appearance of
detente. These were mainly urban members of the personal liberalism designed largely for the
educated and professional elite, born and raised in Western media. With its ex-chief as the country's
the Communist system. The majority were Soviet leader, the KGB attained higher status and
Jews who settled either in Israel or America. The influence than ever before. Economic and agricul-
Russians included leading dissidents, such as Alex- tural production continued to decline. There was
ander Solzhenitsyn and Iosif Brodsky both of — half-hearted talk of economic reform, and while
whom settled in the United States Andrei — Andropov himself was probably the first Soviet
Almarik, Vladimir Maksimov and Vladimir leader to recognize the depth of the economic crisis
Bukovsky. The third wave has been extremely pro- and the need for change, he was already ill and
ductive in literary terms, with political and polemi- lacked the authority to carry his ideas through. He
cal writings being the favored genres. Their died in early 1984, only 14 months after assuming Massive orchestrated ceremonies
marked every anniversary of the
in-depth personal accounts and first-hand analyses power. revolution, which was the Soviet
of conditions in the Soviet Union gained much Andropov's protege for the leadership was Mik- Union's most important national
greater circulation in the Western press than the hail Gorbachev, a youngish senior bureaucrat holiday. The 70th anniversary
in 1987 was especially important.
writings of the preceding waves. The full-scale and whose background was in provincial administra- The scene shows massed
pervasive habit of Soviet human rights violations, tion. But the Communist Party leadership chose contingents with banners lined
up at the end of Moscow's Red
from the Gulag of the 1940s to psychiatric abuse of instead Konstantin Chernenko, a frail and anony-
Square, ready for a march-past
the 1970s, became widely known in the West from mous leader who had been deputy both to Brezh- before the government leaders'
their writings. nev and Andropov. His year in office was marked review tribunal atop Lenin's
mausoleum. The photo is taken
At home the civilian economy was catered for in by conflict within the leadership and all thought of from near the foot of the
a new five-year plan launched in 1971. Its main reform was frozen. When he died in March 1985, mausoleum. March-pasts of this
objective was to achieve faster growth in produc- there was again conflict over who should become kind included civilian
contingents and military units,
tion of consumer goods than in industrial produc- general secretary. This time, Gorbachev emerged often displaying up-to-date
tion. The plan failed in all its objectives,with the victorious, but only by the slimmest of margins. weaponry.
greatest shortfall in food production and consumer His elevation appears to have been assisted by
goods supply. The advent and conclusion of the Andrey Gromyko, the Soviet Union's veteran
plan were marked with mass food riots against bad foreign minister, who was subsequently rewarded
working conditions and poor housing in nearly a with the post of state president (until 1989).
dozen major Soviet cities. These were forcibly bro- Gromyko's removal from the foreign ministry
ken up, and attempts to establish independent also freed Gorbachev to start reformulating Soviet
trade unions in 1977 and 1978 were extinguished foreign policy and correcting some of the political
by the KGB. The Soviet Union was reduced to errors of the Brezhnev era which had been so
importing grain from the United States. costly to the Soviet Union's reputation abroad. In
Towards the end of Brezhnev's reign it looked as particular, he announced Moscow's intention of
if "developed socialism" had succeeded politically, withdrawing troops from Afghanistan if a satisfac-
by instilling continuity and stability in the appara- tory agreement could be achieved. This was
tus of government, but economically it had proved reached in April 1988, and the troop withdrawal
a total failure. Disregarding the evidence, Brezhnev was completed on schedule in February 1989.
continued to declare success after spectral success Gorbachev also embarked on restoring relations
in the Soviet economy. The bureaucracy, comfort- with the United States. Under Andropov the
able in its power and privilege, provided him with relationship had reached its coolest point since the
bedrock support. This support was, however, aging cold war over the question of NATO's plans to
with its leader. The average age of Politburo mem- deploy new medium-range nuclear missiles in
bers rose from 55 to 68 during Brezhnev's time, and Western Europe. The superpower thaw led to a
nearly half the members of the 1966 Politburo were series of summit meetings inaugurated in Geneva in
still therein 1981. November 1985. Gorbachev also showed that his
—
FROM STALIN TO YELTSIN
interests went beyond the establishment of an a means of winning intellectual opinion over to his
equal relationship with the United States. While side —
enjoyed greater success. In Moscow, Len-
negotiating with President Reagan, he also speeded ingrad (St Petersburg) and other Soviet cities infor-
up the Soviet rapprochement with China, attempt- mal groups sprang up representing diverse
ing to bridge the political and ideological schism interests, including those of different ethnic groups
which nearly led to war in the early 1960s. The and environmentalists. Stalinism was bitterly
resumption of full party-to-party relations was attacked and many prominent purge victims,
sealed in May 1989 when Gorbachev traveled to including the Bolshevik theorist Bukharin, were
Left A Moscow commuter Beijing for the first Sino-Soviet summit for 30 years rehabilitated by the Party leadership.
studies Mikhail Gorbachev's human
(involuntarily instigating student antigovernment In rights, too, Gorbachev showed a more
Perestroika: New Thinking for
Our Country and the World. demonstrations there). liberal face than his predecessors. The numbers of
Gorbachev showed himself In domestic policy, Gorbachev began cautiously. Jews and ethnic Germans permitted to emigrate
willing to gamble with his
His first two big set-piece occasions, the 26th rose sharply; individuals who had become symbols
popularity; one of his first
measures 'in 1985-86 was to Communist Party Congress in February 1986 and of the 1970s dissident movement, such as the Jew-
restrict the availability of the 70th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution ish campaigner Anatoly Shcharansky and the
alcohol and to launch a
campaign against corruption.
in November 1987, disappointed those who nuclear physicist Andrey Sakharov, were released,
believed that he was a radical reformer in that they as were many of those imprisoned for political and
produced no radical blueprint for change. Only at religious offenses. Regulations were introduced to
the Central Committee plenum of June 1987 did he attempt to outlaw psychiatric abuse.
give a glimpse of the changes to come, announcing In a reversal of previous Soviet policy, the
a comprehensive program of decentralization for Gorbachev leadership also made overtures to
industry and removing from the leadership the prominent members of the emigration, especially
more outspoken members of the old guard. There- those cultural figures who had left the country
after he more than made up for his initial caution during the Brezhnev years. As a result, a number
and introduced into the Soviet and Western voca- including the ballet dancers Rudolf Nureyev and
bulary two Russian words which were to become Natalva Makarova, the stage director Yury Lvubi-
shorthand for his policies: perestroika and glasnost. mov and the writer Andrev Sinyavsky were —
Perestroika referred to his program to reform the permitted to return on visits. It also became easier
Soviet economy, increase efficiency and improve for artists, musicians and indeed ordinary citizens
Soviet living standards. Glasnost referred to the to travel and work abroad.
opening up of Soviet cultural life and the media, to One consequence of greater freedom of expres-
his plans to limit censorship and encourage freer sion was the resurgence of nationalist sentiment
discussion of political and cultural questions. He across the Soviet Union. The dismissal of the
also argued for the introduction of greater demo- Kazakh party leader in 1986 led to rioting in the
cracy into Soviet society, including the principle Kazakh capital, Alma-Ata (Almaty). In 1988 old
that more than one candidate should contest each hostilities revived in violence in the Caucasian
party and government election. republics of Armenia and Azerbaijan; in the Baltic
The reasons for Gorbachev's apparent change of states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, popular
heart are uncertain: it may have been the accident front organizations, which had been encouraged by
at Chornobyl' nuclear power station in April 1986, the authorities as a controlled outlet for nationalist
which opened the eyes of the leadership to the feeling, called for independence from Moscow.
dangers of secrecy and dishonesty. It may have Simmering nationalism also gave rise to nationalist
reflected the leadership's gradual realization of and anti-Soviet demonstrations in Belarus,
how far the Soviet Union lagged behind not only Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia, with people
the developed world, but even some of the deve- demanding the right to use their native language
loping countries of Asia, and the scale of its and preserve their culture.
economic stagnation. Or it may have reflected Gor- These pressures were to be among the most pow-
bachev's steady gain in authority over opponents. erful ingredients in the complex of forces that
Whatever the explanation, late 1987 and 1988 would eventually cause Gorbachev's downfall
saw Gorbachev embrace the need for political particularly since they were matched by a new
reform in parallel with economic reform and mount spirit of self-assertive independence in the former
a swingeing attack on the Brezhnev era as the "satellite" countries of Eastern Europe. With star-
"period of stagnation." At a special Communist tling suddenness (and little social upheaval) Com-
Party conference in June 1988, he introduced new munist governments were forced from, or simply
constitutional mechanisms providing for elections withdrew from, office during the latter part or 1989
to a new Congress of People's Deputies and a new- in Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany
style Supreme Soviet, or parliament, designed to Bulgaria, Romania and a little later Albania. The
give more people an interest in government and Soviet Union did nothing to help them survive,
stem widespread disaffection. The hallmarks of and in consequence the Warsaw Pact ceased to
Gorbachev's economic reform program included exist.
self-financing for factories, permission for indi- Meanwhile parliamentary processes began in
viduals to start cooperative enterprises in produc- Moscow and were avidly followed on television
tion and service sectors and permission for and radio by the mass of the population, who
peasants and collective farmers to lease their land. seemed to find little difficulty in adapting to a
There was also a drive to improve long-neglected spirit of democracy. In the early stages there was
welfare and medical provisions. complete freedom of debate but no effective new
While economic reform was impeded by wide- political parties. Public figures called more and
spread bureaucratic and ideological opposition, more insistently for a radical rethinking of the eco-
—
Gorbachev's advocacy of glasnost widely seen as nomic policy (e.g. through the shock therapy of the
FROM STALIN TO
so-called "Shatalin plan") rather than a mere tin- ingly; the eruption of ethnic tensions in many parts
kering with discredited Soviet methods: proposals of the old USSR. In the aftermath, the "stagnation"
that put in question the entire Party and bureau- under Brezhnev began to seem a "golden age" of
cratic nomenklatura systems. stability and rising middle-class living standards.
Gorbachev himself, evidently in sympathy with
the spirit of freedom he had so dramatically con- The arts from Socialist Realism to the 1990s
jured up, but alarmed by the possibilities of chaos, The ending of NEP, the inauguration of the five-
seemed for several months in 1990-91 to be look- year plans and the growing ascendancy of Stalin
ing for a lead —
while events overtook him. In the marked a change in mood in Soviet cultural life. In
summer of 1990 the first price rises for a generation 1929 Anatoly Lunacharsky, the first commissar for
began a period that led within a year to galloping enlightenment (that is, minister of education and
inflation. At the same time, a "hard currency" the arts) resigned; a cultivated and benign figure,
economy was operating beside, and eclipsing, the he had been appointed by Lenin to gain the confi-
rouble economy- Stories of both an organized and dence of the intellectuals and had himself been a
an opportunistic crime-wave alarmed the inhabi- Symbolist playwright. The 1930s began with the
tants of the big cities. The conservative forces that undisputed dominance of the "proletarian" organ-
dreaded the breakup of the Soviet Union most — izations, RAPP in literature and AKHRR in art. In
eloquently represented in parliament by the Lat- 1932 however the Central Committee unexpectedly
vian Colonel Viktor Alksnis -evidently gained issued a decree banning all literary and artistic
some sway over policy early in 1991. Half-hearted groupings, including the proletarians. To those
repressive measures in Lithuania and Georgia were who wanted simply to get on with their work,
(as usual in such cases) counter-productive. Before without propagandist commitment, this seemed to
the year was out both — together with the other offer welcome relief.
—
Union Republics were to be independent: in It soon became clear that the arts were to exist
Lithuania, against the wishes of its Polish minority; under a much tougher regime, with continual
in Georgia, with civil strife in Abkhazia, Ossetia scrutiny and far-reaching censorship. From 1934 a
and in the streets of Tbilisi itself. single artistic method was promulgated, known as
In Russia, the tough populist Boris Yeltsin, a Socialist Realism. Three abstract, scarcely translat-
reformer more ready than Gorbachev to move able principles underpinned it: ideynost (presence
against the Party, was elected President after a close of identifiable ideas), partiynost (agreement with
ballot. The conservative forces realized that time Communist Party principles) and narodnost
was running out. In August 1991 a motley alliance (popular spirit). What Socialist Realism meant in
of old guard politicians (including the deputy pres- practice is not always easy to see; it has been cyni-
ident, Aleksandr Yakovlev) took advantage of Gor- cally defined as "praise of the leaders in terms they
bachev's summer absence in the Crimea to mount a can understand."
coup d'etat.The plotters appeared to have little Real talents continued to flourish, even to
positive policy and made no attempt to appeal to emerge. The novel revived, with Mikhail Sholo-
Communist principles. Their precautionary mea- khov (1905-84) undoubtedly its best exponent:
sures were so defective that Yeltsin was able to The Quiet Don (1928-40) represents an authenti-
voice his defiance, and that of the Russian parlia- cally epic treatment (from a Cossack viewpoint) of
ment, to the world's assembled media in the heart the civil war period. In poetry, Pasternak for a few
of Moscow —while the bulk of the population years became almost the Soviet poet laureate.
looked on to see what would happen. The putsch Music saw the brilliant rise of Dmitriy Shosta-
collapsed ignominiously within three days, and kovich (1906-75). The most abstract of the arts,
Gorbachev returned to office: it was soon clear music was naturally the hardest to define in Social-
however that central power was ebbing away to the ist Realist terms (though it was clear that melo-
Republics. In December 1991 Russia, Ukraine and diousness was required); it suffered considerably
Belarus simply sidestepped the Soviet Union by in the late 1940s, when virtually every composer of
setting up a loose "Commonwealth of Independent originality underwent harsh criticism. In the visual
States" — soon joined by all the Republics save the arts the revival of figuration delayed the impact of
Baltic states and Georgia; by the end of the month the new doctrine, with several artists, veterans as
Gorbachev had resigned, central institutions well as newer talents, doing inventive, sometimes
—
even the Communist Party were dismantled and exciting work. Theater and cinema retreated
the Soviet Union came to a quiet end. gradually into conventionality, without ever
For Russians it was curiously hard to draw up a becoming wholly uninteresting, but Meyerhold,
balance-sheet of these dramatic events. On the one bold and outspoken, was arrested and shot.
hand they could congratulate themselves on the In the traumas of 1937-38 the best thing writers
political maturity and good sense that had enabled or artists could do was to keep their heads down.
them to wind up the 70-year Soviet experiment Literary victims included Mandelshtam, Babel and
almost without bloodshed or social disruption, on the novelist Pilnyak; Zabolotsky was almost the
their strengthening the prospects for world peace only established writer to experience a prison-
by voluntarily renouncing "superpower" con- camp sentence and live to tell the tale. The 1941-45
frontationalism, on their magnanimity in letting war brought a slackening of controls, with real
subject peoples go their own way. But the other instead of imaginary enemies; some good poetry
side was grim: the acceptance of national humilia- was written. But further attacks on writers
tion (particularly for the once-proud army); eco- (notably Akhmatova and the satirical storywriter
nomic turmoil and, for many, impoverishment; the Mikhail Zoshchenko) in 1946-48 "froze" the situ-
realization that the market economy was no "quick ation until after Stalin's death. Aesopian language
x" and that the West would help out onlv grudg- or fantasy could sometimes be successfully
I ROM MAUN TO YELTSIN
could come and go freely, while travel abroad were famously fierce fighters, hindering Russian
became possible for ordinary citizens. Splendid as imperial expansion in the Caucasian area. Their
the prospects for Russian cultural life looked, how- present territory straddles the main road, railway
ever, they were clouded by the realization that and oil pipeline from Russia to the Caspian region.
most activities had been heavily subsidised by the At the dissolution of the Soviet Union the Chechen
Soviet system. Institutions and individuals alike leader, the wily ex-Soviet General Dudayev,
now faced a risky if exhilarating future in the mar- claimed full independence. Protracted negotia-
ket-place. tions, clumsily handled, got nowhere, and led
eventually to a fullscale Russian military assault on
Politics and Society since 1991 Grozny, the capital. Dudayev was killed, but the
In the half dozen years between the dissolution insurgents could not be defeated, and eventually
of the Soviet Union and the time of writing there the tough General Lebed settled for terms that left
has been greater stability in the territories of the Russia with no more than nominal sovereignty. The
former USSR than most commentators could have Chechen war was deeply unpopular in Russia itself,
dared expect, or hope. Boris Yeltsin survived fears and demonstrated the demorilization of its largely
for his health and considerable unpopularity to conscript army. The Russian authorities had feared
win the Russian Presidential election of 1996. The a knock-on effect from Chechnya among its many
old constituent Republics of the Union managed, other national groupings, but this did not fully
by and large, an effective transition to independent materialize: important autonomous areas such as
—
nationhood with civil strife erupting only in Tatarstan and Yakutia (Sakha) settled for a large
Georgia, Tajikistan and to a small degree in degree of self-government and economic control.
Moldova. The most serious inter-republic border The Russian parliament (duma), suspicious of the
dispute, between Armenia and Azerbaijan over precipitate reforms, quickly became alienated from
Nagorno-Karabakh, settled down into a de facto the president. Yeltsin responded in spectacular
ceasefire (advantageous to the Armenian claims). fashion, increasing his powers, demanding compli-
The dispute between Russians, Ukrainians and ance and in the autumn of 1993 (in a strange rever-
Tatars over Crimea did not descend into violence. sal of the events of two years before) actually
Apocalyptic Western European visions of the mass bombarding the "White House" in Moscow (seat of
invasion of its frontiers by millions of hunger- the duma) to get his way. Despite this monstrous
crazed Eastern refugees have not yet materialized. demarche, political culture in Russia made steady
It has nevertheless not been an easy time for progress. The 1996 election was conducted with
ordinary Russians and other former Soviet citizens. remarkable efficiency and fairness, with evident
The rouble was made convertible and the state public appreciation of the issues as well as person-
monopoly on economic power and land-ownership alities. For the reformed communists, whose presi-
slackened —
but all this proved to be at the cost of dential candidate was Gennady Zyuganov, this was
nightmarish inflation and the unaccustomed spec- clearly a crucial moment: he was defeated through
tacle of widespread unemployment. Both industrial the solidity of Moscow and St Petersburg for
productivity and the overall standard of living Yeltsin. General Lebed did well in the old north-
swiftly declined.The flimsiness, undercapitaliza- central heartland (e.g. Yaroslavl); the extreme
tion and inflexibility of the Soviet industrial nationist Vladimir Zhirinovsky made little impact.
achievement became apparent; so did serious eco- Despite governmental attempts to influence the
logical problems, notably concerning water sup- media, a vigorous and uninhibitedly free press
plies and the shrinking of the Aral Sea in Central remains characteristic of 1990s Russia. The other
Asia. "Rustbelt" and single-industry cities were former Union Republics have generally adhered to
especially vulnerable to the new circumstances, democratic processes (sometimes freely electing
while the possibility of major disasters involving former communists) — but some, in particular
nuclear power had been apparent ever since the Belarus (Belorussia) and Turkmenistan, have
notorious accident at Chornobyl' (1986), which entrusted their destiny to dictatorial strongmen.
itself had played a part in precipitating the Gorba- The CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States;
chov reforms. Public employees, from teachers to SNG in Russian) proved rather inert as a political
miners, were particularly hard hit not only by entity, though the continuing economic and cul-
inflation but by the tardy and irregular payment of tural interdependence of the Soviet Union's succes-
state salaries. Protection-rackets and similar orga- sor states provides a rationale for its existence.
nized criminal activities (loosely attributed to the In the second half of the 1990s Moscow, and to a
"Mafia" —
an imprecise term) moved in to take lesser extent St Peterburg, were clearly recovering
advantage of a general weakening in law enforce- from post-Soviet chaos and impoverishment. Both
ment and indeed of legal uncertainties. Privatiza- had vigorous elected mayors intent on giving them
tion (masterminded most notably by Yeltsin's a face-lift. The gap between capital and provinces
deputy premier Anatoly Chubais) made bumpy, in widened, however (though even remote places had
some respects over-hasty, progress; much priva- their share of "new Russians", grown suddenly
tized industry remained in the hands of the old rich in the wake of the economic reforms). Even as
nomenklatura. the vast bulk of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour
On the political front the most extended and (a replica of that demolished in the 1930s) was
traumatic crisis concerned Russia's relations with being rushed up for the 850th anniversary of
one of its own autonomous regions, Chechnya. A Moscow's foundation (1997), provincial restoration
small nation (under a million) on the northern flank work had almost come to a halt. Smallscale artistic,
of the Caucasus, the Chechens have loomed dispro- theatrical and publishing enterprise continued to
portionately large in the Russian imagination, if not flourish throughout Russia, nevertheless — a pledge
demonology, over the last 200 years or so: they of its apparently unconquerable vitality.
PART THREE
OF THE
FORMER SOVIET UNION
The Soviet Union inherited most of the territory of them: the many "autonomous republics" (ASSRs)
the former Russian Empire (less Poland and Finland). and "autonomous regions" (AOs) of the former
But unlike the Empire it was constitutionally a feder- Soviet Union had helped to preserve or foster a sense
—
ation of eventually —
fifteen separate republics, of national identity among ethnic groups too small to
each with its own governmental structures and theo- have a union republic.
retically able to secede from the Union. To most Special considerations apply to the transliterations
Western eyes this arrangement looked merely like a used in maps and text of this section of our volume:
typical bit of Stalinist window-dressing, and it came see last paragraph on p. 229 for full descriptive notes
as a surprise when political developments in the late on this subject.
SEA OF A
Dzhanl _ J
CRIMEA
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Feooosr/a
BELARUS, MOLDOVA
AND UKRAINE
Republic Belarus Moldova Ukraine These three republics, formerly the western border-
lands of the Soviet Union, are agriculturally fortu-
AREA 207 600 sq km 33 700 sq km 603 700 sq km
nate, with a less extreme continental climate and a
POPULATION 10-4m(est 1997) 44m (est 1997) 51 -4m (est 1997) better pattern of rainfall: much of Ukraine and
CAPITAL Minsk Chisinau (Kishinev) Kyyiv (Kiev) Moldova also has the benefit of fertile chernozem,
"black earth." In Belarus steppe gives way to the
POPULATION 1 671 000 753 500 1 895 000
poorer soils of the mixed forest. Where Ukraine and
OF CAPITAL (1997) (1991) (1996)
Belarus meet is a huge area of lakes, rivers, wood-
LANGUAGE Belarusian; also Moldovan, i.e. Ukrainian; Russian lands and swamps, known as the Polesye or Pripet
many Russian Romanian; Russian dominant in Crimea marshes which, since the disaster at the nuclear
speakers around R. Dnester Odessa and east of
power stations of Chornobyl' (Chernobyl) in 1986,
R. Dnieper
have sadly become severely polluted.
The Ukrainians and Belarusians are East Slavs,
who differentiated themselves from the Muscovite
Russians only from the later Middle Ages; they share
with the latter the heritage of Kievan Rus, of which
all three were integral parts. They shared too the
,
"= ^—
bttr •
X^J^-^!
ated from the Ottomans and incorporated into the
Russian empire as "Bessarabia" in the early 19th
century, but it was made part of Romania between
the two world wars. In the same period the newly
-^yy *
9 %^pMBi independent Polish state took back large parts of
western Ukraine and Belarus (all these territories
^^^^^^ S^^-^st— were thus spared the worst excesses of Stalinist terror
^H^JttSS V.
in the 1930s). After World War II the Soviet Union
mm^^^ ^^WIEfcTvy k.
^W^ moved its westward again to include
frontier all his-
^Stakhangy' luh^k
'
KostyanWtoka Komunars'k " ,
BELARUS, MOLDOVA AND UKRAINE
Belarus
Belarus (or "White Russia" —
the significance of the
name is uncertain) is a country of rolling plains and
ritory is forested and the numerous lakes and water- Moldova became the most densely populated,
ways are used to float timber to factories for the though the smallest, of all the former Soviet
manufacture of furniture and building materials. republics. The lack of mineral resources puts great
Sand is used to make silica bricks and glass. With the pressure on the land to sustain the economy, with the
pollution of much agricultural land, Belarus now majority engaged in highly intensive agriculture. For-
concentrates on the manufacture and export of agri- tunately, the fertile black earth covering gently
cultural machinery, such as tractors and trucks pro- rolling lowlands combines with probably the best cli-
duced at a major motor works at Minsk. mate for cultivation,making Moldova now a major
international producer and exporter of wine. The
benefits of long warm summers, mild winters and
moderate rainfall are supplemented by irrigation sys-
its industrial primacy in the face of competition from Left House decorating at Odesa.
Built in the neoclassical style of
cheaper and higher-grade resources in Siberia. The St Petersburg, Odesa enjoyed its
industrial heartland of the Donets-Dnieper basin with heyday as a free port in the first
its 400 or so coal mines and its huge deposits of iron half of the 19th century. It
suffered much damage after 1918
ore, manganese, salt and oil, is now one of the largest during the civil war and was
industrial complexes in the world, but towards the captured by the Germans in
end of the twentieth century was suffering from the World War II, but many older
buildings and quarters survive
effects of severe pollution. The steel plants, of which as reminders of its cosmopolitan
Kry vyy Rih is the main one, though no longer able to past.
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reputation. Fashion design, always enhanced by
access to Western media via Finland, feeds off a
Estonia sophisticated textile industry with its center at
Narva.
Ethnically, Estonians share a common descent with
Estonia's capital is (meaning "Danes'
Tallinn the Finns. Due to their past links with the Germans,
Town"), a nth-century Danish foundation and one who controlled a great deal of the territory up to
of the besl -preserved cities of the Hanseatic Commu- 1917, most are Lutheran (a characteristic which they
nity in the Baltic region. After perhaps a third of the share with the Letts from neighboring Latvia) with a
population had been lost during the German occupa- strong commitment to work and the family. In spite of
tion and the Stalinist purges, the farming community a land that is stony and damp —
though the climate is
was collectivized and a rigorous development plan less extreme than that of its neighbors further east
set in progress. Today Estonia is a highly industrial- farm production is high. The predominant dairy
ized economy. Despite the fact that it had to grapple industry exports 90 percent of its output to neigh-
with high inflation rates in the early 1990s it is now boring republics. The other main sources of wealth
the richest of all the former republics of the Soviet are centered in the north around the oil-shale
Union. deposits, which are put to a variety of uses: the gen-
The high standard of living attracted many ethnic eration of thermal electric power, conversion into gas
Russians to the region after World War II, and for factory and home consumption and the manufac-
nationalistic feelings have been fierce. Estonians con- ture of petrochemical and chemical products. Tex-
stituted only 60 percent of the population by the tiles, shipbuilding and precision engineering have all
1990s, and they have one of the lowest birthrates in prospered as a result.
the country. Their determination to preserve their Shops are well stocked, the people smartly dressed
cultural heritage was reflected in the reduction in and cosmopolitan, and cafes, restaurants and hotels
numbers using the Russian language during the are learning to cater to the developing tourist indus-
1970s and the country preserved a strong ethnic tra- try.Educational levels are high; Tartu (formerly Dor-
Below Sunbathers on a sandy
dition in its music and literature. Playwrights dared pat) has one of the great universities of Europe, beach near Tallinn. The Gulf of
to be more outspoken than those in Moscow or originating in a college founded by the Swedes in the Finland is a popular summer
Leningrad (St Petersburg). Modernist painters and 17th century; since World War II, this has made a holiday destination which, since
the collapse of Communism, is
musicians were attracted from other areas, and the unique contribution to Russian as well as Baltic intel- now being opened up to foreign
ballet and symphony orchestra established a strong lectual life. tourists.
— —
Latvia
Latvia, like Estonia, has come under the domination
of successive external powers: of the German knights
Left This phosphate mine at
in the 13th century, the Swedes in the 17th, then the
Maardu in Estonia is a symbol of Poles, until the Russians annexed the countrv at the
Estonia's industrial growth since
end of the 18th century. At this time large numbers
the collapse of Communism The
country is now the richest of all of Germans settled in the region; many came at the
the former republics and it invitation of Catherine the Great, and have left their
extensive deposits of high-
quality phosphorites are
mark on Latvian society through the predomination
contributing to this wealth. of the Lutheran church. At the turn of the century
Germans made up nearlv half the population, with
Below Folk dancing at a
students' Gaudeamus festival at onlv 23 percent Latvian (i.e. Letts).
Tallinn. The word "gaudeamus" Latvia remained part of the Russian empire up to
is Latin for "let us rejoice."
1919, after which it enjoyed, with the other Baltic
Estonians are particularly
attached to their rich heritage of republics, a period of independence until 1940. Dur-
folksong and to other traditional ing the Nazi occupation half a million Latvians lost
aspects of their culture which
their lives and almost the entire Jewish community
thev zealously maintain in the
face of what thev see as alien was wiped out.
Slav influences. Culturallv and Wholesale rebuilding of the economy was required
linguistically, their affinities are
with their northern neighbors,
after World War II, and an influx of labor from the
the Finns. Russian Federation, Ukraine and Belarus gradually
altered the ethnic composition of the population to
Below right The freedom
monument in Riga, capital of the extent that nearly a third were non-Latvian. Of
Latvia, dates from 1935. Latvia the present population 32 percent are ethnic Rus-
was independent in the period
sians and the question of their continuing citizenship
between the two world wars,
and Riga plaved an important of Latvia has become a contentious one since the
part in the Baltic independence demise of the Soviet Union. The Latvian language,
movement of the 1980s.
'
#^ m*
n
'
vr -- :
'
flife
-WE M^lH sophisticated, Tallinn retains a
disuiKth northern European
as opposed to Russian
£*^-l appearance and atmosphere. The
.-
n
^^^^^^msm .1
iiii
i Mi \m\
Ipi
Ij^SJHJ
Left ALatvian wooden windmill.
Much of Latvia's terrain is
marked by glaciation and the
soils are cold and waterlogged;
damp springs and summer
rainfall militate against crop
growing, and mixed forest, with
a high percentage of conifers,
covers large areas of the land.
Timber is therefore an important
TRANSCAUCASIA
Tsageno
/
BLACK SEA /
GEORGH
a
O Khrar
0.C
\
&.
X
'"--
Vardenis
a
X ARMENIA
31
.*
(1991)
1
(1994)
1
(1993)
—
Ottoman, Persian and Russian have all coveted the
region for its wealth and strategic location. A neck of
MAJOR LANGUAGE Armenian Georgian Azeri (a Turkic
land between the Caspian and Black seas, on the old
language); also
spice and silk routes, Transcaucasia links the
manv Russian
Mediterranean with Central Asia, the steppe country
speakers in Baku
with the Near East. This comparatively small region
has a cultural and artistic diversity reflecting both
. . i
exposure to numerous outside influences and the
tenacity of native traditions; within the three main
republics there are enclaves of other nationalities,
several of which are clamoring for autonomy.
The rich valleys and plains of Armenia and Geor-
gia are intensively cultivated. Their wines are now
becoming famous around the world. An ancient and
patriarchal way of life characterizes particularly the
high valleys of the Caucasus, where to this day there
isan amazing profusion of languages. To the west the
river systems drain down to the humid, subtropical
lowlands of ancient Colchis at the eastern tip of the
Black Sea; eastwards they flow through the arid
plains of Azerbaijan, with its far greater extremes of
climate and its need for extensive irrigation.
Below Two young men enjoy a Bottom A demonstration in Below Geotectonic activity
drink of kvass, bought from a Yerevan. Conscious pride in makes Armenia vulnerable to
Armenia's economy will take a 1820s after a successful war against Persia. The Rus-
long time to recover from the
sians soon realized the economic importance of the
severe damage to its
infrastructure. Azerbaijan Baku area, where the naturally occurring naphtha
had been known since ancient times; by the begin-
ning of the 20th century it had become the largest
Much of Azerbaijan, the largest of the Transcauca- oilfield in the world. Since the collapse of Commu-
sian republics, is scenicallv closer to Central Asia nism Western investment in Azerbaijan's oil has
than to Georgia or Armenia. Culturally, too, there are resulted in its export through two major pipelines
similarities, since its people are Islamic and it has for from Baku.
much of the last millennium been an arena where Industry in the environs of Baku a great Russian —
Turkic and Persian influences have struggled for as well as Azeri city —
built up around its oil produc-
supremacy. Since ancient times it has been strategi- tion during the Soviet era and attention has now
cally important, controlling the passage between the turned to exploitation of offshore reserves in the
end of the Caucasus and the Caspian Sea. The present Caspian Sea, which is now the largest oil field in the
Azerbaijanis are a Turkic people, hence relative new- world after the Middle East. Azerbaijan's major com-
comers to the Caucasian scene: nonetheless their cul- modity is cotton. Extensive irrigation schemes in the
ture crystallized (in the upland regions, including Kura lowlands provide a splash of green in an other-
Karabakh) well before the Mongol invasions, with wise largely semiarid environment. Breeding of
notable poets and singers. A little later the modern sheep, cattle, pigs and riding horses can be sup-
capital of Baku on the Caspian began to flourish ported on unirrigated steppes in winter; transhu-
under the khans of Shirvan, who built the surviving mance takes the animals to the adjoining
palace and citadel there (14th-15th centuries). high-altitude pastures in summer. The cultivation of
Though Persian influence, sometimes control, was fruit, tobacco, tea and vines that is common to Tran-
strong — with a preponderance of Shiite over Sunni scaucasia is also practiced, Azerbaijan's once
Muslims — the population remained aware of their renowned fisheries, along the Caspian coast, from
distinctive Azeri culture. Several local khanates came which top-quality caviar is obtained and exported
under Russian protection. The country was fully are under threat from pollution and uncontrolled
incorporated into the Russian empire in the late exploitation.
Georgia
Georgia, between the Greater and Lesser Caucasus, is
80 percent mountainous. Fast-flowing mountain
rivers provide huge energy resources for an economy
which is now
recovering after the hyperinflation of
the early 1990s. In Tbilisi, the capital, hot hydrogen
sulfide waters are tapped for their medicinal proper-
ties. The population has a reputation for longevity.
Kura rivers, north of the modern was the capital of the ancient
Georgian capital T'bilisi. Its kingdom of Georgia between the
location at the intersection of the 2nd and 5th centuries ad. Its fine
east-west route from the Caspian lth-century cathedral was
1
to the Black Sea and the formerly the seat of the primates
northward route through the of Georgia.
IKANSCAUCASIA
ian empire in the first decade of the 18th century. MAJOR LANGUAGE Russian; also a large number
The Russians' main direction pL expansion since the other languages
ARCTIC OCEAN
^•stcqca?-
o*
(
)
^ =~<nensk
orwwheati with
flowers and grazng physical characteristics ranging from the Scandin- ploitable through having large patches of permafrost
avian to the Asiatic. The basic distinction made was in its subsoil. Along the great rivers there are mead-
traditionally not between races but, medieval-fash- ows and some pockets of fertile land, notably around
ion, between Orthodox and non-Orthodox. Russia's the middle Lena, in Yakutia. For the sparse popula-
non-Russian and non-Orthodox peoples include tion the age-old occupations of fur-hunting, reindeer-
numerous relict populations of Finnic and Turko- herding and the growth industries of lumbering and
Tatar origin scattered across north-central and east- wood pulping offer employment.
ern Russia —
such as the Bashkirs the Buryat — These remote regions also have areas of great
Buddhists of southern Siberia, a far north-eastern and mineral wealth which are now attracting
gas, oil
unexpected Turkic "island" of Yakuts and a western investment. Under Stalin huge complexes of
kaleidoscope of peoples in the northern Caucasus. prison camps around such places as Vorkuta and
hghl or manulaciunng
Some, like the Chechen and Ingush Muslims have a Magadan attempted to exploit these resources,
tradition of fiercely resisting Russian and Soviet though inefficiently in economic terms as well as at
Rule, a resentment which boiled over into bloody vast human cost. The use of Siberia as a place of exile
civilwar in the 1990s. goes back to the 17th century, but became a major
Geographically Russia has three great regions: the phenomenon only in the 19th. It was opened up to
undulating plain of European Russia, the tangled full-scale settlement and industry with the construc-
mountainous eastern part of Siberia from the Lena tion of the Trans-Siberian Railroad (1893 1903).
River to the Pacific, and west-central Siberia, most of The metals and precious stones of the Urals, by
it very flat and lowlying. Additionally there are the contrast, have been known and exploited for
mountain barriers that close off Siberia to the south, centuries, although the main industrial development
and the less prominent but economically important of the southern Ural area did not take place until
range of the Urals separating Siberia from Europe. after 1917. Communications under the Soviet govern-
But the real contrast is between the coniferous for- ment were improved so that iron from the vast indus-
est — the vast taiga —
and everything else. It is so trial complex at Magnitogorsk could be smelted with
empty of habitation that the "Tunguska event" of coal from the Kuzbass (Kuznetsk basin) in middle
1908 — probably the result of a meteorite, destroying Siberia and Karaganda in Central Asia. The tendency
Right Winter festival at li
Kolomenskoye, on the banks of £ \ \
the Moskva River.
PMF 1
settlement pose in their home.
Although electricity has reached
this particular village, conditions
in the remote settlements in this
vast northern forest can still be
harsh and isolated for much of
the year, and domestic life
depends heavily upon the
pickled or preserved produce of
the short summer season.
v
•TiL*
Ij t
~ i |^H NJ^Q ••»• •
Right Hundreds of
part in a winter event at
skiers take : £pSht-.'^ ^p^^^
Murmansk. Cross-country skiing
is enormously popular.
te&m^m
.-
provide the easiest access to the
remote interior; in winter many
rivers freeze so solidly that they
can be used as roads. The taiga is
not entirely undifferentiated: the
height and closeness of its trees
vary, as does its composition (to
the west firs, to the east larches,
predominate).
SI
^rw8v»*V;
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iit 4M 5^/
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Moscow
State Art
Gallery
II
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^
Above The Moscow skyline in a
winter twilight is dominated by
the huge bulk of the government
offices on Smolensk Square, 26
stories or 171 meters high. Such
skyscrapers, erected during the
late Stalinist period on the
periphery of central Moscow,
are often facetiously called
"Stalinist Gothic."
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St Petersburg
Left The "Church on the Blood" against the Western European by the architect B.F Rastrelli.
1907), built on the site of neoclassical canons that had The Hermitage and subsequent
the assassination of Tsar dominated post-Petrine buildings were added to the
Alexander II. Designed by A. A. architecture. complex later, beginning with
Parland. this is a lone Catherine the Greats Small
ecclesiastical representative of Hermitage (1764-67). The
the so-called neonationalist style, buildings house one of the
which drew upon specifically world's greatest art collections,
Russian motifs and architectural started bv Catherine.
elements in deliberate reaction
it St Petersburg
Tajikistan Kvrgvzstan
143 100 sq km 198 500 sq km
60m (est 1997) 4-4m(est 1997)
A Dushanbe Bishkek
O 592 000 641 400
V 9as
(1991) (1991)
Hg mercury
PD
Sb --'.
Su sulfur
CINIKAL A.SIA
Mm
Kazakhstan ,y ^rSr 3
*'
Kazakhstan guards the western end of the pass
IH^^lmF % :
V "'
i '
" .
: i
high road into China, and its people are culturally
and linguistically close to the Uighurs of Xinjiang.
The bulk of the land is desert or semidesert, with an
extreme continental climate. Thus, the Kazakhs were
traditionally nomads (the name means "rider" in
Turkish) who herded sheep and horses from one
small rural settlement to another. Grouped into three vfs^^- "
% ^BMfr>
hordes, they dominated a vast tract of Central Asia.
IJ^Vrftv,-
In the 18th century they passed first under Russian
protection and then rule. The Russians set up forts in
this sparsely populated land and in the mid- 19th
^^^ • : -3 '
.
•
" : -
- -
* *4? i
century established the capital of Verny, now called Above Beehives in die Right Tashkent originated as an
mountainous region on the oasis on the Chirchik River,
Almaty ("Father of Apples"), notable for its earth-
southern fringes of Ka7akh«aan conveniently sited on a major
quake-proof wooden architecture. Between 1959 and trade route. Under the Russian
1970 the population increased by 40 percent with the Below left These children at empire it was developed as the
Kaskelen represent the second strongpoint of Turkestan.
immigration of large numbers of Russians, Ukraini-
generation of communities that Elements of its ancient past
ans and Belarusians (many other ethnic groups are grew up in the 1950s and 1960s remain in the bazaars, but much
also represented); despite some subsequent emigra- with the "Virgin Lands" project. of the city is thoroughly
Under this scheme, 35 million modern, with Western-style
tion, Kazakhs still make up scarcely half of the popu-
hectares of wild steppe, largely buildings like this "House of the
lation. In 1997 govenment offices were transferred in Kazakhstan, were turned over Press." Following the
from Almaty, the main centre of culture and popula- to the cultivation of wheat, with catastrophic earthquake of 1966,
mixed success. With the measures have been taken to
tion, to Aqmola (formerly Akmolinsk, Tselinograd) departure of many European design new buildings to
in the northern "Hungry Steppe". Russians in the 1990s, there has withstand seismic stress.
been a distinct shift over to the
During the Soviet era huge tracts of steppe in
study of Kazakh history, Below The Zeravshan mountains
northern Kazakhstan were brought into cultivation literature and culture in the in the southeast of Uzbekistan
of wheat under Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands" pro- where instruction is
schools, are the source of the Zeravshan
now given in Kazakh and not River which flows westwards to
ject. Strips of land along the southern Syr Darya and
Russian. irrigate the Samarkand area until
Chu rivers are irrigated for rice, tobacco, sugarbeet, it loses itself in the desert near
grapes and cereals. Further east, where the land the Amu Darya.
Uzbekistan
Between the Fergana basin and the Amu Darya
(Oxus) River lie most of the richest oases and ancient
cities of Central Asia. Here the western end of the
Tien Shan range reaches out towards the fiercest of
the region's deserts, the Kyzyl Kum. Beyond, saltpans
and stony wastes stretch eventually to the Caspian.
Uzbekistan was the homeland of some of the early
tribes that migrated to the fringes of Kievan Rus: the
Pechenegs, Kipchak and Oghuz. When the Mongols
overran Central Asia in the 13th century, the White
Horde established a powerful base at Bukhoro
Above A citizen of Samarqand. (Bukhara), which became one of the main trading
The Turkic inhabitants of
links between Russia and Central Asia and, farther
Central Asiastill wear the
time-honored dress of the afield, Europe and the Orient. The Mongols
Middle Eastern peasant, which destroyed Central Asia's greatest city, Afrosiab, and
has been banned in Turkey itself
in the late 14th century Timur (Tamerlane) founded
since Ataturk's Westernizing
reforms. Samarqand beside the huge empty hill that marks the
site of the earlier metropolis. Since the late Middle
Below Cotton is the major crop in
irrigated areas of Uzbekistan; as Ages, when Samarqand (Samarkand) was one of the
a "monoculture", however, it is great intellectualand artistic centers of the world,
harmful ecologically and
the area has been the heartland of the Uzbek clan.
economically. Pickers here
gather to celebrate the harvest They have multiplied to the point at which Uzbek-
according to ancient traditions. istan is now the third most populous of the former
Soviet republics, and their rise has been paralleled
by the relative decline of their erstwhile dominant
neighbors, the Kazakhs. Today the Uzbeks remain
the least Russified of all the Turkic peoples of the
region, with 98 percent having Uzbek as their pri-
mary language. Uzbekistan is also a region of consid-
erable historical with three magnificent
interest,
medieval cities in Samarqand, Bukhoro and Khiva, all
of which are now being opened up to the tourist
trade, with large programs of restoration from the
1970s on.
Tashkent was taken by the Russians in 1865 and
became a major administrative, commercial and
industrial center. Large numbers of Russians settled
there, but relations were soured bv dreams of "Pan-
Turkism" on the part of the indigenous peoples:
nationalist disturbances continued beyond the Revo-
lution. The Uzbek SSR was the first republic in Cen-
tral Asia to declare its sovereigntv as the Soviet
Union disintegrated in 1990.
Tashkent is also a great Islamic center. Mullahs go
there for their training, and the spiritual directorate
also oversees most Islamic publications. The resur-
gence of Islam in the post-Soviet era has seen a return
of religious instruction in schools and the
changeover to instruction in Uzbek.
Although much of Uzbekistan is desert, it is rich in
reserves of natural gas and oil such as the oilfield at
Kokdumalak. The rivers in the more mountainous
southeast provide hydroelectric power; this supplies
energy for large-scale irrigation of cotton, of which
Uzbekistan is the world's third largest producer.
Turkmenistan
Turkmenistan was occupied by Parthians and Sasa-
nids, Huns, Arabs and Ghaznavids; it contains Mary
(Merv), one of the oldest city-sites in the world, of
great arachaeological importance. The Oghuz from
Mongolia in the 1 1th century gave the region its Tur-
kic character, which it has retained to the present
day Despite Persian incursions, the Oghuz coalesced
into a single people, albeit with clan distinctions. The
southern section of the region fell under Persian Safa-
vid rule between the 15th and 17th centuries, but it
was reunited by the Russians with the north in 1881.
The struggle for power at the time of the Revolution
involved the British army, concerned about Russia's
southward advance towards India.
As 90 percent of Turkmenistan is occupied by
desert, irrigation is essential for cultivating the land,
but great problems of insufficient supply and of sali-
nation remain. Cotton is the main crop, but varieties
of grain (wheat, barley, maize, sorghum and millet)
are also important. Carpet-making remains a major
industry, with its famous Karakul sheep being reared
to supply the wool; equally famous are its horses, and
the Turkmenis remain great riders. The Caspian Sea,
bordering on the west of the republic, supports a cer-
tain amount of fishing. More important in this vicin-
ity are the sulfur and sodium sulfate deposits, which
are the largest in the world. The republic also has
huge resources of lead, zinc, copper, mercury and
gold. Oil extractionis a growth industry in the west-
Tajikistan
Tajikistan is 90 percent mountainous and is one of
hold on the people; it probably has more holy places of living in the region. and cattle and even for meat.
—
BIBLIOGRAPHY
A bibliography of Russian history and culture- could Hm.II important article "Russia's Byzantine Heritage" (in by various hands in Garrard (ed.). The Eighteenth
I
fillmany volumes. Within this vast territory it will Oxford Slavonit Papers, vol I. 1950). On the early Slavo- Century in Russia (Oxford, 1973). The book's scope is
perhaps be of most use to the student or other interested nic world: F. Dvornik, The Slavs, Their Early History and wider than just Catherine's reign, as is P. Dukes. The
reader to provide a highly selective annotated list, Civilization (London, 1959) and The Making of Central and Russian Absolutism 1613-1801 (London, 1982);
particularly of background works (with a few more Eastern Europe (London, 1949); A. Vlasto, The Entry of the P. Longworth, Three Empresses: Catherine I, Anne and
detailed studies), concentrating on those that for a variety Slavs into Christendom (Cambridge. 1970). M. Gimbutas, Russia (London, 1972), covers the 1725 62
,'
ford, 1997) is a study of the traditions of Russian culture. R. Wittram, is in German. There are good concise bio- On later developments, H. Arendt, The Origins of Totali-
The outstanding socio-political history of Russia up to graphies by M.S. Anderson, Peter the Great (London, tarianism (New York, 1951), is a classic text. T.H. Righy
the late 19th century, pungent and opinionated, is R. 1976), and A. de Jonge, Fire and Water (London, 1979); a (ed.), Stalin (Englewood Cliffs, 1966); R. Medvedev, Let
Pipes, Russia under the Old Regime (London, 1974). It has comprehensive biography by L. A. J. Hughes is in the press. History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism
a good opening chapter on the geographical setting, as The long account by R. Massie, Peter the Great: His Life (New York, 1971); A. Dallin and T.B. Larson (eds.), Soviet
also does the Cambridge Companion to Russian Studies and World (London, 1981), is best on the Petrine wars Politics since Khrushchev (Washington, 1958); M.
(see above; by D.J. Hooson); see also Hooson's The Soviet Diverse views on the "Petrine revolution" are collated in McCauley, The Soviet Union under Gorbachov (London,
Union: Peoples and Regions (London, 1966). A fundamen- M. Raeff (ed.), Peter the Great: Reformer or Revolutionary"? H.rbachov, Perestroika (London, 1987). There
tal work among the many textbooks on Russian (London and New York, 1963). The remarkable short have been many memoirs by eyewitnesses and partici-
geography is W.H. Parker, An Historical Geography of study of Peter's self-image by B. Uspensky, Historia sub pants: by foreigners such as John Reid, B. Pares, M. Djilas;
Russia (London, 1968). On some other broad topics: J. specie semioticae, has been translated in D. Lucid (ed.), by Russians including Trotsky and Khrushchev.
Blum, Lord and Peasant m Russia (Princeton, 1961); R.E.F. Soviet Semiotics (Baltimore, 1977).
Smith and D. Christian, Bread and Salt (Cambridge, On the 18th century after Peter, most English-language Historv of ideas
1984) — food in social history; A.G Cross
Russia (ed), literature concentrates on the reign of Catherine II. Here
other general studies have been superseded by the only
On religion: there is not yet a comprehensive history of the
Russian Church in any language. Valuable substitutes
under Western Eyes (London, 1971), the best anthology of all
travelers' accounts of Russia. full-scale modern biography: I. de Madariag.i include G. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind (2 vols.,
the Age of Catherine the Great (London, 1981), which dis- Cambridge. Mass., 1966) and A Treasury of Russian Spirit-
poses of manv myths Several important aspects of Cath- York. 1961); also J. Fennell, A History of the
Historical topics and periods
On Old Russia's civilizational "location"; D. Obolensky, erine's reign— education, enlightenment, Diderot's visit, Russian Church to 1448 (London, 1995). Convenient intro-
The Byzantine Commonwealth (London, 1971); see too his freemasonry, town-planning — are the subjects of essays ductions to Orthodoxy are provided in T. Ware, The Ortho-
BIBLIOGRA
dox Church (Harmondsworth, 1964), and J. Mcyendorff, Threefold (New York, 1972), has both literal and verse (The Hague, 1964); V. Mayakovsky, The Bedbug and
The Orthodox Church (New York, 1965); note too V. Lossky. translations of the poems. V. Nabokov, Eugene Onegin, a Selected Poetry, trans. M. Hayward, G. Reaves and P.
The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (London, 1957). Novel in Verse (London, 1964), has a plain translation and Blake (London, 1962) —most English translations of
On some specific topics: W.K. Medlin, Moscow and East remarkable commentary. Charles Johnston's poetic trans- Mayakovsky's poetry are totally inadequate, though the
Rome (London, 1952); F.C. Conybeare, Russian Dissenters lation of Eugene Onegin (London, 1977) has superseded Scots versions by Edwin Morgan are good. J. Falen, Isaak
(London, 1921); D. Stremoukhoff, Moscow the Third previous attempts. T. Wolff (ed.), Pushkin on Literature Babel: Master of the Short Story (Knoxville, 1974); Babel's
—
Rome Sources of the Doctrine in Speculum, 1953:1; A.V. (London, 1972), is an anthology of texts with continuous Collected Stories in new trsln. by D. McDuff (Penguin,
Solovicv, Holy Russia: The History of a Religious-Social commentary. J. Bavlev, Pushkin (Cambridge, 1971), is a 1994). A. Platonov, The Fierce and Beautiful World, stories
Idea (The Hague, 1954). On folk belief, M. Balzer (ed.), detailed and authoritative study; A.D.P. Briggs, Alex- trans. J. Barnes (Lon-don, 1971) and The Foundation Pit
Russian Traditional Culture (New York, 1992) has several ander Pushkin (London, 1983), is shorter and more (transl. R.Chandler, London, 1996). C. Bearne, Sholokhov
important recent Russian studies in translation. accessible. (London, 1969). D. Richards, Zamyatin (New York, 1962).
On general thought many books already mentioned Gogol: few if any translations can be unreservedly G. McVay, Esenin: a Life (London, 1970). Pasternak: the
(e.g. Billington, Cherniavsky, Pipes) are very useful. A. recommended. There is much critical literature from a poems have been translated by many hands, often inade-
Walicki, History of Russian Thought (Oxford, 1980), char- bewildering variety of viewpoints: R. Maguire (ed.), quately, but with some success by P. France and J. Stall-
acterizes significant ideas and their proponents from the Gogol from the Twentieth Century (Princeton, 1974), gives worthy, Selected Poems (London, 1983). The translation of
late 18th century to the Revolution. M. Raeff, Russian a good sample of these. V. Nabokov, Nikolay Gogol (Lon- Doctor Zhivago by M. Hayward and M. Harari (London,
Intellectual —
History An Anthology (London, 1966), don, 1944), is one of the most idiosyncratic and fascina- 1958) needs to be supplemented by D. Davie, The Poems of
reaches further back. Note V. Zenkovsky. A History of ting literary studies ever written. Doctor Zhivago (London, 1965). Note Pasternak's important
Russian Philosophy (2 vols., London, 1953). On political Lermontov: the translation of Hero of Our Time by LP. Essay in Autobiography (London, 1959). There is a
thought: F. Venturi, The Roots of Revolution (London, Foote (Harmondsworth, 1966) is highly readable; there is remarkable memoir of Pasternak (and Akhmatova) in I.
1960); E. Lampert, Sons against Fathers (Oxford, 1965); S. also one by V. Nabokov. The best close study is C.J.G. Berlin, Personal Impressions (London, 1980). The fullest
Utechin, Russian Political Thought (London, 1963); E.C. Turner, Pechonn (Birmingham, 1978); J. Garrard, M. Ler- biography will be that by C. Barnes, of which one volume
Thaden, Conservative Nationalism in 19th-century Russia montov (Boston, 1982), is a serviceable general has so far appeared (Cambridge, 1989). E. Proffer, Bul-
(Seattle, 1964). Particularly impressive are the essays on introduction. gakov (Ann Arbor, 1984). Solzhenitsyn's One Day of Ivan
19th-century themes and figures (e.g. Belinsky, Herzen, Dostoyevsky: as hard as Gogol to translate, for some- Denisovkh reads better in the translation by M. Hayward
the Populists) brought together in I. Berlin, Russian what similar reasons. There is a vast literature on him, and R. Hingley (New York, 1963) than that by R. Parker;
Thinkers (London, 1977). For the early period, note The including the multivolume biography by J. Frank (1977-). M. Scammell, Solzhenitsyn (London, 1985), is a detailed
Problem of Old Russian Culture, a symposium to which N. An anthology of 20th-century views (1962) has been account. N. Zabolotsky, Scrolls, trans. D. Weissbort (Lon-
Andreyev, J. Billington, G. Florovsky and D. Likhachov edited by R. Wellek; note too V. Seduro, Dostoyevsky in don, 1971); note too N. Zabolotsky The Life of Zabolotsky
contributed in Slavic Review 21-22 (1962-63). M. Cher- Russian Literary Criticism (New York, 1957). M. Bakhtin, (Cardiff, 1994). D. Kharms Incidences (London, 1993). A.
niavsky, Tsar and People (New Haven, 1981), is a seminal Problems of Dostoyevsky's Poetics (Ann Arbor, 1975), Voznesensky, Antiworlds (Oxford, 1967) —
outstanding
work. Two vols, titled Medieval Russian Culture (vol. I, twice translated, is a seminal work opening up cultural- translations by M. Hayward with several poets, including
Berkeley, 1984, ed. H. Birnbaum and M. Flier; vol. n, historical perspectives going far beyond its title. W.H. Auden.
Berkeley, 1994, ed. M. Flier and D. Rowland) contain a rich Tolstoy: again, much critical literature in English (more Important modern literary autobiographies and
medley of scholarly articles, above all on religion, literature on his literary than his publicistic role). A. Maude, his memoirs include those of I. Ehrenburg, V. Katayev, K.
and art. English disciple, not only made translations checked by Paustovsky (see also Shklovsky, Pasternak above).
Some most valuable contributions to Russian "psycho- the author (thus "canonical") but wrote a Life of Tolstoy Highly unusual is M. Zoshchenko's autobiographical
history" and cultural semiotics have been made since the (2 vols., London, 1929-30). On his view of history, I. fragment "Before Sunrise" (in Dissonant Voices in Soviet
1960s by the "Tartu school," notably Yu. Lotman and B. Berlin, The Hedgehog and the Fox (London, 1953); of art, Literature, see below). Prison memoirs by literary figures
Uspensky. Selections of their studies (on such topics as T.J. Diffey, Tolstoy's What is Art? (London, 1985). On his include N. Zabolotsky, "The Story of my Imprisonment,"
17th- and 18th-century pretenders, Peter the Great, the imaginative writing R.F. Christian, Tolstoy: A Critical trans. R. Milner-Gulland [Times Literary Supplement,
Decembrists in everyday life) have been translated in A. Introduction (Cambridge, 1969); J. Bayley, Tolstoy and the 9 Oct. 1981), E. Ginzburg, Into the Whirlwind (London,
and D. Niakhimovsky (ed.). The Semiotics of Russian Cul- Novel (London, 1966). V. Shklovsky's unusual discursive 1967) and Within the Whirlwind, trans. I. Boland
tural History (New York, 1985), and A. Shukman (ed.), biography (Moscow, 1967) has been translated. (London, 1981); and Solzhenitsyn's lightly fictionalized
Semiotics of Russian Culture (Ann Arbor, 1984). On the Chekhov: some widely available translations are novels.
great cultural theoretician Bakhtin, K. Clark and M. Hol- unsatisfactory. Outstanding is the near-complete collection Some studies of broader areas in 19th- and 20th-
quist, Mikhail Bakhtin (Cambridge Mass. 1985). of stories and plays in the multivolume Oxford Chek- century literature: H. Gifford, The Novel m Russia (London,
hov (1964-), trans. R. Hingley; note also his critical biogra- 1964)—a concise critical account, R. Poggioli, Poets
Literature phy (London, 1950, 1974); there is very full new Life by D. of Russia (Cambridge, Mass. 1960). J. West, Russian Sym-
There is a lack in English of a comprehensive unified Rayfield (London, 1997). Recent versions of individual bolism (London, 1970). V. Markov, Russian Futurism
history of Russian literature (the older volumes by D.S. plays by M. Frayn are also commendable. (London, 1969). P. Steiner, Russian Formalism (London,
Mirsky and M. Slonim are outdated). Encyclopedic and A selection of other individual monographs and trans- 1985). R. Hingley, Nightingale Fever (London, 1982), on the
collective volumes help to fill the gap. A.K. Thorlby (ed.). lations worthy of note follows. A.G. Cross, N.M. Karam- poets Akhmatova, Mandelshtam, Tsvetayeva and Paster-
The Penguin Companion to Literature: Europe (Harmonds- zin: a Study of his Literary Career (Cambridge, 1971). V. nak, C.V. James, Soviet Socialist Realism (London, 1973). V.
worth, 1969), includes nearly 200 Russian entries. H.S. Setchkerev, Ivan Goncharov: a Study of his Life and Works Dunham, In Stalin's Time (Cambridge, 1976) a witty —
Weber (ed.), The Modern Encyclopedia of Russian and (Wurzburg, 1974). R. Freeborn, Turgenev (Westport, account of "official" literature, D. Brown, Soviet
Soviet Literatures (many volumes, in progress), has more 1960). N. Leskov, The Enchanted Pilgrim, stories trans- Literature since Stalin (Oxford, 1973). G. Hosking, Beyond
detailed essays. Companion to Russian Studies, vol. 2, ed.
R. Auty and D. Obolensky (Cambridge, 1976), is strong
lated by D. Magarshak (London, 1946). R. Gregg, F. Tyut-
chev: the Evolution of a Poet (New York, 1965); Versions
Socialist Realism (London, 1980) —
particularly strong on
"village" prose. On contemporary literature: R. Porter,
on pre-Petrine literature and in its sections on language, from F. Tyutchev, translated by C. Tomlinson (Oxford, Russia's Alternative Prose (Oxford, 1 994).
writing and printing. Better still are V. Terras (ed.), Hand- 1960). R. Gustafton, The Imagination of Spring (New Anthologies are often useful for getting to know modern
book of Russian Literature (New Haven, 1985) and N. Corn- Haven, 1966) on Fet; translations from him in I Have literature: P. Blake and M. Hayward (eds.), Disso-
well (ed.), Reference Guide to Russian Literature (London, Come to You to Greet You, trans, J. Greene (London, 1982). nant Voices in Soviet Literature (London, 1961), reaches
1998). A. Bely, Petersburg, new (full) translation by R. Maguire from c. 1930 to 1960. G. Gibian, Russia's Lost Literature of
On early literature the most stimulating and detailed and J. Malmstead (Hassocks, 1978). J. Elsworth, Andrey the Absurd (New York, 1971) on the OBERIU Leningrad
work remains D. Cizevskiy, History of Russian Literature Bely (Letchworth, 1972). A. Blok, The Twelve and Other writers, R. Milner-Gullandand M. Dewhirst (eds.), Russian
from the 11th Century to the End of the Baroque (The Poems, trans. P. France and J. Stallworthy (London, Writing Today (Harmondsworth, 1977), prose and
Hague, 1960); note also Fennell and A. Stokes, Early
J.L.I. 1970); A. Pyman, The Life of A. Blok (Oxford, 1979-80). poetry c. 1945-75. D. Weissbort (ed.), Post-War Russian
Russian Literature (London, 1974). The only varied and A. Akhmatova, Selected Poems, trans. R. McKane (Oxford, Poetry (Harmondsworth, 1974). S. Massie (ed.). The Living
comprehensive collection of early texts in translation is 1969). O. Mandelshtam, Selected Poems, trans. C. Brown Mirror (London, 1980), good translations by various
by S. Zenkovsky (see above). It is even harder to track and W. Merwin (London, 1973); The Prose of Osip Man- hands of modern St Petersburg poets. P. Blake and M.
down translations of 18th-century literature, save in H. delstam, trans, and ed. C. Brown (Princeton, 1965); C. Hayward (eds.). Halfway to the Moon (London, 1974)
Segal's anthology, The Literature of 18th-century Russia
(New York, 1964), though Russian Literature Triquarterly
Brown, Mandelstam (Cambridge, 1973); N. Mandelstam,
Hope against Hope (London, 1971) and Hope Abandoned
excellent selection of "Thaw" writers, C. and E. Proffer,
Contemporary Russian Prose (Ann Arbor, 1982) "long
—
devoted a recent number (20) to it. Some of the chief (London, 1974), both trans. M. Hayward, V. Khlebnikov, short" stories, E.J. Brown (ed.), Major Soviet Writers
works of e.g. Fonvizin, Radishchev and Karamzin have The King of Time, trans, P. Schmidt (a selection from (Oxford, 1973), is an anthology of criticism, particularly
been published individually. Note the critical essays in various areas of his work, Cambridge, Mass. 1985); R. notable for Roman Jakobson's articles on Khlebnikov and
A.G. Cross (ed.), Russian Literature in the Age of Catherine the Cooke, Velimir Khlebnikov: a Critical Study (Cambridge, Mayakovsky. On social background: J. Andrew, Writers
Great (Oxford, 1976). 1987). V. Shklovsky, Zoo, or Letters not about Love (novel, and Society during the Rise of Russian Realism (London,
From Pushkin's time things are different: there is a trans. New York, 1971), A Sentimental Journey (memoirs,
range of translations of nearly all important writers, and New York, 1970), Third Factory (criticism, Ann Arbor,
monographs in English on most of them; poets however 1977), all trans. R. Sheldon, W. Woroszylsky, The Life of The Arts
are less well served in both respects than prose-writers. Mayakovsky (told through documents; Eng. edn. London, The most detailed history of Russian art in English is still
ushkin: many translations exist; W. Arndt, Pushkin 1972); L. Stahlberger, The Symbolic System of Mayakovsky G.H. Hamilton, Art and Architecture of Russia (2nd edn.,
—
KJH1 KH.K M'l!
Harmondsworth, 1975), though it gives little coverage to Century Russia (see above); A. Kaganovich, Arts of Rus-
in Miscellaneous artistic topics: R.C. Williams, Artists in
the 20th century and is in some respects out-of-date. R. (Geneva, 1964). Many recent Russian albums of
sia, vol. II Revolution: Portraits of the Russian Avant-Garde (Bloom-
Milner-Gulland and J.E. Bowlt, An Introduction to Rus- 18th- and 19th-century artists have English or French as lnglon, 1977), brings together studies of writers, politi-
sian Art and Architecture (Companion to Russian Studies, well as Russian-language text: e.g. K. Mikhaylova, Roko- cians, artists and movie-makers in an uneven but
vol, 3, ed. R. Auty and D. Obolensky, Cambridge, 1980), is tov (Leningrad, 1971). On the "Wanderers" and their age: interesting synthesis. J.E. Bowlt and S. Bann (eds.), Russian
shorter and more recent. W. Brumfield, A History of Russ- E. Valkenier, Russian Realist Art (Ann Arbor, 1977); Formalism (Edinburgh, 1973), includes studies and original
ian Architecture (Cambridge, 1993). T. Talbot Rice, A Con- B.W. Kean, All the Empty Palaces (London, 1985), on documents relating to literature, cinema and the visual arts.
cise History of Russian Art (London, 1963), has copious patronage. See too P. Roosevelt, Life on the Russian Country K. Berton, Moscow: an Architectural History (London,
small-format illustrations but is factually unreliable. A Estate (Yale, 1995). 1976). N. Gosling, Leningrad (London, 1963). A. Voyce, The
work to be used with caution (a product ot the Stalin age) On 20th-century art: C. Gray, The Russian Experiment in Moscow Kremlin (Norman, 1954). E. Ivanova, Russian
but valuable in its integrated approach to the visual and Art 1863-1922 (only the 3rd edn. with additional notes Applied Art (Leningrad, 1976). Yu. Ovsyannikov, The
other arts is M. Alpatov, The Russian Impact on Art (2nd can be recommended, London, 1988): J.E. Bowit, Russian Lubok (Moscow, 1963) and Russian Folk Arts and
edn.. New York, 1969). A. Bird, Russian Painting (Oxford, Art of the Avant Garde: Theory and Criticism 1902 14 Crafts (Moscow, 1975). A. Hilton, Russian Folk Art (Bloom-
1987), is strongest on the 19th century. A good critical (New York, 1976); V. Marcade, he Renouveau de I'art pic- ington, 1995). On cinema: L. and J. Schnitzer(eds.), Cinema
guide to extant monuments and museums exists in tural russe (Lausanne, 1971) — an important study. There in Revolution (London, 1973); Y. Barna, Eisenstein (Bloom-
German: E. Behrens, Kunst m Russland (C< 1969). A. are too many works in English on individual artists and ington, 1973). On ballet: A. Haskell, Diaghileff{New York,
& V. Opolovmkov, The Wooden Architei tun j(Lon- architects to list more than a sample. Kandinsky studies 1935) and The Russian Genius in Ballet (Oxford, 1963), a
don, 1989), with much information on rura are an industry in themselves; the most useful edn. of his very concise introduction; R. Buckle, Nijinsky (London,
On Old Russian art: H. Faensen and V Early On the Spiritual m Art is that by J.E. Bowlt and R.C. 1971). On modern theater: K. Stanislavsky, My I ife in Art
Russian Architecture (London, 1975), scholarly, Washton Long (Oxford, 1980). P. Weiss, Kandinsky and Old (New York, 1924); A. Ripellino, Maiakovski et le theatre
copiously illustrated and detailed, though not exhaus- Russia (London, 1994) is a highly original study of him in russe d'avant-garde (Paris, 1965) — an important study, also
tive, account, V. Lazarev, Old Russian Murals and the light of (largely) pagan imagery. On Malevich: W. Sim- in Italian; E. Braun (ed.), Meyerhold on Theatre (London,
Mosaics (London, 1966) and Novgorodian Icon Painting mons, Malevich's Black Square (New York, 1981); Male- 1969) — translations and excellent commentary.
(Moscow, 1969); K. Onasch, Icons (London, 1963); B. vich, essays, some important, by various hands in English On music: a good many memoirs (e.g. by Glinka,
Uspensky, The Semiotics of the Russian Icon (Lisse, 1976) and German (Cologne, 1978); K. Malevich, Essays on Art, Rimsky-Korsakov, Stravinsky) are available in English,
a concise and subtle study. The Byzantine artistic back- trans. T. Andersen (Copenhagen, 1968). J. Milner, Vladi- and there are individual monographs on the main com-
ground can be studied in many works, e.g. A. Grabar, mir Tallin and the Russian Avant-Garde (London, 1983); posers. Note too A.J. Swan, Russian Music and its Origins
Byzantium (London, 1966), and G. Mathew, Byzantine Aes- L. Zhadova (ed.), Tatlin (London, 1988) copiously docu- in Chant and Folk Song (London, 1973); G.R. Seaman,
thetics (London, 1963). W. Brumfield and M. Velimirovic mented. J.E. Bowlt and N. Misler, Pavel Eilonov: a Hero History of Russian Music, vol. I (Oxford, 1967) up to —
(eds.), Christianity and the Arts in Russia (Cambridge. 1991) —
and His Fate (Austin, 1983) Filonov's own writings, Dargomyzhsky; interesting articles by A. and Swan I
links high art, folk art and music with religion. See too with detailed biographical commentary. A. Parson, Lari- and J. Spiegeiman in J. Garrard (ed.), The Eighteenth Cen-
Medieval Russian Culture I and II ("History of Ideas," onov (Princeton, 1993). A. Kopp, Town and Revolution: tury in Russia (see above); G. Abraham, Slavonic and
above) and Milner-Gulland, The Russians ("General Histo- Soviet Architecture and City Planning 191 7-33 (New York, Romantic Music (London, 1968). But the outstanding
ries," above). 1970). V. Shvidkovsky, Building in the USSR 1917-32 source for up-to-date information is S. Sadie (ed.). The
Art of the Petersburg era: J. Cracraft, The Petrine Revo- (London, 1971). C. Lodder, Russian Constructivism (Lon- New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 20 vols.
lution in Russian Architecture (London, 1988). T. Talbot don, 1983). S. Bojko, New Graphic Design in Revolutionary (London, 1980), with detailed articles on all significant
Rice, "The Conflux of Influences in 18-century Russian Russia (New York, 1972). M. C. Brown, Socialist Realist and many insignificant composers and selected
Art and Architecture," in .1. Garrard (ed.), The 18th Painting (Yale U.P., 1998). topics.
GLOSSARY
The purpose of this glossary is to give informal icon The representation of sacred personages or events, admiration for the peasantry, their innate wisdom and
explanations of some important words and concepts that, inwhatever medium, from the Greek word for "image." communal institutions, A populist is a narodnik.
though frequently encountered, may cause difficulty to Ithas come to have the narrower connotation of a
readers unfamiliar with their social, historical or wooden panel-painting, executed in tempera on a plaster narodnost Literally, "popular quality," though often
linguistic context. Less common Russian terms that are ground according to traditional models. Icons were loosely rendered "nationality" (the word is hard to
adequately explained where they occur in the text are fundamental to worship throughout the Orthodox world translate precisely). With "autocracy" and
not included. Bold type in the text indicates a from the 9th century, and were ubiquitous in churches, "orthodoxy," it formed the trinity of principles that
cross-reference. homes and shrines. Stylistically they underwent rich supported the doctrine of "Official Nationality"
development on Russian soil, with its climax marked propagated under Nicholas I, and it carried ideological
Boyar In broad terms, a male member of the higher by much local variety in the 15th century. overtones of supposed popular support for the tsarist
aristocracy (boyarstvo) in medieval Russia. The female system. It was perhaps surprisingly invoked again as one
equivalent is boyarinya. More specifically, a boyar was a iconoclasm Literally, "image-breaking." A lengthy of the principles of Socialist Realism in the 1930s.
member of the boyar council [Boyarskaya duma), the episode in 8th-9th-century Byzantine history during
tsar's permanent advisory committee until the time of which the imperial authorities forbade the display and NEP "New Economic Policy," introduced by Lenin's
Peter I, chosen by the tsar usually (but by no means veneration of representational sacred art, following the government in the summer of 1921 to replace the
always) from the highest aristocratic families. Second Commandment against "graven images." Popular rigorous regime of "War Communism," which had
and monastic resistance by the venerators of icons brought the country to the point of collapse. The
Bvzantine empire The modern name for the eastern ("iconodules") eventually triumphed, and with the government, while controlling the "commanding
Roman empire, whose capital was
division of the restoration of images came their systematic integration heights" of the economy, permitted small-scale industry,
established by Constantine the Great in 330 at the into Orthodox theology (as symbolizing the Incarnation) private trade and retailing and encouraged peasant food
ancient Greek colony of Byzantium, renamed by him and into the adornment of churches. production: public accountability and taxation returned.
"New Rome" and generally known as Constantinople. It NEP quickly proved a success, though it caused
provided early Russia with a focus for trade, an object of iconostasisAn icon-screen. Early-medieval Eastern ideologically committed Communists much disquiet as so-
envy, subsequently a religion, an art, a literature and a churches had a low balustrade separating nave from altar called "Nepmen" and kulaks flourished. Stalin ended
cultural example. sanctuary. On this icons were placed. In the later Middle NEP, introducing the first Five-Year Plan {Pxatilerka) and
Ages became a multitiered wooden framework, the
it agricultural collectivization late in 1928.
Cossack A group of Russian frontiersmen in the
distinct finest examples of which survive at Zagorsk and in the
hazardous, underpopulated southern steppe. The name Moscow Annunciation Cathedral. Normally the lowest odnodvortsy "Single-homesteaders," a diverse social
(Kazak) comes from a Turkic term for "rider" or tier of the iconostasis displays locally venerated icons, group, fairly numerous in the southern provinces, at the
"freebooter," confusingly, does the name of the
as, the next the Virgin, the Baptist, Evangelists and others lower margin of the landowning class. Generally too
modern Turkic Kazakhs. Known from the 15th centurv, interceding with Christ on behalf of the worshipers, the poor to hold serfs, they differed little from state
they formed militarized, democratic colonies chiefly next the feastdav icons and the highest the Prophets. peasants, but expended much effort in the 18th century
around the Dnieper (the Zaporozhian host), Don and in trying to maintain their separate status. They
Yaik (or Ural) Rivers; at their most powerful (in the 17th intelligentsia The "thinking," self-aware and educated originated in the military settlement of the southern
century) they played off Muscovy. Poland and Turkey class as a whole (with no necessary implication of frontier.
and intervened significantly in the Time of Troubles. intellectual brilliance). It soon acquired overtones of a
The attractions of settled life gradually weakened their critical attitude to the established order; thus those who Old Believers
institutions, but they retained their role as a cavalry elite served the state, however intelligent, would not See starovery
until the Russo-Polish War of 1920. normally be considered intelhgenty. A loose coinage from
Latin that arose in the mid-19th century, the word was Orthodox Church The church of Eastern Europe and
"Cross-in-square" The standard Byzantine church plan popularized, like other catchwords of the time (e.g. the Near East, deriving from Byzantium, nowadays with
after the 9th century, adopted throughout the Orthodox "superfluous man," "nihilist"), by Ivan Turgenev. adherents worldwide. In its own eyes it represents the
world and universal in Russia until the 16th century. direct continuation of the early apostolic church, from
Three bays intersect three naves, all barrel-vaulted, with kremlin The fortified citadel at the heart of most which other branches of Christendom diverged.
apses at the east end. The central nave and transept may medieval Russian (Russian kreml, related to the
cities Differences of ritual and problems of authority led to
be vaulted at a higher level, forming the "cross element; modern word From the early 16th
for "flint" ("kremen"). schism between Constantinople and Rome from 1054,
there is a narthex (porch) at the west. century kremlins were usually built of brick. There are but this had little general impact until the 4th Crusade
notable examples at Smolensk, Tula and Serpukhov, sacked Constantinople (1204). After the mid-1 5th
druzhina The immediate retinue of the princes in generally linked with the 16th-century system of century Muscovite Russia identified itself ever more
Kievan times, constituting both bodyguard and advisory fortifications south of Moscow intended to prevent directly as the true defender of Orthodoxy.
committee, zealous of its independence. incursions from the steppe. Orthodoxy in Byzantium and Old Russia was
characterized by the ideal of close symbiosis (sxmphoma,
dvoryanstvo The landowning class of tsarist and kulak A rich peasant (literally, "fist"). The term had "harmony") between ruler and church. In imperial
imperial Russia, variously translated "gentry" or derogative connotations and is associated particularly Russia the church was treated as an arm of state (which
"nobility," but not quite corresponding to Western with the "dekulakization," forcible repression of the tarnished its reputation among the 19th-century
models (there was no landed aristocracy and no wealthier (often only marginally wealthier) peasantry intelligentsia). Liturgically and theologically,
developed feudalism in Russia). The dvoryanin might accompanying Stalin's collectivization. Orthodoxy has much in common with Roman
hold land hereditarily [votchina] or conditionally Catholicism; both accept the first seven councils of the
(pomestye), but in practice the Muscovite system made all mestnichestvo The Muscovite system of appointments church. They differ over the wording of the Creed
privilege dependent on state service. From 1762 service by precedence: boyars would serve only in posts equal ("filioque") and some other doctrinal points, but more
ceased to be obligatory (though remained the norm): the or superior to those of their forebears, and posts had to importantly over what Orthodoxy sees as the
dvoryanin could reside on his estate, to which in 1785 he be distributed hierarchically within families. The system authoritarianism and scholastic nature of Catholicism.
gained full title. The dvoryanstvo played a vital role in was complex and inefficient, leading to constant The Orthodox priesthood, traditionally living close to
maintaining authority and collecting taxes in the squabbling, and had to be suspended in wartime; it the peasantry and often scarcely literate, was obliged to
provinces. represented nevertheless a constraint on the ruler. In marry; bishops, being celibate, came from the
1682 Fyodor Ill's government abolished it, and the monasteries: there are no separate monastic orders. An
dvoyeveriye "Double belief," the persistence of pagan razryadnye knigi, books recording details of precedence, Orthodox heritage much valued in the 19th and 20th
customs and habits of thought alongside Christianity in were burnt. centuries is that of "communality" {sobornost). A
the Russian countryside until recent times. tradition of hermits, holy men (startsy), fools in Christ
mir Traditionally, the village commune (sometimes (vurodivve), mendicants, uncanonized and locally
Gulag A Soviet Russian acronym for "State Directorate termed obshchinaj, an institution significant in imperial venerated saints is more characteristic of Orthodoxy
of Camps," controlling the widespread network of prison Russia as the basic organizing unit of society at peasant than formal theology, yet mystical Hesychasm provided
camps of various kinds characteristic of the 1930s to level. In modern Russian mir means either "peace" or a specifically Orthodox impulse to believers from the
1950s; its quasi-autonomous status and geographical "world." The mir was responsible for the allocation of 14th century onwards.
spread led Solzhenitsyn to refer to it as an "archipelago" agricultural tasks, recruitment, the repartitioning of
in the title of his work (1974-75) that brought the word communal land and payment of taxes. As an expression parsuna An iconic portrait (deriving from the Latin
to public attention. of, apparently, spontaneous grass-roots cooperation. It persona, via Polish). Examples of the parsuna probably
was of great interest to Russian populists (even to go back to the late 16th centurv, and become common in
Horde Originally denoting a Turko-Tatar clan Marxists). the 17th: they often commemorated recently dead people
encampment (orda), the term used by medieval Russians of distinction. Using the techniques of icon painting, the
:e the vast Western territorial division of the narodnichestvo Russian populism (deriving from narod, parsuna aims at recognizable depiction, though without
;ol empire (the "Golden" Horde on account of its "people"): the dominant oppositional ideology after the great individuation or "realistic" modeling; it
nediate overlord. 1860s, with many ramifications from the conservative to nevertheless played a transitional role between Old
the violently revolutionary, having in common Russian and Western art.
.
patriarch Head of one of the five areas of jurisdiction in tsarThe autocratic ruler of Russia. The term, an early Russian personal names alwavs have three
the earlv church (Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Jerusalem, import into the Slavonic languages, derives from components: (1) the first or proper name (imya); (2) the
Constantinople). The Pope (patriarch of Rome) was "Caesar." In the early Middle Ages referred to the
it patronymic (otchestvo), derived from one's father's first
traditionally regarded as "first among equals," but came Byzantine emperor, subsequently also to the Tatar khan. name with the termination -ovich, -evich or -ich
to claim larger authority. Russia, the head of whose Russian rulers were from the 12th century styled "grand (masculine), -ovna, -evna, -ishna (feminine); (3) the
church until then had been a metropolitan, negotiated prince" (veliky knyaz). Thev were informallv sometimes surname familiya). that arrived in Russian society later
the establishment of a patriarchate in 1589; it was called "tsar" (perhaps under Serbian influence) from the than the others, and generally ends in -ov, -ev, -vn, -in,
suspended bv Peter I and reestablished in 1918. late 14th centurv; the first to be so crowned was Ivan IV -sky (masculine), -ova, -eva, -yna, -ina, -skaya
(1547). Peter I upgraded the royal title to "emperor" (feminine). A normal polite form of address is by the first
samizdat "Self-publication": a parody acronym on the (accepted only reluctantly in other European countries), name and patronymic "Familiar" forms of first names are
model of Gosizdat, "State Publishing House." The term though "tsar" remained in popular use. common: e.g. Kolya from Nikolai, Sasha from
became well known from the 1960s, but the activity of Aleksandr(a), Vanya from Ivan, Masha from Mariya etc.
deliberately circulating writings that have been, or veche The popular assembly, consisting of all heads of It is interesting to know the national origins of some
might be, banned by censorship is much older and was households, in the towns of Kievan Rut. This other common types of surname in the region. The ending
particularly widespread under Nicholas I. quintessentially democratic, if rather ill-organized, -enko is originallv Ukrainian; -ko, Belarusian. Georgian
institution was probably of prehistoric origin; it varied in names commonly end with -shvili, -dze, -ia. The great
serfs Peasants "bound" to the land thev worked (as is its power, but seems to have often played a significant majority of Armenian names end in -yan (-ian). Latvian
implied by the Russian term, krepostnye). Serfdom in role in deciding large issues, even of peace and war. names often end in -s, Lithuanian ones in -is. Many
Russia developed gradually in the Muscovite period (as Turkic names have been "Russianized" by the addition
it waned in the rest of Europe) and was not fully zemskiy sobor An "assembly of the lands" or estates, a of the termination -ov to their original form. The
institutionalized until the law code of 1649. Until the late Muscovite institution summoned irregularly for special surname endings -ovich, -evich are of West Russian or
1 5th century peasant workers could change landlords at and important purposes. The Russian word zemlya Polish origin; so, often, are -ovsky, -evsky (if stressed on
will around St George's Day (in November): this right means "land," and historically also denoted the the penultimate syllable).
was abrogated in vears of famine or war, and in the 16th territorial units or principalities into which Old Russia In rendering personal and place names for the
century it ceased to exist. The Muscovite government was divided. The first known assembly was in 1 549; the purposes of this volume we have permitted ourselves
therebv ensured that the estates with which it rewarded most famous marked the end of the Time of Troubles by some inconsistencies where a common English usage has
dvorvanstvo were viable. Serfs worked pan of the week choosing Michael Romanov as tsar in 1613. Little is become so normal that strict transliteration might cause
for the landowner (barshchina) or paid quitrent (obrok), known about the proceedings of these assemblies, but confusion or irritation. Thus we use the following forms
or both, but were technically serving the government, thev certainlv included representatives of various (correct transliteration and stress in brackets): Potemkin
like the landowners themselves. Serfdom was not elements of the population (even on occasion state (Potyomkin), Gorbachev (Gorbachov), Khrushchev
slavery, though at times the practical distinction was peasants). (Khrushchov), Alexander (Aleksandr). Peter (Pyotr), Tsar
slight. Serfs never constituted more than half the Russian Nicholas (Nikolai in other cases), Tsar Paul (Pavel in
population (contrarv to received opinion), as there were Note on dating other cases), St Sergius (Sergey or Sergiy), St Stephen
substantial numbers of "state peasants," tied to place of Until the end of January 1918 Russia adhered to the (Stepan), Sophia (Sofiya). Some late 19th-and early
residence but otherwise free to arrange their lives; Julian calendar —11 days behind the Western 20th-century public figures had a preferred Western
serfdom never took root in remoter pans such as Siberia, (Gregorian) calendar in the 18th century, 12 days in the spelling of their names which we follow: e.g. Diaghilev
the Cossack lands, the far nonh. 19th, 13 days in the 20th. The date given is that which (Dvagilev); Ehrenburg (Erenburg); Benois (Benua);
applied in Russia at the time referred to, though in some Tchaikovsky (Chaykovsky); Nijinsky (Nizhinsky);
service state The social system fully developed in cases, where it it necessary to be more specific, the Chagall (Shagal); Meyerhold (Meyerkhold); Eisenstein
Muscovv under Ivan IV whereby all classes were abbreviations O.S. (Old Style, i.e. Julian) and N.S. [New (Eyzenshteyn); Wine (Vine). Moscow (Moskva), St
regarded as the tsar's servitors (cf. dvorvanstvo, serfs! Style) are used. The Russian Orthodox Church continues Petersburg (Sankt-Peterburg), Archangel (Arkhangelsk).
The tsar also exercised general control over the church to use O.S. dating for liturgical purposes. Dnieper (Dnepr), Pripet (Pripyat), Crimea (Krym),
and the merchants, holding several trade monopolies. Caucasus (Kavkaz), White Lake (Beloozero).
Tax-gathering was farmed out (kormleniye, literally Note on transliteration and names Many non-Russian names are also spelt conventionally
"feeding"). Peter I, in modernizing and in some ways No single svstem of transliteration from the Cyrillic (e.g. those of most Union Republics). In other cases the
"Westernizing" the service state, actually made it more alphabet has been generally agreed in the Times Atlas spelling is normally followed. A few other
efficient and oppressive. English-speaking countries, partly because of the vagaries Russian words well known in English are also affected:
of English spelling and pronunciation, partly because of taiga, soviet (tayga, sovet — each of two syllables); rouble
Slavophilism An ideology that developed from the the varied purposes transliteration has had to serve. (rubl— one syllable); chernozem (chernozyom).
1840s, as an idiosyncratic Russian version of European We have chosen the system used in the three-volume The rendering of names in an atlas such as this has
romantic nationalism. In various transformations it has Cambridge Companion to Russian Studies, with slight unavoidably become a more complex maner than it was
continued to affect Russian sociopolitical thought ever modifications for the ease of the non-specialist reader. It in 1989. Then, it was normal simply to transliterate from
since (most clearlv in such writers as Dostovevsky and provides a good idea of how Russian words should be the Cyrillic forms given in Soviet reference-works
Solzhenitsyn). Slavophiles perceived a special and pronounced. Note that zh (%) represents the -s- sound in according to a consistent system, using conventional
precious historical destiny in Russian native institutions "pleasure," kh (X) the -ch sound in "loch." The letter v English forms where they existed (and the Roman spelling
and religion (particularly in sobornost ("communality"), has three functions: (1) at a consonant similar to the y- in of Baltic names in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia). With
a term thev popularized). They are usually contrasted "yes," it is heard in Russian as the first component of the dissolution of the Soviet Union into independent
with "Westernizers," their more diverse opponents. ve, vo, va, vu-, each indicated by a single Cyrillic letter, Republics the following processes have complicated the
and when -i- follows the palatalizing "soft sign" (e.g. in issue. (1) Many place-names have been changed, usually
Socialist Realism Neither a "style" nor a "theory," but Ilyich); (2) at an independent vowel it represents the to a pre-Soviet form: it is not alwavs easy to establish
defined by its proponents as the creative "method" for Russian sound, not found in standard English, but when this has officially taken place, and it can lead to odd
the ans in the Soviet Union, implying also a critical approximating to the -i- in Scots pronunciation of results (e.g. there is still a "Leningrad Province" whose
approach to an in general. The term seems to have been vowel (e.g. -ay-, -oy- etc.) it forms a
"little"; (3) after a capital is now St. Petersburg). (2) A Latin alphabet with
devised in 1932, if not by Gorky then with his approval, diphthong (Russian X) The common adjectival its own norms, has replaced Cyrillic in official use in some
Abbreviations: t = top, tl = top left, tr = top right, 1576: Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Photo: 100. "The Mice Burv the Cat", woodcut, 16th century:
c = center, b = bottom etc. Michael Holford, London. Michael Holford.
621. The obverse of the State seal of Ivan IV: The Central 101. Catherine I: Novosti, London.
State Archives of Ancient Statements, Novosti, London. 102. Ivan VI's place of imprisonment, Schlusselberg:
Equinox acknowledge the assistance of Malcolm Day, 62tr. The building of the palace of the ophchniki, from Staatsbibliothek Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz,
London, Nichlas Harris, Oxford, Andras Bereznay, the Chronicle of Nikon, 16th century: National Historical Berlin.
London, and Zoe Goodwin, London, in preparing maps. Museum, Moscow. Novosti, Moscow. 103. Empress Elizabeth, by Pietro Rotari: Collection
Maps were drafted by Euromap, Pangbourne, Alan Mais, 62bc. Dinner for the oprichniki in the monastery of Countess BobrinskylMichael Holford.
Hornchurch, and Lovell Johns, Oxford. Alexandrov from a contemporary drawing: Novosti, 107. Peter III, Catherine II and Paul, by R. M. Lisiewska:
Moscow. Gripsholm Castle, Mariefred, Sweden.
Endpapers: 16th-century map of Russia from S. von 63t. Banner of Ivan IV at the siege of Kazan: Novosti, 1 10. Allegorical portraval of Catherine the Great:
8 9. Artwork by John Fuller, Cambridge. manuscript: Roger-Viollet, Paris. 1 16b. Kutuzov: Roger-Viollet, Paris.
lOtl. Vassilv III, from S. van Herberstein, Travels in 64. Renaissance-stvle portal Moscow Kremlin. Photo: 1 16-17b. The retreat from Moscow by E. Meissonnier:
Muscovy. Nikolai Rachmanov (Desertina Verlag, Switzerland). Orsay Gallerv, Paris. Photo Giraudon.
lOtr.Ivan IV: Michael Holford, London. 65. North doorway. Cathedral of the Archangel Michael, 117tl. Wounded French soldiers by Gericault: Musee des
lOcr. Peter the Great:Michael Holford, London. Moscow Kremlin: Linda Proud, Oxford. Beaux Arts, Rouen. Photo Giraudon.
10b. Catherine the Great, painting by Erichsen: Bullur, 66. Boris Godunov: Novosti, London. I I7tr. Alexander I at Tilsit by Serangeli: Versailles, Photo
1 ltr. Nicholas LI: Jean-Loup Charmet, Paris. 68br. Sergivev Posad churches: Vadim Gippenreiter. London.
1 lbl. Stalin: David King Collection, London. 68-69t. View of Sergivev Posad: Vadim Gippenreiter. 1 18c. Vera Zasulich: David King, London.
llbr. Yeltsin: Steve McCurry /Magnum Photos, London. 69cr. Sergivev Posad well-chapel: Vadim Gippenreiter. 1 18b. Assassination of Alexander II: Fotomas Index.
15. From Costumes of the Russian Empire, 1863 (British 69b. Interior of the Dormition Cathedral, Sergivev Posad: 1 18br. Women terrorists exiled to Siberia: David King.
21b. Geese in deciduous forest: Vladimir Ryabkov, Gallery, Moscow (Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St 122t. Pushkin: Novosti, London.
Moscow. Petersburg). 122bl. Bilibin illustration of a Pushkin tale: Aurora Art
24. Kara Kum Desert:Vadim Gippenreiter. 72tr. Andrey Rublyov, icon of Christ, 158 x 1035 cm, Publishers, St Petersburg.
25. Aral Sea: G. Pinkhassov/Magnum Photos, London. c. 1409: Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (Photo: Aurora Art 122cr. A sketch by Pushkin illustrating a story in Tales
30t. Scythian ritual vessel: Museum of Ancient Publishers, St Petersburg). of Belkin: State Literary Museum, Moscow.
Ornaments, Kiev (Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St 72br. Andrey Rublyov, Old Testament Trinity, icon, 122-23t. Scene at Mikhaylovskoye: Novosti, London.
Petersburg). 141-8 x 112-7 cm, 1411: Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow 123cr. Self-caricature bv Pushkin: Novosti, London.
30c. Comb, reverse side: Hermitage Museum, St (Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St Petersburg). 123b. Gogol: Novosti, London.
Petersburg (Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St Petersburg). 72-73c. Detail of Last Judgment fresco from Vladimir: 124. Crimean propaganda poster: National Army
30b. Shield plaque, stag: Hermitage Museum, St Vadim Gippenreiter. Museum, London.
Petersburg (Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St Petersburg). 73. School of Dionisiy, In Thee rejoiceth all creation, 126. Treaty of San Stefano: J. L. Charmet.
30-31. Pectoral: Museum of Ancient Ornaments, Kiev icon, 148-5 x 1 10 cm, early 16th century: Tretyakov 128. Alexander and family: John Massey Stewart.
II
(Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St Petersburg). Gallery, Moscow (Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St 130c. Portrait of young Tolstoy: Novosti, London.
31tr. Badge of fraternitv: Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg). 130br. Portrait of Tolstoy by I. Repin: Novosti, London.
Petersburg (Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St Petersburg). 76. The reception of foreign ambassadors by Tsar 1 30-3H. Tolstov plowing, a painting bv I. Repin:
32. Artwork by John Fuller and John Brennan. Aleksey, from Olearius's Journey to Muscovy, 1660: Novosti, London.
33. St Boris and St Gleb, icon, school of Moscow, 13th British Library. 131b. Tolstov organizing famine relief: Novosti, London.
centurv: Russian Museum, St Petersburg (Photo: Aurora 77. Portrait of Tsar Aleksey Mikhaylovich: Collection 132. Funeral procession of Alexander II: Hulton Picture
Art Publishers, St Petersburg). Countess Bobrinsky (Photo: Michael Holford). Company. London.
34. Greek coin found in Kerch: Novosti, London. 78. An Old Believer, from W. Dixon, La Russia, Libera: 1 34-35. The Rooks have Returned by A. Savrasov:
39. Novgorod birch-bark document: Novosti, London. British Library. Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow (Photo Aurora Art
40. A Byzantine philosopher talks with Prince Vladimir, 80. Tsar Fvodor III: John Massey Stewart, London. Publishers, St Petersburg).
from the Radziwill Chronicle, 15th century: 81t. Gold coin of Sophia: Michael Holford. 135. Russian market before the Revolution: Novosti,
Novosti /Frank Spooner Pictures. 81c. Gold coin oflvan V and Peter 1: Michael Holford. London.
43. Gold coin of Vladimir I. c. 980-1015: Novosti, 82-83. The Patriarch Nikon: Novosti, London. 136. Shalyapin being painted by Repin: Novosti,
London. 84-85. Rostov Kremlin: Vadim Gippenreiter. London.
44. The defense of Novgorod against the troops of 86-87. All photographs by Vadim Gippenreiter. Artwork 137t. Sketch for Composition IV, Battle by Kandiosky:
Suzdal, icon, 171 x 125-8 cm, school of Novgorod, 15th by John Brennan. Phaidon Archive, Oxford.
century: Museum of Art History, Novgorod (Photo 88.Godfrey Kneller, Peter the Great: By courtesy of Her 137b. Prokofiev, Shostakovich and Khachaturyan:
Aurora Art Pubishers, St Petersburg). Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, The Royal Collection, Novosti, London.
46. Our Lady of Vladimir, icon, 1 13-6 x 68cm, 12th London. 138-39. All photographs by courtesy of Andrey
century, Byzantine: Tretyakov Gallerv, Moscow (Photo: 89. St Petersburg, 18th century:Michael Holford. Ivanovich and Alexander Meledin, Moscow.
Aurora Art Publishers. St Petersburg). beard of a boyar, woodcut, 17th
92t. Peter cutting the 140tr. Assassination of Grand Duke Sergey: J. L.
47. St Demetrius Cathedral, Vladimir: Vadim century: Hulton Picture Company, London. Charmet.
Gippenreiter. 92r. Artwork by John Fuller. 140b. Barricades: David King.
481. Plans by John Brennan, Oxford. 93. Mass execution of the streltsy, from J. C. Korb, 141tl. Cover from he Petit Pansien: J. L. Charmet.
48^49. Artwork by Dick Barnard, Milverton, Somerset. Dianum Itinens Moscoviam: British Library. 141tr. Nikolai Bukharin: David King.
49. Mossics from St Sophia, Kiev: Phaidon Archive, 95. Peter the Great with Louis XV at Versailles: 141cr. The battleship Potemkin: David King.
Oxford. Giraudon, Paris. 141bl. Trotsky: David King.
51cl. Prince Yaroslav, fresco from Nereditsa Hill church, 96-97. Peter the Great's fleet at Archangel, from J. C. 141 br. Stolypin's room after assassination attempt:
Novgorod: Phaidon Archive. Korb, Dianum Itinens Moscoviam: British Library. David King.
5 ltr. Genghis Khan enthroned with his son: Sonia 97c. Russia's first newspaper, Vedomosti: Library of 142t. S. A. Witte: J. L. Charmet.
Halliday and Laura Lushington, Weston Turville. Congress, Washington. 142^13b. Bolshevik revolutionary poster. 1905: Aurora
52. Alexander Nevsky: Novosti, Moscow. 98t. Intercession Church at Fili, Moscow: Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St Petersburg.
53. Mount Athos, Russian monastery: Dr Graham Art Publishers, St Petersburg. 144bl. Chekhov and Gorky, 1900: Novosti, London.
Speake, Little Compton, Glos. 98b. Great Palace at Pushkin: Frank Spooner Pictures, 144c. Gull emblem of Moscow Art Theater: Novosti,
54. Dmitriy Donskoy: Novosti, Moscow. London. London.
57. Plan of 16th-century Moscow: Equinox Archive, 98-99t. Novodevichy Convent, Moscow: Photo: Aurora 144t. Script for Stanislavsky's production of The Seagull,
Art Publishers, St Petersburg. with stage directions: Novosti, London.
i.
Russian envoys followed by merchants at the court of 99b. Kikin Palace, St Petersburg: Valentin Baranovsky, St 145t. Scene from A. K. Tolstoy's Tsar Fyodor Ivanovich,
: in H. Woodcut print by Michael Peterle, Petersburg. 1898: Novosti, London.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
145b. Chekhov reads The Seagull to the cast for the first 170tr. "Away with muddlers and wreckers in the Picture Library. London.
time in 1898: Novosti, London. industrial supply sector": Fotomas Index. 202bl. View of Mtskheta: Robert Harding Picture
146tl. Rose Ball, 1914: Novosti, Moscow. 171 tl Bolshevik recruiting poster: Lenin Library, Library, London.
146tr. Le Musee de Sires poster: J. L. Charmet. Moscow. 203tr. Georgian football player: Sporting Pictures,
149. Priest blessing Russian soldiers: Red Cross, 171tr. "More metal!": Fotomas Index. London.
Geneva/ Archives de Guerre de Vienne. 171cr. "Where's my money? Where's my family?": 203bl. Folk dancing: Frank Spooner Pictures.
150. Prison in Petrograd: David King. Fotomas Index. 203br. Tbilisi old quarter: John Massey Stewart.
151. Sacked room in Winter Palace: Alexander Meledin, 171 bl. "Let us meet the grain collection plan in specified 206bc. Cathedral at Suzdal: John Massey Stewart.
Moscow. time!": Fotomas Index. 206br. Window. Photo: Burt Glinn/Magnum.
154. Lenin and Trotsky: Alexander Meledin. 171bc. "Knowledge will break the chains of slavery": 207cr. Winter festival, Kolomenskoye: Frank Spooner
155. Red Guard clearing rubble: Alexander Meledin. Fotomas Index. Pictures.
158c. Karl Marx: David King. 171br. Soviet propaganda plate: Christie's Colour
158b. Poster
—
"Long Live Wordwide Red October": Library, London.
207bl. Russian house, Suzdal: Martin Black/Impact.
207br. Archangelskoye: Aurora Art Publishers,
Fotomas Index, London. 176. Stalin and Churchill at Yalta: David King. St Petersburg.
158-59t. Lenin at Second Comintern Congress: David 178t. Khrushchev and Nixon at exhibition in Moscow: 208-09t. Siberian scene: Fred Maver/Magnum.
King. Frank Spooner Pictures, London. 208b. Sakhalin islanders: Frank Spooner Pictures.
159tr. Soviet plate: Christie's Colour Library. London. 179. USSR in construction: David King. 209t. Old couple in taiga village: Frank Spooner
159bl. Trotsky reviewing troops: David King. 180. Girl on metro: Frank Spooner Pictures, London. Pictures.
159br. Soviet baptism: David King. 180-81. 70th Anniversary of the Revolution: Frank 209c. Huskies: Frank Spooner Pictures.
160tl. Movie director Eisenstein: Novosti, London. Spooner Pictures. 209bl. Winter sports, Murmansk: Frank Spooner
160tr. Rachmaninov: Novosti, London. 183. McDonalds in Moscow: Robert Harding Picture Pictures.
160b. Scenery by Goncharova for The Golden Cockerel: Library, London. 209br. Logs: Fred Mayer/Magnum.
Phaidon Archive, Oxford. 187c. Two girls on a fence, Carpathian mountains, 2101. GUM shopping arcade: C. Bowman/Robert Harding
161. Painting by Filonov: Russian Museum, St Petersburg Ukraine: V. Krohin, Moscow. Picture Library, London.
(Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St Petersburg). 187b. Transcarpathian region, Ukraine: A. 210r. Red Square: Frank Spooner Pictures.
162tl. Portrait of Diaghilev by Bakst: Russian Museum, St Gerasimova/Novosti, Moscow. 21 1 tl. Plan bv John Brennan.
Petersburg (Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St Petersburg). 188tr. Moldovian spring: A. Makarov/Novosti, Moscow. 211cl. Moscow skyline: Frank Spooner Pictures.
162tr. Nijinsky in Petrushka: State Theatre Museum, St 189t. Traditional farming, Kunicha: Bruno 21 ltr. St Basil's Cathedral, Red Square: J. Allan Cash,
Petersburg. Barbev/Magnum Photos, London. London.
162br. Cartoon of Stravinsky and Nijiosky by Cocteau: 188-89b. Wine production in Kishinev: Bruno 21 Icr. Woman with TV set: Michael Jenner/Robert
Equinox Archive, Oxford. Barbev/Magnum Photos, London. Harding Picture Library, London.
162bl. Diaghilev and Stravinsky: Alex Ukladnikov, 189br' St Sophia, Kiev: Vadim Gippenreiter. 211br. Woman road cleaner: Frank Spooner Pictures.
St Petersburg. 190t. House decoration, Odessa: S. Jackson/Remote 211 bl. Central market: Dod Miller/Impact, London.
163cl. Costume design bv Benois for Rite of Spring: State Source. 212-13. The Kremlin at night: Nikolai Rachmanov
Theatre Museum, St Petersburg. 190b. Yalta holiday beach: William McQuitty, London. (Desertina Verlag, Switzerland).
163bl. Bolshov performance of Rite of Spring: Novosti, 191t. Cabbages: John Massey Stewart. 214tr. Aerial view of St Petersburg: Valentin Baranovskv,
London. 191b. Radioactivity warning sign: Fred Mayer/Magnum St Petersburg.
163r. Costume design by Bakst for Firebird: Christie's Photos, London. 214bl. Plan by John Brennan.
Colour Library, London. 193c. Haymaking: S. Jackson/Remote Source. 2 14-1 5b. Fountains at Petrodvorets: Robert Harding
164tc. Girl with a Rake by Malevich, 1930s, oil on 193b. Tallinn: Homer Sykes/Impact, London. Picture Library, London.
canvas, 100 x 70 cm: Russian Museum, St Petersburg. 194. Pirita beach: Homer Sykes/Impact, London. 215tl. The "Church on the Blood," St Petersburg: William
164bl. Suprematist Composition by Malevich, 1916: 195tl. Phosphate mine, Maardu: F. Zecchin/Magnum MacQuitty, London.
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. Photos, London. 215tr. The Winter Palace: Robert Harding Picture
164-65. The Knife-Grinder by Malevich, 1912, oil on 195cl. Folk dancing: V. Tarasevich/Novosti, Moscow. Library, London.
canvas, 79-7 x 79-7 cm: Yale University Art Gallery, 195bl. Flower market: Homer Sykes/Impact, London. 215cr. Admiralty building: Robert Harding Picture
New Haven, gift of Societe Anonyme Collection. 195br. Freedom monument, Riga: V. Krohin, Moscow. Library, London.
165t. The Sailor by Tatlin: Russian Museum, St 196tr. Riga port: V. Krohin, Moscow. 218t. Beehives: John Massey Stewart.
Petersburg (Photo: Aurora Art Publishers, St Petersburg). 196cr. Riga: V. Krohin, Moscow. 218bl. Children at Kaskelen: John Massey Stewart.
165c. Tatlin's monument to the Third International: 196bl. Windmill: V. Krohin, Moscow. 218-19b. Zeravshan mountains, Uzbekistan: Robert
David King, London. 196-97b. Juknaichal village: V. Shustov/Novosti, Harding Picture Library, London.
165b. An Englishman in Moscow by Malevich, 1914, oil Moscow. 218— 19t. Tashkent: Vadim Gippenreiter, Moscow.
on canvas, 88 x 57 cm: Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam. 197cl. House building on a collective farm: V. 219tc. Samarqand man: William MacQuitty, London.
166bl. Monk and dog: Fred Maver/Magnum. Arutyunov/Novosti, Moscow. 219br. Uzbek cotton ceremony: Vadim Krohin, Moscow.
166tr. Antireligious cartoon: David King. 197cr. Tug boat, Klaipeda: Nick Haslam/Hutchison 220t. Khiva, Uzbekistan: Vadim Gippenreiter.
167t. Buddhist temple: Fred Mayer/Magnum. Library, London. 220b. Imam and assistant praying, Margilan: James
167bl. Synagogue: V. Shone/Frank Spooner Pictures. 197br. Demonstration in Vilnius: A. Vloziavilus/Novosti, Strachan/Robert Harding Picture Library, London.
167br. Friday prayer in Khajezud Murad mosque, Moscow. 221. Tashkent helio station, Uzbekistan: Novosti/Frank
Samarqand: Abbas/Magnum. 198. Georgian horsemen: Burt Glinn/Magnum, London. Spooner Pictures.
168t. Destruction of church: David King. 200tc. Selling kvas, Erevan: Sassoon/Robert Harding 222t. Saltflats, Karakum Canal zone: Christopher
168bl. Church as store house: David King. Picture Library, London. Renniee /'Robert Harding Picture Library, London.
168br. Reconstruction of the Danilov Monastery. 200-Olt. Armenian earthquake: Novosti, Moscow. 222b. Turkmen family: Abbas/Magnum.
Moscow: Novosti/Frank Spooner. 200-01 b. Armenian demonstration: Frank Spooner 2231. Carpet-making: Novosti/Frank Spooner Pictures.
169t. Outside service: Fred Mayer/Magnum. Pictures. 223b. Textile factory, Khudjand: Robert Harding P'.ture
169bl. Nuns at an Orthodox convent: Novosti/Frank 201cr. Government building, Baku: D. C. Williamson, Library, London.
Spooner. London. 224. Men with fleeces: Vadim Krohin/Hutchinson
169br. Monks at the Pskov-Pechery Monastery: 201 br. Azerbaijan oil fields: Ian Berry /Magnum Photos, Library, London.
Novosti/Frank Spooner. London.
170bl. World War I poster: Fotomas Index. 202-03t. Georgian towers: John Egan/Flutchinson
GAZETTEER
An entry which 15 not in Russia or its 109, 128. 148, 152, 157. 172. 174. Esztergom {Hungary) 47 46 N 18=44 E. 38 ;iy. 48=32 N 51=44 E. 216
neighboring republics includes its country nan Bakunani. 41=45 N43 31 I 198 Euchaita (Turkey), 40=29 N 34=50 E, 38
and a descriptive term if a physical feature, Balakan 41 44 N II
Eupatona see Yevpatoriya 44=35 N 33=34 E. 125
eg Cerigo(is/|, (Greece). Balaklava.44 11 '. Eylau {Poland). 54°11N 19=32 E. 115 1 Mi,. E 111. 127.
Republics), county, provin. Balli,47°44'N27°5rE. 186 45. 50, 55, 56,58,67.186 Feodosiya. 45=03 N 35=23 E. 152. 186 Irkeshtam. 39=40 73=59 E. 217 N
Baltiysk. 54=41 N 19°59'E. 192 Chcrnivtsi (Chernovtsy, Czernowilz), 48=19 N Ferahabad (Iran). 36=10 N 53=49 E. 108. 109 Irkutsk. 5215 N 104=17 E, 13.74, 129. 172.205
Abast'umani, 41=44'N 42=51 E. 198 19 15 E. 199 25=52 E. 148. 176, 186 Ferapontov. 60=02 N 34=32 E. 55 Irtyshk. 53=22 N 75=30 E. 217
Abo {Finland). 60=27 N 22"15E. 60. 67 Chernyakovsk. 54=36'N 21=48 E, 192 Fetisovo, 42°46N 52°38'E. 216 Ishikhlv(ml). 39°36'N 46=12 E. 199
Achinsk. 56=20 N 90=33 E, 204 Cherny-Var, 48=04 N 46=06 E, 108 Fort Ross {USA), 38=36 N 123=12 W. 129 Islanbul (Constantinople). ( Turkey), 41°02N
Adrianoplc {Turkey). 41°40N 26°34 E. 35, 38. Cherskiy, 68=45 N 161°15'E, 13. 205 Fort Shevchenko, 44=3 1 N 50= 5 E, 2 1 1 28°57E. 35, 36. 38. 41. 50. 104, 115, 125, 127,
41. 125. 127 Chersky Mts. 65=02 N 144=32 E. 13. 22.23.26 Fort Wrangel (USA). 56=32 N 131 = 12 W, 129 128, 147, 148, 152. 157, 172, 174, 176
Aegviidu. 59=18 N 25=57 E. 192 Cherson, 44 = 52 N 33=28 E. 35. 36. 41. 55. 58 Frankfurt (Germany). 50=06 N 8°41'E, 60 Itil Astrakhan'
see
Afghan Dominions', 104 Cherven. 53°40'N 28=28 E, 35 Franz Josef Land (is/). 12. 22. 23. 26. 128. 172 Ivangorod, 48=54 N 32=14 E. 67
Agcabadi. 40=05 N 47 "2 Chial lira. 42 = 15 N43=17'E. 198 Friedland. 54=30 N 20=18 E. 115 Ivano-Frankivs'k (Stanislau). 49=00 N 24"40 E.
Chiili. 44=10 N 66=37E, 216 Frunze see Bishkek 148. 186
Bauska, 56°22'N26=50'E, 192 Chilik 43 M- N 78=16 E, 217 Fuzuli. 39=35 N47°07E. 199 Ivanovo. 52=10 152,206 N 25=31 E.
Agsufa. 41=07 N I Bavqongyr. 47=46 N 66=01 E 21n tee), 38°27N 26°09E, 127 Izborsk 1-12 N 28=05
60 E. 41,
. 24 29'E. 192 Bayramaly, 37=44 N 62=13 E. 216 Chirchlk, 4T28 N 69 31 F 21i. Izhevsk, 56=49 N 53=1 IE. 12. 108. 109.204
Am Jalut (Israel). 31=52 N 35°50'E. 50 Beijing (Peking), (Cmna). 39°55'N 116=25 E, 13, Chisinau (Kishinev), 47=00 N 28°50'E. 12. 22, Izmayil (Izmail). 45=20 N 28°48'E. 115. 148. 186
Aizpute. 56 in. 172
.
26. 28, 111, 148. 152. 176. 186 Gali. 42°37'N 41=46 E. 198 livum. 49 12 N 37=19 E, 56,67, 187
Akhalkalaki. 41=26 N 43=29 E. 198 Bei Shan (mts). (China). 41=00 N 95°OOE. 12/13 Chita. 52=03 N 11 3=35
205 E, 13. 172. Galich. 58°20'N 42=12 E. 38. 41. 45. 55. 56. 58
Akhalts'ikhe (Akhaltsikhe), 41=37 N 25°59 E, Belarus (Belorussia)', 12, 22, 23, 26, 28, 74. 148. Chonai (Turkey), 37=25'N 30°10E. 38 Galich*. 41 ljss\ (Romania), 47°09 N27=38'E, 115, 148, 176
125, 198 176, 186 Chorgun. 44=53 N 33=56 E. 125 Galicia*. 45. 148 launjdgava, 56 = 34 N 25=02 E. 192
Akkerman. 46=10 N 30=19 E. 125 Belgorod, 50=38 N 36=36 E, 60. 67, 152 Chornobyl'. 51 = 16'N 30°15'E. 186 Gallipoli [Turkey), 40=25 N 26°41E. 125. 127. Jekabpils. 56=28 N 25=58 E. 192
Akmolinsk. 51=10 N 71=28 E. 172 Belgrade (Yugoslavia). 44=50 N 20=30 E. 28, 60, ChotinseeKhotin 147 Jelgava. 56°39 N 23=40 E, 192
N 211 i. 21b 91, 115. 127, 128. 147. 148. 152. 157. 174, 176 Gallipoli Peninsula. 40=01 N 25=46 E, 148 Jizzakh. 40=05 N 67=58 E. 216
Alapayevsk, 57=55 N 6T42E. 204 Belogorsk, 50=55 N 128=26 E. 205 Chudovo. 59=10 N 31=41 E. 206 Ganca. 40=39 N 46=20 E, 199 Jonava. 55=04 N 24=19 E. 192
19 25'E. 199 Beloozero see Belozersk Chuguyev, 49=51 N 36=44 E. 79 Gangra (Turitey). 40°35N 33°37E. 38 Jurmala. 56=02 N 22=46 E. 192
11. 35 E. 109 Belorussia* see Belarus' Chukchi Mts, 68°30'N 176=30 E, 1 Ganyushkino,'46°38 N 49°12'E. 216
Alavcrdi.41°08 N44°40E. 198 Belovo, 54°27'N 86=19 E, 204 Chust, 40°59N71=14'E, 216 Gdansk (Danzig). (Poland). 54=22'N 18°38E. 55, K2 (mt), [Pakistan). 35°54'N 76°30'E. 12
Aldan. 58°44N 125=22 E. 205 Belovodskoye, 42°52'N 74=28 E, 217 Claudiopolis (Turkey), 40=45 N 31°33'E, 38 58.60. 115. 148. 152, 157, 174, 176 Kabarda*. 125
Aleutian is {USA). 57°OON 175°0OW, 129 Belozersk (Beloozero). 60=00 'N 37=49 E. 41. 55. Cologne {Germany), 50=56 N 6°57'E, 60 Georgia*. 12, 22. 23, 26, 38, 55, 104, 125. 148. Kabul (Afghanistan). 34°30'N 69'10'E. 12. 50,
Alexandria {Egypt). 31=13'N 29°55'E, 50, 115 56. 67. 206 40°19N 37°58E, 38
Colonia (Turkey). 157. 198 128, 172
.1 36=50 N 3=00 E. 115 Belucha, Mt, 49°58N 86=1 IE. 12 Commander Is, 55=00 N 167=00 E, 13 Gibraltar (UK), 36°09'N 5=21W. 115 Kachuga, 53=58 N 105=55 E. 172
Almatv|Alma-Ata), 43=19N76°55'E. 12. 172, Berdyans'k (Berdyansk). 46=45 N 36=47E. 125. Communism Peak (mt). 38°59N 72=01 E, 12, Gizhduvan, 40=07 N 64=15'E, 216 Kaffa, 44=59'N 35=45 E. 5.60
217 186 217 Glasov, 58=09 N 52=42 E, 152 Kagan. 39=45 N 64=32 E. 216
Altagac. 40=50 N 48=54 E. 199 Berdychiv, 49=54 N 28=39 E. 186 Comrat. 46°18'N 28°40'E, 186 Glubokoye. 50=06 N 82=15 E. 217
Altay Mts, 48=00 N 90=00 E. 12 Berezan I. 46=32 N 31=57 E, 36 Constanta (Romania), 44=10 N 28=40'E, 127, 176 Gnesen (Poland), 52=55 N 15=01'E, 58 Kaliningrad (Konigsberg). 54=40 N 20=30 E, 12.
Aluksne, 57=22 N 27=00 E. 192 Berlin (Germany), 52°32N 13°25'E. 12, 28, 91, Constantinople see Istanbul Gniezno (Poland), 52°32'N 17°32'E. 38 28. 58, 60. 91, 147, 148, 152, 176, 192
. 24°08*E, 192 115. 128. 147. 157. 172. 174. 176 Copenhagen (Der.m.v. 1
55 43 N 12 14 1 12 Golden Horde*, 50, 55 Kaliningrad*, 192
I i5 =
50'E. 38 Berrhoia (Greece), 40'42 N 22=29E. 38 28,91, 115, 128, 172, 176 Gomel see Homyel' Kalisz P«/anJ|. 51=46
I
N 18=02 E. 115. 148
Amastris {Turkey). 42=01 N 32°22'E. 38 Bessarabia', 115, 125, 127, 128, 148, 152, 157. Corfu (is/). (Greece). 39=38 N 19=57 E. 1 15. 127 Gorgan, 37°31N 53=59 E, 108, 109
Ambarchik. 69 I" N 162 27'I 172 174 Corinth (Greece). 37=56 N 22=55 E, 38 Gori.41°59'N44=05'E, 198
Ambrolauri, 42=32 N 43=12 E. 198 •^1.42=00 N9°00'E. 115. 147 Goris. 39=31 N 46°22E, 199
Amderma, 69=44 N 61 Mi I
1211 > Uzhni) Novgorod
Amorion (Greece), 41=18 N 26=26 E. 38 Courland*. 104. 148 Gortyne (Greece), 35°01'N 24=59 E, 38
Amsterdam (Netherlands). 52=21 N 4=54 E, 12. Bila Tserkva, 1" t'i N >0 10 I 186 Crete (is'). (Greece). 35 = 15 N 25=00 E. 35. 38. Goslar (Germany). 51=55'N 10°25'E. 60 Kamich, 44M4 N 33=2 3 E, 125
91. 115 Bilhorod-Dnistrovs'kyy. 46°10'N 30°19E. 127, 147, 174 Gotland(jj/) (Sweden), 57°50 N IK 12 1 4 Kamo. 40=49 N 43 = 57 E, 198
Amur', 129 Birzai, 56=10 N 24 48 192 I Crimea*. 45. 55. 56. 58. 60. 67. 79, 104, 108, 109, Kam'yanets-Podils'kyv (Kamenets). 48=40 N
Anadyr' (Anadyr). 64=41 N 177=32 E. 13. 173, Bishkek (Frunze). 42=53 N 74°46E. 12. 22. 26M6 E. 67. 79. 115. 186
205 in.] Kam'vanka-Dniprovs'ka, 47=29 N 34=25 E, 18t
Anatolia", 127 E 35. 3K 14" Kamyshin. 5005 N 45=24 E, 108, 109
Anazarbos (Turitey). J7°25'N 35M2 E. 38 Kandalaksha, 67=09 N 32=31 E. 12, 204
Ancona (Italy). 43M7 N 13°31E, 115 Kandava. 57=00 N 22=42 E, 192
Andrusovo. 54=40 N 31=51 E. 79 Kanibadam. 40=20 N 70=18 E, 216
Angckhakot. 39M4 N 45=55 E. 198 Bologna (Italy). 44=30 N 11=20 E. 115 Groznyy (Grozny), 43 21 N 45=42'E, 12. 174. Kansk, 56=10 N 95=55 E, 205
Ankara (Angora). {Turkey). 39°55N 32°50E, 28, Bologoye, 56°28'N 30=07 E, 206 Dalmalia'. 127 204 Kant, 42°51'N 74=45 E, 217
38. 152. 172. 174, 176" Bolshevik Russia*. 152 Damascus (Syria), 33=30 N 36=19 E, 50 Gudaut'a, 43=08 N 40=10 E, 198 Kapan, 39°11 N 46 22 I 199
Annam'. 50 Bonn {Germany), 50=44 N 7=06 E. 176 Danzig see Gdansk Gulbene. 57=10 N 26°42'E, 192 Kara-Bogaz-Gol, 41=04 N 52=58 E, 216
Antioch (Turitey). 36°12'N 36=10 E, 38 Bordeaux (France), 44=50 NO 34 111 W Dashhowuz. 40°40'N 71=45 E. 216 Guliston, 40=30 N 68=52 E, 216 Karaganda see Qaraghandy
Antiochia (Turkey). 38°05'N 30=45 E, 38 Borisov see Barysaw Daugavpils (Dvinsk). 55°52'N 26°31E, 148, 152, Gumbinnen. 55=30'N 23=03 E. 148 Karakol, 42=30 N 78
ia). 42°05'N 19=06 E, 38
11 Borisovka. 43=15'N 68=12 E. 216 192 Karakoram (mis), (Pakistan). 35=50 N 76°00'E.
Anvksciai. 55=35 N 25=07 E. 192 Borjomi. 41=49'N 43=23 E, 198 . M02 E. 199 Gusev. 54=48 N 22=10 E. 192
Aqmola, 51 = 10 N 71=30 E, 12,22,23.26,216 Borodino. 55=01N 37=19 E. 115 Davvd Haradok. 52=04 N 27°10'E, 186 Gushgy. 35=18 N 62=22 E. 216 11 (Mongolia). 47=30 N 102=20 E. 50
Aqtau, 56°07'N 98°28'E. 12. 216 Borovichi, 58=22 N 34=00 E. 55. 206 Delhi*. 50 Gvamvsh(im;,40=16'N46 2rE, 199 KaraSu, 40=44 N 72=58 E, 217
Aqtobe. 50=16 N 57=13 E. 12,216 Borovskv Pafnutiev. 55=1 1 N 30°19'E. 55 Deptford (U/C). 51=29 N 0=03'W. 91 Gvulafehervar {Romania), 46°12'N 23°42'E, 3 Kardis (Su.eo'en). 66=58 N 23°45E, 67
Aquileia 45=47 N 13°22'E. 38
(Italy). Borvspil' 50=21 N 30=59 E. 186 Derbent. 42=03 N 48=18 E. 36.41. 104. 108. 109 Gyumn. 40=47'N 43°49'E. 198 Karelia*. 67
Aragats (mt). 40=32 N 44=1 IE. 198 Bosnia', 127, 147 Deuhno. 56=30 N Gyzylarbat. 39=00 N 56=23 E. 216 Kargopol. 61=32 N 38 59 E, 79
Aral. 46°56N 61=43 E. 216 Bratislava (Slovakia). 48=10 N 17=08'E, 12, 28, Dickson, 74=30 N 81=03 E. 204 Kare (Turitey). 40=35 N 43=05 E. 125. 128. 148.
Arqalyq. 50=17 N 66=51 E, 216 Brody, 50=05 N 25°08'E. 186 Dodecanese (isls), (Greece). 36=30 N 27=00 E, 127 Hanover (Germany), 52°23N 9°44E, 60. 91 60. 79. 115. 148. 152. 157. 172. 192
Artemovsk. 48M5 N 38 00 N. 187 :
Brunswick (Germunv), 52= 15 N I0'30 E, 60 Dolyns'ka, 48°06'N 32=46 E. 186 Harbin (China). 45=45 N 126=41 E, 172 Kas alia IGreece), 40=56 N 24=24 E. 127
Bryansk 5315 X 31 i." i„ 38,6". Ill I- 1 Hasankale (Turkey). 39=56 N 42=11 E, 125 Kavnar. 49 1 N 77°26E. 217
3
204 Donets'k, 48°00'N 37=50 E. 12. 187 Hawaiian Is (USA). 19=30 N 155=30'W. 129 Kazach'ye. 70=46 N 136=15 E. 205
Bucharest ( Romania). 44=25 N 26°07'E. 28. 1 1 5. Dorostol. 44=02'N 27°28'E. 35. 41 Helsinki (Helsingfors), (Finland). 60=08 N Kazakhstan*, 12. 22. 23. 26. 29. 128, 216
Ashchsas 41 liNU il E. 216 127. 128, 147, 148, 152. 157, 172, 174, 176 Dorpat. 58=20 N 26=44'E. 60. 152 25=00 E, 12,28,79, 115, 128, 148, 152, 172. Kazan' (Kazan), 55=45 N49I0 E. 12,29,45, 55,
Budapest (Buda. Pesl), (Hungary). 47=30'N Dortmund (Germany). 51°32N 7=27E. 60 174. 176 56,60,67,74, 79, 104, 108, 109, 111, 128,
22,26, 128, 172.216 19°03E, 28. 50. 60, 127, 128, 147, 148. 152. Dresden (Germany), 51°03'N 13=45 E. 91. 115. Helvetia*, 115
Ashtarak, 40=19 N 44=23 E, 198 157. 174. 176 176 Horadeia (Turkey), 41°02'N 27°59'E, 38 Kazan*. 55. 56.60
Astara. 38°27'N48°53'E, 199 Bukhoro. 39°47 N 64=26 E. 104, 128, 216 Druskininkai. 54°00'N 23°58'E. 192 Herat (Afghanistan), 34=20 N 62=10 E, 50 Kazanlinsk. 45=45 N 62=1)1 I 2li>
Astrakhan' (Astrakhan, Itil). 46°22N 48°04'E, Bulgar, 55=02 N 49=57 E. 35. 41, 45. 50. 55, 60 Dudinka.69°27'N86°13'E. 172 Herford (Germany), 52=07 N 8=40'E, 60 Kedabek. 40=34 N 45=46 E. 198
12, 35, 36. 41.55, 60, 67, 74, 79, 104, 108, 109, Burgas (Bulgaria). 42=30 N27°29'E, 127 Durazzo(A;*ania).41°18'N 19=28 E. 38. 127 Herzegovina*, 147 Kedainiai. 5518 N23M9 E, 192
111. 128. 148. 152. 157, 172. 174.204 Byaroza, 50=23 N 31=32 E. 186 Dushanbe. 38=38 N 68=51 E, 12, 22, 26. 216 Hierapolis( Turitey), 37=57 N 28=50 E, 38 N 22=50'E, 192
Kelme, 55 = 38
Astrakhan', 55 Dushet'l. 42=05 N 44=42 E. 198 Hnumaa (is/). 58=50 N 22=40 E. 192 Kem', 64=58 N 34°39'E, 204
Atbasar. 51=49 N 68=18 E. 216 Caesarea (Turkey), 38=42 N 35=28 E, 38 Dvinsk see Daugavpils Hildwheim (Germany), 52 09 N 9°58'E. 60 Kerch, 45=22 N 36=27 E, 125, 172, 186
Kerki, 37=53 N65 11 E, 216
:
Athens (Greece). 38=00 N 23=44 E. 35. 38. 1 1 5. Cairo (Egypt), 30°03N 31=15 E. 50. 115 Dzerzhinsk. 56=15 N43°30E. 207 Hindu Kush (mis). (Pakistan), 36°00N 71°00'E.
127. 128. 147. 148. 174. 176 Carpathian Mts. 47=32 N 24=45 E. 12. 36 Dzhambeyty. 50=16 N 52=33 E. 216 12 Khabarovsk, 48=30 N 135=06 E. 13, 172,205
Atyrau (Guryev). 47=08 N 51=59 E. 12, 79, 108, Carpatho-Ukraine'. 176 Dzhankoy. 45=42 N 34=23 E. 186 Hokkaido (is/). (Japan), 43°00'N 142°00'E. 13 Kharkiv (Kharkov), 50=00 N 36=15 E, 12,28. 58.
109. Ill, 172,216 Dzhetygara. 52°14'N 61 = 10 E. 216 Holosvczyn. 54=09 N 28=29 E. 91 104. Ill, 115, 148, 152, 157, 172. 174. 186
Austerlitz (Czech Rep). 49=10 N 16=53 E, 1 1 Caturo (Yugosla 52 : Dzhugdzhur Mts. 58=00 N 138=00 E, 13 Homyel' (Gomel), 52=25 N 31=00'E, 12, 56,67, Khashun. 41=58 N 43=35 E, 198
Avzyan-Petrovsk, 35 26 N 57=10 E, 108, 109 :
Dzhusaly. 45=47 N 64°18'E, 216 79' 152, 174, 186 Khatanga. 71=59 N 102=31 E. 205
Ayaguz. 47°59'N 80°27'E. 217 Caucasus Mts, 12, 22, 23. 26, 35. 36, 104, 1 Honshu (is/), (Japan). 36=00 N 138=00 E, 13 Khazaria'. 35
Azerbaijan (Azerbayjan)'. 12. 22. 23. 26, 148, 128, 148, 172, 198 Ekibastuz. 5 1=45 N 75=22 E. 217 Horlivka, 48=17 N 38°05'E, 187 Kherson, 46=39 N 32=28 E, 125, 174. 186
157, 198, 199 Cehgo (isf). fGreeceJ, 36=09 N 24°35'E. 115 Elba (isl), (Italy). 42=48 N 10= 1 5 E. 1 1 Hoxter (Germany). 51=47 N 9=22 E, 60 Khiu, 4121 N 60=49 E. 104, 128,216
Azizbekov. 39=38 N 45=30 E, 198 Cesis, 57=18 N 25=18 E, 192 Elbing (Poland). 54=10 N 19°25'E, 60. 148 Hrodna (Grodno), 53=40 N 23=50 E. 28. 35. 41. Khmelnyts'kyy, 49=25 N 26=59 E, 186
' 26E. 74,91. 104. 108. 109, Camp (Yugoslavia), 42 23 N I8°55'E. 127 El'brus, Mt.43=21N 42=29 E 12 58.67,79, 186 Kholmogory, 64=45 N 42 = 10 E, 60
111. 125, 128 Ceuta (Spam), 35=53 N 5=19 W, 115 Embi. 48=47 N 58=05 E. 216 Khorugh. 37=32 N 71 = 32 E, 216
Chagatay*, 50 i phes, .s I
rar*ey), 37=41 N 27=31 'E, 38 Iconium (Turkey). 37=51N 32°30'E. 38 Khotyn (Chotin), 48=30 N 26° 3 IE, 115, 186
Babruysk. 53=08 N 29=10 E. 186 Chalcedon (Turkey), 40=59 N 29=02 E, 38 EpirusV 127 Igarka. 67=31 ts! 86=33 E, 172. 204 Khujand. 40=14 N 69=40 E, 216
Baghdad 33°20'N 44=26 E. 50
(Iraq). Chardara, 41 = 18 N 67=56 E, 216 112 E. 115 ]7h Iisaku. 59°09N 27=28 E, 192 Khulo,41=39 N42°15 E, 198
Bagrationovsk, 54=26 N 20=38 E, 192 Charjew, 39=09 N 63=34 E, 12. 216 Ijevan. 40=54 N 45=06 E. 198 Kiel (Germany), 54=20 N 10°08'E, 60
Bakatias, 44=50 N 76=13 E. 217 Charsk,49°37N81°02'E. 217 Iletskaya Zaschita, 51 = 39 N 54=58 E, 104 Kiev see Kyyiv
Bakchisarai, 44=56 N 33=58 E. 125 Cheleken (Krasnovodsk), 40=01 N 53°OOE. 1
Ili, 43°51N77°14'E, 217 Kiev*, 41,45
Bakhardcn, 38=25 N 57°24E. 216 152,216 1 -sen^ul'. T 11 \ 13 59 E. 216 Illyrian Provinces* 1 11 KievanRus*, 35.41
Bakhmach. 51°10N 32°48 E, 186 Chelyabinsk. 55°12'N 61=25 E, 12. 104. 109, Estonia*! 12. 22, 23. 26. 28. 104, 148, 152. 157. Ilyinskava, 51 = 14 N 57=10 E, 109 Kihnu (is/). 58=09 N 24=01 E. 192
Baku, 40=22 N 49=53 E. 12, 22. 26. 36. 172. 204 172. 174. 176, 192 Imishh 39 50 N 48=03 E. 199
;
i.A/l fTEE
Kirishi. 59=30 N 32=02 E. 204. 206 Latvia'. 12. 22. 23. 26. 28. 152. 157. 172. 174. Moscow". 56. 58. 60 k (German Ragachow. 53=04 N 30=00 E. 186
Kirov see Vyatka 176. 192 Mosul [Iraq). 36=21 N 43=08 E. 148 Ozgon. 40=48 X • •" E. 38. 127
Kirovohrad (Kirovograd|. 4S Leipzig (Germany). 51=20 X 12=20 E. 91. 115 Mozhaisk, 55=29 X 36=02 E. 55 Ozurgeti. 41=55 N 42=02 E 198 Rakvere. 59=22 N 26=28 E. 192
Lemberg'Aus.. . Mozvr see Mazvr Raseiruai, 55=28 X 23=02 E, 192
Lemgo (Germany). 52=02 X 8=54 E 60 Mtskheu.41=46 N44=42E. 198 ! 108. 109
Klaipeda (Memei). 55=40 N 21°08 E. 58. 148. 176. Lemnos (isl). [Greece). 39=50 N 25=05 E. 127 Muhu [isl), 58=40 N 23=20 E. 192
192 Leningrad see St Petersburg Munich (G< 11.115. Rechvtsa. 52=21 N 30=24 E. 186
Kivuchevskava |m:|, 56=03 N 160=38 E. 13 Uninogor. 50=23 N 83 '" 147. 176 Paldiski 59=22 N 24=08 E. 192 RevaisecTailinn
Kobuleti. 41=49 N 41=46 E. 198 Lenin Peak |n: Munster (Germam). 50=22 N 8=16'E. 60 Palermo [Italy). 38=08 N 13=23 E. 115 Rezekne. 56=30 N 2r-22 E. 192
Kodiak [USA). 5"=49 N 152=30 W. 129 Lentvaris. 54=37 X 25=02 E. 192 Murghob. 3812 N74°01 E 217 Pamirs (mrs). 38=00 N 73 0O E. 12.22.23.26.
!
Rhodes (Greece). 36=26 N 28°14 E. 38
Kodzhevli 42=10 X 68=58 E. 216 Murmansk. 68=59 N 33°08"E. 12. 148, 152. 1"2 217 Rhodes (is!). (Greece). 3*. !
Kohila. 59=09 N 24=48 E. 192 Lesbos (is/). (Greece). 39=00 N 26°20 E. 127 174, 176. 204 Pancvezys. 50=44 X 24=24 E. 192 Riga. 56=53 X 24=08 E. 12. 22. 26. 28. 41.45. 55.
Kohtla Jane. 59=28 X 27=20 E. 192 Lesnava. 53=32 N 30=55 E. 91 Murom. 55=04 X 42=04 E. 35. 41. 55. 56. 67. 206 Panfilov! 44=11 N 80=l> 58.60.67.74.79.91. 104. 111. 115. 128. 147
Kokpektv 4- Uangchow (Cnma). 38=00 N 102=54 E. 50 Murom-Rvazan". 41 Papal States*. 91. 115 148. 152. 157. 172. 174. 176. 192
Kolguvev Is. 68=40 X 49=50 E. 12 Libau see Liepaja Mustvee-." 58=51 N 26=59 E. 192 91.115.147 Rivne (Rovno). 50=39 N 26°10E. 152. 186
Kolomna. 55=05 X 38=45 E 206 25 19 E. 186 Muvnoq. 43=46 X 59=00 E. 216 .130 E. 192 U 16 E. 192
Kolomvva. 48=31 N 25=00 E. 186 N N
;
LiegnitzlP.i.'jrJ). 51 =
12 16=10 E. 50 Mvkolaviv (Xikolavev). 46 3" X 32 00'E.=
148. Patrai (Greece). 38=02 N 21=51 E. 38 Rokiskis. 55=59 25=32 E. 192
Kolpas'h'evo. 58=21 N 82=59 E. 204 Liepaja (Libau). 56=30 X 21=00 E. 152. 192 Pavlodar, 52=21 X 76=59 Romc('ruAj.4l=53 X 12=30 E. 38. 115. 147. 176
Kornarov|C;ecn *.:
X 159=00
-
E. 13. 23 ,27 Lippstadt [Germany). 51=41 N 8'20 E. 60
Lisbon [Portugal). 38=41N9°08 W. 115147
152. 174. 186
Mvra [Turkey). 36=17 X 29=58'E. 38
MytUene (Greece). 39=06 N 26=34 E. 38
Pavlohrad. 48=34
Pechenga (Petsamo). 69'28 N 31=04 E.
N 35=50
E. 104.
E. 186
217
152. 176
Rostock (Germany). 54=06 N 12=09 E. 60
Rostov. 57=11 X 39=23 E. 12.29.41.45. 55. 56.
2 01E. 216 Lithuania". 12. 22. 23. 26. 28. 38. 56. 58. 60. 67. Pechora. 65=14 "N 57=18 E. 204 79. 147. 148. 152. 157. 172. 204. 206
. N 137=0.
50=31 79. 104. 148. 152. 157. 172. 174. 176. 192 Xagomvv. 55 = 57 X
124=54 E. 205 Peking see Beijing Rovno see Rivne
.48=30 N 3S 15 Livonia". 74. 104. 148 NaissaarjisO. 59=35 N 24=37 E. 192 Penza. 53=1 N 45°00 E. 55. 56. 67. 79.
1 108. 109. RuhnuM. 56=51X23=25 E. 192
i 48=36 E. 199 Ljubljana [Sloiema). 46=04 N 14°30 E. 28 Namangan. 40°59 N 71=41 E. 216 Rumclia. East*. 127
Konevitskv Rozhdestvensk. 6058 X :
30 12 E. a r. 148. 152 Naples [Italy). 40° 50 K 14=15 E, 115 Perekop. 46=10 N 33=42 E. 67. 79. 125. 186 Ruschuk |
Bulgaria). 43=50 X 25=59 E. 1 15
55 London([A-). 51 = 30 N 0=10 W. 91. 115. 147 Naples", 115 Perescchcn. 47=45 N 28=56 E. 41 Russia", 12 1 i. 22. 23. 26. 28. 29. 6" -
Konigsberg see Kaliningrad Lubeck [Germany). 53*52 N 10°4O E. 60 Narodnaya. Mt, 65=02 Ti 60=01 E, 12 Pereslavl. 56'12 N 38°31E. 55. 91 91. 104 105. 108. 109. 111. 115. 125. 127. 128.
Konotop. 51=15 X 33=14 E. 186 22 11 E. 148, 152 Xarva. 59=22 X 28=17 E. 58. 60. 91. 152. 192 Perevaslavets. 45=04 N 28=43 E. 35, 36. 41 129. 147. 148. 152. 157. 174, 204. 205
KopetMts. 3"50 i 58=00 E. 12 : . ;roo'E. 186 Narvan Mar. 67=37 N 53=02 E. 12. 204 PcreyasUvl, 50=05 N 31=28 E. 35. 41. 45. 79 Rustavi. 41 = 34 X 45=03 E. 198
39=56 E. 55 Xarvn. 41=24 X 76=00 E. 217 Perevaslavl*. 41. 45 Ruzavcvka. 52=48 X 66=55 E. 216
"
Korosten. 51=00 N 28=30 E. 186 . 49 E. 206 Naumiesris. 54=34 N 22=56 E. 192 Pereyaslavl Ryazansky. 54 Ryazan' |K., 2 15.41.
Koryak Mts. 62=30 N 171=00 E. 13 Lugovov. 43=00 N 72 2 Naupaktos (Greece), 38=23 N 21=50 E. 38 Perm' (Molotov. Perm). 58=01 X 56=10 E. 12 '« 104. 111. 204.206
Koschagvl. 47=05 N 54=09 E. 216 Luhans'k (Lugansk. Voroshilovgrad). 48=35 N Naxcivan. 39°12"N 45=24 E. 198 104.108. 109. 152, 172, 174.204 Ryazan-. 45. 56. 58. 60
Koshetau. 53=18 N 69=25 E 216 39=20 E. 111. 174. 187 Xazarovo. 56=02 X 90=30 E, 204 Persia-. 74. 104. 108. 109. 125. 128. 148. 152. Rvbinsk. 58=01 X 38=52 E. 206
. 4.130E. Ill Luneburg [Germany). 52°15N 10°24E.6O Neai Patrai [Greece). 38=22 N 22=45 E. 38 172. 174 Rzhev. 56=15 N 34=18 E. 56. 79. 206
s 40=59 E. 55. 56. 67. 152. 206
. Lutsk (Lutsk). 50=42 N 25=15 E. 18. 58. 186 Nebitdag. 39=31 N 54=24 E. 216
Kostvantvnivka. 48=33 N 3"=45 E. 187 L'viv (Lvov). 49=50 N 24=00 E. 12. 28. 55. 58. Xeftechala. 39=23 N 49=14 E. 199 Saaremaa (ist). 58=40 N 22=50 E. 192
Kotlas. 61 = 15 N 46=35 E 174 60,67.79. 152. 174. 176, 186 Nelidovo. 56°13'N 32=46 E. 206 Sabirabad. 40=00 N 48=28 E. 199
Kotyaion [Turkey). 39=35 X 29=52 E. 38 Lvakhovls. 73=30 N I42=00"E. 13 Neocaesarea [Turkey). 40=35 N 36=59E. 38 Petrograd see St Petersburg 44 03 E. 204
24 48 E. 186 Lvon (France), 45=46 N 4=50 E. 115 Nerchinsk. 51=57'N 116=29'E. 74 Pctropavl. 54=53 X 69=1 3 E. 12.216 St Lawrence (ISA). 63=00 N 170 =i>
I \
Kovno see Kaunas Lyepvel. 54=48 N 28=40E. 186 Neringa. 55=21N 21=05 E. 192 Petropavlovsk Kamchatslcn St Petersburg (Leningrad. Petrogra4
Kovrov. 56=23 N 41=21 E. 206 Nevel. 56=00 N 29=59E. 67. 79 13. 173.205 30=25 E. 12. 28. 91. 104. 109. 111. 115. 128.
Kozelsk. 54=02 N 35=48 E 5 New Archangel see Sitka Petrovsk. 52=20 X 45=24 205
E. 147. 148. 152. 157. 172. 174. 176. 204. 206
. N 40=18 E. 79 ! New Sarav see Saras- Petrozavodsk. 61=46 N 34=19 E. 152. 204 45 E. 216
Kozyatyn. 49=41 X 28=49 E. 186 : sr^:' i 4i '
New Siberian Is. 13. 22. 23. 26. 129. 172 Sakhalin (is/). 51=00 N 143=00 E. I i !
Krakow [Poland). 50=04 N 19°57 Magadan. 59=38 N 150=50 E. 13. 173. 205 Nicaea [Turkey). 40=27 N 29=43'E. 38 129. 173
58.60.91. 147. 148. 152.176 NUgdagachi. 53=27 N 125=44 E. 205 Nicholas U Land (isl) see Sevemava Zemlva 17 10 E. 199
48=43 N 37
. Magdeburg (Germany). 52=08 N 11 = 37 E. 38. 60 Nicomedia (Tuncey). 40°47N 29=55 E. 38 55°50'E2O4
.. - E 148 Magnitogorsk. 53=28 N 59=06 E. 172. 204 Nikitsk. 59=43"N 38=19 E. 55 -2 30 E. 192
9°00 E. 204 Mogilev). 53=54 N 30=20'E. 67. 148. Nikolavev see Mvkolaviv Piacenza [Italy). 45=03 N9=41E. 115 Salekhard. 66=33 N66°35E. 12. 204
Krasnohrad. 49=22 N 35=28 E. 186 152'.
186 Nikolayevsk. 53=10N140=44E. 13. 205 Putigorsk. 44=02 N 43=00 E. 152 . 46 E. 38
Krasnoturinsk. 59=46 N 60=10 E. 204 Maikop. 44=35 N 40=25 E. 152 Xikopil. 47=34 N 34=25E. 186 Pinsk. 52=08 N 26=01 E. 41. 45. 58. 79. 148. 174. Salihorsk. 52=45 N 27=39'E. 186
Makar'cv. 57= 33 N44=15'E. 55 XiSiN:snl iYugosiana) 4320 X 21 54 E. 127. 176. 186 iS 59 E. 199
16 E. 216 i 176 51=23 X 19=43 E. 148
.. i 03 E. 38
Makhachkala. 42=59 N 47=30 E. 204 Nizhneudinsk. 55°OON 99=00 E. 105 Plevna [Bulgar a Samara (Kuvbvshev). 53=10 N 50= 10
Makinsk, 52=40 N 70=28 E. 216 Nizhniv Novgorod (Gorkv). 56=20 N 41=00"E. Plotsk [Poland). 52=32 N 19=55 E. 148 79. 104. i08. 109. 111. 128. 152 172
KrasnvKh .- - _ Makivivka. 48=01 N 38=00 E. 187 12. 29. 41. 55. 56. 60. 67. 79. 104. 108. 109. Pobeda. Mt. 65=10 N 146=00 E. 13 Samarqand. 39=40 N 66=57 E. 12. 50. 104. 128.
Krasnv-Yar. 46=32 N 48=21E. 108 Maidakovo. 58=13 N 92=30 E. 172 148. 152. 172. 174. 204. 207 Pobedv Peak [ml). 42=05 N 80=04 E 12. 217 172.216
Kremenchuk. 49=03 N 33=25 E. 186 Maladzvechna. 54=16 N 26=50 E. 186 Nizhniv Tagil. 58=00 N 59=58 E. 204 Samaxi. 40=38 N 48=37 E 199
Kretinga. 55=52 N 21=12 E. 192 Maloyaroslavets. 55=00 N 36=28 E. 115 Nizhvn. 51=03 N 31 = 34 E. 186 Podolsk. 55=23 N 37=32 E 206 Samogitia-. 58
Krevo. 54=19 N 26=17 E. 58. 148 Maloya Vishera Noginsk. 55=52 N 38°29'E. 206 Pogost-na-more. 64=02 N 38=05 E. 60 Samos(isi). (Greece). 37=45 N 26=58 E. 127
Mamanove. 54=51 N 19=58 E. 192 Norak, 38=24 N 69=15 E. 216 Poland-Lithuania". 55, 74 Samtredia. 42=10 N 42=22 E. 198
Manchuria*. 129 Nordvik. 74=01 N 111=30 E. 13. 172. 205 Polatsk (Polotsk). 55=30 N 28=43 E. 35. 36. 41. San Franc:- , '.V, 129
ania). 45=21N 24=11 E. 127 Manfredonia (Siponto) Norilsk (Xorilsk), 69=21 N 88=02 E. 13. 172.204 45. 55. 58. 60. 67. 79. 186 Sangacalv. 40=15 N 49=25 E. 199
Novava Kazanka. 49=00 N 49=36 E. 216 Polessk. 54=51N 21=09 192 San Stefario (Turkey). 41=00X 28=5>
N 25=58 E. 192
Krustpils. 56=29 38. 115 E.
Krychaw. 53=40 X 31=44 E. 186 Nova'va Zemlva (rsO. 75=O0N 56=00'E. 12. 22. Polevskoy. 56=28 N 60=15 E. 204 Saragl, 36=34 X 61 = 32'E 216
Kryvyy Rih (Krivoy Rog I7°55'N :2S. 172 in 18 E. 186 Sarajevo (Bosnia Her-.v
174." 186 Marijampole. 54=31 N 23=20 E. 192 OX 31=20 E. 12.36.41.45.50, Polots'k see Polatsk
-
28. 127. 147
Kuldiga. 56=58 N 21=58 E. 192 Mariupol. 47=05 N 37=34 E. 125. 152. 172. 187 .67.79.91.104. 108. 109. 111. Polotsk . 41. 45 Saratov. 51 =
30X45 =
55 E. 12.29.6" 2
Kuldzha*. 128 Marseille. 43= IS N 5 = 22 E, 115 128. 152.174.204.206 Poltava. 49=35 X 34 = 35 E. =.. '• i ! 108. 109. 111. 152. 172. 174.204
Kulebakj. 55=25 N 42=31 E. 204. 206 Marruni. 40=09 N 45=10 E. 198 Novgorod". 41. 45. 56, 58. 60 SarayfNev w. 55
Kulikovo. 54=49 N 38=20 E. 50 54'E. 216 Novgorod-Seversk". 41. 45 58 Sarav (Old Sarav). 47=48 N 47=54 E. 55. 60
N 48=40 Novgorod-Severskv. 52=00 N 33=15 E. 41. 45 Pon Arthur. 38=16 N 122=06 E. 129 38=28 X 28=02 E 38
\Haim (Poland). 58=11 N 1- 12 Masilli. 39=03 E. 199
- 47 E. 216 Mashtaga. 40=33 N 50=00 E. 199 Novibazar [Yugoslavia). 43=19 N 21=32 E. 12" Port Uic. 38=55 N 48=47 E. 199 Sardinia (.-,
Kulsary, 46=59 "N 54=02 E. 216 Novibazar-. 127 Posen [Poland). 52=25 N 16=53 E. 58 ?b. 38. 41
'. 19 E. 216 Mavkain, 51=28 N "5 4b E 21" Novocherkassk. 47=25 N 40=05 E. 152 P'oti(Poti). 42=11 X41=41E. 125. 198 >'3IE. 186
N 2n=28 E. 192 MaieUdai. 56=19 N 22=21 E. 192 Novohrad Volvnskvv, 50=34 X 2"= 32 E. 186 Prague (Czech Rep). 50=05 N 14=25 E. 12. 28. 38. ",-19'E 216
Kungur. 57=52 N 56=44 E. Ill Mazirbe. 57=40 N 22=21 E. 192 Novokuznetsk (Stalinsk), 53=45 X 87«12E. 12. 60. 147. 157. 176 Saulkrasti. 57 I
Kuolavarvi. 66=58 N 29=10 E. 176 Mazyr(Mozyr). 52=02 N 29=10'E, 79. 186 72 Predivinsk. 57=04 X 93=29 E. 172 Savan Mts. 53=50 N 97=30 E 13 22. 23. 26
Kup'v'ansk. 4941 N 3" MeJitene(Turfary). 38=22 N 38=18 E, 38 Novorossisk. 44=44 N 37°46E, 111. 125. 148. Preili. 56=16 X 26=50 E. 192 Scutari (/4/r>ania). 42=06 X 19=19 E 12
i
Kuressaare. 58=12 N 22=30 E. 192 =-- Now Pon. 64=40 N 72=30 E. 172 Propovsk. 53=35 N 31=28 E. 67 Seleukia(rur t ,
Kutkashen. 40=59 X 47=50 E. 199 Ogodzha. 52=48 N 132=42 E. 205 Pudozhskoi. 62=1 1 N 37=08 E. 60 Sevastopol" (Sevastopol). 44 s
Kuybvshev see Samara Ogre. 56=50 N24=31E. 192 Pushkin. 39=28 N 48=34 E. 199 28. 104. 111. 115. 125. 128. 148. 152. 157 174
Kuzbass*. 204 Okhotsk, 59=20 N 143=15 E. 75. 129. 172. 205 Pustvnsk. 54=25 X 26=44 E. 55 186
X46i Minusinsk. 53=30 X 91=50 105 Oktyabrsk. 49=30'N 57=22'E. 216 Putivl. 51 = 21 X 33=53 E. 67 Sevemava Zemh - I
Kuznetsk. 53=08 E.
Old Sarav see Sarav Pyongyang |.VA'r>rra|. 39=00 X 125 4" E 15 79=tJ0'N 95=00
Kuznetsk. 53=36 X 87=01 E, 74. 105 Mirnvv 62 = 40 X 113=32 E. 205
:
I
.3.204
-
Moldova (Moldavia) 12. 22. 23. 26. 28. 58. . 125. Orel, 52 = 5" X 36=03 E. 45. 67. 79. 148. 152 Qazimammad. 40°03'N 48=56 E. 199
Orenburg, 51=50 N 55=00 E. 104, 128. 152 Qostaruv. 53 = 15 X 63=40 E. 12.216 , E. 186
Kvzvl-Buran. 41=05 X 49=01E. 199 127. 128. 148. 176. 186
. « E. 217 Mollakend. 40=08 N 48=06 E. 199 Oreshek, 60=00 N 31=55 E. 60 18 33 E. 199 '. 153=00 E 13
Molotov see Perm Orsha. 54=30 X 30=23 E. 79. 186. 206 Qunghirot. 43=05 N 58=23 E. 216 -
"
Molotovo. 41 = 30 N 44=00 E. 198 . ». 174. 204 > 55'E. 216
16°33"E199
Ladoga. 59 = 59 N 32= HE, 41. 55.60.67
-
Montenegro 115, 124. 127. 128. 147. 148
.
Qurghonteppa 17°S;
:
4* 23 E. 199 Moscow. 55=45 X 37=42 E. 12. 22. 23. 26. 28. 41. ;s 27 E. 199 . . -
Lankaran. 38=45 N 48=50 E. 199 45. 50. 55. 56. 58. 60. 67. 74. 79. 91. 104. 108.
Laodicea(TL~ Q\-z%lorda. 44=50 N 65 = 10 E. 216
Slgnakhi.4>S4N46°00E. 198 Sludcnka. 53=58 N 28=15 E, 115 Tqibuli.42 21 N 43=00 E. 198 Utena. 55=30 N 25=35 E. 192 58.60.74.91. 104. 115, 128. 147. 148, 152.
Sikhote Alin Mts. 47 42
<>
N 137=51E. U Sukhumi see Sokhumi Tuvarcheh. 42=47 N 41=52 E. 198 157. 172. 174. 176
Silislna'Su/gana). 44=06 N2 Sulukta, 39=59 N
69=31 E. 216 Traianopolis (Greece), 40=57 N 25=56 E, 38 Warsaw*, 115
127 Sumqayyt. 43=35 N 49=38 E. 199 Trebizond [Turkey). 41=00 N 39=43 E. 36. 38. Wismar (Germany;, 53=54 N 1 1=28 E, 60
Sumy, 50=55 N 34=49 E. 186 125, 148 Wrangel I, 70=00 N 179=00 W, 13. 23. 27. 129.
Suraabad, 40=47 N 49=30 E, 108, 199 Treviso [Italy). 45°40'N 12=15 E. 115 Valaam. 61=42 N25°58E. 55
Surakhanv, 40=25 N 50=01 E. 199 Trieste [Italy). 45=50 N 13=46 E, 176 Valday. 57=59 N 33=10 E. 206
Simferopol (Simferopol). 44=57 N 34=05 E. 125. Surgut. 61 = 1 3 N 73=20 E. 204 N 59=57'E. 55 Valga. 57=44 N 26=06 E. 192 Xacmaz. 41=27 N 48 = 50 E. 199
148. 152. 186 Suvalki [Poland], 54=08 N 22=59 E. 152 Trinity Monastery, 56=05 N 37=59 E, 55, 56, 67 Valka. 63=18 N44=I3 E. 152 Xankandi. 39=48 N 46=45 E. 199
Sirakir. 40=50 N 46=00 E. 198 Suzdal. 56=26 N 40=29 E. 41. 45. 55. 60 Troitsk. 54=10 N 61=35 E. 109 V'almiera. 57 = 32 N 25=29 E. 192 Xudat. 41=37 N 48=42 E. 199
Sinope|Tur*rv). 42=02 N 35=09 E. 35. 36. 125 Svencionys. 55=09 N 26=10 E. 192 Trubchevsk. 52=36 N 33=46 E, 67 Vanadzor. 40=49 N 44=30 E. 198
Sverdlovsk see Yekaterinburg Tsageri. 42=39 N 42=46 E. 198 Vancouver (Canada). 49 20 N 123=10 W. 129
=
Yablonovy Mts. 54=30 N 115=10 E. 13.22.23.
. 12 01 E. 55 Svinoi(tst). 39=57 N 49=57 E. 108. 109 Tsaritsyn see Volgograd Vardenis. 40=11 N 45=42 E. 198
Sitka (New Archangel). [USA). 56=38 N Syktyvkar, 61=42 N 50=45 E. 29 Ts'khinvali. 42=14 N 43=58 E. 198 Varena, 54=10 N 24=40 E. 192
135=08 W. 129 Svlaion [Turkey], 37=01 N 31=29 E. 38 Tsnori 41 54 N 46=03 E. 198 Varna, 53=25 N 60°51E, 115, 125, 127
Skopje (Macedonia). 42=00 N 21=28 E. 28. 35. Syzran' (Syzran), 53=12 N 48=30 E. 111.204 Tuapse. 44=06 N 39=05 E. 204 Velikive Luki. 56=19 "N 30=31 E. 56.60. 174.206
127 Tukums. 56=58 N 23=10 E. 192 Vdikiy Ustyug. 60=48 N 46=15 E. 45, 55, 60, 79 Yalta. 44 = 30 N 34=09 E. 125. 174. 186
Skoudas. 56°2IN2I = I5 i Tula. 54=1 1 N 37*38 E. 56, 58. 67, 79. 108. 109, Velizh, 55=36 N 31=13 E. 79 Yaroslavl' (Yaroslavl). 57=34 N 39°52E. 12, 41.
Skovorodino. 54=00 N 123=53 E. 205 152, 204 Venice (Italy). 45=26 N 12=20 E, 60, 91. 115 45. 55. 56. 58. 60. 67. 74. 104. 111. 152. 174.
:i-21E. 186 Tunis (Tunisia), 36°50N 10=13E. 115 Ventspils. 57°22'N 21=31 E. 192 204.206
Slovakia*. 174 Tabs, 42°32'N 72 = 14 E. 217 Turin (Italy). 45=04 N 7=40 E. 115 Verkhniv Ufalev. 54=58 N 60=05 E. 204 Yegor'vevsk. 55=21 N 39=01 E. 206
Slovvansk. 48=51 N 37°36 E. 187 Taldvqorghan. 45=02 N 76=23 E. 217 Turkestan*. 104, 128 Verkhovansk M'ts. 65=20 N 1 30=00 E. 1 3. 22. 23. Yeisk. 46=40 N 38=12 E. 125
" (IE. 186 Talgar. 43=17 N 77=15 E. 217 Turkman, 43=17 N 68=16 E. 216 26 Yejmiadzin. 40=11 N44°17E. 198
Smila. 49-15 N 31 = 54 E. 186 Talin. 40=23 N43=53'E. 198 Vidin (Bulgaria). 44=00 N 22=50 E. 15 1 Yekaterinburg (Sverdlovsk). 56=50 N 60=30 E.
Smolensk. 54=49 N 3204 E. 12. 35. 36. 41, 45. Tallinn (Reval). 59=22 N 24=48 E. 12. 22. 26, 28. Turov. 52=04 N27°40'E.41.45. 58 Vienna (Austria). 48°13'N 16°22'E. 28. 60. 91. 12.104. 152. 172. 174.204
55. 56.58.60.67.74.79, 104. 111. 115. 128. 55. 58, 60, 128. 148. 152. 157. 172. 192 Turov-Pinsk*. 41.45 115. 128. 147. 148. 157. 176 Yekaterinodar. 45=09 N 38=49 E. 152
148. 152. 157. 176.204.206 Tarsi. 57=18 192N 22=39 E. Turtkul, 41=30 N 61=00 E. 216 Viesite. 56=20 N 25=31 E. 192 YekaterinosUv. 48=27 N 34=58 E. 111. 152
Smolensk*. 41. 45 Tambov. 52=44'N41=28'E. 67. 79. 104. 109, 152. Viljandi. 58=22 N 25=30 E. 192 Yeniseisk. 58=27 N 92=13 E. 74. 105
SmOTgOO, 54=28 N 27=20 E. 148 Tver' (Kalinin. Tver). 56°49N 35°57E. 12.41. Vilkaviskis. 54=39 N 23°02'E. 192 Yerevan. 40=10 N44°31E. 12.22. 26. 157. 198
Smyrna [Turkey], 38=25 N 27=10E. 38. 127 Tana. 47=11 45. 55. 56. 58. 60. 67. 79. 152. 204. 206 Vilkovisky, 55=00 N 22=48 E. 148 Yermak. 52=38 N 67°55 E. 217
Tver*. 56. 58. 60 Vilnius (Vilna), 54=40 N 25=19 E, 12, 22. 26. 28. Yevlax, 40=35 N 47=08 E. 199
Soest [Germany). S1=34'N8=06'E, 60 Tyana [Turfary), 37=48N 34°36'E. 38 55.58.60.67.79. 115. 148. 152, 176. 192 Yevpatoriya (Eupatoria). 45=12 N 33=20'E, 125.
Sofia (Bu/gana). 42=40 N 21=18 E. 28. 124. 127. 148 Tyumen' (Tyumen). 57=11 N 65=29 E. 172.204 Vinnytsva (Vinnitsa). 49=1 IN 28=30 E. 79. 186
128. 147, 148, 152. 157. 174. 176 [Poland). 50=03 N 21°00'E. 148
.• Virtsu. 58=32 N 23=33 E. 192 l(I,an, .1
Sokhumi (Sukhumi). 4 3=01 N 41=01 E. 125. 198 Tartu. 58°20'N 26=44 E. 192 L'charal, 46=10 N 80=57 E. 217 Visby (Denmark). 55=01 N 8=48 E. 36. 60
Solikamsk. 59=40 N 56=45 E. 111.204 Tashkent, 41=16 N 69=1 3 E. 12,22,26, 50, 104, Udzhary.40°29N4r=37E. 199 Vitsvebsk (Vitebsk). 55=10 N 30=14 E. 12. 35. 41. IN 142=45 E. 13.205
Solivychegodsk. 61=21 N 46=49 E. 60. 79 128,172.216 Ufa. 54=45 N 55=58 E. 12, 74. 79. 104. 152. 172. 56.60.67.79. 115. 152, 174. 186.206
Solov'ki Monaster. 65=04 N 31=42 E. 55 Tatishchev. 52°01N 54=10 E. 108, 109 174, 204 Vladikavkaz, 40=34 N 45=24 E, 152 Zaandam (iVet/icr'anas). 52=27 N 4=49 E. 91
Soroca. 48=08 N 28=12 E. 186 Taurage, 55=12 N 22=16 E. 192 UgUch. 57=30 N 38=20 E, 55, 206 Vladimir, 50=45 N 24=21 E. 45 Zagreb (Croatia). 45=48 N 15=58 E. 28
Sovetsk (Tilsit). 55=02N 21=50 E. 115. 192 Tavolzhan, 52=44 N 77=25 E, 217 Uil, 49=08 N 54=43 E. 216 Vladimir. 56=08 N 40=25 E. 41. 45. 50. 55. 56, Zalesskaya Land* see Vladimir-Susdal*
Sovetskaya Gavan. 48°57N 140°16'E, 173 Tbilisi (Tbilisi. Tiflis), 41'43'N44°48'E. 12, 22, Ukmerge. 55=14 N 24=29 E, 192 58, 60, 206 Zaporizh'zhya (Zaporozhye). 47°50'N 35°10E.
Spalato see Split 26. 128. 148. 152, 157, 172, 174. 198 Ukraine*. 12. 22. 23. 26. 28. 58. 67. 74. 79. 104. Vladimir-Suzdal (Zalesskaya Land|*. 41, 45 12. 104. 174. 186
Spaso-Karoenniv. 59=42 N 39=56 E. 55 Tehran [Iran], 35=40 N 51 =
26 E. 128. 148 128. 148. 152. 174. 176. 186 Vladimir- Volynsk. 50=2 IN 25=02 E, 41 Zaporozhye see Zaporizhzhya
Spitak. 40=51 N 44=25 E. 198 Tejen. 37=26 N 60=30 E. 216 Ulaanbaatar. (Mongolia). 47=54 N 106=52 E. 1 3. VUdivostok, 43=06 N 131 = 50 E, 13, 129, 172. Zaporozhye*. 125
Spitzbergen (is/). [Norway], 78=00 N 17=00 E. Tekeli. 44=47 N 79=00 E. 217 172 Zaqatala. 41 = 39 N 46=40 E. 199
128 N 15 -30 E. 198 Ulan-Ude. 51°55'N 107°40E. 13. 172, 205 Vohma, 58=39 N 25°29E. 192 Zaysan. 47=30 N 84 = 50 E. 217
Split (Spalato). (Croatia). 43°31N 16=28 E. 28. Telsiai, N 22=16 E, 192
55=58 Ulba. 50=16 N 83=22 E. 217 Volgograd (Stalingrad. Tsaritsyn), 48=45 N Zbarazh. 49=40 N 26=49 E. 79
38 Temir. 49=09 N 57=06 E, 216 Ulgen (ml). 43=14'N 41=44 E, 198 44 = 30 E, 12.67.74.79. 104. 108. 109. 111. Zelenogradsk. 60=15 N 29=31 E. 192
Sredinny Mts. 57=00 N 159=30 E. 13. 23. 27 Temiruu. 50=04 N 73=01 E. 217 Ulyanovsk. 54=19 N 48=22 E. 174 128. 152. 172. 174.204 Zestafoni. 42=07 N 43=03 E. 198
Stade [Germany], 53=36 N 9=28 E. 60 Termez. 37=15 N67=15'E, 216 Uman. 48=45 N 30=10 E. 186 Volhynia*. 41.45. 58.79. 104 Zhambyl. 42 = 50 N 71=25 E. 216
Stakhanov. 48=34 N 38=40 E. 187 Temopil, 49=35 N 25=39 E, 186 United Provinces*. 91 Volkhov. 59=54 N 32=47 E. 206 Zhanga'qataly. 45=48 N 62=06 E. 216
Stalingrad see Volgograd Thessaloniki (Greece). 40=38'N 22°58'E. 35. 38. Unkiar Skelessi. 41=02 "N 29=22'E. 125 Vologda. 59=10 N 39=55 E. 55. 56. 60. 67. 79. Zhdanov. 39'°46N 47=36 E. 199
127 152. 174.204,206 Zhezqazghan, 47=48 N 67=24 E, 216
Stanislau see Ivano-Frankivs'k Thessalv", 127 Volokolamsk, 56=02 N 35=56 E, 55, 60 Zhiloi (is/), 40=22 N 50=35 E, 108. 109. 199
Sunovoy Mts. 55=21 N 129=45 E. 13. 22. 23. 26 Thorn [Netherlands). 51=10 N 5=51 E. 60 Vorkuta. 67=27 N 64=00 E. 172, 204 Zhmerynka. 49=00 N 28=02 E. 186
Staraya Russa. 57=58'N 31=10'E. 60 Thrace". 127 Vormsi (is!). 59=04 N 23=19 E. 192 50=18 N 28=40 E. 41. 152.
.
StaraZagora (Bu/gana). 42=25 N 25=37 E, 127 Tien Shan [mts). [China), 42=50 N 82=50 E. 12. Urateppa. 39=58 N 68=59
216 E. Voronezh. 51=40 N 39=13 E. 28. 67. 74. 79. 91. 186
StarobilYk. 49=16 N 38=56 E. 187 Urengoy. 65=59 N 78=30 204 E. 104. 108. 109. 111. 128. 148. 152. 172 Zlatoust. 55=10 N 59=38
E. 109
Starodub. 52=35 N 32=46 E. 67. 79 Urganch.41 = 35'N 60=41 216 E. Voroshilovgrad see Luhans'k Znamyanka. 48=42N 32=40 E. 186
Staroutkinsk. 57=15 N 59=20 E, 204 Urgut. 39=29 N 67=15 E, 216 Voru. 57=46 N 26=52 E, 192 Zugdidi. 42=30 N 41=52 E. 198
Staryy Oskal. 51=20 N 37=50 E. 204 Tikhvin. 59=35 N 33 = 29 E. 206 Uritskiy. 53 = 15 N 34=30 E. 216 Votkinsk, 57=02 N 53=59 E, 108, 109 Zvenigorod. 55=40 N 36 = 50 E, 56
Suirropolis(Turfa-y>. 37=51 N 27=59 E, 38 Tiksi, 71=50 N 129=00 E. 13. 172. 205 Ursatvevskaya. 40=14 N 68=46 E. 216 Voznesensk. 47=34 N 31°21E. 186 Zyryan. 49=44 N 84=17 E. 217
Stavropol'. 45=05 N 42=05 E. 204 Tilsit see Sovetsk Urvankhai Territory*. 129 Vyatka (Kirov), 58=18 N 49=38'E. 12, 41, 55, 56,
Stepanavan. 41=01 N 44=24 E. 198 Tirane (/i'fcania). 41°20'N 19=49 E. 147 Us'hba(ml). 43=09 N 42°43'E, 198 60. 108, 109. 152. 174,204
Stepnvak. 52=52 N 70=49 E. 216 Tiraspol. 46=50 N 29=38 E. 186 Ushtobe, 45=15 N 77=58 E, 217 Vyaz'ma (Vyazma), 55=10 N 34=15 E. 41, 56,67,
Stockholm [Sweden], 59=20 N 18=03 E. 12. 28. .45=17 N 37=23 E. 35. 36. 38.41 Usman, 52=43 N 39=58 E. Ill 79, 115,206
5 ' 7 1
INDEX
Page numbers in italics refer to Baghdad 37 Boretskava, Marfa 60 philosophy 108, 112-14; foreign
illustrations or their captions. Alma-Ata (Almaty) 181, 218 Bakhchisaray 65 Boris, St 39, 44, 47 policy 108; Free Economic Society
Almarik, Andrei '180 Bakst, Leon (Lev |
163 Borisov Gorodok 83 109; German colonization 111;
Academy of Arts 112 Altaj 204 portrait of Diaghilev 162 Borisov-Musatov, Viktor 137 government 109-10; Great
Academy of Sciences 112 Amu Darya (Oxus) River 218. 219 Baku 201. 201 Borodin, Alexander 134-35, 136 Instruction 110; Great Project 111;
Adrian. Patriarch 93 Amur valley 17, 23, 76, 208 Bakunin. Mikhail 118, 118. 123 Prince Igor 135 and Grigoriy Potemkin 108;
Adzharia 20 Anadyr River 76 Balakirev, Mily 134-35 Borodino, Battle of 1 16, 116 Hermitage 113, 215; Ismail fortress
Afghanistan 129 Analytic Art 161 Balkans Borovikovsky. V. 113, 1 14 111; Legislative Commission 80,
Soviet intervention in 114. 180 anarchists 118, 11 8. 119 Balkan War 727, 146; Crimean War Bosnia 109-10, 121; liberation of the
Afrosiab219 Andreyev, Leonid 143 125; Eastern Question 127 annexed by Austria 146; Treaty of gentry 109; literature 112-13; love
Age of the Nobility 103 Andropov, Yury 179, 180 ballet 136-37 San Stefano 126. 127 affairs 108; marriage to Peter III
agriculture 16, n',21, 24-25 Andrusovo, Treaty of (1667) ~8 Ballets Russes 143, 157. 162. 163; Boxer Rebellion 142 105, 106; Mirovich plots against
Bronze Age 32; chernozem 17, 23, Angara River 208 Bolshoy Ballet 163: Estonia 194; St Boyar Duma 79 108; Ochakov fortress 111; Odessa
24, 32, 187, 188; climate 21; Ani200 Petersburg Ballet 143 boyars established 1 1 1; Old Believers 78;
collectivization 156-57, 170, animals Baltic Republics 193-97 beards and dress 92, 92, 96 Poland 108, 111-12; protectorship
172-73, 172. 176, 179, 181, 189, bison 188; reindeer 16. 1 Bashkiria Brest, Union of (1596) 77 of Georgia 111; Pugachov rebellion
191, 194; crop rotation 21; Anna, Tsaritsa 81. 101-02, 103 civil war 94; Great Rebellion 109, Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of (1918) 149 106, 108, 109, 109. 111-01, 112,
experimentation 21, 24; famines Bironovshchina 101-02; birth 81; 111; war of independence 78 Brezhnev, Leonid 1 78-80, 1 78 124; reforms 107, 108. 109;
139, 155, 172-73; five-vear plans Germanization 101-02, 106; secret Bashkirs 76, 207 and the arts 182; "Brezhnev sculpture 1 1 3; secularization 108;
156-57, 172, 176, 180, 181; police 102; serfs 103-04; service "Battle organization'' assassination doctrine" 179-80; collectivization seizes power 106, 107, 108; and
Gorbachev's economic reforms class 103; succession 100, 102; unit 140 179; criminal code extended 178; serfdom 109, 111; social
181; kulaks 170; land usage 139: Supreme Privy Council 101 Batu, leader of the Golden Horde 50, Czechoslovakia invaded 179; death composition of Russia HI;
New Economic Policy (NEP) 155; Antes (Antae) 26 51,52 180; "developed socialism" 179, succession 107; territorial and
precipitation 17, 23; semidesert Antioch 78 Batumi 20 180; dissident movement 178-79, strategic gains 104, 107; Turkish
and desert zones 20; slash-and- Antonios, Patriarch 54 Bauhaus 161 182; economy 180; five-vear plan wars 109, 111
burn technique 21; soil types 17, Arabs 222 Baykal, Lake 75, 208 180; Gulag 179; military influence Caucasus 17, 20
23, 24, 139; state farms 191; Aragvi River 202 Baykal-Amur Mainline Railroad 208 179; nomenklatura (list of Alexander Is gains 1 1 5; Islam 167;
temperature 23; Tselina Araks valley 200 Bavkonvr cosmodrome 218 nominees) 179; occupation of languages 26
(Virgin Lands) 217. 218, 218; War Aral Sea 184, 201 Bazhenov, Vasiliy 114 Afghanistan 114, 180; Prague Central Asia 217-24
Communism 155; World War II Archangel 66, 74, 96, 149 Pashkov House 114; plan for Spring 1 79; show trials 1 78; social Cesme, Battle of 1 1
and after 175, 176 architecture 124-25, i96 remodeling Moscow Kremlin 1 14; and geographical mobility 179 Chaadavev, Pvotr
Ainu 207, 209 Christian influence 44; St Michael's Palace 1 14 Britain Philosophical Utter 121. 123
Akhmatova, Anna 160, 182 Constructivists 161; Elizabethan Beccaria, Cesare 112 assists White army 149, 153, 153; Chagall, Marc 137, 161, 182
AKHRR 181 Baroque 98, 98; Georgian 202; Bekbulatovich, Semvon 59, 90 Congress of Berlin 127; Crimean Chancellor, Richard 66
Aksvonov, V. 182 helmet-shaped domes 56; Beloozero (White Lake) 37 War 125-26, 125; Great Embassy 91; Charles XII, King of Sweden 91, 94-95
Albania 1 76 iconostasis 57; Islamic 84, 221; Belarus (Belorussia) 17, 27, 40. 47, Napoleonic wars 1 14; trade links Charter of the Nobility 109
alcohol 171, 181 Moscow Baroque 82, 83-84, 98. 99; 137, 184, 188, 188 with Russia 66, 67, 102; Triple Chechnya 184
Aldeigjuborg (Ladoga) 37 Muscovy 56, 65, 65, 75, 83-84; absorption into Russia 74. 75, 188; Entente 146, 146, 149; World War I Cheka 151, 153, 156
Aleksandrov 24. 62. 66, 78 Novgorod 70; Petrine Baroque 98; agriculture 187; climate 187; 146; Yalta conference 175, 176 Chekhov, Anton 122, 144, 144. 191
Aleksey, Metropolitan 56 Rus 47; Russian Baroque 98, 98, 99; industry and agriculture 188; Brodskv, Iosif 182 The Cherry Orchard 144; The
Aleksev. Tsarevich 88, 92, 95-96, 99. St Sophia, Kiev (Kyviv) 48. 48, 49; Jewish population 166; language Bronze Age 32 Seagull 144, 144; Three Sisters 144;
100, 'l 46 Stalinist era 170. 211; tent churches 26, 29, 187; nationalism 181; Brunswick, Prince of 102 Uncle Vanya 144
Aleksev Mikhavlovich 74. 75, 76, 76, 83; Trinity Monastery 68, 68, 69; religion 187, 188; World War 1 146, Brusilov, General Aleksey Chernenko, Konstantin 180
77, 82, 84-85 Tsaritsa Elizabeth 103; Ukrainian J 49; World War O 188 Alekseyevich 146, 149 Chernigov 45. 47, 58
civil disorder 76; Code of 1649 79; Baroque 98; wooden buildings 39 Belovezha forest 188 Bryullov, Karl 124 Rus 40; Tatar attack 50, 52
Great Schism 77-78; horticultural 86, 86, 87. 206. 207. 218 Bely,Andrey 143, 161 Bryusov, Valriy Chornobyl (Chernobyl) nuclear
experiments 2 1; Kolomenskove Arina Rodionovna 123 Petersburg 136 Russian Symbolists 136 accident 181. 184, 187. 221
Palace 83, 86, 87; political Arinberd 200 Benckendorff, Count 120 Buddhism 167, 207 chernozem (black earth) 17. 23, 24,
administration 79-80; Razin Aristeas of Proconnesus 32 Benua (Benois). Alexander 163 Buhren, Johann-Ernst 101-02 32, 187, 188
rebellion 108; social unrest 78; Arkhangelskoye 207 Mir lskussti-a (World of Art) group Bukhara (Bukhoro) 129. 219 Chernyshevsky, Nikolai 118
territorial gain-
; Armenia 200
20, 45, 184, 199, 200, 136, 137 Islam 167; White Horde 219 Cherson 44
78; Treaty of Andrusovo ',
earthquakes 200: industry and Berezina River 117 Bukharin, Nikolai 141. 156, 173, 181 China
with Poland 78 agriculture 199, 200; language 27, Beria, Lavrentiy 177 Bukhvostov, Yakov 98 Boxer Rebellion 142; and
Alexander the Great 30, 217 200; nationalism 181, 200; religion Bering Straits 25, 74 Bukovsky. Vladimir 180 Khrushchev government 178;
Alexander I 107, 114-16, 119 200; Transcaucasian Federal Berlin Bulavin rebellion 76, 94 Sino-Soviet summit (1989) 181;
accession 96, 1 14; attempt to Republic 153, i57; Urartu culture capture by Soviet Union
airlift 1 76; Bulgakov, Mikhail Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689) 76
produce Russian constitution 1 16, 200 1 75: Congress of 127; post- World Days of the Turbins 161; Master and Chirchik River 218
119; Battle of Borodino 116, 116; army War II division; 76 Margarita 182 Chorny Last Judgment 73
Bessarabia 114; Congress system of Alexander II's Great Reforms 129, Berlioz, Hector 134 Bulganin, Marshal Nikolai 177 Christianity
political alliances 1 19; death and 131; Red see Red Armv Beninian Annals 37 Bulgaria 34 Armenian Church 200; Baptist
succession 118, 119; Decembrist Artsikhovsky. A. 39 Bessarabia 129. 187, 133 Soviet bloc 1 76; Treaty of San Church 166, 178; bezpopovtsy
movement 118; Holy Alliance 119; Artsvbashev, Mikhail 143 see also Moldavia; Alexander 1115; Stefano 126, 127 Bolshevik
(priestless) 78;
invasion of Finland 114: Ashkhbad 222 annexed by Romania 157; Bulgars 34, 34, 39, 45, 45 Revolution 166; Catherine n and
investment in education 116; Askold41,42, 43 Napoleonic wars 114 Bunin. Ivan 143, 153. 160 108-09; Catholicism 39, 52, 54, 54
liberalizing reforms 118; Astrakhan 20, 54 Bethlehem 125 Burlyuk. David 158 58. 166, 197; charitable traditions
Napoleonic wars 114-15.114. 116; falls to Ivan IV 66, 74. 75; Razin Bilibin, I. 122 Burlyuk brothers 1 58 138. 169; choral music 166. J67,
Persian war 115; Russian rebellion 108; uprising (1705) 92, Biron see Buhren Buryat Buddhists 207 169: Christian culture 44; Church
occupation of Paris 114. 116: 94 black earth see chernozem Buryats 167 in Exile 153; clergy purged 168;
serfdom 115, 119; Swedish war Ataturk 219 Black Sea 74. 91. 104. 129 Buturlin. I. 90 conversion of Russia to 42, 166;
114. 115, 129; territorial gains 107, Athos, Mount 52, 54 Crimean War 125 bvliny 44. 70 Council of Florence 54;
115, 129; title of blazhennv 116; Attila the Hun 34 Blok, Alexander 143, 161 Byzantines 34, 34, 35-36, 36. 37, 54 Cyrillo-Methodian mission 28, 34,
Treaty of Tilsit (1807) 115-16, 117. Augustus (the Strong). King of Poland The Scythians 136; The Twelve 136; 41; and Diderot 1 14; Dukhobors
129; Turkish war 1 1 91.94 Verses about the Beautiful Lady 136 Cameron, Charles 114 109; evangelical denominations
Alexander n 107,128 Austerlitz 114,115. 117 Bloody Sunday 140. 141, 142 Carbonari 119 166, 178; first Russian Bible 63; first
army reforms 129, 131; Austria 102 Bobrinsky, Aleksev 105 Carmarthen, Lord 91 Russian martyrs 44; "fools in
assassination of 118, 119. 132, 132; Hungarian national uprising 120; Bogolyubsky, Prince Andre 45. 47 Carpathian Mountains 20, 187 Christ" 63; Great Schism 77-78,
Crimean War 125, 126; education Napoleonic wars 114; partition of Bolotnikov's rising (1606-07) 66, 76 Carpini, Piano 53 166; hermits 54, 63; Hesychast
121; Great Reforms 126, 127-29, Poland 104, 111; post-World War Bolsheviks 133, 140, 141, 143. 153. Caspian Sea 16, 37, 45, 50, 201. 217, mysticism 54, 63, 72. 109; Holy
131; legal system reformed 129: H division 1 76; World War I 146 157 218,222 Alliance 1 19; icons see icons;
serfdom 126; Treaty of Paris 126; Austria-Hungary alienation from 151; All-Russian Catherine I 94. 96, 101 "Josephites" 63, 108. 109;
universal oonscription 129; Balkan War 146; Central Powers Congress of Soviets 150, 151; death 100; marriage to Peter I 96; "Judaizers" 63; Khrushchev era
zemstvo local government 128-29 146; Congress of Berlin 127 atheism and antireligious Supreme Privy Council 100 1 78; Kievan princes and 42-44;
Alexander HI 128 Avars 26, 34 Catherine II (theGreat) 100, 102, Lutheran Church 194. 195;
.plot 132; Avvakum, Archpriest 77, 78, 84 constituent assembly 151; Lenin's 107-08, 107. 110 missionary movement 54. 55;
i 128; intellectual and Life 82 leadership 140. 147. 150; military access to Black Sea 104; Age of the
artistic life under 1 36 Azerbaijan 20, 184, 199. 201. 201 capability and logistical strength Nobility 103; annexation of the Mount Athos 52. 54;
Alexander Nevsky. St 52, 52 climate 199; industry and 151; October Revolution 138. Crimea 104. Ill; annexations in Non-Possessors 63; nunneries 99.
Alexandra, Tsaritsa agriculture 201, 201; language .26; 150-51. 151; opposition to 151. Poland 104. 111-12. 129; art 169; Old Believers 78, 79. 92. 92.
character 146; eccentric lifestyle natiorialism 181; religion 201; 153, 153; propaganda 171; collection 113, 215; Battle of Ces ne 1 16; Old Church Slavonic 28-29
145-46; murder 153; and Rasputin strategic importance 201; publications 143; Red Guards 151; 111; character 108; Charter of the 58; paganism 139; Pentecostal
146, 147 Transcaucasian Federal Republic renamed Communist Party 153; Nobility 109; children 105; and the Church 166, 178; Possessors 63;
Alexandria 78 153. 257. 201; vegetation 20 second Duma 143; Social church'l08-09; Confederation of repression and persecution of 159.
Algirdas 58 Azov 75. 90, 91, 94 Democratic Party 1 30, 1 50; Trotsky Targowica 112; correspondence 166. 166, 168; Russian Orthodox
Alksnis, Viktor 182 Azov, Sea of 34 joins 140; White (anti-Bolshevik) with Grimm 112; correspondence Church see Russian Orthodox
All-jocular (All-drunken) Synod movement 151, 153, 153 with Voltaire 112; culture and the Church; starels 166; Strigolniki 63;
92-93 Bolshoy Ballet 163 arts 112-14; and Diderot 108, 112; Synodal Church 153; Tatars 54;
All-Russian Congress of Soviets 150, Boratvnskv. Yeveny 124 economy 107; Enlightenment Trans-Volga Elders 63; Union of
Brest (1596) 77; Vladimir Is Constructivists 161 Drevlyane tribe 43 II division 7 76; Treaty of
0; Zealots of Piety Copper Revolt (1662) 76 druzhina 36 Brest-Litovsk 749; Tugendbund 119;
Cossack-Ukrainian popular revolt Dubcek, Alexander 179 Fili World War I 146
Chronicle of Current Events 178 (1648)75,76 Dubossarsky region 189 Intercession Church 98 Gertsen, Alexander see Herzen,
Chronicle of Nikon 62 Cossacks 75, 109, 111. 189, 198 Dudayev, General 184 Filofey of Pskov 65 Alexander
Chu River 218 autonomous governments 151 Dukhobors 109 Filonov. Pavel 158, 161. 182 (,ha ids 222
Chubais. Anatoly 184 Courland 101, 112, 193 Duma 140, 140, 145, 147 Analytic Art 161; "universal Glagolitic script 28
Chud 37 Crimea 34, 54, 191 first 143; second 143; third 143; flowering" principle 161 glasnost 158, 181
Churchill. Winston 175. 176 annexed by Catherine II 104, 111; fourth 143, 149; election of 149; Finland 94, 95, 96, 102, 175 Gleb. St 39. 44, 47
Cimmerian Bosphorus 14 Gothic population 5-1. Scythians 30, establishment of 143, 143; Alexander I's invasion 114. 115, Glinka, Mikhail 125, 134
cinema 161 30; vegetation 20, 21; Vayla February Revolution 149, 153; 129; anti-Bolshevik independence Kamannskaya 125
Brezhnev era 182; Socialist Realism Mountains 20 reconstituted as provisional 757; Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) 173; Glmskaya, Yelena 65
182 Crimean War 121, 125-26, 125 government 149; reforms 143; post- World War II 7 76; Winter Godunov, Boris 66, 67, 69, 80, 107
civilwar 151-55, 153, 172 causes of 125; Eastern Question World War I 147 War 173 Kremlin belfry 66, 83
anti-Bolshevik governments 151, 125, 127; propaganda 124; Treaty Duncan, Isadora 160 Finland, Gulf of 193, 794 Gogol, Nikolai 121, 122, 723, 124
153 of Paris 125, 126; Turkish fleet Dushanbe 223 Finnic languages 26 Dead Souls 122; How the Two Ivans
climate 16, 21 destroyed at Sinope 124 Dvina River, North 66 Finno-Karelia 204 Quarreled 122; The Inspector
early Middle Ages 24; "Little Ice Cross, Laetitia 91 Dvina River, West 47, 188, 197 Fioravanti, "Aristotele" 65 General 122; The Overcoat 122
Age" 24; mountain ranges 20; Cuban missile crisis 178 Dzhungarian (Jade) Gates 218 First Novgorod Chronicle 52 Golden Horde 50, 51, 52, 54, 56, 59,
precipitation 20, 23; temperature Cub-futurists 158 Five, the the Mighty Handful, 210
23 Cui, Cesar 134-35 East Prussia 197, 204 Moguchava kuchka) 134-35, 162 Golitsyn, Prince Vasiliy 75, 80, 81-82
Cocteau, Jean 162 Cumans see Polovtsians Eastern Question 125, 127 five-year plans 156-57. 7 72, 173, 176, Golitsyn family 101, 207
coins 34, 43, 81 Cyril, St 28 Echmiadzin 200 180, 181 Golovin 763
nation 156-57, 170, 172-73, Cyrillic alphabet 28, 39, 39 Florence, Council of 54 Goncharov, Ivan
172, 176, 179, 181, 189. 191. 194 Cyrillo-Methodian mission 28, 34, 41 : Party Fokine, Mikhail 143, 763 Oblomovlii
Comintern (Communist International) Czechoslovakia 154, 155; "developed socialism" Fonvizin, Denis 113 Goncharova, Natalya 760, 161, 162
159 Prague Spring 179; Soviet bloc 7 76; 180; five-vear plans 156-57, 172, "fools in Christ" 63 Gorbachev, Mikhail 180-81, 208
Commonwealth of Independent States Warsaw Pact invasion 179 173, 176, 180, 181; Gorbachev 180, forced labor Afghanistan troop withdrawal 180;
S2, 184 181; New Economic Policy 155; Soviet government 176; World alcohol availability restricted 787;
Communism 158, 158. 159 Dagestan 129 Nicholas I 120; perestroika 158, War II 176 Chernobyl nuclear accident 181,
atheism and antireligious languages 26 181, 181, 197; post-World War LI Fort Ross 129 187, 227- and China 181;
commitment 166, 168; global Daniel, Yulv 178, 182 176; Stalin 156-57; World War I France 102 Communist Party Congress 80;
export of revolution 158, 159 DaniilofGalicia 52 147 assists White army 153; Battle of economy 180, 181; foreign polic
Communist Party 158, 158, 159 Daniil (son of Alexander Nevsky) 55 education Borodino 116; Crimean War 725, 180; glasnost 181; perestroika 158,
anti-Communst organizations 153; Danilov Monastery 168 Alexander I's investment in 1 16; 125-6; French Revolution 114; 181, 787, 797; policy on emigration
banking and finance 154, 155; Danzig corridor 1 1 Lycee Tsarskoye Selo 103, 116; invasion of Russia 116; Napoleonic 181; political reforms 181;
Bolsheviks change name to 153; Dargomvzhskv. Alexander 134 Moscow University 102, 112; Peter wars 75, 774, 114-15, 116; resurgence of nationalism 181;
capital moved to Moscow 153; Darwin, Charles 130 the Great romotes 97; revolution of 1848 120; Russian Soviet leadership 180; and the
Central Committee 15 5, Dashkova. Princess 112 Slav-Greek-Latin Academy 82; occupation of Paris 7 74, 116; Triple United States 181
centralization 154; Cheka 151, 153, Decembrists 118, 118, 119, 120, 121, third Duma's reforms 14 3, under Entente 146, 746, 749 Gordon, General Patrick 89, 90, 91
156; collectivization 170, 172-73, 123 Catherine II 112; of women 1 1 Free Economic Society 109 Gorky, Maxim (Aleksey Peshkov)
7 73; Comintern (Communist Denikin, General Anton 153, 153 Ehrenburg, Ilva 153, 177 freemasonry 113, 114', 119 143, 744, 160-61
International) 159: concentration Derzhavin, Gavml 3
1 1 The Thaw 177, 182 fresco painting 47, 57, 52, 57, 83, 768 Foma Gordevev 144; Lower Depths
camps 153, 172, 173,207; "developed socialism" 179, 180 Eisenstein, Sergey 62, 157, 160. 161 iconic 72; Novgorod 60, 70; St 144; The Mother 161
Dictatorship of the Proletariat 155; Dezhnev, Simon 74, 76 Battteship Potemkin 141; The Old Sophia, Kiev (Kyyiv) 48; Trinity Goths 34
economy 154, 155; existing Diaghilev, Sergey 162, 162 and the New 160 Monastery 69 Gotland 60
governmental institutions Ballets Russes 143, 157, 162, 163; Ekibastuz basin 218 Freud. Sigm'und 130 GPU 156, 176
abolished 154; famines 155, 172- Mir Iskusstva ( World of Art) Elizabeth, Tsaritsa 102-03, 103, 107, Friedlan 774, 115, 777 Great Bulgar 34
73; five-year plans 156-57 [73 journal 136, 137, 162 108 Frunz. 224 Great Em assy 90-92, 97
176, 181; functionaries 154; gains Dictatorship of the Proletariat 155 Academy of Arts 112; capital Fur 25 Great Instruction of Catherine II 1 10
control 153; GPU 156, 176; Great Diderot, Denis 108, 112, 114 punishment 102; Moscow Great Northern War 90. 91, 97, 93-95
Terror 173; KGB 151, 176, 179, 180; Di/:oyepo/e(Wild Field) 75 University 112; Petrodvorets Fyodor I 66, 66 Great Rebellion 709. Ill
Kronshtadt uprising 155; Left Dionisiy 56 (Peterhof) Palace 215; serfdom 105; Fyodor II 66, 66 Great Russians 27
Opposition 156; Lenin 154, 156; Ferapontov Monastery 73; Moscow Seven Years' War 102; succession Fyodor III 75, 80-81, 80. 81, 83, 88, Great Schism 77-78
membership 155,
tishentsy 154; 156; Dormition Cathedral 73 105; Winter Palace 215 '89, 103 Great Terror 173
Mensheviks abolished 155; diplomacy Elizabeth I, Queen of England 61 Fyodor Kuzmich 119 Greece 175
money replaced 154; as national Muscovy 76, 76, 80 Elizabethan Baroque architecture 98, civil war 7 76; rebellion against
government 154-55; nationalization Dir 41, 42, 43 Gagarin, Yury 178 ottoman empire 19 1
154;New Economic Policy (NEP) dissident movement 178. 178-79 Galicia 45 Green Armv 153
155-56; NLVD 176; Politburo the arts 180, 182; concentration Russian offensive in 146 Griboyedov, Alexander
Bureau) 155; political
(Political camps 179; emigration 180; internal emigration 180 Galicia-Volhynia 47 Woe from Wit 119, 123
opposition 153; propaganda 158. exile 179; literature 180; Allies' repatriation policy 175. 176; Galuppi, Baldassare 113 Grimm, Friedrich Melchior
159. HO. 170, 171; property psychiatric abuse 179, 180; artists 161; Church in Exile 153; Gapon, Georgy 747 Correspondence Litteraire 1 1
communalized 154; purges 155-56, religious dissidents 178, 179; dissidents 179; emigre population Garshin, Vsevolod 133 Gromyko, Andrev 180
173, 176;Red Army 153; samizdat 178 153; Gorbachev's policy on 181; Gastev, A. 161 Groot , A.
repression and terror 153, 154, 155; Dmitriy, False 66-67 Jews 180; post-World War II 176; Gatchina 113 portrait of Elizabeth 703
resistance to 153, 155; show trials Dmitriy Donskoy, Prince 54-55, 54. returning emigres 153; Synodal Gauguin, Paul 158 Grozny 184
173; Socialist Revolutionary Party 56,57 Church 153 Gedirninas 58 Gulag (Special Administration of
abolished 155; Soviet government Dmitriy (son of Ivan IV) 66 Ernin, Fyodor 113 Gemeinschaft (communality) 121 Camps) 168, 176-77, 179
154; Stalin gains control 156; Dnepropetrovsk 31 Enlightenment philosophy 108, Genghis (Chingis) Khan 57' GUM emporium 210
Terror 172-73; Trotsky exiled and Dnieper River 30, J6, 40, 45, 189, 190, 112-14, 121 fall of Peking 50; invasion of Gumilyov, Nikolai 160
deported 156; War Communism 197 Epiphanios the Wise see Yepifaniy Kievan Russia 50-52, 50; religious Muzhik 160
1 54-55; World War II 175-76 mass baptism in 44; trade route 20, Premudry tolerance 54; succession 57 gusli 71
Communist Party Congress (1988) 80 36, 37,45 Eskimos 16, 17 Gennadiy, Archbishop 61, 63 Gytha (wife of Vladimir II) 45
concentration camps 153, 172, Dniester River 188 Estonia 96, 104. 192, 193, 194, 194, gentry
176-77, 207 Doctors' Plot 177 195 Charter of the Nobility 109; Hamartolos, George 41
Allies' repatriation policy 175, 176; Dolgoruky, Yury 45 absorbed by Soviet Union 193; liberation of 109; Nicholas I 120, Hamilton. Mary 75
death camps 176; dissident Dolgoruky family 100, 101 anti- Bolshevik republic 157; the 121; and Paul 114 Hanseatic League 60, 60
movement 179; Great Terror 173; Don area arts 194; independence 193; Georgia 45, 184, 199, 202, 202, 203 Novgorod 61, 70; Tallinn 792, 194
Gulag 168, 176-77, 179; anti-Bolshevik government 151; industry and agriculture 192, 193, annexation by Paul 114, 115,202; Hardradi, Harold 36
Khrushchev era 177; kulaks 172; Terror- 173 194, 195; language 193; nationalism architecture 202; Catherine II Hare Island 274
mortality rates 176; returning Don River 26, 34, 34. 75, 90, 189 181, 197; Soviet bloc 7 76 establishes protectorship over 1 1 Harold II, King of England 45
emigres 153; uprisings in 176; defeat of Tatars at 56, 57. 57; trade European Russia 40, 207 folk dance 203; independence 202 Hercynian Forest 16-17
World War II 176 route 54 Evelyn, John 91 industry and agriculture 199, 202 Herodotus 30, 34
Constantine (brother of Alexander 1) Don- Volga trade route 34 exports 120 language 202; nationalism 181; Herzegovina
119 Donbass 189-90 religion 202; Scythians 30; annexed by Austria 746; Treaty of
Decembrist movement 118, 119 Donskoy, Mark 161 Falconet, E.-M. Transcaucasian Federal Republic San Stefano 726, 727
Constantine Porphyrogenitus, Dorpat 194 Bronze Horseman 1 1 153, 757; union republic 202; Herzen (Gertsen), Alexander 118, 120,
Emperor 36, 37 Dostoyevsky, Fyodor 121, 122, 130, vegetation 20-2 I 123
Constantinople 35-36, 78 133^1, 136, 166 of 1891-92 139; of 1921 155; Terror Germany My Past and Thoughts 123
falls to the Turks 65; Hagia Sophia Crime and Punishment 133; Notes 172-73 Battle of Tannenberg 146; Central Hesychast mysticism 54, 63. 72
48, 48, 54; raid of Askold and Dir from Underground 1 34; Fatherland War Powers 746; Congress of Berlin Hilarion, Metropolitan 42, 45
41,42,43 Petrashevsky Circle 120, 133; The first 116; second 175 727; Empress Anna 101-02, 106; Sermon on the Law and the Grace 39
constituent assembly 1 5 Brothers Karamazov 1 34; The February Revolution 149 German colonies 7 7 7; German Hitler, Adolf
Constitutional Democratic Party Devils (The Possessed] 133; The Ferapontov Monastery 73 Democratic Republic (GDR) 7 76; invasion of Soviet Union 173, 175,
(Kadets) 140. 143, 151 Gambler 133; The Idiot 133 Fergana basin 219 Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) 173, 775; 775; Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) 173,
constitutional monarchy 140 double-headed eagle 65, 81 Great Fergana Canal 223 and Peter III 707; post-World War 7 75
1 1
Holv Alliance 119 assists White army 15 3; attack on Kokand, khanate of 224 constituent assembly 151; cult 170; Mayakovsky, Vladimir 158
Hoi v Russia, concept of 121 Port Arthur 142; Battle of Mukden Kola Peninsula 25 death 156; and Mak'hno 15 3; and Mazepa. Ivan 94
Hume. David 112 142; Russo-Japanese War see Russo- Kolchak, Admiral 15 3, 7 53 Marxism 158; mausoleum 170, 780; Mecklenburg, Charles Leopold of 102
Hungary Japanese War; Treaty of Kolomenskoye 207 New Economic Policy 55-56; 1 Medvedev, Sylvester 82
Kadar government 177; Soviet blot Portsmouth 142, 143 Church of'the Ascension 65; Palace October Revolution 150-51, 7 57; Meissonu i
176; uprising! 19=56) 177 - 17fi : Japanese 209 83, 86, 87 Politburo 155; second Duma 143; Mensheviks 133, 140, 740, 747
World War I 146 Jason and the Argonauts 30 Korni people 55 Supreme Soviet 154; use of terror abolished 155; general strike (1905)
Huns 22234. Jerusalem 78 Koporye 94 173, War Communism 154 55 140, 142, 143; Georgia 202;
Ibrahim Pasha 120 Jews Korb, Johannes Leningrad 16,214,274,215 Potemktn 141; Social Democratic
see also Judaism; dissident Diary of a Journey to Muscovy 92, see also Petrograd; St Petersburg; Party 130. 150; soviet councils 154;
icons 43, 44. 72. 72. 73, 83. 166 movement 178; emigration 180, 93, 93, 96 siege of 7 75 Soviet of Workers' Deputies 142;
"first icon" 63; Georgian 202; 181 Korea 142 Lermontov, Mikhail 124 Trotsky's leadership of 740, 142
iconostasis 57, 65. 72; impact on John Tzirnisces, Emperor 43 Koreans 209 Hero of our Time 124 Menshikov, Alexander 80. 88, 96, 97,
Modern Movement artists 1 57- 58; Joseph of Volokolamsk, St 63 Kornilov. General Lavr 150, 151 Leskov, Nikolai 133 99. 100
Kievan 56; Muscovy 56-5"; Juchi (son of Genghis Khan) 5/ Korobov, I. Lesnava 97, 94 Merezhkovsky, Dmitriy 143, 160
Novgorod 70; silver casing 47; Judaism 43, 766 Admiralty building 27 5 Letts 96, 193, 194, 195 Merya 37
Stroganov School 83; repression and persecution 166 Kosciuszko, Tadeusz 112, 114 limitny 113, 7 74 mestmchestvo 81, 89
"Tenderness" type 47: Trinity Juknaichai 7 96 Kossuth Liaodong Peninsula 142 Meverhold Vsevolod 143. 161. 182
Monastery 69; "Virgin of Hungarian national uprising 120 Li boy88 Michael III, Emperor 28, 41
Vladimir 4' Kadets see Constitutional Democratic Kosvin, Aleksev 179 lishentsy 154 Mighty Handful seethe five
Igor. Prince of Kiev 42 Partv Kotoshikhin, Grigoriy 82 Lisiewska. R.M 107 Mikhail Romanov, Tsar 66. 67, 74,
Igor Tale (Tale of the Armament of Kalka River 50, 51 Kramskov, Ivan 134 Lisitsky, L. (El) 161 77, 79, 83
Igor) 39, 40, 42. 45, 57 Kama River 34 Kremlin (Moscow) 62, 65, 65, 110. literature 123-24, 133-34. 136, 145 Mikhaylovskoye 723
illuminated manuscripts 28. 57 Kamenev, Lev 114, 755,277 Acmeists 160; Brezhnev era 182; Mikhavlovskv, Nikolai 131
Ilmen. Lake 37 show trial 1 7 i Archangel Cathedral 52. 65, 65; 6y/my44. 70; dissident movement Miloslavsky family 80
Imandra, Lake 25 Kandinsky, Vasiliy 137, 161, 164, 182 belfry 66, 83; Cathedral of the 180; dukhovnye stikhi 82; emigre Mindovg. King of Lithuania 58
Imperial Alexandrovskv Theater 143 Blue Rider almanac 136; On the Annunciation 65; Dormition 153; Estonia 194; Formalists 161; Minikh see Munnich
India 114 Spiritual in Art 136. 137; Sketch for Cathedral 65; Palace 125; Savior Futurists 158; Gogol 122, 723; Minin, Kozma 67, 67
Indigirka River 76 Composition IV, Battle 136 behind the Golden Grille 84; Terem Khrushchev era 177. 178; literary Minsk 188
industry Kapsukskv region 7 97 Palace 83 drama75; Modern Movement 157; Mirovich, Vasiliy 108
five-year plans 156, 172. 173, 176, Kara Kumf'Black Sands ) 25 Krevo. Union of 58 Muscovy 57-58, 75, 82; OBERIU Mittau 101
180,181; forced labor 176; Karabakh 201 Krivoy Rog steel plant 190 161; "peasant poets" 158, 160; Mniszek. Marina 66, 67
Gorbachev's economic reforms 181; Karabakh horses 198 Kronstadt uprising 155 Modern Movement 157, 164
industrialization 135, 172; Karamzin, Nikolai 113. 121 Kuban area Pushkin 122, 722, 723; RAPP 161, Moldavia 187, 188, 788, 789
nationalization 1 54; peasant Karmir-Blur 200 anti-Bolshevik government 151; 181; revolution of 1905 143; Rus see also Bessarabia; agriculture 187;
workers 138; World War II and Kasimov 59 Terror 173 39, 39. 44, 47; Serapion climate 187; Crimean War 125. 725;
after 175. 176 Kaskelen 218 Kuban steppe 30, 34 Brotherhood 161; Socialist Realism industry and agriculture 188. 789;
Kazakhstan 218. 218 Kul Oba 30 182; Symbolists 136-37, 143, 157, nationalism 181; Russian Orthodox
architecture, 218, 218; earthquakes kulaks 172 160, 161; "village prose" school Church 187
Inkhuk organization 161 218; industry and agriculture 217, Kulikovo 56, 57, 57 182 monasteries 769
intelligentsiya 133 219, 219; Kazakhs 219; nationalism Kuprin, Alexander 160 Lithuania 58, 193, 197, 797 monastic movement 54, 54. 769;
Ioakim. Patriarch 89 181 Kura River 201, 202, 202 absorbed by Soviet Union 193; Mount Athos 52, 54; Time of
Iona Svsovevich. Metropolitan 84, 85 Kazakov, Matvev 114 Kurbsky, Prince Andrey 61, 66, 121 anti-Bolshevik republic 757; Troubles 67
Ionian Islands 129 Kazakov, Yury 182 Kursk offensive 7 75 Catherine II 111, 112; Grand Duchv Mongolia 17, 50
Irkutsk 75 Kazan Kustodiev, Boris of 53. 55, 56.57,58,59,61, 197. Mongols see Tatars
Irtvsh River 75 falls to Ivan IV 66, 74.75.211; The Bolshevik 143 incorporated into Russian empire Montenegro 727, 729, 746
Isk'er 75 siege of 63 Kutaisi 202 193; independence 193. 197; Montesquieu. Charles Louis. Baron de
Islam 39. 43, 767, 201, 217. 220. 221. Kerch 30, 34 Kutuzov, Prince Mikhail 116, 7 76 industry and agriculture 193. 197, 112
222. 224 Kerch, Strait of 26 Kuzbass 207 197; language 27, 193, 197; and Moravia. Greater 27-28
repression and persecution 166. Kerenskv, Alexander 150, 151 Kuznetsov, P. 137 Muscovy 59, 61, 63; nationalism Moroz, Valentin 179
221; Shiite 167; sufism 220, 221. KGB151', 176. 179. 180 kvass 200 181, 19-; and Poland 111, 197; Morozov. Boris 80
224 Khachaturvan, Aram 136 Kyrgyzstan 224, 224 Popular National Front 197; Morozova, Boyarinya Feodosiya 78
Ismail 1 1 Khazaria 34 industry and agriculture 224, 224; reannexed to Russia 197; religion mosaics 768
Khazars 26, 34-35, 34. 42, 43 religion 224 39.54.54,58. 197; Sajudis Rus 47; St Sophia. Kiev (Kyyiv) 48
Khiva 729. 767,219,227 Kyzyl Kum ("Red Sands") 20, 279 movement 797; Soviet bloc 776; Moscow 17. 24. 57. 84. 206. 210. 270.
Khlebnikov, Velimir 158 Union of Krevo 58 211
Khmelnitskv, Bogdan 76 Ladoga, Lake 36, 37 Livonia 95 Annunciation Cathedral 72, 72;
Italy Kholmgory 102 Ladoga 37, 60 Livonian Order 66 Archangel Cathedral 27 7; Battle of
Carbonari 119; Triple Entente 146 Khomvakov. Aleksev 123 land Lomonosov, Mikhail 112, 772 Borodino 116, 7 76; belltower Ivan
Itil 34 Khrushchev, Nikita 177-78, 778 Charter of the Nobility 109; Lopukhina, Yevdokiya 88, 92 Velikiy 277; Bolsheviks 151. 153;
Ivan III (the Great) 56 and China 178; Cuban missile crisis cullective farms 156-57, 170, Lovat 36 Cathedral of Christ the Savior 768;
childhood 65; creation of Muscovv 178; fall from power 178, 179; 172-73, 7 72; tenure system 61 lubok 100 Church of the Nativity in Putinki
37, 58-59; first Russian Bible 63; Hungarian uprising 177, 178; Land and Freedom see Zemlya i Volya Lunacharsky. Anatolly 181 83; Church of the Trinity in the
heretics 63; Moscow Kremlin 52. liberalization 178; memoirs 178; Landmarks (Vekhi) almanac 157 Lvubech conference (1097)45 Nikitniki 83; Communist capital
65; Novgorod suppressed 57. Partv general secretary 1 languages 26. 29 Lyubimov. Yury 181, 183 moved to 153; Copper Revolt
59-61; and the OrthodoxChurch religion repressed 168, 178; "secret Armenian 200; Azerbayjani 26; Lyubomudry (Lovers of Wisdom) 121 (1662) 76; Danilov Monastery 768;
65; second marriage 65; Tver speech" 177; space exploration Belorussian 26; Caucasian 26; Dormition Cathedral 73. 21 1; Fili
suppressed 57. 61; Vyatka program 178; sputnik satellite 178; Cyrillic alphabet 28, 39. 39; Magadan 207 98; GUM emporium 270; Kremlin
suppressed 61 the Thaw 177 Dagestani 26; Finnic 26; Glagolitic Magnitogorsk 207 see Kremlin. Moscow. Krutitsky
Ivan IV (the Terrible) 56, 59, 61, 62. Kiev (Kyyiv) 16, 17, 20, 36, 58, 75, 78. script 28; Greek Muscovite
37; Magyars 27, 34 Teremok 84; metropolitan resides
63. 63, 65. 107 189 assimilated into Muscovy 57, (Great Russian) 29; Old Church Makanv Metrolitan 65 at 56: Metropole Hotel 763;
Baltic republics 193; birth 65; 75, 81; Golden Gate 45; Great Slavonic 28-29, 44; Old Russian 39; Makarova.Natalya 181 Moscow Art Theater 143. 144, 744;
capture of Astrakhan 66. 74, 75; Church (St Sophia) 42, 45, 47; Permian script 55; Russian 26; Makhno, Nestor" 133 Moscow Baroque architecture 82,
capture of Kazan 66, 74.15.211; Kiev-Pechery 769; metropolitan of Slavonic 26, 27-29. 28, 37; Tatar Mako vets group 161 83-84. 98. 99; Moscow Taganka
character 62, 65, 66; crowned tsar 54, 57; Monastery of the Caves 47; 29. 51; Turkic 26; Ukrainian 26 Maksimov. Vladimir 180 Theater 182; Napoleonic invasion
65; death 66; early reforms 65-66; Ryurikid dynasty J6, 40, 42^15, 59, Larionov. Mikhail 158. 161. 162 Malenkov, Georgiy 177 116; Novodevichy Convent 99;
first marriage 65, 66, 67; foreign 66; sacked (1169) 45; St Sophia 48, Latvia 193, 195-96, 795, 796, 797 Malevich, Kazimir'l58. 161, 164, 182 oprichniki 62;Ordynka Highway
recruits 66;Kurbsky's letters to 61, 48, 49, 86, 789; Tatar attack 50, 52; absorbed by Soviet Union 193. 195; alogism 164; Girl with Rake 164; 210; origins 45. 47; Pashkov House
121; massacre of the Novgorodians Tatar rule 53; Tithe Church 47; anti-Bolshevik republic 757; Suprematism 161, 164. 764; 114: Pugachov rebellion 709: Red
66; oprichnma 62. 63. 66; reign of unification with Novgorod 42 Courland 101, 112, 193; Suprematist Composition 164; The Square 780. 210. 270; ring road 210;
terror 66; St Basil's Cathedral Kievan Russia see Rus independence 193, 195; industry Knife-Grinder 164 rise of 53. 55-56. 57; St Basil's
(Church of Intercession on the Kikin, A.V. 99 and agriculture 193, 196, 796; Malta 1 14 Cathedral (Church of Intercession
Moat) 211; siege of Kazan 63; state Kikin Palace 99 language 27, 193, 195-96; Manchuria 142 on the Moat) 755. 277; Salt Revolt
seal 62; territorial gains 66, 75; Kipchak 219 nationalism 181; Soviet bloc 7 76 Mandelshtam, Osip 157, 160, 182 (1648) 76; seat of government
threatened abdication 62. 66; trade Kiprensky, DA. 723 La vrov, Pyotr 1 3 Mangyshlvak Peninsula 218 transferred to St Petersburg 88:
links with England 66 Kiprian, Metropolitan 58 Left Opposition 1 56 Manstein, General 101, 102 Slav-Greek-Latin Academy 74;
Ivan V 48, 80-81, 81. 89 Kirevevskv, Ivan 123 Legislative Commission (1767) 80, Maria Alexandrovna, Empress 728 Smolensk Square 27 7; Spasskv
daughters 101 Kireyevsky, Pyotr 123 109-10, 121 Martos275 Tower 277; strellsv mutinies (1682.
Ivan VI 100, 101, 103 Kirov, Serge 173 Lena River 207, 208, 209 Marx, Karl 130, 758 1698) 76. 89. 91, 92. 93; Tatars sack
Mirovich plot 108; murder 108 Kishinev 788 lend-lease 175 Marxism 132, 133 50, 56: University 102. 112;
Ivanov, Alexander 124 Kitezh, Invisible City of 52 Lenin (Ulvanov), Vladimir Qyich Lenin and 158 uprising (1905) 140
Izyaslav, Prince 45 Kizhi 132-33,754 Marxist parties Moskva Ri..
wooden buildings at 86. 87 All-Russian Congress of Soviets Bolsheviks 140, 740, 747; Msta River J7
Jade Gates 218 Klvazma River 24, 45 150; attempted coup 150; Mensheviks 140, 740, 747; Socialist Mstislav, Prince 44, 45
Jagiello. Grand Duke of Lithuania 56, Klvuyev. Nikolai 158 Bolsheviks 133. 740, 147, 150; Revolutionary Party 133, 140. 740 Mtskheta 202
Kneller. Sir Godfrey Cheka 153, 156; Comintern 759; Matisse Henri 158 Mukden, Battle of 142
Peter 1 88 concentration camps 176; Matveyev, Artamon 75. 80. 81 Munnich. Burkhard 101-02
Murmansk 23, 149. 209 123, 124 25; succeeds to throne Kizhi 86, 87; Murom Monastery 86 Peking 50 Lithuania 56. 58, 111, 197;
Murom 110 119, 120; succession 118; Turkish Opolye 23. 24, 45 People's Will terrorist group 119 monarchy 111; and Muscovy 78;
Muscovy 50-67, 88 wars 120; Westernizers 121. 123 opnchniki 62, 63 Pereslavl-Zalessky 24 Napoleonic wars 274, 116;
Aleksey Mikhaylovich 78; alliance Nicholas II 747 oprichnina 62. 63. 66 perestroika 158, 181, 181. 197 Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) 173;
with Poland (1685)81; architecture abdication 149, 7 53; Battle of Ordyn-Nashchokin 80 Perevaslavl 34. 40. 45 partitions of 704, 111-12, 729;
56, 83-84; aristocracy 61; Tannenberg 146, Bloodv Sunday Ordynka Highway 210 Permian script 55 Sophia's alliance with (1685) 81;
Bolotnikov's rising (1606-07) 66, 140, 141. 142; censorship 143; Orlov, Aleksey 106 Permians 54. 55 and Soviet Union 7 76; Time of
76; Boyar Duma 79; Bulavin character 145; Duma 140, 143, 143, Orlov brothers 106, 107 Perovskaya, sofya 1 1 Troubles 66; Treaty of Andrusovo
rebellion (1707) 76; civil disorder 145, 147, 149; eccentric lifestyle Orthodox Church see Russian Persia 50, 95, 1 15 78; Union of Krevo 58; World War
76-77; copper Revolt (1662) 76; 145; February Revolution 149; Orthodox Church Pestel, Colonel Pavel 119 I 146, 749
Cossack-Ukrainian popular revolt influence of tsaritsa 146; land law Orwell, George Peter I (the Great) 48, 59, 80, 81. 88, Polesye (Pripet marshes) 187, 188
(1648) 75, 76; diplomacy 76, 76, 80; reforms 145; liberals 133; ministers 1984 161 95.100 Politburo (Political Bureau) 155
effects of Tatar rule 53; expeditions 145; murder 15 3; October Osh 224 All-jocular (All-drunken) Synod Polotsk 47, 188
against Crimean Tatars 81; Manifesto 142-43, 145; political Ostermann, Count Andrey 102 92-93; Astrakhan uprising (1705) St Sophia 48
gathcring-in of the Russian lands isolation 147; Rasputin 146. 147; Ostrovsky, Alexander 133 92, 94; Azov captured and lost Polotsky Simeon 82
56, 61; Great Schism 77-78, 166; reforms 143. 145; revolutionary Ottoman empire 89-90, 97. 94; Baltic republics 193; Polovtsians (Cumans) 42, 45, 45, 47
Ivan in 58 59; late Muscovite crisis movement 132. 133. 142; Russo- Bosnia 126; Bulgaria 726; Crimean Bashkir civil war 94; Battle of Poltava, Battle of 97, 94. 96
24, literature 82; and Lithuania 56. Japanese War 142; Treaty of War 125; Eastern Question 125, Poltava (1709) 94, 96; Battle on the Polyane tribe 26
61,62; "Little Ice Age" 24; Portsmouth 142. 143; Triple 127; Greek rebellion against 119; Prut 94, 95; becomes sole ruler 89; Pomerantsev, A.N. 210
meaning 58; meslnicheslvo 81; Entente 146; World War I 146-47, Herzegovina 126; Treaty of San birth and childhood 65, 88; boy Pontic steppe 26
metalwork 83; metropolitan of Kiev 149 Stefano 126. 127 regiments 88,90; boyars' beards Popova, O. 182
and All Russia 56; Muscovite Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm 130 Oxus (Amu Darya) River 218. 219 and dress 92, 92, 96; Bulavin population 16
(Great Russian) language 29; music Nijinsky, Vaslav 762 rebellion 94; conscription and Port Arthur naval base 729, 142
82; Novgorod 59-61, 60; Novgorod N'ikitnikov, Grigoriv 83 painting and sculpture 124-25 forced labor 94, 97; Cyrillic Portsmouth, Treaty of (1905) 142, 74J
bread riots (1650) 76; painting 56, Nikon, Patriarch 62, 77-78, 79, 80, AKHRR proletarian organization alphabet reformed 28; education Possessors 63
83; political structures 78-80; 82, 83, 84 181; alogism 164;ytic Art 161; promoted 97; embassies to the Potemkin. Grigoriv 704, 108. 113
pomestye 61; religion 63, 65, 77-78; Chronicle of Nikon 62; New Brezhnev era 182; Catherine U 1 13; West 88. 95. 95; equestrian statue Great Project for revival of
Romanov dynasty 67, 74-75; Salt Jerusalem 78, 83, 99 Constructivists 161; Estonia 194; in St Petersburg 1 14; Finland 94. Byzantine empire 111; Old
Revolt (1648) 76; seclusion and Nil Sorsky, St 63 faktura (facture) 157; frescoes 52, 95, 96; foreign experts and Believers 78
xenophobia 75, 76; serfdom 61; Nixon, Richard M. 1 78 57; Futurism 1 58; Georgia 202; craftsmen 90, 91, 95, 96, 97; Great Potemkin (ship) 747
Tatar invasion 50-52; territorial Nizhniv Novgorod (Gorky) 67, 139 Hermitage collection 1 1 3; icons see Embassy 90-92, 91; Great Northern Poulenc, Francis 162
expansion 74. 75-76, 78; Time of NKVD 176 icons; Inkhuk 161; Khrushchev era War 90, 91, 91, 93-95; Guards Pozharsky, Prince Dmitriv 66. 67
Troubles 59. 66-67, 66, 79, 80; nomads 32 177; Kievan frescoes 47. 51; regiments 96; joint tsardom 81; Prague Spring 179
Turkic Bashkirs 76; yasak (fur nomenklatura 179 Makovets group 161; Modern Livonia purchased 95; marriage to Pravda 141,211
tribute) 74; Zemskiy sobor Non-Possessors 63 Movement 157-58, 164; Muscovy '
Catherine 96; marriage to Preobrazhenskoye 88-89, 92
(Assembly of the Land) 79-80 Norilsk 208 56, 75, 83; neo-primitivism 158; Yevdokiva Lopukhina 88, 92; navy Preobrazhensky'office 90, 92, 93. 102
music 125, 136. 145 Normanist issue 37 parsuna 75; portrait painting 63, 88. 90, 91, 96, 96; Old Believers 78', pretenders 110-11
ballad-singing 182; Catherine II North Atlantic Treaty Organization 'Proletarian' 161 92, 92; Peace of Nystad 91. 95; priestless (bezpopovtsy) 78
113; Estonia 194; the Five 134-35, (NATO) 180 Persian war 95; personality 88, 91. Primary Chronicle (The Tale of Bygone
162; Modern Movement 157, 161; Northern War 90, 91, 91, 93-95, 96 92-93, 97; Petrine reforms' 96-97, Years) 25-26, 28, 34, 36, 37, 40-^11,
Muscovy 75, 82; Socialist Realism Novgorod 26, 56, 70, 70, 71 100; Petrodvorets (Peterhof) Palace 40. 42, 43, 44, 47
182; Western influence 82 archaeological remains 39; 215; political organization 96-97; primogeniture 100. 103
Musorgsky, Modest 133. 134-35, 136 architecture 70; birch-bark theater design 143, 145, 760; Preobrazhensky Office 90. 92. 93. printed books, appearance in Russia
Boris Godunov 1 35; Khovanshchina documents 39. 39; bread riots 76; Tretvakov Gallery 69, 182; the 102; proclaimed emperor 95; refuge 28
135 decline 39; First Novgorod Wanderers (Peredvizhmki) 134, in Trinity Monastery 68; and Pripet marshes 187. 188
Chronicle 52; fresco painting 70; 135, 157; Western influence 83; religion 93; St Petersburg 88. 94. Procopius 42
Nabokov, Vladimir 153 Gotland 60; government 70; gusli World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) roup 96, 104. 214, 215; serfdom 97; Prokofiev, Sergey 136. 7J6. 161. 162
Nagorno-Karabakh 184, 200 71; Hanseatic league 60, 60, 61, 70; 122, 136, 137, 145, 162, 762, 163; Prokopovich. Feofan 93, 97
Nagv, lmre 177 icon painting 70; incorporation Zero-Ten 164, 165; see also fresco C.-B. Rastrelli 114; streltsy proletariat 135, 155
Napoleonic wars 15, 107, 114-15, 114, into Muscovy 60; inherent painting, icons rebellion 76. 89. 91,92. 93; propaganda
116, 776. 117,129 weaknesses 60; kontsy 60; lands 60; Paisiello,Giovanni 113 succeeds to throne 80-81; Communist 758, 759, 170, 7 70, 772;
narodnichestvo 131, 132 literary arts 39, 70, 70. 71; Pakhomy the Serb 58 succession 95-96. 100; Table of Crimean War 124; Leninist 170;
narodmki 131, 133 massacre at 66; Novgorod empire Palaiologina, Zoe 65 Ranks 95, 97, 103; Taganrog naval imperial Russian 170; murals 170;
Narva 91. 94. 194 47; political organization 47, 59; Paleolithic remains 32 base 90; taxation 92, 94, 96; posters 170, 170. 171, 179;
Naryshkin family 80, 81 popular culture 70; princes of 42; Pamir Mountains 20, 223 territorial gains 96; tobacco sculpture 1 70
Naryshkina Natalva 75, 80-81, 88, 89 Ryurik dynasty 36, 42-45, 59, 66; Pan-Turkism 220 industry 91; and Tsaritsa Sophia provisional government 149-50, 151
National Labor Alliance (NTS) 153 St Sophia 47, 48; suppression by 81, 88-89; and Turkey 91. 93; Prussia 54, 102
Nattier, Jean Marc Ivan III 56, 59-61; Tatar rule 52'. Vedomosti gazette 97, 97; victory at Danzig corridor 111; Great
portrait of Catherine I 101 53. 55. 59-60; Time of Troubles 66; Treaty of (1 856)725, 126 Lesnaya 94; Westernization 89, 97 Embassy 97; language 27; partition
nature reserves 191 trade connections 45. 60. 60; Parland, A. A. Peter II 100, 102 of Poland 704, 111
Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) 173, 175, 188 unification with Kiev 42; veche 70; Church on the Blood 2 1 Peter III 105, 107 Prut River 94, 95, 188
Nechayev. Sergey 5'
131 Viking trade route 37; wooden parliamentary government abdication and death 106, 107, 707; Pseudo-Maurice 42
Neman River 1 1 buildings 87 Decembrist movement 118; Duma gentry liberated from obligatory Pskov 47. 56. 60
Nemirovich-Danchenko, Vladimir Novikov, Nikolai 113. 114 140, 140. 143, 143. 145, 147, 149; service 106; Germanophile Battle on the Ice 52; suppression by
144, 144 Novosiltsov, Count Nikolai 119 October Manifesto 140 tendencies 707; marriage 105; Vasiliy III 6 1 ; Tatar invasion 52
Novy, Alevisio 65 Parthians 222 Orthodox Church 106; "secret Pskov-Pechery Monastery 769
Novy Mir 182 Pasternak, Boris 158, 182 chancery" closed 106; Seven Years' Pugachov, Yemelyan 106, 108, 109,
Nepmen 155 nunneries 99, 169 Doctor Zhivago 182 War 105 709, 110-11, 112, 124
Nerchinsk, Treaty of (1689) 76 Nureyev, Rudolf 181 Patrikeyev, Vassian 63 Peterle, Tvlichael Pushkin, Alexander 113, 116, 120.
Nereditsa Hill, church on 52 nutrition 7 39 Patriotic War woodcut of bovars 59 122, 722. 723. 124. 135
Nestor (builder) Nvenskans 94 first 116; second 175 Petrashevsky Circle 120. 133 Boris Godunov 122; Bronze
Church of the Transfiguration, Nystad, Peace of (1721) 9J. 95 Paul, Tsar 105, 107, J07, 113, 114, Petrine Baroque architecture 98, 99 Horseman 97. 122; Mozart and
Kizhi 87 114 Petrograd214, 274, 275 Salieri 122; Poltava 97; Tales of
Nestor (monk) OBERIU 161 advance on India 1 14; annexation see also Leningrad; St Petersburg Belkin 122; Yevgeny Onegm 122; The
Primarv Chronicle ( Tale of Bygone Oblomovism 133 of Georgia 114, 115. 202; Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Captain's Daughter 122; The Queen
Years) 47 Ochakov 1 1 anti-French alliance 114; Grand Soldiers' Deputies 149-50 of Spades 122, 124
Neva River 37, 89, 94, 132, 214, 214 October Manifesto 140. 142-43, 145 Master of the Knights of St John Pevsner, Anton 162 Pushkin Palace 98
defeat of Swedes at (1240) 52 October Revolution 150-51, 1 51 114. 114; gentry 114; murder 114; Philip, Metropolitan 65, 77-78 Pustozyorsk 77
New Economic Policy (NEP) 155-56, Odessa 120, 189, 190 Napoleonic wars 114; peasantry Philokalia 109 Pyatakov, Grigoriy 173
172, 181 foundation of 104, 111 114; Poland 112; Russian empire's Picasso. Pablo 762, 164
New Jerusalem 78, 83, 99 odnodvortsy 103 territorial extent 107; St Michael's Pilnyak 182 Quakerism 109
Nicholas I 119, 120-21, 121; Official Nationality 120-21 Palace 114; "small court" at Platonov, Andrev 161
censorship and restrictions 120, Ogaday (son of Genghis Khan) 51 Gatchina 113; succession 107; Plekhanov, Georgiy 1 32, 1 33 Rachmaninov. Sergey 145, 157, 158,
123; character 120. 121; Crimean Oghuz219, 222 succession law 119 Mensheviks 133 767
War 121. 124, 125-26. 725; Ogurtsov, Bazhen 83 Pavlovsk 114 Pleshcheyevo, Lake 88 Radek, Karl 173
Decembrists 120; defense of oikoumene 44 Pazyryk 32. 32 Plezpurch see Preobrazhenskoye Radishchev, Aleksandr 1 14, 1 19
Constantinople 120; domestic Oka River 20. 45, 56 peasants 139 podzol 23. 24 Journey from St Petersburg to
policy 120; Eastern Question 125, Okhotsk, Sea of 209 see also serfdom; Alexander Us Poland 58 Moscow 1 1
127; economy 120; exports 120; Okovsky forest 36 Great Reforms 126, 127-28, 131; anti-Bolshevik intervention 753; Radziwill Chronicle 40
gentry 120, 121; His Majesty's Old Believers 78. 79, 92, 92, 109. 116 collective farms 156-57, 170, Catherine II 108; Catholic Church RAPP 161, 181
Own Chancery 120; Hungarian Old Prussian 27 172-73. 172; Communism 156-57; 54; Confederation of Targowica Rasputin, Grigoriv 146, 147
national uprisin in Austria 120; Olearius, Adam 82 Duma's reforms 143; kulaks 172; 112; Danzig corridor 111; Duchy of Rastrelli, B.F. 83, 103, 114
Official Nationally doctrine Journey to Muscovy 76 Nicholas I 120; proletariat 135; Warsaw 112; free veto 1 1 1 Great ; Elizabethan Baroque architecture
120-21; peasants 120; Petrashevsky Oleg, Prince of Kiev 40, 42, 43 Socialist Revolutionary partv 140. Northern War 91. 94; 98, 98; Petrodvorets (Peterhof)
with Ottoman
Circle 120; relations Olga, regent of Russia 43 140 incorporation into Russia 1 12; Palace 27 5; Tsarskoye Selo Palace
empire 120; Russian laws codified Omsk 151. 153 Pechenegs40. 42.43, 219 invasion attempt (1920) 7 59; 98; Winter Palace 98, 215
120; serfdom 120; Slavophiles 121, Onega, Lake 37 Peipus, Lake 52 Kosciuszko's uprising 112; and Rastrelli, C.-B.
3
statue of Peter I 114 45; Vladimir 142, 43-14; Vladimir Scythians 30, 30,32,34 140, 150 Spring 145, 263; The Soldier's Tale
Ray-ism 158 II 45, 47 goldsmithing 30. 31; Scythian Socialist Realism 121, 182 162
Razin. Stepan (Stenka) 76. 108. 1 10 Russia 204-09 Animal Style 30, 30, 32' Socialist Revolutionary Party 1 32, streltsy80-81, 88-89
raznochintsy 133 Russian language 26 secret chancery 106 133, 140, 140, 149, 151, 15 3 mutinies 76, 89, 91, 93;
Razumovsky. Aleksey 102 Russian Orthodox Church 39, 39, 54, Seliger, Lake 37 abolition 155; Battle Organization suppression of 92, 93
Razumovskv. Kirill 102 63, 68, 92, 123, 149. 166, 266, 26S. Semipalatinsk 218 140; soviet councils 154 Stroganov family 75
Razumovsky family 102 269, 178 Semyon Bekbulatovich 59 23
soils 17, sukhovey 1 90
Reagan, Ronald 181 Alexander Nevsky 52; Church in Serafim of Sarov, St 109 chernozem (black earth) 17, 23. 24, Suleyman (Solomon), throne of 224
Realists 161 Exile 153; emigrant population Serangeli, G. 32, 187, 188; podzol 23, 24 Supplication of Daniel the Captive 39
Red Army 153; "fools in Christ 63; Great Tsar Alexander at Tilsit 117 Solokha 31 Suprematism 161, 164, 264, 265
capture of Berlin 175; foundation Schism 77-78, 166; Hesychast Serapion Brotherhood 161 Soloukhin. V. 182 Supreme Privy Council 100, 101
of 159; Great Terror 173; World mysticism 54, 63, 72, 109; Serbia 246 Solovki Monastery 54 Supreme Soviet 154
Warll 173. 175 Jo'sephites 63, 108, 109; Congress of Berlin 127; World War Solzhenitsvn, Alexander 123, 177, Surikov, Vasiliy 134
Red Guard 151. 155. 159. 168 Khrushchev era '.
I 227, 146 179, 180, 182, 183 Suvorov 102, 114, 115
Red Square 210. 210 Seredka 86 A Day of Ivan Denisovich 182 Suadal 24, 45
religion 39. 166, 266. 767 Non-Possessors 63; nunneries 99, serfdom Sophia, Electress of Hanover 90-9 1 Cathedral of the Nativity of the
see also Buddhism; Christianity: 169: oikoumene 44; Old Believers 78, agricultural production 104, 138; Sophia, Tsaritsa 75, 81, 81, 82, 83, Virgin 206; Nikolskaya church 206;
Islam; Judaism; Russian Orthodox 79, 92, 92. 1 16; Possessors 63; Alexander 1115,119; Alexander 88-89, 92 wooden architecture 87, 206, 207
Church; Catherine II 1 3; dissident
1 repression and persecution of 259, II's Great Reforms 126, 127-28, Novodevichy Convent 99 Svanetia 203
movement Khrushchev
178, 179; 166, 266, 168; revival during 131; barshchina (corvee) 105; South Russian government 153 Svyatopolk, Prince 44
era 178; monastic and missionary World War II 175; secularization Catherine II 109; Decembrists 1 18, Southern Society 119 Svyatoslav, Prince 26, 34, 42, 43
movements 54: paganism 39, 43. 108; serfs 54; and the state 65; 119; 18th-century 103-05, 106; Sovetsk22 7 Sweden
54. 139; repression and persecution Synodal Church 153; Trans- Volga emancipation 127-28, 131, L35, Soviet bloc 2 76 defeat by River Neva (1240) 52;
of 259, 166,266,267, 26S; Elders 63; Vladimir I accepts 43-44 1 38; enforced removal from li.ilu. 193 Greal
substitute secular rituals 2 59 Russo-Japanese War 140, 142 agriculture 104; exile to Siberia break up 182; Brezhnev doctrine Northern War 90. 91, 91, 93-95;
Remizov. Aleksev 160 battle of Mukden 142; Manchurian 105; Free Economic Society 109; 179-80; cold war 180; Time of Troubles 66; Treaty of
Repin. Ilya 134, 236. 157 campaign 142; Port Arthur 129, handicrafts 138, 138; institution of collectivization 170, 172-73, 2 72, Nystad 91, 95; Vikings 26, '36-37,
portraits of Lev Tolstoy 130 142; Straits of Tsushima 142; 61; military service 104, 126, 129; 273, 176, 179, 181, 189, 191. 194; 36; war with Alexander 1115
Reval (Tallinn) 194, 194 Treaty of Portsmouth 142, 143 Nicholas I 120; obrok (quit-rent) Communist Party control 153 54; Sylvester
revolutionary movement Russo-furkish War (1877-78) 105; Peter I 97; Russian Orthodox concentration camps 172. 173, 175, Primary Chronicle {Tale of Bygone
All-Russian Congress of Soviets Treaty oi San Stefano 226, 127 Church 54 176-77, 207; de-Stalinization 178; Years) 47
150; anarchists 118, 118. 119; arts Rusta, Ibn 37 Sergey, Grand Duke developed socialism 180; dissident Symbolists 136-37, 143, 160. 161
157-58, 160-61; assassination 132; Rustaveli, Shota assassination 140 movement 178-79; five-year plans Syr Darya River 218
Bloody Sunday 142; constituent The Man in a Tigers Skin 202 Sergievan period 58 176, 180, 181; forced labor 176;
assembly 151: February Revolution Ruthenia 187 Sergius of Radonezh, St 55-54, 54, 57, glasnost 181; GPU 176; Great Terror T34 tanks 176
149; general strike (1905) 140, 142, Ryazan 50, 56, 61 63 173; Gulag 168, 176-77, 179; Table of Rank 95, 97. 103
143; Marxism 132, 133, 140. 140. Ryazan province 20 Life 57-58; Trinity Monastery 54 industrialization 2 72; internal Taganrog naval base 90
141. 158; Mensheviks 154, 155; Rykov, Aleksey 173 68, 68, 69 passrts 172. 179; intervention in taiga (coniferous forest belt) 16-17,
narodniki (populists) 131; October Rvlevev, Kond'rativ
'
120 Sevan-Razdan project 200 Afghanistan 180; invasion of 2 7, 22. 23, 207, 209
Revolution 150-51, 151. Petrograd Ryurik 26. 36, 42 Sevastopol Czechoslovakia 179; KGB 176, 179, sub-taiga 22
Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Ryurikid dynasty 36, 40. 42-i5, 59, Crimean War 225, 130 180; living permits 179; military Tajikistan 184, 223, 223
Deputies 149-50; provisional Seven Years' War 102, 105 influence 179; Nazi-Soviet Pact industry and agriculture 223, 223;
government 149; revolution of 1905 Shafirov, P. 94, 97 (1939) 173, 188; NKVD 176; language 223
142^3, 145, 253; and Russo- St Petersburg 42, 61, 88, 89, 91, 100, Shalyapin, Fyodor 136, 236 nomenklatura 179; perestroika 158, Tate of Bygone Years see Primary
Japanese War 142; Socialist 226, 214,224,225 Sharansky, Anatoly 179, 180, 181 181, 181. 197; postwar economy Chronicle
Revolutionary Party 132, 133, 149, see also Leningrad; Petrograd; Shcerbatov, Prince M. 121 176; postwar partition of Europe Tale of the Ruin of the Russian Land
153, 154, 155; Soviet of Workers' Academy of Arts 102: Academy of Shearers (Strigolniki) 63 175; purges 175, 176; show trials 52, 121
Deputies 142; Soviets 149; strike Sciences'89; Admiralty 89, 125, Shebilinka gas field 190 173; Terror 172-73; the Thaw 177; Tale of the Siege of Azov 82
movement 147; terrorism 132. 133; 214, 225; Bloody Sunday 140. 141, Sheksna 37 urbanization 2 72; World War II Tale of Woe and Misfortune 82
To the People movement 131, 133; 142; Bolsheviks 151; Bronze Shirvan, khans of 201 173, 175-76 Tallinn 192, 194, 194, 195
Zemlw i Volva 132 Horseman 1 14; capital transferred Shishkov, Alexander 121 Soviet Union see Union of Soviet Tambov 153
Riga 92, 2 95. 196.297 to 88, 102-03. 104;Church on the ShkJovsky, Viktor 161 Socialist Republics Tannenberg, Battle of 146
Rimskv-Korsakov. Nikolai 134-35 Blood 132, 215; Communist capital Shmelyov, Ivan 153 Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Targowica, Confederation of 1 12
The'Golden Cockerel 136, 260 moved to Moscow 1 53; Sholokhov, Mikhail Deputies 142, 149 Tarkovsky. A. 182
Rioni River 202 Decembrists 118. 118, 119; The Quiet Don 182 Soviets 149, 154 Tartu University 194
Roench (Rerikh), Nikolai 157. 263 foundation 94, 96; Hermitae 132, Shostakovich, Dmitriy 136, 182 space exploration program 178. 218 Tashkent 218, 219-20, 221
Rokotov. F. 113, 114 215; Imperial Alexandrovsky Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk 136 Speranskv. Mikhail 116. 120 Tatars 42, 45, 50-52, 50, 50, 56, 219
Romania 2 57 Theater 143; Menshikov palace 89; show trials 178 Spitak 200 and Alexander Nevsky 52; defeat
Congress of Berlin 227; and Soviet military governor shot and Shubin, F.I. 112, 113,225 sputnik 178 by Dmitriy Donskoy 5~6. 57, 57;
Union 2 76 wounded 118; Palace Square 215; Shukshin, V. 182 Stalin, Joseph 202 Golden Horde 51, 52. 54, 56, 59;
Romanov dynasty 65, 66, 67, 74-75, Peter-Paul Cathedral 214, 214; Shuvalov, Countess 147 and the arts 236, 181-82; language influenced by 29;
80, 96, 101, 102, 147 Peter-Paul Fortress 88, 94, 214; Shuvalov, Ivan 102 collectivization 170, 172-73, 172. missionary movement 54; religion
Romodanovsky, Prince Fyodor Perrine Baroque architecture 98; Shuvalov family 102 173. 176, 189, 191, 194; Communist 54; rise of Moscow 53; rule by 53;
All-jocular (All-drunken) Synod 93; Petrodvorets (Peterhof) Palace 225; Shuysky, Vasiliy see Vasiliy IV Party leadership 156; Russian Orthodox Church 54; sack
de facto regent during Great Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and (Shuysky) concentration camps 176, 207; of Moscow 56; trade and merchants
Embassy 90; Preobrazhensky Soldiers' Deputies 142, 149; prison Shvarts. Yevgeny 182 death 176, 177; Doctors' Plot 177; 53; tribute payments to 59
fl 42, 93. 102. 150: revolution of 1905 142; Siberia 16. 66, 204, 207-08 economy 156-57, 172; five-year Tatlin, Vladimir 158, 164
of streltsy 92, 93 revolutionary Soviet council 140; St anti-Communist revolt 153; plans 156-57, 172, 176. 181; foreign An Englishman in Moscow 165;
Ros River 37 Isaac's 214; St Michael's Castle 214; assimilation into Muscovy 75; policy 173; German invasion of culture of materials 161, 164;
Rosicrucian order 1 1 St Michael's Palace 114; St Buddhism 267; capture of Kazan 63: Soviet Union 173; Great Terror monument to the Third
Rostov the Great 24, 45 Petersburg Ballet 143; Senate exile of serfs to 105; fur tribute 74; 173; Gulag 176; and Ivan the International 165; The Sailor 165
Kremlin 84, 85 Square 118, 1 19; Winter Palace 89. industry 208, 209; Mongol Terrible 62; Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) Tauride Palace 114
Rousseau, Jean Jacques 112 98, 103. 132. 151, 252,214,225; population 267; mountain ranges 173, 2 75; October Revolution 151; 203
Tbilisi 202,
Rublyov, Andrey 56, 57, 65, 68, 69, Zemlya i Volya 132 20; Muscovy 74; population 2 72, and the Orthodox Church 168; Tchaikovsky, Pyotr 136
72,' 72 Sajudis movement 197 208, 208, 209; tundra 16; Turkic Politburo 155; postwar partition of The Queen of Spades 135; Yevgeny
Last Judgment (Vladimir Dormition Sakhalin Island 207, 209 population 267 Europe 175; purges 175, 194; Onegin 135
Cathedral) 73; Old Testament Sakharov, Andrey 177, 179, 181 Sigismund III, king of Poland 57 repatriated emigres 175; Terror Tehran conference 175
Trinity icon 69, 72. 1 58 Salt Revolt (1648) 76 Sikhote-Alin Mountains 20 172-3; Winter War 173; World Temuchin see Genghis Khan
Rus 25-26, 34-17, 35, 40 Saltykov-Shchedrin. Mikhail 133 silk route 50, 217 Warn 173, 175-76; Yalta Terek River 34
buildings 47; Byzantine Empire 34. Samandar 34 Simbirsk 108 conference 175, 176 terrorists 118, 118, 119, 132, 133. 140.
35-36; capital shifted to Samara 151, 153 Sinyavsky Andrey 178, 181. 182 Stalangrad 175 140, 141
Peryaslavets 43; Christianity 42-44; Samarkand (Samarqand) 36, 218, 219, skll 209 Stanislavsky, Konstantin Teutonic Knights 52, 58, 90
conquest of Bulgaria 43; 219 Skopin-Shuysky, Prince M. 66 Moscow Art Theater 143, 144. 144 theater 75, 143, 145, 161
disintegration 47; early tribes Khajesud Murad mosque 267; Skovoroda, Gngoriy 109 Staraya Russa 37 Actors' Workshop 144; Brezhnev
34-36, 34, frescoes 47; language Regisun 221; Shir Dar madrasa 221 Slav-Greek-Latin Academy 74 slarets 166 era 182; Chekhov 144, 144; Estonia
and literature 39, 39. 44, 47; samizdat 178 Slavophiles 121, 123, 124-25, 131, 133 Stasov, V. 134 194; Imperial Alexandrovsky
meaning 37; mosaics 47; official San Stefano, Treaty of (1878) 126, 127 Slavs 25-26 statefarms 191 Theater 143; Moscow Art Theater
conversion to Christianity 42; Sarajevo 146 Belarusians 27; Great Russians 27; Stephen of Perm, St 55, 57 143, 144, 144; Moscow Taganka
prince (grand prince) of Kiev 40; Saray 50, 51, 52 Nazi policy towards 173, 175; Life 57-58 Theater 182; Socialist Realism 182;
Ryurikid dynasty 36, 40, 42-15, 59, Sarkel 34 Slavonic languages 26. 27-29, 28, steppe 16, 17. 20, 23, 32 World of Art (Mir Iskusstva)
66; sources for history 38-41; split Sarmatians 26, 34 37; Ukrainians 27; West, South wooded 17, 20, 21,22, 23 painters 145
under diarchy 44; systematically Sasanids 222 and East 27, 28, 34 Stolvpin, Pyotr 140, 145 Theophanes (Feofan) the Greek 56, 57,
organized government 43; Tatar Savrasov, A.K. Smolensk 47, 58, 61. 78, 116 Stravinsky, Igor 136, 157, 161. 162, 65. 72, 72
invasion 42, 45, 50-52, 50; treaty The Rooks have Returned 135 assimilated into Muscovy 75 162 Thirty Years' War 90
with Byzantium 43; unification of Schlusselberg 102 Smolny 99 Les Noces 162; Mavra 162; Tien Shan Mountains 20. 219
Novgorod and Kiev 42; Vikings 26, Scriabin, Alexander 136, 145, 158 sobomost 123 Petrushka 145, 262; Pulcinella 162; Tilsit, Treaty of (1807) 115-16, 227,
36-37, 36, Vladimir becomes capital sculpture see painting and sculpture Social Democratic Party 132, 133, 135, The Firebird 145, 163; The Rite of
Time of Troubles 59, 66-67. 66. 79. 80 Turgenev. Ivan 122, 133, 136 Ushakov, Simon Yaitsklll
Timur (Tamerlane) 217. 219 Fathers and Children 1 3 3; The Planting of the Tree of the Wallachia Yakutia 207
Tkachov, i Sportsman's Sketches 133 Muscovite State 83 Crimean War 125, 125 language 26
Tmutorokan 26. 34. 40 Turkestan 217-24 Uvarov, Count Sergey 121 Wanderers (Peredvizhniki) 134, 7J5, Yakuts 207
To the People movement 131, 133 Turkev Uzbekistan 218, 219-20, 219 157 Yalta 191
Tobolsk 75. 77 Alexander I 1 15; Ataturk 219; industrv and agriculture 219. 220; War Communism 154-55 Yalta conference 175, 176
Tokhtamysh 56 Balkan War 127, 146; Catherine II Pan-Turkism 220; religion 220, 221 Warsaw 146 Yam 94
Tolstoy. A K 133 109, 111; Crimean War 25-26, 1 Grand Duchy of 112, 114. 129 Yaropolk, Prince of Kiev 42, 43
dor Ivanovich 144 125; Nicholas I's wars with 120; Valday Hills 36 Warsaw Pact 179 Yaroslav the Wise 36, 40, 42, 44^15,
Tolstoy, (Leo) Lev Nikolavevich 116. Treat of San Stefano 126, 127 Vallin de la Mothe, J.-B. 114 Webb. Sidney and Beatrice 176 48, 51, 52
122. 130, 130. 133, 134.' 144. 166 Turkic languages 26 Varangians see Vikings Wends 54 Yaroslavl 66, 74
Anna Karenina 130; Resurrection Turkmenistan 20, 184. 222, 222 Vasiliv I 56 Wersent, L.M.J. frescoes 83
1 36; revolutionary views 130; War industrv and agriculture 222; Kara Vasiliy LI 56, 59, 60 Peter I and Louis XV 95 Yasnaya Polvana 130, 130
and Peace JO 1 Kum 25; language 222; religion 222; Vasiliy III 58-59,61,65
56, Westernization 81, 89, 97, 121, 123 Yayla Mountains 20, 191
ivter 90. 95, 100 vegetation 20 Vasiliy IV (Shuysky) 66, 76 Westphalia, Peace of 75 Yekaterinburg
Ton, Konstantin Turks 34 Vedomosli gazette 97, 97 White (anti-Bolshevik) movement Constitutional Democrat
Kremlin Palace, Moscow 125 Turov-Pinsk 40 vegetation 16-17. 20-21, 22 747, 149, 151, 153, 153 government 151, 153; Nicholas II
trade Tushino 67 desert 20, 25; mixed White Horde 219 and his familv murdered at 153
with Britain 66, 67, 102; Don-Volga Tuva 204 coniferous-deciduous forest 17, 20, White Lake (Beloozero) 37 Yelizarov house 86
trade route 34: Hanseatic League Tver 56, 56,61,65 21, 21. 23; semidesert 20; steppe Winter Palace 98. 214, 215 Yeltsin, Boris 11, 182, 184
60, 60, 61, 70, 192. 194; Novgorod Tvertsa River 37 (grassland) 16, 17, 20, 23; sub-taiga Winter War 173 Yenisey River 208, 209
45, 60, 60; Rus 45: silk route 50, typhus 139 22; subtropical 20-21; taiga 16-17, Wine, Count Sergey Yepifamv Premudrv (Epiphanios the
21"; Vikings 36 Tyumen oilfields 208 1 7. 22, 23, 207. 209; tundra 16. J 7; Duma 143; fiscal and administrative Wise) 57, 58
trade unions 135, 180 Tyutchev, Fyodor 121, 133 wooded steppe 17, 20, 21, 23 reforms 135; October Manifesto Yerevan 200, 200
Trans-Siberian Railroad 17, 207 Velichkovsky, Paisiy 109 142-43; Treaty Y'esenin, Sergey 160
Trans-Volga Elders 63 Uglich Venedi tribe'26 of Portsmouth 142, 143 Yevtushenko, Yevgeny 182
Transcaucasia 198. 199-203, 199 Church of the Assumption in the Verny218 women Yugoslavia 1 76
climate 23: industry and Aleksevev Monastery (Marvelous Ves37 employment of .277 Yury, Grand Prince of Vladimir 51
agriculture 208; Tatar invasion 50 Church) 83 Vienna 91 wood Yurv Damlovich, Prince 55
Transcaucasian Federal Republic 153, Ugra monastery i67 '
Vikings (Varangians) 26, 36-37, 36 woodcarving 206; wooden artifacts Yuryev-Polsky 24
137 Ugra River 59 Vilnius 58. 197 39, 39, 138; wooden buildings 39, Church of St George 47
172 Utomskv, D. 68 Vilvuv River 208 83. 86. 86, 87, 206, 207, 218 Yusupov, Prince N.B. 207
lr Rai Ukraine 17, 27, 75, 187, i87, 189-90. Vladimir 17, 24 World of Art (Mir Iskusstva) 122, 136,
ports 23: Trans-Siberian Railroad 189, 190. 191 Alexander Nevsky placed on 137, 145. 162. i62. 163 Zabolotsky, N. 161, 182
17,207 Allies' repatriation policy 175; anti- throne 52; Dormition Cathedral 47, World War I 127, 146-47, 149 Zadonshchina 57
Trebizond 21 Bolshevik repuplic 149. 153; 57, 65, 73; foundation of 45; Grand armistice with Cermany 153; the Zadonsky, St Tikhon 109
Tretvakov, P. 134 climate 187; collective farms 189; Prince of 53; St Demetrius arts 161; Battle of Tannenberg 146; Zagorsk 54
Tretyakov Gallery 69, 134, 135, 182 declares independence 153; Cathedral 47, 47; Tatars sack 50; Belorussia 146; Central Powers i46; Church of the Presentation of the
Trezzim, Domenico 99 dissident movement 178, 179; Great trade 45 Communist government 749, 153; Virgin 69; Church of St
Trinity Chronicle 57 Schism 77; Green Army 153; Vladimir I (St Vladimir) 40. 42, 43 constituent assembly peace Paraskeva-Pvatnitsa 69; Trinity
Trinity Monastery 54, 57. 58, 67 industrv and agriculture 187, Orthodox Church 43-44; "Speech negotiations 151; Duma 147; Monastery of St Sergius 54, 57, 58,
Peter I flees to 89; St Sergius 54, 68, 189-90, 189.191; Jewish of the Greek Philosopher" to 40, 40, economy 147; food supplies 147; 67, 68, 68' 69. 89
68,69 population 166; language 26. 29; 43 military production 147; Zakharov, Andrevan
Triple Entente 146, 146. 149 Muscovite rule 74, 78; nationalism Vladimir II (Monormakh) 40, 42, 45, mobilization of Russian army 146; Admiralty building, St Petersburg
Tripolve culture 32 181; Russian Orthodox Church 187; 62 Poland 146; Russian offensive in 89. 125.215
Trotsky, Leon (Lev) 754. 156 Scythians 30, 31; Terror 173; Instruction (Testament) 39, 40, 45; Galicia 146; social and militarv Zalesskaya zemlya 45
attempted coup 150; exile and Ukrainian Baroque architecture 98; marriage 45 morale 147, 149; Treaty of Zalessky reserve 191
deportation 156; invasion of Poland World War 1 146, 149; World War Vladimir-Suzdal principality 45 Brest-Litovsk 149; Triple Entente Zamyatin, Yevgeniy
759; joins Bolsheviks 140: II 173 Volga region 146, 146. 149; Ukraine 146; White Serapion Brotherhood 161; We 161
leadership of Mensheviks 140, 142; Ulugh Beg 219, 221 anti-Communist revolt 153; Terror (anti- Bolshevik) movement 149. Zaporozhian Cossack Host 78. 189
Left Opposition 156; October Ulyanov, Vladimir see Lenin 173 153 Zasulich, Vera 118
Revolution 151; Politburo 155; Red Union of Liberation 133 Volga River 24, 34, 34. 36. 37, 45. 45 World War II 173, 175-76, 175 Zaytsev, Boris 153
Army 153, 159; revolutionary Union of Soviet Socialist Republics 50. 139, 197 Allied lend-lease 175, 175; Zealots of Piety 77
Soviet council 140; Soviet of (USSR) 185 Razin rebellion 108 Belorussia 188; capture of Berlin Zemha Volya (Land and Freedom)
i
Workers' Deputies 142 autonomous oblasts (AOs) 185; Vola-Urals oilfield 208 175, 175; concentration camps 176; society 132, 132
autonomous regions 185 Volhvnia45, 112 Estonia 194; forced labor 176; zemskiv sober (Assembly of the Land)
derivation of title 65 autonomous republics (ASSRs) 185; Volkhov River 36, 71 Latvia 195; Nazi-Soviet Pact (1939) 79-80
Tsantsyn 1 1 consolidation of 157; constitution Voltaire, Francois Marie Arouet de 88, 173, i75, 188; Odessa 190; postwar zemstvo local government system
Tsarskoye Selo, Lycee 103, 116 of 185; languages 185 112, 130 partition of Europe 175; 128-29, 133, 149
Tsarskoye Selo Palace 98 United Provinces 91 Volunteer Army 151, 153 repatriation bv Allies 175, 176; Zeravshan Mountains 218
Tsushima, Straits of United States of America Vorkuta 207 Russian Orthodox Church 168; Zeravshan River 218
Russo-Japanese War 142 assists White army 1 53; cold war Voronezh 90 Tehran conference 175; war Zhdanov, Andrey 175
Tsvhulvovka 189 180; Cuban missile crisis 178; and Vorontsova, Elizabeth 105 reparations 175; Yalta conference Zhukovsky, Vasiliy 121
Ts'vkler, Ivan 90 Gorbachev 181 Voznesenskv, Andrey 182 175, 176 Zinowev, Grigoriy 173
Tugendbund 119 Ural Mountains 16, 20, 63. 75, 207-08 Vrubel, M. 163 Wrangel, Baron P. 153 Zoshchenko. Mikhail 122, 182
Tukhachevskv. Mikhail 155, 173 anti- Bolshevik government 151; Vyatichi tribe 26
tundra 16, 17, 22 Pugachov rebellion 109 Vyatka 60. 61 Yaguzhinskv P- 97
Tunguska event 207 Urartu culture 200 Vvshnegradsky, Ivan 135 Yaik Cossacks 1 09. 110-11
Tupolev, Andrev 176 urbanization 111, 135, 172 Vyshny-Volochek 37 Yaik River 104. 110
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San Jose, CA 95129
Robin M ulland is a professor of Russian
and East in Studies at the University of
Sussex. I He spent a year as an exchange
scholar a w University in the 1960s. He
has done . i in several fields — particularly
modern Russian poetry, Russian and Byzantine
art history, and Russian general cultural history.
161 black-and-white
85 black-and-white
Printed
Cultural Atlas of
RU S S
AND THE FORMER SOVIET UNION
I A'
Revised Edition
captivating survey of Russian civilization from prehistory to the present day —one that reveals