Extending the Borders of Russian History: Essays in Honor of Alfred J. Rieber 9789633865163

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Extending the Borders of Russian History

Extending the Borders of

Russian History E S S A Y S IN H O N O R

OF

A L F R E D J. R I E B E R EDITED BY M A R S H A

A T

SIEFERT

*•

• C E U PRESS * I

v

Central E u r o p e a n University Press Budapest New York

© 2 0 0 3 by M a r s h a S i e f e r t English e d i t i o n p u b l i s h e d in 2003 by

Central European

University

Press

A n i m p r i n t of t h e Central E u r o p e a n University Share C o m p a n y N â d o r utca 11, H - 1 0 5 1 B u d a p e s t , H u n g a r y Tel: +36-1-327-3138 o r 327-3000 Fax-. +36-1-327-3183 E-mail: c e u p r e s s @ c e u . h u Website: w w w . c e u p r e s s . c o m 400 West 59th S t r e e t , N e w Y o r k N Y 10019, U S A Tel: +1-212-547-6932 Fax: +1-212-548-4607 E-mail, m g r e e n w a l d @ s o r o s n v . o r g

All rights r e s e r v e d . N o p a r t of this p u b l i c a t i o n m a y be r e p r o d u c e d , s t o r e d in a r e t r i e v a l s y s t e m , or t r a n s m i t t e d , in a n y f o r m or by a n y m e a n s , w i t h o u t the p e r m i s s i o n of t h e P u b l i s h e r . I S B N 963 9241 36 9 cloth

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data E x t e n d i n g t h e b o r d e r s of R u s s i a n history: e s s a y s in h o n o r o f A l f r e d J. Rieber / [edited] by Marsha Siefert. p. c m . Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN I. R u s s i a — H i s t o r y . 2. S o v i e t U n i o n — H i s t o r y . 3. R u s s i a ( F e d e r a t i o n ) — H i s t o r y — 1 9 9 1 - I. R i e b e r , A l f r e d J. II. S i e f e r t , M a r s h a , 1 9 4 9 - III. Title. D K 4 0 .E94 2002 947.08—dc21 2002014289

P r e p r i n t by A t t r i b u t u m S t ù d i o , B u d a p e s t P r i n t e d in H u n g a r y by A k a p r i n t K f t .

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Figures

viii

Transliteration and A b b r e v i a t i o n s

ix

Preface

xi I

Agency

and Process

A Dynastic Concepts

or Ethno-Dynastic

Russia,

Tsardom? E.

M.

Sexualized

Narratives Monarchy,

Scenarios, in

the

RICHARD

Existences:

Fire

of

Nineteenth-Century

1812,

of

Nineteenth-Century

S. WORTMAN

51

IMPERIAL

RUSSIA:

MULTICULTURAL

Middling ALEXANDER

The Rise of Male Secondary D.A. Tolstoy's

Households M.

Education

Ministry Revisited,

SOCIETY

BORDERLANDS in

Moscow

MARTIN

67

in Provincial

MARINA

Russia:

LOSKOUTOVA

Ruslan, Bohdan

and Myron: Three Constructed

among Galician

Ruthenians/Ukrainians,

IAROSLAV

Gendered

31

A N D ITS Precarious

17

in the Representation

A

83

Identities

1830-1914,

HRYTSAK

97

From Elisavetgrad

to Broadway: The Strange

of lakov

JOHN KLIER

Gordon,

Odyssey 113

Colonial Frontiers in Eighteenth-Century Russia: From the North Caucasus to Central Asia, MICHAEL KHODARKOVSKY Colonization

by Contract: Russian Settlers, South Caucasian

and the Dynamics NICHOLAS

B.

3

Modern

SCHRADER

II

and

Two Early

LEWIN

KOHUT

and Social Breakdown

ABBY

National Russian

ZENON

of Subversion:

Discourses

RUSSIA

in Russian and Soviet History, MOSHE

of Russia,

Spectacles

NARRATING

of Nineteenth-Century

BREYFOGLE

Tsarist

127

Elites,

Imperialism, 143

Russian

Colonization

FIROUZEH

Diamond Hidden

of Caucasian

Azerbaijan,

1830-1905,

167

MOSTASHARI

in the Rough: The State, Entrepreneurs Resources

in Late Imperial Russia,

III

THE

and

Turkestan's

MURIEL JOFFE

183

REVOLUTIONARY DECADE

Worry about Workers: Concerns

of the Russian

from the 1870s to What is to Be Done? The Political

Evolution

Twentieth-Century LEOPOLD

of Moscow's

E.

REGINALD

and

ZELNIK

Reflections,

H . HAIMSON

to the Imperial, ALEXEI

227

Provisional

Idea: Foreign Ministry

and Bolshevik

Memoranda

Governments,

MILLER

233

The Day before the Downfall in Petrograd,

Unusual Offensive

RAFAIL

Comrades:

in the Russian

Business,

Russia's PETER

of the Old Regime: 26 February SH.

GANELIN

245

Red Planning for the August

Wartime Entrepreneur: Banking

1919

Counter

Civil War, CURTIS S. KING Mikhail

1914-1919,

257

Riabushinskii's BORIS V. ANAN'ICH

First World War: Remembering,

273

Forgetting,

Remembering,

GATRELL

285

I V The Political VIKTOR M .

THE

SOVIET

Police and the Study of History

EXPERIENCE in the

USSR, 301

PANEIAKH

The Internal Soviet Passport: Workers and Free WENDY

ZEVA

Movement, 315

GOLDMAN

Class and Nation at the Borderlands:

Pleas for Soviet

Citizenship 333

during the Great Terror, LESLEY A . RIMMEL The Soviet Position Enigma,

HUGH

at Munich

Reappraised:

The

Romanian 353

RAGSDALE

Allies on Film: US-USSR MARSHA

205

in Early

Kupechestvo

Russia: Observations

A Testament of the All-Russian

IÇ17

Intelligentsia

SIEFERT

Filmmakers

and T h e B a t t l e of R u s s i a ,

373

Khrushchev

and the End of the 1962 Cuban Missile

Crisis,

ALEKSANDR A.FURSENKO

Belief and Disbelief

401

in the Soviet

Union,

N I C H O L A S V. R I A S A N O V S K Y

V

407

PERSISTENT

FACTORS

RUSSIAN The Contemporary

Russian

in Historical

Context,

Intelligentsia,

Intellectuals

A Critical Discourse the Twenty-First Public-Private Historical Dynamic

Models

BORIS

of 443

Education:

HARLEY

Ethnics: Socio-Religious

MARJORIE MANDELSTAM

Transition:

FIRSOV

in Russian

and Lessons,

429

SOGRIN

and Elites in

at the Beginning

Century,

HISTORY

Transformation

VLADIMIR

Partnership

D. BALZER

Movements

Z.

in

457

Siberia,

BALZER

The United States and Russia: From Rivalry ALVIN

481

to

Reconciliation,

RUBINSTEIN

The Democratic

Experience

IN

497

in Transitional

Russia,

WILLIAM G. ROSENBERG

509

Bibliography and Chronology of Alfred J. Rieber

533

List of Contributors

541

Index

543

L I S T OF

TABLES

Table 5.1

T h e C o m p o s i t i o n of the Russian Civilian B u r e a u c r a c y

Table 5.2

Value of I m m o v a b l e P r o p e r t y for Ober- and Shtab-officers

Table 5.3

73

Value of M o v a b l e P r o p e r t y for Ober-

and

Shtab-oifictxs

73

Table 29.1

Specialized Schools in the Ministry of Finance

Table 29.2

D y n a m i c s of C h a n g e in P a y m e n t for H i g h e r E d u c a t i o n in the Russian F e d e r a t i o n

Table 29.3

463 471

E n r o l l m e n t s in Specialized S e c o n d a r y Institutions in the R u s s i a n F e d e r a t i o n by Field

Table 29.4

72

473

E n r o l l m e n t s in H i g h e r E d u c a t i o n a l Institutions in the Russian F e d e r a t i o n by Field L I S T OF

474

FIGURES

Figure

17.1

S o u t h e r n Front O r g a n i z a t i o n for the August 1919 Counter Offensive

Figure

17.2

Figure

24.1

T h e Soviet August 1919 C o u n t e r O f f e n s i v e A d v e r t i s e m e n t f r o m T w e n t i e t h - C e n t u r y - F o x press b o o k , The Battle of Russia

267 269 387

Transliteration and Abbreviations

A modified Library of Congress style of transliteration has been followed throughout. Any specific language uses are explained in the notes. All territorial terms (e.g., oblast, guberniia, raion, uezd), administrative terms (e.g., ukaz, zemstvo, d u m a ) , and measures (e.g., pud, desiatina) have been anglicized. O t h e r common proper names (e.g., Tolstoy, Trotsky) and geographical locations (e.g., Krakow, Pruth River) have been given in their English version unless otherwise explained. AKAK

Akty sobrarmye Kommissieiu

Kavkazskoiu

Arkheograficheskoiu

AMAER

Arkhiva Ministerului Afacerilor E x t e r n e al României

AMR

Arhivele Militare ale României

APRF

Arkhiv Prezidenta Rossiiskoi Federatsii

AU FSB

Arkhiv Upravlenia Federal'noi sluzhby bezopasnosti po St. Petersburgu i oblasti

AVPRI

Arkhiv Vneshnei Politiki Rossiiskoi Imperii

d.

delo (file)

f.

fond

GAGM

Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv G o r o d a Moskva

GAOO

Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv O r e n b u r g s k o i Oblasti

GARF

Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii

GMISP

Gosudarstvennyi muzei istorii Sankt-Peterburga

GMPIR

Gosudarstvennyi muzei politicheskoi istorii Rossii

GPB

Gosudarstvennaia publichnaia biblioteka, St. Petersburg

(collection)

X

1., 11.

list, listy (folio, folios)

ob

obverse (reverse page)

op.

opis (inventory)

PSZ

Polnoe sobranie zakonov

RGADA

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov

RGAE

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ekonomiki

RGASPI

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial'no-politicheskoi istorii

RGIA

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv

RGVA

Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv

SPChR

Sobranie postanovlenii

SSC'SA

Sak'art'velos saistorio c'entraluri saxelmcip'o ark'ivi

TsA FSB

Tsentral'nyi arkhiv Federal'noi sluzhby bezopasnosti

TsGAIPD

Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv istoriko-politicheskikh dokumentov goroda Peterburga

T s G I A Az

Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv Azerbaidzhana

VIA

Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi voenno-istoricheskii arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii

Rossiiskoi

imperii

po chasti raskola

Preface

W h e n A l f r e d J. R i e b e r i n t r o d u c e d t h e m a g i s t e r i a l

five-volume

w o r k of R u s s i a n

h i s t o r i a n Vasilii O. K l i u c h e v s k i i , he d e s c r i b e d him as "a p a t h b r e a k i n g s c h o l a r , a s p e l l b i n d i n g l e c t u r e r , an e n g a g i n g stylist, a n d a g r e a t s y n t h e s i z e r w h o s e w o r k s h a v e s t o o d t h e test of time." T h e scholarly life of t h e e m i n e n t h i s t o r i a n t o w h o m this v o l u m e is d e d i c a t e d e c h o e s t h a t d e s c r i p t i o n . T h e a u t h o r s w h o s e w o r k is r e p r e s e n t e d in this v o l u m e h a v e c o m e t o k n o w Al R i e b e r at d i f f e r e n t t i m e s a n d u n d e r d i f f e r e n t c i r c u m s t a n c e s . Yet t h e v o l u m e c o h e r e s t h r o u g h t h e h u m a n i t y of t h e m a n a n d his scholarship. H e h a s d e d i c a t e d his a c a d e m i c c a r e e r t o e x t e n d i n g a v a r i e t y of b o r d e r s , n o t only t h o s e of g e o g r a p h y b u t also t h o s e of t h e a c a d e m y . W h e t h e r j o i n i n g t h e first U S - S o v i e t e x c h a n g e in 1958 o r t a k i n g on t h e n e w v e n t u r e as C h a i r of H i s t o r y at t h e C e n t r a l E u r o p e a n U n i v e r s i t y in B u d a p e s t in 1995, he e m b o d i e s t h e spirit of a d v e n t u r e b o r n f r o m his g r a n d f a t h e r ' s tales a n d S a t u r d a y a f t e r n o o n s at t h e movies. T h e D n i e p e r / D n e p r / D n i p r o R i v e r h a s r u n t h r o u g h this b o o k , n o t as a b o r d e r b u t as a c e n t e r of c u l t u r e s . R u s a l k i c l i m b its b a n k s in t h e H a b s b u r g E m p i r e , t h e R u s s i a n E m p i r e , t h e Soviet E m p i r e , a n d E u r o p e writes o r sings a b o u t t h e m . T h e river s e e m s to d e p o s i t its s e d i m e n t o n t h o s e societies e v e n as its n a m e is c h a n g e d t o p r e s e r v e n a t i o n a l identities. P e r i o d i z a t i o n , a l t h o u g h i m p l i e d in this v o l u m e ' s divisions, n o n e t h e l e s s is also a b o r d e r c r o s s e d in t h e articles a p p e a r i n g h e r e . T h r o u g h o u t his c a r e e r , R i e b e r has m a n a g e d t o a p p e a r o n b o t h sides of t h e m a j o r b o r d e r of Slavic studies, t h e R u s sian/Soviet d i v i d e — a n d also w h e n least e x p e c t e d . So t h e c h r o n o l o g i c a l g r o u p i n g s of individual essays s h o u l d n o t o b s c u r e t h e i r c o n t r i b u t i o n to t h e w h o l e , f o r p e r sistent f a c t o r s a r e w h a t R i e b e r h a s identified a n d e l a b o r a t e d . A s he has s h o w n , e c o n o m i c b a c k w a r d n e s s was a d d r e s s e d by t h e m e r c h a n t s a n d e n t r e p r e n e u r s w h o e n e r g i z e d i m p e r i a l R u s s i a a n d their vitality is r e f l e c t e d by t h e n u m b e r a n d originality of t h e c o n t r i b u t i o n s . His w o r k h a s p e r m e a t e d t h e usual disciplinary f r o n t i e r s as s h o w n by t h e historians, political scientists, sociologists and a n t h r o p o l o g i s t s w h o w r i t e in this v o l u m e . Just as s c h o l a r s h i p o n R u s s i a r a n g e s widely o v e r t e r r i t o r i e s a n d e m p i r e s , t h e a u t h o r s t o o r e p r e s e n t m u l t i c u l t u r a l societies t h r o u g h rich archival w o r k f r o m Tblisi to T u r k e s t a n , f r o m B u c h a r e s t to H o l l y w o o d . R i e b e r a n d his c o l l e a g u e s h a v e h e l p e d to o v e r c o m e R u s s i a ' s c u l t u r a l marginality t h r o u g h f r i e n d s h i p a c r o s s s y m b o l i c as well as t e r r i t o r i a l b o r d e r s . This v o l u m e a p p e a r s at t h e e n d of t h e s e c o n d act of a long life, w h e n a p p l a u s e is d u e t h e w h o l e cast f o r its s p l e n d i d e n s e m b l e . But all a g r e e t o let R i e b e r t a k e a solo bow. T h e final act is yet t o b e p e r f o r m e d , a n d e v e n n o w at this i n t e r m i s s i o n the cast a n d a u d i e n c e a r e e x p e c t a n t . L e t t h e play c o n t i n u e .

This volume could not have been produced without the financial assistance of the Central E u r o p e a n University's Central Administration and Rector Yehuda Elk a n a . T h e C E U History D e p a r t m e n t and its chair, Laszlo Kontler, provided essential support and Sorin A n t o h i and William G. R o s e n b e r g o f f e r e d crucial advice early in the project. T h a n k s for thoughtful and timely translation goes to Olga Kudriashova, Olga Poato, Sergei Polyakov, and O k s a n a Sarkisova. Zsuzsanna Macht worked her magic on the manuscript files and assisted with n u m e r o u s details. The volume owes a great debt to Monika Metykovâ, whose indefatigable efforts, multilingual talents and attention to editorial m a t t e r s great and small m a d e the book possible and pleasurable. At the Central E u r o p e a n University Press the complexities of the book's production have benefitted enormously f r o m the careful attention and professional c o m p e t e n c e of Krisztina Kôs, and Richard Rados and Péter Inkei have d e m o n s t r a t e d great patience and c o m m i t m e n t throughout the editorial process. Finally, my personal and collégial gratitude to Sue Curry Jansen is boundless. I close where I began, with the h o n o r e e whose generosity and goodness have included me in this inspiring circle of scholars.

A l f r e d J. R i e b e r

I NARRATING RUSSIA

Agency and Process in Russian and Soviet History MOSHE LEWIN

T h e pictures of an old and immobile absolutism, followed by an equally immutable Soviet dictatorship, do not have much to do with historical realities. The tsarist o r d e r in the sixteenth century was different from the one in the eighteenth, when it did turn into the imperial absolutism as it was seen and perceived till its very end. But the post-emancipation system changed again quite profoundly, went through stages of economic, social and institutional development after 1861, lost some of its absolutism around 1905 and moved thereafter into another important stage—the last—with the Stolypin reforms. At the same time, and quite symptomatically, "the power scenarios" of the tsarist regime (described by Wortman) although changing, shuffled ideological ingredients from basically the same "deck of cards" to sustain and justify a concept—and reality—of an ever more decrepit power grid. A sequence or sequences of changes and stages are equally pertinent in the Soviet period. Politics and policies, programs, institutional plans and government initiatives amounting to an entirely new regime in action attracted the attention of observers. But those were just one bundle of factors, sometimes more, sometimes less powerful or even plain impotent. As actions, often very dramatic, they were followed by direct and indirect results, strings of developments that in their interactions merged into "processes." The latter, impersonal and (largely) spontaneous by their very essence, were (and are) what in the final analysis took the country to where it is and where it is going.

T U R N I N G TO " P R O C E S S "

Processes are composed of individual and group actions conducted on a massive scale, occurring simultaneously, running parallel, juxtaposed or very often counterpoised to each other. Singling out the individual agents dans cette melee and trying to center history in the making on their actions, as the p r e f e r r e d way of getting a picture true to "reality," is actually "surreal." Such an immensely powerful, intense production of behavior and thought patterns, which occur on every level of social life among masses of people interacting with their environment and conditions as they experience them, can be disregarded by students of systems only

4 • Moshe

Lewin

at the expense of their own irrelevance. Of course, societies are often declared to be state- or upper-class-dominated or "totalitarian," features that cannot be denied if they are in fact there. But the existence of domination is often not an end to the story. The d o m i n a t e d may have a bigger say than the view " f r o m a b o v e " would suggest. A more intricate look would show that the features of historical entities like regimes are rarely defined as the regimes themselves picture (or even strenuously deny) them. The same is even truer in the case of polities presided over by individuals (dictators). However powerful the despot (or whole movement), however lofty or base their purposes and aims, their acts are followed by cascades of consequences. O t h e r people's purposes and hopes join the stream. Yet, dwelling on decision-makers, on actors (loving or hating them) as was practiced by older generations of historians and was criticized by newer trends, seems to have returned now, at the price of dragging history as a profession backward. Decisions—by which I mean, of course, policy making in the broadest sense —are one thing, outcomes are another. The historical trade d e m a n d s the whole chain. But studies of the Soviet system and its history were particularly prone to engage, basically, in "regime studies," i.e. of ideology and of leaders. In addition, many often assumed some basic, inherent immutability of the regime whose leaders appear as the only m a k e r s and shakers of the country's fate. What such studies omitted were, first, the e n o r m o u s changes that took place in the social sphere during the twentieth century and, second, the trends and s p o n t a n e o u s transformations that were occurring in the midst of the state's political executives, inside the Party and the bureaucracies themselves, transformations that gradually merged into the prevailing pattern of the political system. Of course, the actions of the authorities created many new situations, opened or closed chains of events. Still, these authorities and the regimes they governed did not just shape history but were themselves shaped by it. In essence, the "mechanism" of such feedback resides in the fact that the flood of decisions and orders, plans and campaigns are "filtered" through the social sphere—social classes, opinion makers, bureaucratic layers. Hence the claim that orders are one thing, results are another. It seems even quite banal to state that the march of history is not a matter of wishes, even if backed by violence. This does not exclude ukazy and prikazy from the story; they are just a part of the story, at times not even its most important part. Employing a b r o a d e r formula I can now state something rather obvious: the state always played a key role in Russia's history, including during such an agitated period as the 1930s. But the state went through crises, decline or periods of downfall and recovery that resulted f r o m the interplay of many factors, including the state policies in question. The final outcome amounted to historical processes that affected the making and finally the unmaking of the state system. Without studying "processes," historical scholarship loses the ground u n d e r its feet. People who prefer "personality" as the supposed center of things historical, in contraposition to and in negation of "processes" in our century—a century of such enormous structural changes—seem to have missed an essential point: "personality"

Agency (,lichnost'),

and Process

•5

s o c r u c i a l f o r society, c u l t u r e a n d politics, is n o t a m e t a p h y s i c a l c o n -

c e p t . It is a social o n e , a n i m p o r t a n t p a r t of t h e g r e a t s t r e a m . Still, " p r o c e s s e s " d o n o t i m p l y t h a t d i f f e r e n t s p h e r e s of life a r e m a r c h i n g in s t e p l i k e s o l d i e r s o n a p a r a d e . A l t h o u g h t h e t e r m m a y c o n j u r e u p s o m e p i c t u r e of u n i l i n e a r i t y , t h e c o n c e p t of p r o c e s s d o e s n o t i m p l y s u c h a n u n r e a l i s t i c i d e a . T h e o p p o s i t e is t r u e : t r e n d s a r e m u l t i f a r i o u s . H e n c e all k i n d s of c r i s e s a n d all k i n d s of s u r p r i s e s : d e e p r e t r e a t s a n d s e t b a c k s , t h e s t u r d i n e s s of h i s t o r i c a l t r a d i t i o n s e v e n in a n d d e s p i t e h e c t i c c h a n g e s , c o n s i d e r a b l e flux a n d o p e n n e s s o r " f o g g i n e s s " of o u t c o m e s . S u c h flux a n d f o g g i n e s s p r o d u c e o c c a s i o n s a n d c i r c u m s t a n c e s w h e n a c t i o n s by an individual can m a k e a d i f f e r e n c e — o r be entirely futile.

SKETCHING STAGES A N D U N W A N T E D

OUTCOMES

L e t m e s k e t c h t h e m a i n s t a g e s in S o v i e t h i s t o r y , e a c h of t h e m e x h i b i t i n g s t r u c t u r a l c h a n g e s t h a t w e r e c r u c i a l f o r t h e m a k i n g of t h e s y s t e m a n d f o r its u n d e r s t a n d i n g . T h e l a s t c h a p t e r of t h e t s a r i s t p e r i o d w a s c h a r a c t e r i z e d by a still d o m i n a n t " a g r a r i a n c o m p l e x " ( o r n e x u s ) in its e c o n o m y , s o c i e t y a n d polity. Its c o m p o n e n t s w e r e t h e p e a s a n t r y w h o s u p p l i e d t h e b u l k of t h e r e g i m e ' s b a y o n e t s , t h e g e n t r y - n o b i l i t y (dvorianstvo)

w h o w e r e t h e m a i n s u p p o r t of a u t o c r a c y , a n d t h e i m p e r i a l c o u r t

w h o t o g e t h e r with the nobility supplied the r e g i m e ' s generals, politicians, a n d ruling camarillas.

This prevailing nexus exhibited at that time quite m e n a c i n g cracks

t h a t k e p t e x p a n d i n g , n o t a b l y u n d e r t h e p r e s s u r e of g r o w i n g c a p i t a l i s t s e c t o r s , c a r r i e r s of t h e m o d e r n e c o n o m y a n d its n e w e r s o c i a l layers. A t this s t a g e t h e w h o l e w a s c h a r a c t e r i z e d by t h e c o e x i s t e n c e of m o d e r n b a n k s , s t o c k e x c h a n g e s a n d c o r p o r a t i o n s with older type rural or s e m i - r u r a l fairs (iarmarki), an agricultural techn o l o g y c o n s i s t i n g of still w i d e s p r e a d w o o d e n p l o w s w i t h a s i n g l e (odnolemeshnyi

plug)

u s e d o n i n a d e q u a t e l y f e r t i l i z e d soil. R u r a l

plowshare

communities

w e r e o r g a n i z e d as m o r e a k i n d of e g a l i t a r i a n social s e c u r i t y s y s t e m t h a n a s a p r o d u c t i o n a n d p r o d u c t i v i t y - o r i e n t e d o r g a n i z a t i o n , a n d s u p e r v i s e d by a s t a t e o r g a n i z a t i o n o f t e n p o p u l a t e d b y p r i m i t i v e b u l l i e s ( d e r z h i m o r d y ) in t h e p o l i c e a n d l o c a l b u r e a u c r a c i e s . T h u s , R u s s i a ' s s o c i a l s y s t e m w a s c h a r a c t e r i z e d by t h e e x i s t e n c e of a r a t h e r m o t l e y mnogoukladnost'

or " m u l t i l a y e r e d n e s s " to use Lenin's term or by

a p o o r connectivity (tseplenie) b e t w e e n the u p p e r and lower layers, and b e t w e e n the d i f f e r e n t social layers m a k i n g the social system i n h e r e n t l y fragile a n d p r o n e t o b r e a k d o w n . T h i s h u g e m o s a i c s h o w e d c l e a r signs of crisis, s o c i a l a n d p o l i t i c a l , e x p r e s s i n g itself n o t a b l y in t h e r e g i m e ' s i n a b i l i t y e i t h e r t o c o p e w i t h t h e t a s k s of d e f e n d i n g t h e h u g e t e r r i t o r y o r t o willingly e x t r i c a t e itself f r o m t h e c o n t e m p o r a r y inter-imperialist competition. T h e c o m p l i c a t e d crisis of t h e t s a r i s t s y s t e m w a s at t h e r o o t of t h e d r a m a t i c p e r i o d of 1 9 1 4 - 1 9 2 1 t h a t s a w a v e r y p a i n f u l e c o n o m i c a n d c u l t u r a l b a c k s l i d i n g of t h e w h o l e c o u n t r y , t h e e f f e c t s of w h i c h c a n b e s u b s u m e d u n d e r t h e t e r m of "archaization." Many advanced sectors disappeared or regressed while

some

6 • Moshe

Lewin

quite backward ones became more salient. The numerous and long-suffering peasantry came to the fore of the social landscape, not just because of their numbers but because peasants were more resilient than the modern cities against hard times, especially cataclysms of the Civil War variety. N E P gave the country the chance to restore its "biology" to some normalcy and to acquire a kind of equilibrium, on the basis of those sectors that were able to recover from the ravages of wars sooner than others. The peasantry, a mass of producers operating their structural mir cum dvor duumvirate, was reaping the positive and negative results of the revolution, notably of their own agrarian variety. The old gentry as well as the capitalist sectors were wiped out and the layer of N E P m e n that a p p e a r e d could not even be considered an ersatz of the latter. The state apparatus began to take on an ever more prominent position in the system, although the "bourgeois specialists" still played a disproportionately important role because of their experience and higher professionalism. They worked in an awkward harness with the "red directors," themselves uneven in their degree of proficiency and talent. The relatively small but very creative cultural sectors stood out conspicuously against the rural-plebeian landscape, and the Party still conserved many of its old cadres and its character and functioned as a political elite of the new system. Not for much longer though. T h e relative pluralism of the NEP, even in its polity, was being systematically eased out, paradoxically in the first place in the ruling Party itself. It was replaced by ever hardening monoliths, accompanied by a " m e t a s t a t ic" (as it would transpire later) growth of its apparatuses as well as a drastic ideological smena vekh (changing of landmarks)—all leading finally to the atrophy of Party politics. This was becoming conspicuous as the layer of " f o u n d e r s " was being pushed out, ground down or destroyed, and the Party, despite the presence of a massive rank-and-file (no administrators most of them), was in fact becoming primarily an administration—with a rank-and-file. The country managed to "restore" (as this was called) many of the pre-war economic indicators but this " r e s t o r a t i o n " also had a shadowy side: the indicators of success showed a movement towards Russia's pre-war production levels w h e r e a s the West E u r o p e a n countries were rushing ahead, overtaking by far their pre-war levels. Thus, a rather important achievement of the USSR could, in comparative terms, be seen as a successful m o v e m e n t . . . b a c k w a r d . The bifurcating trends between society (pluralist) and Party (growing m o n o lithic), between the internal (Soviet) and the international economies, p r o m p t e d the "over-administered" Party to launch in 1928-29 its well known " l e a p forward," or "shock treatment," which took the forms of collectivization and the big industrial drive. Such a state-engineered push was quite unusual even for the state-dominated Russian history, and it unleashed mighty streams of masses of people milling in different directions, a social tekuchka, or "flux," quite unprecedented in peace time. People went or fled or were dragged to cities, to industry and onto building sites, to schools and technical institutes, but also to camps and b e f o r e

Agency and Process • 7 firing squads. Creative work mingled with bacchanalian terror. A sui generis regime of "Stalinism" emerged and took root in those years, a regime that was not without its n u m e r o u s complexities and contradictions. A conspicuous class of nachal'stvo (bosses) appeared, flanked and undergirded by a vast, growing but under Stalinism still quite crumbly, bureaucratic maze. A very crucial player indeed, but no o n e suspected at that time (except Stalin himself, probably) that these nachal'stvo would actually become Stalinism's gravediggers. They would replace his " m o d e l " or regime by another I call "bureaucratic absolutism," a term borrowed from a study of Prussian absolutism. At the same time, during the 1930s, the urbanization of the country was proceeding hectically in conflicting and painstaking ways, but after the war migration to cities took on a torrential dimension. The millennial rural sociology of the country was now fast turning urban. This, of course, would bring about a real civilizational shift, although again not without its woes and distortions, due partly to the speed and scope of the p h e n o m e n o n , partly to its specifically Soviet limitations. By the time the political regime was showing signs of not coping with this new internal (and international) reality, the new urban society itself was still not strong and "organic" enough to take advantage of the situation. The system fell apart, leaving behind it its greedy but not too proficient bureaucrats in a situation when the new urban society was not yet ripe enough to produce new leaders and advance towards creating an effective economy and polity. So the old could not anymore and the new was not yet ready. Finally, the "multilayeredness" of "process" must also accommodate the vicissitudes of "ideology." The perfectly ahistorical conception of ideology as fixity, which also expresses corresponding realities of power and of social life in the Soviet system, is a hallucinating case of "surrealism" among supposedly competent experts. There is no need to d o u b t the commitment of the "founding f a t h e r s " to their Marxism and socialism; in fact Marxism taught them that socialism in Russia alone was not feasible. Stalin's statement to the contrary was already a manipulation of ideology, used as camouflage for the fact that the original commitments became suffused with new realities that needed and in fact were replaced, overtly or covertly, by new ideological formulae. Even if some p r o p o n e n t s and opponents continued to claim that the USSR was a socialist system, did they really describe what this system actually was? Socialist (communist) ideology was a phenomenon of a connivance left and right, to keep the fiction alive. The result was a string of consequences.The system was not studied in appropriate terms, its property and power relations were not properly examined and defined, its springs of dynamism and sources of decline and fall were misunderstood. It was misunderstood first by the carriers of the regime themselves who were still dealing with a reality they could not reform because—among other factors—they did not understand what was it that they had to reform, and second also by Westerners and others who perpetrated the great ideological charade of our times—"socialism fell," Marxism died, capitalism—the one and only—won!

8 • Moshe

Lewin

Thus, f o r e a c h of t h e s t a g e s I briefly m e n t i o n e d a set of e x a m p l e s can be o f f e r e d s h o w i n g results b i f u r c a t i n g f r o m " i n t e n t i o n s . " T h e s p h e r e of p l a n n i n g , with its claim of a r a t i o n a l i t y t h a t c h a o t i c capitalist m a r k e t s could n o t m a t c h , w a s helplessly facing t h e e n d l e s s list of n e v e r finished building sites, t h e falling efficiency of c a p i t a l i n v e s t m e n t s , t h e g r o w i n g w a s t e of e n e r g y a n d matériel—all

p o i n t i n g to

a d e e p l y s e a t e d p r o p e n s i t y of t h e p l a n n e d e c o n o m y to s q u a n d e r r e s o u r c e s . T h e d i s c a r d i n g of t h e N e w E c o n o m i c Policy w a s f o l l o w e d by w h a t can be figuratively called t h e r e v e n g e of t h e N E P : t h e a p p e a r a n c e in t h e Stalinist m o d e l of black m a r k e t s , q u a s i - m a r k e t s a n d t r u n c a t e d m a r k e t s inside a n d a m o n g t h e s t a t e e n t e r prises. " D y s f u n c t i o n a l " p e a s a n t b e h a v i o r a n d t h e u n i n t e n d e d s k e w e d

"triple-

w h e e l e d " e c o n o m i c s of collectivized agriculture (the collective fields of t h e

kolkhoz,

t h e p e a s a n t s ' p r i v a t e family plots, t h e s t a t e ' s t r a c t o r s t a t i o n s ) f r u s t r a t e d t h e i n t e n t i o n s of t h e g e n e r a l system. Its p r o p a g a n d a of S t a k h a n o v i s m , f o r e x a m p l e , did n o t fit y o u n g p e o p l e ' s a s p i r a t i o n s . In s h o r t — a h o s t of c o n s t a n t f r u s t r a t i o n s f o r Stalin and n u m e r o u s disappointments for Khrushchev, though the e n o r m o u s difference in t h e way t h e s e two r e a c t e d t o their f r u s t r a t i o n s c a n n o t be d i s r e g a r d e d . All t h e s e p h e n o m e n a h e l p d e e p e n o u r s e n s e of " p r o c e s s , " t h e key i d e a h e r e . T h e o u t c o m e s of i n t e r a c t i o n s a n d m a n i f e s t a t i o n s on a b r o a d c a n v a s a r e f a r t h e r r e a c h i n g and m o r e c o m p l e x t h a n the m o r e n a r r o w d o m a i n of political actions, initiatives and crimes. In fact, such a c t i o n s by l e a d e r s h i p and leaders, in s u m , also get s u b m e r g e d in t h e " p r o c e s s , " as t h e y filter t h r o u g h social realities a n d c u l t u r a l t r a d i t i o n s a n d play their role in t h e flow of h i s t o r y b o t h as its s u b j e c t s a n d its o b j e c t s . S u c h is also t h e case of t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i v e s t r u c t u r e s , especially in i n t e r p l a y with social t r a n s f o r m a t i o n s a n d t r e n d s of all kinds.

S T A G E S IN T H E OF

DEVELOPMENT

BUREAUCRACY

B u r e a u c r a c y is a complicated and far-flung social milieu per se as well as t h e c a r r i e r of t h e state s y s t e m . It h a d its o w n g r o w t h p a n g s a n d p h a s e s inside t h e g e n e r a l historical f r a m e w o r k s k e t c h e d earlier. I will n o w focus specifically on the p a t h t r a v e l e d by b u r e a u c r a c y t h a t led finally to its full d o m i n a t i o n of t h e system. In t h e p e r i o d a f t e r t h e Civil War, t h e s t a t e b u r e a u c r a c y w a s m a i n l y " p l e b e i a n " in its c o m p o s i t i o n a n d ideology. In this fact r e s i d e d t h e n e w r e g i m e ' s s t r e n g t h , b u t also i m p o r t a n t w e a k n e s s e s : t h e low e d u c a t i o n a l a n d p r o f e s s i o n a l q u a l i f i c a t i o n of t h e s e c a d r e s m a d e t h e r e g i m e d e p e n d e n t o n " b o u r g e o i s specialists." In this c o n text a q u i t e r e m a r k a b l e i n t e r a c t i o n of n e w h o p e s a n d a s p i r a t i o n s r e l a t e d t o t h e r e g i m e ' s i d e o l o g y can b e o b s e r v e d , with t h e u n a v o i d a b l e t h o u g h n o t n e c e s s a r i l y fully r e c o g n i z e d a s s i m i l a t i o n of a d m i n i s t r a t i v e m o d e l s a n d

pre-Revolutionary

a u t h o r i t a r i a n t r a d i t i o n s a n d habits. A l s o d u r i n g t h e c o n d i t i o n s of N E P , w i t h its prevailing mir-cum-dvor

e c o n o m i c s c e n e a n d t h e w e a k n e s s of the s t a t e ' s i n d u s t r i a l

sector, t h e s t a t e m a c h i n e r y a n d its b u r e a u c r a c y did n o t yet r e s e m b l e t h e o c t o p u s it

Agency and Process • 9 was going to become especially after Stalin. Although top officials on all levels were sent in from the cities, they and the majority of lower rank officials were—and could not but be—an administration of a still predominantly rural society. T h e p r e s s u r e on them from above would come f r o m a modernization-oriented regime and its elites, but the counter-pressure from a r o u n d them and f r o m below would p o w e r f u l l y c o m m a n d to adapt to (and to some extent to feed on) a much slower moving structure of a still basically pre-capitalist Russia. T h e Stalinist period created conditions for a fully bureaucratized state model, n o t a b l y because both collectivization, aiming at a mighty boost for the backwater countryside, and accelerated industrialization were imposed by the state and t h e s e types of campaigns pushed the state "machineries" to expand. A n o t h e r angle and aspect of the bureaucratic networks is covered by the term "cadres," referring to people in leadership positions at all levels of the state and Party bodies. T h e quality of these cadres, whoever they h a p p e n e d to be at the time, was crucial. W e r e the cadres modern enough to be capable of modernizing anything? A forceful dynamization of a society from a different age needed those agents that had to be c r e a t e d deus ex machina as the strategies were being perceived and launched. H e n c e this specific flip side permeating Stalinist dynamism and its improvisational character: a coexistence of a d e e p bureaucratization with a powerful and specifically extra-bureaucratic quality—despotism—or, putting it differently, a case of an extra-bureaucratic version of etatism that has to whip its own modernizing bureaucrats. Stalin could not do without the bureaucracy, neither could he trust it and live in peace with it. This explains the coexistence of the mobilization urge versus the need in administrative routine—the proverbial Jekyll and H y d e synd r o m e — t h a t coexisted more than uneasily in the Stalinist dictatorship. This dualism was eventually restored when "Stalinism" was replaced by the administrative logic of a n o t h e r version of etatism. This version was not based on "cults" or "mobilizations" (if they could help it) but m o r e on extolling the state and the principles of statehood and on a take-over of the system by a bureaucracy so tentacular that it would merit the characteristic of a "bureaucratic absolutism" for much of the post-Stalinist period. U n d e r Stalin and due to Stalinism's specific features, bureaucracy could not yet obtain such fullness of power. To its low professional standards must be added the factor that the majority of people in technical and administrative jobs were praktitki who learned their trade on the job. Moreover, many were still new to their bureaucratic jobs and ranks. Thus the bureaucracy was still fragile and vulnerable. The Party, so far almost forgotten in this picture, was so for good reasons: it lost its leading role. During "the cult" it became primarily o n e of the executors of orders. Its own institutions did not really function and it had to e n d u r e the pressure of campaigns, shakeups and either bloodless or ever more often bloody purges not unlike the state apparatus, even if both tried to do as they were told. The "dualism" of administrative routine coexisting with powerful campaignlike drives (kampaneishchina) began to disappear during the post-Stalinist period

10 • Moshe

Lewin

(especially after the removal of Khrushchev f r o m power) because the b u r e a u cracy—as might have been expected—eliminated all the features of Stalinism that were not acceptable to it, did not allow it to sleep at night, did not offer any j o b security, not to mention the security of simple survival. There was no tenure whatsoever, a quality that most bureaucracies crave and obtain. With Stalin gone, the state system was re-stabilized and key bureaucratic agencies reached the apogee of power. Bureaucracy became the system's personification. Khrushchev managed to resurrect, for a time, the Party structures that lost their previous political functions to Stalin but without changing their by now prevailing administrative character. In due course the Party administration would, for all practical purposes, merge with the highest ranks (golovki) of the state-bureaucratic elite, becoming in essence assimilated by the latter and serving mainly as their mouthpiece. Contrary to prevailing interpretations, it was the controlling device of nomenklatura, supposedly the tool for Party control over the state's leading cadres, that m a d e such an outcome possible. In sum, Khrushchev's resurrected Party lost its power again. A stage was reached—notably during the time that half-dead or quickly dying general secretaries supposedly " r a n " the show—when nobody could impose any national policy on the huge ministerial cohorts—udel'nye kniazhestva (princely appanages) to boot. A n d there was no leadership available by then even to formulate a meaningful policy. During early periods in Soviet history, popular and state interests as expressed by at least parts of the leadership and of the Party and state apparaty could be represented even quite openly, but this capacity kept shrinking. The victory in the " G r e a t Patriotic War" and the accession to the role of one of the two superpowers —very remarkable feats indeed - helped camouflage for a time the fact that both the Stalinist and later the post-Khrushchev regimes were exhibiting quite profound signs of decay (zagnivanie or zastoi). In both these cases, not unlike in much of tsarist history, the country was appearing on the world scene and occupying there a position that was not backed up by an adequate techno-economic f o u n dation. The d e e p bureaucratization of the system contributed to a dramatic immobilization of its previously very obvious dynamic. Again, all those were processes — o r a process—which led to self-destruction, some saying "inexorably" ( n e u m o limo), others maintaining that alternatives existed at each stage. Still, political stagnation should not be mistaken for immobility of structures. In fact, the term "immobilized" (in terms of inability to formulate and execute reforms) does not mean that bureaucracy—a complicated maze of structures and layers, a politico-administrative machine—was not undergoing changes. Decay, decline, zastoi also mean changes, trends—in fact, processes—that concerned the political arena as well as the b r o a d e r social system. The two were deeply enmeshed, though certainly not harmoniously. In the final analysis "the whole thing" was moving somewhere else—away f r o m official and even unofficial objectives and towards fracturing the state and depriving its once mighty center of its power.

Agency and Process • 11 HISTORICAL

LIABILITIES

This brings me to the subject of some long-standing liabilities of the historical milieu, notably subsumed under the term "archaic," especially those archaic feat u r e s that can be discerned in the very process of "modernization" that accounted f o r the inability of the Soviet industrial giant to go on, k e e p evolving and finally " m a k e it" into a viable industrial civilization. The explanation lies in decip h e r i n g the features that "closed" the model, r a t h e r than keeping it open and flexible. To use an eye-opener, without claims to scholarly precision, the historical c o n u n d r u m in which the country found itself consisted in having to resolve in the twentieth century problems of the nineteenth by using methods of the eighteenth. A n d they were resolving problems that were not solved (and continued to accum u l a t e ) already during a long, pre-Revolutionary period, with those "archaic" f e a t u r e s being already present, precisely, in the process of the ongoing m o d e r n ization at that time. Such a formula points in the direction of some kind of overlaying (and accumulating) of problems stemming from different periods of Russian history and awaiting solutions that were not forthcoming. T h e inquiry can start from "the s t a t e " and the term "statism" that goes with it, namely an ideology and a practice that was central to the whole Soviet phen o m e n o n and had d e e p precedents in Russia's past. The roots and especially character of this main agency—the state, its rulers and the bureaucracy—should be considered in interrelation with the (changing) social structures, never just "alone," isolated from the relevant context. This idea of "context" is crucial and should, of course, include also the international dimension. Realities of a b r o a d and coming f r o m a b r o a d — f r o m the West, but not only from there—exercised a powerful pressure, contributed to the country's development but often also magnified its problems. This factor was related to and c o m p o u n d e d by Russia's size, which was too large for the h u m a n capital and institutional setting to be mastered "intensively." The extensive m e t h o d s were easier and also self-perpetuating. These features continued in Soviet Russia and are still there, despite the shedding of much of the empire, and they continue during the current restructuring where an extensive squandering of resources is still fully present. Hence the interest in the idea of mnogoukladnost' (multi-layeredness) that might have been inspired by Miliukov's conception of the fragmentation of Russia's social structure and the lack of sufficient sync among the parts. It did not necessarily mean that the social entity was deprived of any "adhesives." Those certainly existed—among them religion, popular monarchism, the state apparatus, emerging national markets (railroads). There must have been enough unifiers for the system to have endured so long and with such long periods of stability, though not without periods of enormous turmoil. The problem then is: why did the "unifiers" give in? The main "unifier" being the state, what made it crack, several times over in Russian history? The answer can be found only "in the interplay," in "a system of imbalances." The most potent general diagnostic formula is the lack

12 • Moshe

Lewin

of fit between the hectic development of the economy and of sectors with a more m o d e m social structure versus important parts moving slower or sideways, or running counter (naperekor) or not at all because the different parts did not really live "in the same age," culturally, economically, mentally. H e r e the idea of an "agrarian nexus" and its longevity can be singled out, useful for the tsarist period when it included the peasantry, the nobility and the tsarist court, powerfully glued, or so it looked, when in fact the potential for fissures was quite visible. In a different interplay, the agrarian nexus was still a powerful factor during the early Soviet period, again not without its vulnerabilities. In the later Soviet period, however, the large social components of the grand historical interplay changed considerably.

T H E W H Y S OF T H E S O V I E T

DEMISE

O n e particularly important "systemic" feature in the Soviet period was the principle of state ownership of the country's economic assets. This theme is not being introduced here suddenly and independently f r o m the previous line of thought. As shall be seen, the more ancient and the more m o d e r n structures of power had something crucial in common. The principle of almost universal state ownership over most of the country's economic and cultural resources is connected to, or correlated with, the monopolization of social and political power by certain networks—something that official ideology would strenuously deny. No wonder! The principle of state ownership was actually dispossessing the bulk of the producing and creative population and empowering mainly the upper layers of bureaucrats and, by omission, also many smaller ones. Once e m b a r k e d on this path, the bureaucratic principle was allowed to reach its fullness by evolving fortress-like networks, defending their vested interests tooth and nail, and was mightily organized (geared) towards this kind of self-centered activity. When concessions of importance to extra-bureaucratic forces (elites, social classes, nationalities) were required and proposals to engage in meaningful reforms began to spurt from all kind of quarters, they were perceived as menacing to the very existence of the power structure, testifying to the fact the system's vitality was extinguished. The inability to provide leaders, to formulate meaningful programs, to impose them on the state machinery—all were manifestations of "immobility," to say the least. In fact, there was no longer anyone above this machinery who would be willing and strong enough to impose anything on it. By now the raison d'être of the ruling networks was to stay put. B u t remaining still was bad for their cholesterol level. Although the enigmatic secretaryship of Iurii A n d r o p o v would allow a welter of problems to be raised, it didn't last long enough to be dealt with meaningfully in this framework. Let me rather continue the inquiry into the whys of the demise. For this the property-ownership conundrum is crucial. Although claiming for itself the super-modern socialist credentials, state ownership of economic assets, notably

Agency and Process • 13 land, was an old feature of Russia's political system, crucial for the making of its autocracy. It was Marx himself who characterized this old state ownership (mostly, but not only of land) as an "Asian" feature (meaning both ancient and "archaic") that the tsarist system was erected on and, in many ways, afflicted by until its very downfall. "State ownership" as a systemic principle was for Marx something " u n - m o d e r n , " even archaic. Underscoring my argument (not derived from Marx in this context) is the fact that, although state-ownership in the USSR was claimed and widely accepted as a socialist principle par excellence, it was continuing an old historical tradition rather than opening a new chapter of social emancipation, which is what socialism was supposed to mean. A n intriguing but relevant aside is that in the historic Soviet "declaration of the rights of the laboring nation" (deklaratsia prav trudovogo naroda) of early 1918, the freshly minted Soviet legislators themselves discerned three forms (or modes) of property and ownership: "socialized" (of land), "nationalized" (of forests, minerals) and direct "state ownership" (of sovkhozy, factories). The latter became the dominant mode of ownership of the highly bureaucratized system. It was plagued by internal contradictions and tensions that worked, paradoxically, in the direction of emptying this concept of its intended c o n t e n t — o n e more of those unintended but powerful, even fatal processes leading, to put it cautiously, towards something different. A f t e r all, although in different circumstances and different in kind, an equally meaningful and astonishing trend was observed in the West where private ownership as the main source of economic power was replaced in the corporate world by the actual power of those who manage, although formally they were, at best, co-owners through shareholding. In Soviet Russia too those who directly managed the productive assets became, for all practical purposes, carriers of state ownership first, almost owners, owners de facto, finally owners tout court, depriving the center of what was its main source of power and its legitimizing principle. Through these processes that worked their way sneakily and underhandedly, the very concept of state ownership and its primordiality for the system's claims was undermined. The realities of bureaucratic planning and management, notably as practiced "on the ground," ushered in a "feudalization" of the national productive assets, with the bureaucratic fiefdoms gaining at the expense of the center and causing the system as a whole to lose its potency. The party-state as a functioning entity became irrelevant. In the post-perestroika era it became clear that although the system exited, its ministries and the administrators (upravlentsy) remained, including in the vast production units-with the proviso that those were not among the best and most honest of the previous casts. The lords of these agencies, in particular of the big economic conglomerates, had to look for a different kind of principle of power and survival and they found it, under Yeltsin. They transformed themselves into corporate entities operating on the m a r k e t having acquired these assets by hook and by crook, in a process of "privatization" that begun to manifest itself in the last years of Brezhnev's rule. The most important became and remain m o n o p o lies—a process still unfolding and far f r o m finished.

14 • Moshe

Lewin CONCLUSIONS

Twentieth-century Russia moved through shattering crises and very complicated break-downs ( \ o m k i ) that almost converged under Stalin whose rule straddled a n u m b e r of those crisis-makers, " h a n d l e d " them and ushered in a regime carrying his name. Considering the different phases the regime went through—notably the Stalinist and the early post-Stalinist one—they appear endowed with a considerable driving power that allowed them to recover the country's capacity to wage warfare (which tsarist Russia seemed to have lost) as well as to manage m o r e effectively its territory, including launching large-scale policies of d e v e l o p m e n t and/or reforms. This capacity was lost twice again during the Soviet period too: u n d e r Stalin, probably during and a r o u n d the great purges, and in the postKhrushchev period, in the late 1960s and early 1970s after Kosygin's 1965 r e f o r m s were scuttled. As it turned out, an inability to act set in for good and finally turned out to be fatal. This latest phase can be subsumed under the general diagnosis I already alluded to, namely that the population, notably the urban one, acquired many m o d e r n features and attitudes, both intended and many u n i n t e n d e d , regim e n t e d by a system that lacked or lost the ability to adapt to this population and, in fact, to its new social structure. The socio-economic underpinnings of those transitions are worth a n o t h e r glance f r o m a different angle. O n e can speak of a march from proto-capitalism to pre-capitalism; f r o m pre-capitalism to a mixed economy, mostly small scale; and next a leap into industrialization, which took on a vast and expansive dimension, accompanied and followed by, first, a sui generis cultic despotism and finally, a full-fledged bureaucratic power. These transitions followed closely upon each o t h e r ' s heels, with a crisis a p p e n d e d to each of them: Stalinism emerging in a concatenation of all of them at one stage, Khrushchev at another, and G o r b a c h e v appearing (and disappearing) in yet another, different "interplay." Thus, whatever the regime (policies, ideologies, decisions) there were at all times historical flows, processes at work, that may be totally missed if the study is purely regime-oriented or, in one of its versions, anti-regime-oriented. The key t o understanding the regime is to be found in "monopoly of power." Writers of social fantasies like Zamiatin, Huxley and Orwell prophesized that a " m o n o p o l y " like that would end up in a complete enslavement of human beings and their transformation into n u m b e r e d cogs. But history, despite its dark pages, dodged this terrible trap. The state monopoly on national wealth—the source of the f a t e f u l power hub—was also harboring, f r o m the outset, an inherent tendency to fragmenting this power hub and to losing control over its own fate. Instead of its p r e dicted function of a nightmarish super-controller, spontaneous processes inside the apparaty, in their interplay with the dynamics of the socio-economic spheres, actually worked against the system. This may be the reason why the h e r o of Alexa n d e r Tvardovskii's poem, the brave soldier Terkin who found himself after t h e war in the heavenly kingdom ("na torn svete"), might have p r e f e r r e d to return t o

Agency and Process • 15 e a r t h and to the Soviet bureaucratic reality instead of enduring the perfection of t h e celestial administration those on earth unsuccessfully tried to achieve. As he put it, in substance, unlike those in the higher spheres, those on earth were at least breathing. O n e of the most pernicious trends—unwanted yet m o r e powerful than all the controllers and agencies set up to prevent it—was a massive, finally fatal squandering of national resources that became the prevailing f e a t u r e of a regime in the stage of decay. Simultaneously, the damage inflicted upon cultural life by the regime's propagandist primitivism also contributed, in the first place, to the lifelessness of the official ideology itself. The internal logic of bureaucratic interests clashed with the rationale of economic, political and even administrative performance. Instead of handling the serious business of systemic politics, the system actually ceased being one and the spontaneous catering to the interests of the maze of administrative agencies began to dominate the agenda. But there was a built-in time limit to the atrophy of the political will: despite the absence of any kind of the proverbial mass revolt (pugachevshchina) so often predicted by the so-called connoisseurs of the Russian soul. Astonishing as it may look, the system was not really toppled—its agencies scuttled it. The regime died from natural causes, killed by its own anachronism. Their own world (not to mention the world tout court) became too complex for this model of governing—they did actually a great j o b in the past that somehow put them to sleep. The p h e n o m e n o n of collapse due to system fatigue h a p p e n e d in Russia's twentieth century several times and it could h a p p e n again, if it is not the case already. The ability to produce capable leaders, lost by the previous regime, has not b e e n recovered so far and the maze of interconnected imbalances, an old historical feature, is still afflicting Russia without showing any sign of abating. The notable fact of Russian life I referred to above that can be called "recurrent relapses into u n d e r d e v e l o p m e n t " is menacing Russia again at the current stage. This is d u e to the inability, despite all the surges forward, to s u r m o u n t an inherited or recurrent "system of imbalances." This historical liability or " b u r d e n , " as I call it, was a crisis-maker par excellence that w a n d e r e d over from the tsarist period and lingered on or was resurrected as measures were taken in response to crises, the Civil War, a switch to the NEP, the switch away f r o m the N E P and into the accelerated industrialization period, the mobilization for the Second World War, for the postwar recovery. So far, the Soviet system was shaped by emergencies and responded by means of military style c o m m a n d and police coercion. The war, despite t h e fatal errors of leadership at its beginning, was actually the sum of the Stalinist regime's abilities as an organization for handling emergencies. The next stage, although marred again by a n o t h e r type of war—the Cold War that has to be left out in this essay—did produce a different, more society-oriented political setting that relaxed considerably the previous coercive state system and enabled an expansion of rights for labor and the intelligentsia, some de facto often also de jure. T h e problem was that the main beneficiary of the emancipation

16 • Moshe

Lewin

( f r o m S t a l i n i s m ) was t h e P a r t y a n d s t a t e b u r e a u c r a c y . R u n n i n g t h e s t a t e stepped b e i n g a c h a i n of e m e r g e n c i e s ; it b e c a m e a b u s i n e s s - a s - u s u a l r o u t i n e a f f a i r rin by a n d e v e r m o r e o b v i o u s l y in t h e i n t e r e s t s of t h e b u r e a u c r a c y . W h a t c o n t i n u e d o b e called " p l a n n i n g " was in fact t h e still surviving ability to c o n c e n t r a t e o n "piiorities," m o s t l y in r e s p o n s e t o C o l d W a r c o n s i d e r a t i o n s t h a t a l l o w e d , t h o u g h e v e r m o r e t e n u o u s l y to cling t o a s u p e r p o w e r p o s i t i o n . B u t t h e real basis f o r t h e s i p e r p o w e r s t a t u s could h a v e b e e n p r e s e r v e d only t h r o u g h u n l e a s h i n g e c o n o m i c a n d c u l t u r a l g r o w t h by g r a n t i n g t h e p o p u l a t i o n f r e e d o m f o r action a n d m a k i n g i l i n t o t h e s t a t e ' s real p a r t n e r — o r r a t h e r the s y s t e m ' s real s o v e r e i g n . B u t o n c e t h e n o b i lizational f e a t u r e s s u b s i d e d , allowing t h e b u r e a u c r a c y to b e c o m e t h e estallishm e n t par excellence,

a d e e p c o n s e r v a t i v e b e n t t o o k o v e r f o r g o o d . T h e le;ding

b u r e a u c r a t i c p o l i t i c o - a d m i n i s t r a t i v e class did n o t r e s t o r e its d y n a m i c s o n a n e w base. R a t h e r it d e v e l o p e d a t a s t e f o r a s t a t u s q u o a n d it lost its c a p a c i t y f o r politics, j u s t w h e n c o n d i t i o n s w e r e r i p e n i n g a n d t h e n e e d was g r o w i n g t o g e t rid cf t h e old historical liabilities t h a t k e p t p u s h i n g t h e c o u n t r y into excessive reliance o n state power—"statism" for short. It m a y well b e t h a t t h e " y o u n g e r " C h i n e s e m o d e l t h a t r e v e r s e d its collecti/izat i o n - c o m m u n i z a t i o n c o u r s e a n d was t h e r e f o r e a b l e to r e a p p l y its o w n s u p e r W E P , s t o p p i n g just w h e r e t h e Soviets w e n t t o o f a r , i.e., into an i r r e v e r s i b l e b u r e a i c r a t ic cul-de-sac.

But all this is just a t h o u g h t .

A Dynastic or Ethno-Dynastic Tsardom? Two Early Modern Concepts of Russia ZENON E . KOHUT

In 1669 Fedor Akimovich Griboedov (ca. 1620-1673) produced for Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich R o m a n o v a short History of the Tsars and Grand Princes of the Rus' Land, a c o m p e n d i u m of the basic political and historical ideas prevailing at the tsarist court and most likely intended as a textbook for the tsar's children. 1 Soon a f t e r w a r d in 1674, a monk at the Kyivan Caves Monastery sought the attention of the s a m e Tsar Aleksei R o m a n o v by publishing the Synopsis, or short compilation from various chronicles about the origin of the Slavic-Rus' nation and the first princes of the divinely preserved city of Kyiv and the life of the holy, pious grand prince of Kyiv and all Rossiia, the first autocrat Volodimer and about the inheritors of his virtuous Rus' domain, even unto our illustrious and virtuous sovereign, tsar, and grand prince Aleksei Mikhailovich, autocrat of all Great, Little and White Rossiia.2 While these two works were written almost simultaneously, they presented two distinct visions of early m o d e r n Russia—a bifurcation that would persist into the m o d e r n era. For Griboedov, Russian history is the history of dynastic rule, and his principal concern is to establish dynastic legitimacy and continuity from Volodimer to Aleksei Romanov. G r i b o e d o v considers Volodimer the G r e a t to have been the f o u n d e r of tsarist rule, calling him a divinely "crowned prince and equal of the apostles" and an " a u t o c r a t bearing the true tsarist name, possessing the titles of ruler and tsar." 3 G r i b o e d o v then moves back in time f r o m Volodimer to Rurik, the founder of the Rurikid dynasty, w h o "ruled in G r e a t Novgorod and throughout the Rus' land." H e p r o c e e d s to link Rurik with the R o m a n E m p e r o r Augustus Caesar, thereby associating Volodimer with the universal monarchy of Rome. 4 The link with imperial monarchy is bolstered by the claim that Volodimer's successor, Volodimer M o n o m a k h , received the tsar's insignia together with acknowledgement of his tsarist rank from the Byzantine E m p e r o r Constantine IX Monomachos. 5 Following the death of M o n o m a k h , G r i b o e d o v focuses on the transmission of the tsarist scepter to the north, first to Vladimir-Suzdal and then to Moscow: "the Rus' tsarist domain began dividing into many parts and the Kyivan primacy and eminence began to pass elsewhere." 6 Accordingly, Griboedov considers Iurii Dolgorukii the

18 • Zenon E. Kohut "true heir of the Rus' tsarist domain," even though he did not rule in Kyiv, but in Suzdal and Rostov. At every step Griboedov tries to promote the notion that Moscow and its dynasty were divinely elected. For example, he focuses on the fourth son of Aleksandr Nevskii, Daniil, whose descendants ruled in Moscow, linking Daniil alone with both Rurik and Volodimer. "At that very time the honor and glory of grand-princely rule descended upon the God-loving city of Moscow, [where] God wanted to glorify His holy Name and primacy and confirm His divinely appointed tsardom." Daniil is portrayed even more insistently as having been chosen by God; his descendants are loved and glorified by God, who has ensured their rule for generations to come. Consequently, Daniil's son, Ivan Kalita, is characterized by epithets such as "faithful" and "divinely chosen successor and blessed heir of the virtuous state, the God-loving tsardom of the Rus' land." 7 A f t e r mentioning the death of Tsar Fedor and the extinction of the Rurikid dynasty, Griboedov presents the genealogy of the Romanovs. Yet he has to explain the existence of two rulers between the Rurikids and Romanovs, which is particularly difficult in a narrative that insists on the continuous dynastic transmission of the "tsarist scepter" from Volodimer to the current ruler of Muscovy. Boris Godunov is plainly characterized as a usurper unworthy of the crown, but Griboedov regards Vasilii Shuiskii's election as tsar more neutrally: "favored to be tsar of Muscovy was boyar Prince Vasilii Ivanovich Shuiskii." 8 Nevertheless, Griboedov mentions the unpopularity of the new tsar, which led to "mutiny and civil unrest." As far as Griboedov is concerned, the true successor could only be Mikhail Fedorovich Romanov, whose election is described in great detail. Griboedov tries to legitimize and glorify Romanov rule in three ways. First and foremost, he seeks to associate the Romanovs with the Rurikids. Thus he refers to the first wife of Ivan IV, Anastasiia Zakharieva-Iurieva, who supposedly was the aunt of Mikhail Fedorovich (in fact, she was an aunt of Mikhail's father). Griboedov later remedies his previous "oversight" by rightly identifying Mikhail Fedorovich as a nephew of the deceased Fedor Ivanovich. 9 He indirectly bolsters his thesis about Mikhail's close relation to the Rurikids through the biography of his father, Patriarch Filaret of Muscovy, whom Griboedov terms "a relative of Tsar Ivan Vasilievich" and of his son Fedor Ivanovich. Mikhail's son, Aleksei Mikhailovich, is already titled tsar and autocrat of all "Great, Little and White Russia" and "inheritor from father and grandfather, successor, ruler and possessor of many states and lands." 10 Subsequently, the text mentions Aleksei's forebear, St. Volodimer. 11 Finally, near the end of the work, there is an appeal from "the people" to Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich in which the new (Romanov) dynasty is unequivocally and directly linked with the previous one (the Rurikids): the last two Rurikid tsars, Ivan and Fedor, are identified simply as Aleksei's great-grandfather and grandfather, respectively. Griboedov's previous reference to the fact that the last Rurikid tsar, Fedor Ivanovich, died childless is forgotten. 1 2 The Romanov dynasty gains further legitimacy as a result of its election by God and the people alike. Thus Griboedov emphasizes the divine election of the

A Dynastic

or Ethno-Dynastic

Tsardom?

• 19

n e w tsar, " f a i t h f u l a n d noble, elected and blessed by G o d f r o m his m o t h e r ' s w o m b . " 1 3 W h e n M i k h a i l allegedly r e f u s e s t h e c r o w n . A r c h b i s h o p F e o d o r of R i a z a n a n d starets A v r a m i i Palitsin insist t h a t " [ y o u ] d o w h a t G o d has o r d a i n e d t h a t you d o [i.e. a c c e p t t h e c r o w n ] , f o r i n d e e d you a r e c h o s e n ; d o n o t o f f e n d all the bisho p s a n d G o d ! " In G r i b o e d o v ' s a c c o u n t , t h e p e o p l e s t a n d i n g on t h e c e n t r a l m a r k e t s q u a r e n e a r t h e K r e m l i n s h o u t u n a n i m o u s l y : " L e t M i k h a i l F e d o r o v i c h be t s a r a n d r u l e r of t h e w h o l e M u s c o v i t e s t a t e a n d t h e R u s s i a n d o m a i n ! " 1 4 All a t t e m p t s o n t h e p a r t of M i k h a i l a n d his m o t h e r to d e c l i n e t h e election a r e c o u n t e r e d by t h e " w a i l i n g a n d w e e p i n g " of t h e a r c h b i s h o p a n d by t h e b o y a r S h e r e m e t i e v , while " t h e p o p u l a r masses, y o u n g a n d old alike, firmly a n d u n a n i m o u s l y . . . w a n t n o n e o t h e r [than M i k h a i l ] as s o v e r e i g n tsar of t h e M u s c o v i t e s t a t e and have n o t h o u g h t of a n y o n e else." 1 5 T h u s G r i b o e d o v s e e k s t o s h o w t h a t t h e election of Mikhail Fed o r o v i c h was n o t only f a v o r e d by G o d b u t also s u p p o r t e d by the w h o l e p e o p l e . H a v i n g established the primacy of the tsarist dynasty, does G r i b o e d o v indicate over w h a t territory or p e o p l e that dynasty r u l e ? T h e territory is u n d o u b t e d l y s o m e f o r m of " R u s ' . " T h e c o n c e p t of t h e R u s ' land first a p p e a r s in the title of the work, which takes u p two w h o l e pages of t h e original text. T h e title begins with V o l o d i m e r Sviatoslavych e n l i g h t e n i n g t h e " R u s ' l a n d " with t h e introduction of Christianity and goes o n to m e n t i o n Mikhail Fedorovich ( a u t o c r a t of "all R u s ' " ) and Aleksei Mikhailovich ( " a u t o c r a t of all G r e a t and Little and W h i t e R u s ' " ) , concluding with such epithets as " G r e a t R u s s i a " a n d the " G r e a t R u s s i a n t s a r d o m . " 1 6 Thus, for t h e a u t h o r , " R u s s i a " o r the " R u s s i a n t s a r d o m " is a c o n t i n u a t i o n of the R u s ' land first m e n t i o n e d in c o n n e c t i o n with V o l o d i m e r — i n fact, the highest stage of its d e v e l o p m e n t . A t n o t i m e d o e s G r i b o e d o v d e f i n e t h e g e o g r a p h i c a l e x t e n t of t h e " R u s ' l a n d , " b u t in r e f e r e n c e t o t h e reign of V o l o d i m e r he d o e s m e n t i o n Kyiv, N o v g o r o d t h e G r e a t , Polatsk, Tura, Rostov, M u r o m , the Derevlianian land, T m u t o r o k a n , Smolensk, a n d Pskov. S u b s e q u e n t l y he s w i t c h e s f r o m t e r r i t o r i a l r e f e r e n c e s to t h e R u s ' lands t o an e m p h a s i s o n t h e s t a t e — t h e " R u s s i a n s t a t e " o r " R u s s i a n t s a r d o m . " G r i b o e d o v also n o t e s t h a t a f t e r t h e reign of V o l o d i m e r M o n o m a k h , R u s ' b e c a m e increasingly d i v i d e d , a n d " t h e p r i m a c y of Kyiv b e g a n t o pass to Suzdal, R o s t o v , a n d l a t e r t o V l a d i m i r a n d u l t i m a t e l y t o M o s c o w . " 1 7 F r o m t h a t t i m e on, G r i b o e d o v c o n s i d e r s t h e R u s ' l a n d a n d t h e R u s s i a n t s a r d o m to be t e r r i t o r i a l p o s s e s s i o n s of t h e M u s c o v i t e tsars. T h e T i m e of T r o u b l e s t a k e s place in t h e " M u s c o v i t e state," in "cities a n d h a m l e t s of t h e M u s c o v i t e state," in " R u s s i a , " a n d in "all of R u s s i a . " A f t e r t h e e x p u l s i o n of t h e i n t r u d e r s , t h e tsar is e l e c t e d "in V l a d i m i r a n d in M o s c o w a n d in all t h e g r a n d principalities of t h e R u s s i a n s t a t e " o r in "all R u s s i a and o v e r all o t h e r d o m a i n s of t h e R u s s i a n state," etc. 1 8 I n s t a n c e s of t e r r i t o r i a l e x p a n s i o n d u r i n g t h e reign of A l e k s e i M i k h a i l o v i c h , such as t h e acquisition of U k r a i n e , find e x p r e s s i o n in c h a n g e s to t h e title of t h e M u s c o v i t e ruler: " g r e a t r u l e r and g r a n d prince," a u t o c r a t of "all G r e a t a n d Little a n d W h i t e R u s ' a n d i n h e r i t o r f r o m f a t h e r a n d g r a n d f a t h e r , successor a n d r u l e r a n d p o s s e s s o r of m a n y E a s t e r n a n d W e s t e r n a n d N o r t h e r n s t a t e s a n d lands." 1 9 G r i b o e d o v ' s vision of R u s s i a is t h a t of a d y n a s t i c O r t h o d o x R u s ' t s a r d o m orig-

20 • Zenon E. Kohut inating with St. Volodimer of Kyiv and culminating in the reign of Aleksei Romanov in Moscow. H e shows no interest in the people of Rus' or any of their ethnic peculiarities. Also absent from G r i b o e d o v ' s account is any notion of a reunion of previously lost R u s ' lands with the Muscovite Rus' state. Upon the annexation of Ukraine, "Little Russia" is simply added to the tsar's title, with no reference to the fact that the same territory was part of Volodimer's " R u s ' lands."Thus, continuity f r o m Volodimer to Aleksei consists in the transmission of the scepter of the Rus' tsardom, or perhaps even in the translation of the Rus' state, but not necessarily in the possession of the territory itself. Charles Halperin described this phen o m e n o n with reference to an earlier age in terms of two images of Kyiv in early Muscovite political thought: "historical" and " c o n t e m p o r a r y " Kyiv: If the sole ideological function of the Historical Kiev was to pass its ideological inheritance to Moscow, then, after it had done so, the Historical Kiev had no ideological raison d'être. It logically ceased to exist. For this reason, the Historical Kiev was frozen in time, and therefore outside time and immutable, like any classical past or golden age. The city of Kiev that now existed in the f o u r t e e n t h and fifteenth centuries had no claim upon the Kievan inheritance, which no longer resided in Kiev, but in Moscow. Consequently, the Lithuanian grand principality acquired no Kievan legitimacy when it assumed power over the C o n t e m p o r a r y Kiev, and Lithuanian claims to influence a m o n g the East Slavs rooted in her possession of the city of Kiev were devoid of merit. In early Muscovite thought the C o n t e m p o r a r y Kiev could not and did not exist. Thus there was no contradiction between the Historical and C o n t e m p o r a r y Kievs because they were simply different cities, and could be dealt with, easily, in different ways. Implicitly Moscow was the New Kiev, an epithet unattested in the Muscovite sources, and the D n e p r Kiev, the equally unknown Old Kiev, was a has-been. 2 0 D e s p i t e this indifference to the " h a s - b e e n " Old Kyiv, Muscovite diplomacy exploited the "recovery of Rus' lands" argument from time to time. From the late 1480s through the 1530s, Muscovy waged five major wars with the Polish-Lithuanian C o m m o n w e a l t h , resulting in the annexation of several lands of Old Rus': Briansk, Chernihiv, Homel, Novhorod-Siverskyi, Starodub, and Smolensk. 2 1 In the course of these wars, the Muscovite court f o r m u l a t e d ideological claims to all lands of Rus' that were not currently part of Muscovy. Between 1487 and 1493 the Muscovites began using the phrase "sovereign of all R u s ' " as part of the tsar's title, an innovation especially designed for negotiations with the "Lithuanians." (Ivan III added "all R u s ' " to his title in 1481, but initially this was not u n d e r s t o o d to refer to the Rus' lands under Lithuanian rule.) The peace treaty of 1494 even obliged the " L i t h u a n i a n s " to recognize the term as part of the Muscovite ruler's title. In the course of diplomatic negotiations with Poland-Lithuania and H u n g a ry in 1503-4, the Muscovites went even further, explicitly claiming in the tsar's

A Dynastic

or Ethno-Dynastic

Tsardom?

• 21

n a m e t h a t " n o t only t h o s e cities a n d p r o v i n c e s which a r e n o w in o u r h a n d a r e o u r p a t r i m o n y , [but] t h e w h o l e R u s s i a n land, a c c o r d i n g to G o d ' s will, is o u r p a t r i m o ny f r o m o u r a n c e s t o r s a n d since antiquity." This s t a t e m e n t a c c o m p a n i e d t h e first d i r e c t claim t o such " R u s s i a n cities" as Kyiv a n d S m o l e n s k . 2 2 S u c h claims, a s s e r t e d p r i m a r i l y in M u s c o v i t e d i p l o m a t i c c o r r e s p o n d e n c e with t h e P o l i s h - L i t h u a n i a n s t a t e , a p p e a r e d only o c c a s i o n a l l y in historical writing of the time. It is s o b e r i n g to c o m p a r e M u s c o v i t e claims to E a s t Slavic t e r r i t o r i e s with t h e i r c o n t e m p o r a r y i d e o l o g i c a l justification of t h e c o n q u e s t of M u s l i m K a z a n . A s Jaroslaw Pelenski has shown, Muscovite sources represented the Kazan Khanate as " p a r t of t h e R u s s i a n l a n d f r o m a n t i q u i t y " a n d a p a t r i m o n y of the tsarist dynasty. In this r e g a r d , t h e official Kazan

History

(Kazanskaia

istoriia)

paid

unpre-

c e d e n t e d a t t e n t i o n t o t h e Kyivan past, r e p e a t i n g a l m o s t t h e w h o l e Tale of Princes

of Vladimir

(Skazanie

o kniaz'iakh

Vladimirskikh)

the

a n d f o r t h e first time

p r o c l a i m i n g M o s c o w " t h e s e c o n d Kyiv." M o r e o v e r , t h e w o r k c l a i m e d that the K a z a n l a n d h a d originally b e e n i n h a b i t e d by t h e a u t o c h t h o n o u s " p e a c e f u l " R u s ' p e o p l e , w h o w e r e s u b s e q u e n t l y e x p e l l e d by t h e B u l g a r s — a m o d e r n e t h n i c a r g u m e n t u n u s u a l f o r t h e time. B u t such a r g u m e n t s w e r e n o t usually a p p l i e d to the O r t h o d o x E a s t e r n Slavs or to t h e R u s ' of t h e P o l i s h - L i t h u a n i a n C o m m o n w e a l t h . E v e n A l e k s e i R o m a n o v ' s a d d i t i o n of " t s a r of Little R u s s i a " t o his title in 1654 was n o t p r o m p t e d by a claim to s o m e long-lost R u r i k i d p a t r i m o n y , b u t r e s u l t e d directly f r o m t h e P e r e i a s l a v A g r e e m e n t with t h e U k r a i n i a n C o s s a c k s ( a l t h o u g h t h e p a t r i m o n i a l claim w a s s o o n " r e c a l l e d " by t h e M u s c o v i t e a u t h o r i t i e s ) . 2 4 T h e s e e x a m ples suggest t h a t t h e p r a g m a t i c n e e d s of M u s c o v i t e f o r e i g n policy d e t e r m i n e d t h e uses of h i s t o r y r a t h e r t h a n t h e o t h e r way a r o u n d . A s a c o m p i l a t i o n , G r i b o e d o v ' s History

of the Tsars e x p r e s s e d n o innovative

ideas; all its p r i n c i p a l c o n c e p t s w e r e well a t t e s t e d long b e f o r e its publication. For e x a m p l e , t h e Tale of the Princes

of Vladimir

(1520s o r 1530s) a l r e a d y c o n t a i n e d

a mythical g e n e a l o g y of t h e R u s ' princes, tracing t h e i r d e s c e n t f r o m t h e R o m a n e m p e r o r A u g u s t u s t h r o u g h his b r o t h e r Prus, w h o h a d ruled t h e Prussian land and was said to h a v e b e e n an a n c e s t o r of R u r i k a n d successive Kyivan princes. T h e Tale also m a i n t a i n e d t h a t t h e e l e v e n t h - c e n t u r y Kyivan p r i n c e V o l o d i m e r M o n o m a k h h a d r e c e i v e d gifts, insignia, a n d an i m p e r i a l c r o w n f r o m t h e B y z a n t i n e E m p e r o r C o n s t a n t i n e IX M o n o m a c h o s . A s legend h a d it, t h e c r o w n , k n o w n as " M o n o m a k h ' s cap," h a d b e e n h a n d e d d o w n to t h e M u s c o v i t e rulers, a n d a c a p alleged to have b e e n M o n o m a k h ' s b e g a n to be u s e d in the t s a r ' s c o r o n a t i o n ceremony. 2 5 Such c o n c e p t s w e r e e v e n m o r e e l a b o r a t e l y d e v e l o p e d in t h e Book the Tsarist

Genealogy

(Stepennaia

kniga

tsarskogo

rodosloviia),

of Degrees

of

c o m p i l e d in t h e

1580s, which divided its n a r r a t i v e of t h e past into "reigns," s u b d i v i d e d in their t u r n into c h a p t e r s , e a c h d e a l i n g with a single topic. 2 6 T h e i n t r o d u c t i o n to t h e w o r k a n n o u n c e d that t h e s e v e n t e e n " s t e p s " of t h e R u r i k i d dynasty f o r m e d an " u n f a l t e r ing stairway t o h e a v e n , " while tracing the v e n e r a b l e origins of t h e d y n a s t y to E m p e r o r A u g u s t u s t h r o u g h his b r o t h e r Prus. D e s p i t e this m e n t i o n of p a g a n ancestors, t h e Book of Degrees

d e r i v e d princely p o w e r f r o m a C h r i s t i a n source: it did not

22 • Zenon E. Kohut include as a separate degree the founder of the dynasty, Rurik, or his pagan successors Ihor (Igor) and Sviatoslav.The narrative began with a hagiographie account of the life of " G r a n d Princess" Olha (Olga), the first Christian among the Kyivan rulers, yet even this was not the first "degree," but a kind of additional introduction. Significantly, a table of contents was inserted after the story of Olha. The first degree was represented by her grandson Volodimer, whom the author called "coequal with the apostles, holy and blessed Tsar and Grand Prince," or "Autocratic Tsar and G r a n d Prince."Thus the line of princes originated with Rurik, who in turn was linked with the R o m a n emperors, but genuine "imperial" sovereignty and legitimacy derived from the first Christian "tsar." The work ended with Ivan IV, who represented "the seventeenth degree from the first holy Volodimer." 27 It was this narrative sequence, even to the extent of noting the "degree" of each ruler that G r i b o e d o v adopted. H e updated the story by adding all the tsars who came after Ivan IV. G r i b o e d o v ' s main contribution consisted in his multifarious a t t e m p t s to link the R o m a n o v dynasty with Volodimer. Not surprisingly, Sergei Solov'ev dismissed him as simply "attaching the new dynasty to the line of Muscovite rulers." Because G r i b o e d o v ' s work was written only a few years prior the first printing of the Kyivan Synopsis (1674), S.F. Platonov d e e m e d it "the last word in an old testament, a historical view, antiquated and faded immediately a f t e r its appearance." 2 8 W h a t , then, was the "new t e s t a m e n t " that in Platonov's view so fundamentally altered the historical perception of Russia? It came from Ukraine, from the Kyivan Caves Monastery. According to the traditional view, the Synopsis was written by the monastery's archimandrite, Inokentii Gizel; in any case, the book o p e n s with Gizel's benediction. First published in Kyiv in 1674, the work was substantially enlarged for its third edition of 1681. The author's chief concern seems to have b e e n to protect the Caves Monastery's autonomy vis-à-vis the Kyivan Metropolitanate and the Moscow Patriarchate. As Hans Rothe has pointed out, this agenda is implicit in the author's choice and emendation of sources emphasizing the historically stauropegial status of the Caves Monastery—it was subordinate only to the patriarch of Constantinople. 2 9 The second part of the agenda was to enlist the Muscovite tsar as the monastery's protector. Thus the author focuses on Moscow's primacy a m o n g the Slavic peoples and the tsar's "rightful" claims to the Kyivan inheritance. By establishing a link between Kyiv and Moscow through faith, dynasty, land, and even people, the Synopsis seeks to argue for a unique historical relationship between the Caves Monastery and the tsar. U n l i k e Griboedov, whose account originates with St. Volodimer, the Synopsis begins with the biblical descent of the Slavs, the Rus' and other related peoples, and only then focuses on Volodimer and the conversion of the Rus'. Following Muscovite practice, the Synopsis links Volodimer with Augustus Caesar through Rurik. The author then lists the rulers of Kyiv down to the Tatar conquest. H e goes on to relate two parallel stories: an account of Batu's destruction of the Caves Monastery and the devastation of the Kyiv region in the thirteenth century,

A Dynastic or Ethno-Dynastic

Tsardom? • 23

followed by the fourteenth-century struggle of G r a n d Prince Dmitrii Ivanovich of Moscow with the Tatar ruler Mamai. Such " d o u b l i n g " is one of the techniques employed to link the Caves Monastery with a grand prince, and ultimately with the tsar of Muscovy. The author then turns to the fate of Kyiv after Batu's destruction of it and recounts how the metropolitan see of Kyiv was divided. The 1680-81 edition also includes an account of the proclamation of the Moscow Patriarchate. T h e author then turns his attention back to U k r a i n e , listing all the princes and palatines of Kyiv down to A d a m Kysil (1649-53). The work culminates with Kyiv's rightful " r e t u r n " to the rule of Tsar Aleksei Mikhailovich. The a u t h o r intertwines vague and. at times, inconsistent concepts of people, dynasty and state. H e begins in pre-Kyivan times with the slaveno-rossiiskii narod (meaning, more or less, the O r t h o d o x Eastern Slavs), which is subsequently ruled by the "Varangian princes," beginning with Ihor Riurykovych. For subsequent periods of history, the a u t h o r uses the terms "rossy," "rusy" and "rossiiane" to d e n o t e the people inhabiting a historical territory north of the Black Sea between the V o l g a - D o n and D a n u b e - D n i s t e r - D n i p r o river systems. Although no northern boundary is given, Novgorod the Great is included. 3 0 The author of the Synopsis states that the Rurikide princely family established the "Russian state." This gosudarstvo Rossiiskoe emerges fully with Volodimer's conversion to Christianity and encompasses Muscovy, as well as the lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. 3 1 As in Griboedov's work, the story of the "Russian state" is in fact the story of the Rurikids, which allows the author to include in the chronicle various f r a g m e n t s of Russian and Ukrainian history (including an extensive episode on Dmitrii Donskoi), linking together a variety of territories, time f r a m e s and centers of power. For example, when the princely seat of Rus' moves f r o m Kyiv to Vladimir on the Kliazma, and f r o m there to Moscow, this occurs because it suits princely desires. 3 2 The creation of two metropolitanates (Kyiv and Moscow) is due to the fact that one part of Rus' (Kyiv) comes u n d e r the rule of a foreign prince, the Lithuanian Vytautas. 3 3 A n d , most importantly, when the tsar takes control of Kyiv, this is lauded because "the first-born of all the cities of Rossiia, the tsarist (tsarstvennyi) city of Kyiv," has come under the rule of the O r t h o d o x autocrat. 3 4 O r t h o d o x y is also identified with the tsar, land and people. Thus the wars that the Z a p o r o z h i a n Cossacks fight against the Turks are waged in the interests of the O r t h o d o x Rus' people (pravoslavnyi rossiiskii narod). Rus' is called an O r t h o d o x land and the tsar is referred to as the O r t h o d o x autocrat. 3 5 Despite considerable confusion in its account of history and ethnography, the Synopsis brought together a n u m b e r of ideas that had been reverberating a m o n g some of the Ukrainian clergy during the second half of the seventeenth century: (1) Rus' or, as it was beginning to be referred to in the 1670s and 1680s, "Little Russia," belonged within a larger, all-Russian context because of its historical ties to the house of Rurik and its O r t h o d o x faith; (2) despite ethnic differences, there was a broadly O r t h o d o x Rus' people that inhabited the lands ruled by the house of Rurik; (3) Rossiia, which included Muscovy and Little Russia, and the entire

24 • Zen on E. Kohut rossiiskii

narod

w e r e m e a n t to be r u l e d by t h e O r t h o d o x a u t o c r a t , w h o s e ances-

try d e r i v e d f r o m t h e h o u s e of R u r i k ; (4) t h e M u s c o v i t e tsar r e p r e s e n t e d t h e continuity of t h e h o u s e of R u r i k ( t h e fact t h a t t h e t s a r s w e r e n o l o n g e r R u r i k i d s was conveniently ignored). By m a r s h a l i n g all possible a r g u m e n t s to j u s t i f y the t s a r ' s p a t r o n a g e of the C a v e s M o n a s t e r y , t h e Synopsis,

p e r h a p s unwittingly, p r o d u c e d an a l t e r n a t e vision

of Russia. To t h e s t r o n g M u s c o v i t e t r a d i t i o n of r e g a r d i n g M u s c o v i t e R u s ' as a c o n t i n u o u s O r t h o d o x d y n a s t i c s t a t e , t h e Synopsis

a d d e d the idea of a p r o t o - E a s t

Slavic tsarist p a t r i m o n y . This idea e m e r g e d o u t of t h e U k r a i n i a n e x p e r i e n c e . F r o m t h e l a t t e r half of t h e s i x t e e n t h c e n t u r y , U k r a i n i a n O r t h o d o x society was challenged intellectually by t h e P r o t e s t a n t r e f o r m s a n d t h e C a t h o l i c C o u n t e r - R e f o r m a t i o n alike. In t h e p r o g r a m m a t i c vision of t h e Jesuit i d e o l o g u e Piotr S k a r g a , c o n f e s s i o n a l unity w a s essential f o r political unity; h e n c e E a s t e r n O r t h o d o x y was c o n s i d e r e d n o t only e r r o n e o u s , but also s u b v e r s i v e of t h e state. O w i n g to increased political p r e s s u r e , a c c o m p a n i e d by a f l o w e r i n g of Polish culture, U k r a i n i a n n o b l e s b e g a n c o n v e r t i n g to R o m a n C a t h o l i c i s m a n d a d o p t i n g t h e Polish l a n g u a g e and cultural identity. A s U k r a i n i a n society d e c l i n e d b e c a u s e of t h e s e d e f e c t i o n s , the r e m a i n i n g e l i t e — b o t h n o b l e s a n d c l e r g y — b e g a n l o o k i n g f o r w a y s of defining a R u s ' identity t h a t m i g h t find a c c e p t a n c e within t h e political, social a n d cultural f r a m e w o r k of t h e C o m m o n w e a l t h . O n e a t t e m p t was t h e C h u r c h U n i o n of Brest (1596), w h e r e b y t h e U k r a i n i a n O r t h o d o x C h u r c h recognized t h e P o p e but r e t a i n e d its E a s t e r n C h r i s t i a n t r a d i t i o n s . A n o t h e r r e s p o n s e was a v i g o r o u s O r t h o d o x Slavic r e f o r m t h a t a t t e m p t e d to c o u n t e r t h e C a t h o l i c o f f e n s i v e on t h e o l o g i c a l , intellectual, a n d e v e n c u l t u r a l g r o u n d s . In t h e e n d , t h e s e e f f o r t s failed t o s e c u r e U k r a i n e ' s s t a t u s within t h e C o m m o n w e a l t h , which was b e c o m i n g increasingly a n d m o r e militantly R o m a n C a t h o l i c in religion a n d Polish in l a n g u a g e a n d c u l t u r e . 3 6 The new learning and polemics over the church union sparked a keen interest in history, p a r t i c u l a r l y t h a t of Kyivan R u s ' . N o t only w e r e t h e old Kyivan c h r o n i cles r e c o p i e d in t h e early s e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y , b u t n e w historical writing b r o u g h t t h e m u p to m o r e r e c e n t times. T h e polemical literature d e b a t i n g t h e U n i o n of B r e s t d r e w o n t h e R u s ' p a s t . M o r e o v e r , s p u r r e d by Polish historical writings, U k r a i n i a n a u t h o r s i n t r o d u c e d n e w t e r m i n o l o g y a n d c o n c e p t s into h i s t o r y writing, such as a R u s ' " f a t h e r l a n d " a n d a R u t h e n i a n o r R u s ' p e o p l e . T h e s e writings w e n t b e y o n d t h e P o l i s h - L i t h u a n i a n c o n c e p t of a n o b i l i a r y ( s z l a c h t a ) n a t i o n , i m p l y i n g t h e exist e n c e of a R u s ' n a t i o n t h a t i n c l u d e d O r t h o d o x R u t h e n i a n s of v a r i o u s estates. 3 7 T h u s U k r a i n i a n l e a r n i n g b e g a n to d e f i n e a distinct R u s ' e t h n i c , c u l t u r a l a n d religious c o m m u n i t y . G i v e n their r e n e w e d interest in t h e R u s ' past, U k r a i n i a n clerics of t h e 1620s a n d 1640s t u r n e d n o t only to their o w n historical t r a d i t i o n , b u t also to Polish a n d M u s c o v i t e s o u r c e s . F r o m Polish historians, p a r t i c u l a r l y M a c i e j S t r y j k o w s k i , t h e y t o o k o v e r t h e n o t i o n of Slavic unity a n d c a m e t o r e g a r d a n c i e n t R u s ' as t h e j o i n t p a t r i m o n y of M u s c o v i t e s a n d U k r a i n i a n s ( R u t h e n i a n s ) alike. M o r e i m p o r t a n t l y , in trying to d e f i n e a n d d i f f e r e n t i a t e R u s ' f r o m L i t h u a n i a a n d P o l a n d within t h e

A Dynastic or Ethno-Dynastic

Tsardom? • 25

C o m m o n w e a l t h , these writers began to look m o r e closely at Muscovite chronicle writing. From such sources. Ukrainian writers created an image of the Rus' past that transcended current political boundaries. Thus in the Synopsis the author applied the Ukrainian concept of a Rus' ethno-cultural and religious community not only to the Polish-Lithuanian C o m m o n w e a l t h , but also to a larger Rossiia that included both Muscovy and Ukraine. The Synopsis went through nineteen printings by 1836. Until the second half of the eighteenth century, it was the only published "history" of "Russia." According to A l e k s a n d r Samarin, the Synopsis was one of the books most widely distributed and read in the eighteenth century, the only work that actually penetrated to the lower classes. 38 It was so popular because it provided an expanding dynastic e m p i r e with a larger historical f r a m e w o r k . For all its b r o a d distribution, did the Synopsis's vision of Russia as an Orthodox p r o t o - E a s t Slavic dynastic state simply displace the old Muscovite view of an O r t h o d o x dynastic state? Did the ubiquitous presence of the Synopsis result in a f u n d a m e n t a l re-conceptualization of East E u r o p e a n and East Slavic history? How was " n e w t e s t a m e n t " history written? Although t h e impact of the Synopsis on the d e v e l o p m e n t of Russian historical and political thought has yet to be researched, a cursory examination indicates that, while drawing on the Synopsis, most late seventeenth- and eighteenth-century authors paid scant attention to the O r t h o d o x East Slavic patrimony, preferring to follow the Muscovite tradition of tracing the origins of an O r t h o d o x dynastic state. For example, the Masurian Chronicle (Mazurinskii letopisets) of Isidor Snazin, probably written between the late 1660s or early 1670s and 1690, incorporates whole passages f r o m the Synopsis, particularly on the origins of the Slavs. 39 However, Snazin has no concept of an O r t h o d o x slaveno-rossiskii narod (nor does he utilize such terminology). For Snazin, as for Griboedov, the history of the R u r i k i d - R o m a n o v dynasties equals the history of Muscovy-Russia, and the history of Muscovy-Russia equals the history of the Rurikids and Romanovs. H e also follows G r i b o e d o v in his dislike of elected tsars. Thus epithets such as " G o d given" are not conferred on Boris G o d u n o v or Vasilii Shuiskii. In Snazin's view, neither Boris nor his son had a legitimate right to rule the Muscovite state. However, the new R o m a n o v dynasty, which also began with an elected tsar, is considered different because of its links with the Rurikids and its divine election. 4 0 Although the concept of a Rus' patrimony appears in Snazin's work, there seems to be no notion that it encompasses all the R u s ' lands of Kyivan times, not to speak of all the Rus' (East Slavic) people. Snazin d o e s mention that "Dmitrii Ivanovich s u m m o n e d his son, Prince Vasilii, and transferred the succession by seniority and grand-princely power into his hands, which was the legacy of his father, grandfather and great-grandfather, and granted him his patrimony, the Rus' land with all a p p e r t a i n i n g income." 4 1 But this Rus' land seems to refer only to Muscovy.The only clear reference to a lost Rus' territory is Snazin's characterization of the Lithuanian Prince Vytautas's capture of Smolensk as "unlawful theft." 4 2

26 • Zenon

E. Kohut

T h e term " U k r a i n e " occurs f o u r t i m e s in Snazin's work. As a territory o r land it is not c o n s i d e r e d to h a v e had any link with Muscovy until the Muscovite r u l e r s took it over by force of arms. 4 3 Snazin e m p l o y s t h e t e r m "Little R u s s i a " only in r e f e r e n c e to tsar's new title, a d o p t e d a f t e r t a k i n g t h e U k r a i n i a n lands u n d e r his p a t r o n a g e . 4 4 T h e r e is not even a hint that the U k r a i n i a n t e r r i t o r i e s now a c q u i r e d by t h e tsar are t h e very s a m e o n e s that c o n s t i t u t e d t h e R u s ' h e a r t l a n d in V o l o d i m e r ' s day. E i g h t e e n t h - c e n t u r y h i s t o r i a n s s t r u g g l e d with q u e s t i o n s of e t h n o - g e n e s i s (the d e f i n i t i o n of Slavs, R u s s i a n s , S a r m a t i a n s , Scythians, C h u d and o t h e r s ) , t h e biblical l i n e a g e of n a t i o n s , a n d ways of d e a l i n g with v a r i o u s mythical figures a n d stories. T h e only m a j o r discussion o v e r e t h n i c i t y o c c u r r e d in t h e s e c o n d half of t h e cent u r y a n d c o n c e r n e d t h e n a t i o n a l i t y of t h e V a r a n g i a n princes, s e t t i n g off the N o r m a n i s t d e b a t e . 4 5 D e s p i t e v a r i o u s e x c u r s i o n s into early Slavic history, t h e idea of c o n t i n u o u s tsarist rule o v e r a pravoslavnyi

slaveno-rossiiskii

narod

was not

a d o p t e d , a n d t h e d y n a s t i c s t a t e r e m a i n e d t h e p r i m a r y o r g a n i z i n g principle of such m a j o r h i s t o r i a n s as Boltin, Tatishchev, L o m o n o s o v a n d S h c h e r b a t o v . 4 6 T h a t i d e a was f u r t h e r e l a b o r a t e d in w h a t h a s b e e n c o n s i d e r e d t h e first m o d e r n , c o m p r e hensive a n d scholarly history of R u s s i a , N i k o l a i K a r a m z i n ' s History State (Istoriia

gosudarstva

rossiiskogo,

religion, a n d p e o p l e in the Synopsis,

of the

Russian

1816-24). Ignoring t h e linkage of dynasty, Karamzin followed the Muscovite tradition

of e q u a t i n g t h e r u l i n g d y n a s t y with t h e R u s s i a n state. T h u s K a r a m z i n t r a c e d t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of a u t o c r a c y a n d s t a t e h o o d f r o m p r i m i t i v e society to highly e v o l v e d monarchy. 4 7 Following t h e Stepennaia

kniga.

K a r a m z i n begins his story with a

"Kyivan p e r i o d , " b u t e x p l a i n s t h a t t h e t w e l f t h - c e n t u r y Prince A n d r e i B o g o l i u b s kii a b a n d o n e d S o u t h e r n R u s ' (the U k r a i n i a n a r e a s ) b e c a u s e it was e m b r o i l e d in f e u d s a n d d e c i d e d to establish himself in t h e n o r t h e a s t ( t h e R u s s i a n

areas),

" w h e r e t h e p e o p l e did not h a v e a r e b e l l i o u s spirit." H e also w r i t e s that S o u t h e r n R u s ' s a n k m o r e d e e p l y into d i s o r d e r f r o m t h e e n d of t h e t w e l f t h century, w h i l e t h e n o r t h g r e w in p o w e r a n d p r e s t i g e t h a n k s t o autocracy. 4 8 T h u s t h e political c e n ter of t h e " R u s s i a n " state, originally l o c a t e d in Kyiv, s h i f t e d t o V l a d i m i r - S u z d a l , t h e n t o Moscow, a n d finally to St. P e t e r s b u r g . For K a r a m z i n " R u s s i a n n e s s " is e m b o d i e d in a u t o c r a c y a n d s t a t e h o o d , n o t in a specific territory. C o n s e q u e n t l y , t h e R u s s i a d e s c r i b e d in his work m o v e s w h e r e v e r R u s s i a n a u t o c r a c y a n d s t a t e h o o d could find t h e i r best e x p r e s s i o n . C o n t i n u i t y b e t w e e n Kyiv a n d M o s c o w is n o t territorial, c u l t u r a l , r e l i g i o u s o r ethnic, b u t political. T h e d o m i n a n c e of t h e d y n a s t i c - s t a t e vision of R u s s i a was n o t c h a l l e n g e d until t h e 1830s. A t t h a t t i m e Russia was b e c o m i n g p r e o c c u p i e d with t h e "Polish p r o b lem." In t h e w a k e of t h e Polish u p r i s i n g of 1830, the i m p e r i a l g o v e r n m e n t w a s e a g e r t o assert t h e " R u s s i a n " c h a r a c t e r of t h e U k r a i n i a n a n d B e l a r u s i a n l a n d s against t h e claims of t h e Poles. It was this conflict that s p a r k e d a r e - c o n c e p t u a l i z a t i o n of E a s t E u r o p e a n history a m o n g R u s s i a n historians. In K a r a m z i n ' s s c h e m e , R u s s i a n history b e g i n s in Kyivan R u s ' in t h e n i n t h a n d t e n t h c e n t u r i e s . B y t h e t h i r t e e n t h c e n t u r y , U k r a i n e d r o p s o u t of R u s s i a n history, only to r e e n t e r it in t h e s e v e n t e e n t h a n d e i g h t e e n t h centuries. B u t h o w can o n e claim a " R u s s i a n c h a r a c t e r "

A Dynastic

or Ethno-Dynastic

Tsardom?

• 27

f o r a t e r r i t o r y t h a t is n o t l i n k e d t o a R u s s i a n s t a t e ? H o w can t h e " c r a d l e of R u s s i a " exist o u t s i d e R u s s i a f o r m o r e t h a n five c e n t u r i e s ? T h e Synopsis

attempt-

e d t o r e s o l v e this p a r a d o x by e s t a b l i s h i n g dynastic, t e r r i t o r i a l a n d p r o t o - e t h n i c l i n k a g e s . It w a s t h e h i s t o r i a n N i k o l a i U s t r i a l o v w h o t o o k t h e s e s e v e n t e e n t h - c e n t u r y c o n c e p t s a n d i n f u s e d t h e m with m o d e r n R u s s i a n e t h n i c a l l y b a s e d n a t i o n a l ism. H e p r o d u c e d t h e first officially a p p r o v e d t e x t b o o k of R u s s i a n history w r i t t e n w i t h t h e specific a i m of d e m o n s t r a t i n g t h e " u n i t y of Polish, L i t h u a n i a n a n d R u s sian h i s t o r y " a n d t h e " R u s s i a n c h a r a c t e r " of t h e s o u t h w e s t e r n p a r t of t h e e m p i r e (i.e., U k r a i n e ) . 4 9 Its p u r p o s e w a s u n a b a s h e d l y political: to r e f u t e Polish claims to t h e U k r a i n i a n a n d B e l a r u s i a n lands. 5 0 A c c o r d i n g to U s t r i a l o v , Rossiia

a l r e a d y existed in Kyivan t i m e s as a political

n a t i o n with a c o m m o n l a n g u a g e a n d a s h a r e d belief in autocracy. H e c h a l l e n g e d t h e a c c e p t e d p r a c t i c e of d e r i v i n g R u s s i a ' s origins f r o m V l a d i m i r - S u z d a l

and

M u s c o v y ( a f t e r 1157), c l a i m i n g t h a t t h e G r a n d D u c h y of L i t h u a n i a h a d also b e e n a " R u s s i a n " state. T h u s t h e t w o p a r t s of t h e R u s s i a n n a t i o n h a d in fact b e e n aliena t e d by t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t of Polish r u l e o v e r U k r a i n e a n d Belarus, a n d t h e m a j o r t r e n d of R u s s i a n h i s t o r y w a s t h e " r e e s t a b l i s h m e n t of t h e R u s s i a n land within t h e [ e l e v e n t h - c e n t u r y ] b o r d e r s it h a d u n d e r Y a r o s l a v [the Wise]." 5 1 It was within this f r a m e w o r k t h a t U s t r i a l o v i n c o r p o r a t e d , p e r h a p s f o r t h e first t i m e in i m p e r i a l R u s s i a n h i s t o r i o g r a p h y , e x t e n s i v e p e r i o d s of U k r a i n i a n h i s t o r y i n t o his g e n e r a l s u r v e y of " R u s s i a n " history. It w a s in U s t r i a l o v ' s a c c o u n t t h a t t h e i m p l i c a t i o n s of t h e E a s t e r n Slavic p a t r i m o n y m o d e l w e r e fully r e a l i z e d . By p o s i t i n g R u s s i a ' s f u n d a m e n t a l e t h n i c a n d political unity, U s t r i a l o v c o u l d c h a r a c t e r i z e U k r a i n i a n h i s t o r y as a c o n s t a n t striving f o r u n i o n with M u s c o v y / R u s s i a . U s t r i a l o v ' s a c c o u n t s e r v e d as t h e principal m o d e l f o r m o s t s u b s e q u e n t g e n e r a l histories of R u s s i a , which c a m e to t r e a t t h e past of U k r a i n i a n , B e l a r u s i a n , L i t h u a n i a n , a n d e v e n s o m e Polish e t h n i c t e r r i t o r i e s as p a r t of " R u s s i a n " history. 5 2 F r o m t h e last q u a r t e r of t h e s e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y , t h e r e w e r e t w o p a r a l l e l c o n c e p t i o n s of R u s s i a : t h e first, d e r i v i n g f r o m M u s c o v i t e political a n d historical traditions, v i e w e d R u s s i a as a c o n t i n u o u s O r t h o d o x d y n a s t i c t s a r d o m ; t h e s e c o n d , a r t i c u l a t e d by s o m e of t h e U k r a i n i a n clergy, saw R u s s i a as an O r t h o d o x p r o t o E a s t Slavic d y n a s t i c t s a r d o m . N o t until t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y was well a d v a n c e d did an e t h n o - d y n a s t i c c o n c e p t of R u s s i a , a d a p t e d to t h e r e q u i r e m e n t s of m o d e r n R u s s i a n n a t i o n a l c o n s c i o u s n e s s , finally e n t e r t h e m a i n s t r e a m of R u s s i a n political and historical t h o u g h t .

Notes 1 Fedor Griboedov, Istoriia

o tsariakh

i velikikh

kniaz'iakh

zemli

russkoi

(St. Petersburg:

Sinodal'naia tipografiia, 1896), xv. 2 Sinopsis,

Kiev 1681: Facsimile

mil einer Einleitung,

ed. Hans R o t h e ( C o l o g n e and Vienna:

Bohlau, 1983). The rendering of the e x t e n d e d title of the Sinopsis

exhibits the termino-

2 8 • Zenon

E.

Kohut

logical minefield t r a v e r s e d in discussing t h e s e early m o d e r n concepts. " V o l o d i m i r " is f r o m the C h u r c h Slavonic, a v o i d i n g t h e U k r a i n i a n " V o l o d y m y r " and the R u s s i a n " V l a d i m i r " ; h o w e v e r t h e principality is l o c a t e d in Russia and t h e r e f o r e called " V l a d i m i r . " T h e s a m e applies to the title of this v o l u m e , in which t h e C h u r c h Slavonic Synopsis is u s e d e x c e p t w h e n citing a u t h o r s w h o use t h e Russified Sinopsis. as in this e d i t i o n . Thus, d i f f e r e n t spellings of the s a m e place (e.g., Kyiv, K i e v ) m a y be used on the s a m e p a g e deliberately. 3 G r i b o e d o v , Istoria, 6. 4 G r i b o e d o v , Istoria, 6. 5 G r i b o e d o v , Istoria,

13-14.

6 G r i b o e d o v , istoria, 7 G r i b o e d o v , Istoria,

14. 19.

8 G r i b o e d o v , Istoria, 9 G r i b o e d o v , Istoria,

30. 39-41.

10 G r i b o e d o v , Istoria, 5 8 - 5 9 . 11 G r i b o e d o v , Istoria, 59. 12 G r i b o e d o v , Istoria, 26, 6 5 - 6 6 . 13 14 15 16

Griboedov, Griboedov, Griboedov, Griboedov,

Istoria, 37. Istoria, 40, 43. Istoria, 44. Istoria, 1.

17 18 19 20

G r i b o e d o v , Istoria, 1 2 - 1 4 , 1 6 - 1 7 . G r i b o e d o v , Istoria, 37, 39, 4 0 - 4 6 . G r i b o e d o v , Istoria, 57. C h a r l e s J. H a l p e r i n . " K i e v a n d M o s c o w : A n A s p e c t of E a r l y M u s c o v i t e T h o u g h t , " Russian History/Histoire russe 7, no. 3 (1980): 3 1 2 - 2 1 , h e r e 320. 21 See K.V. B a z i l e v i c h , Vneshniaia politika Russkogo tsentralizovannogo gosudarstva ( M o s c o w : Izd. M o s k o v s k o g o u n i v e r s i t e t a , 1952). 22 T h e q u e s t i o n of M u s c o v y ' s claim to the Kyivan h e r i t a g e has b e e n a s u b j e c t of p r o t r a c t e d d e b a t e . S o m e of t h e m o s t i m p o r t a n t c o n t r i b u t i o n s have b e e n : J a r o s l a w P e l e n s k i , The Contest for the Legacy of Kievan Rus' ( B o u l d e r : East E u r o p e a n M o n o g r a p h s , 1988); C h a r l e s J. H a l p e r i n , " K i e v a n d M o s c o w " a n d " T h e R u s s i a n L a n d a n d t h e R u s s i a n T s a r : T h e E m e r g e n c e of t h e M u s c o v i t e Ideology, 1380-1408," Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 23 (1976): 7 - 1 0 4 ; E d w a r d L. K e e n a n . " M u s c o v i t e P e r c e p t i o n of O t h e r Slavs B e f o r e 1 6 5 4 - A n A g e n d a for H i s t o r i a n s , " in P e t e r P o t i c h n y j et al., eds., Ukraine and Russia in Their Historical Encounter ( E d m o n t o n : C a n a d i a n I n s t i t u t e of U k r a i n i a n S t u d i e s Press, 1992), 2 0 - 3 8 ; a n d " O n C e r t a i n M y t h i c a l Beliefs and R u s s i a n B e h a v i o r s " in S. F r e d e r i c k S t a r r , e d . . The Legacy of History in Russia and the New States of Eurasia ( A r m o n k : M . E . S h a r p e , 1994), 19-40. C i t a t i o n f r o m Pelenski, The Contest, 43.

23 Jaroslaw Pelenski, Russia and Kazan: Conquest and Imperial Ideology (1438-1560s) (The H a g u e : M o u t o n , 1974), 104-35. 24 K e e n a n , " M u s c o v i t e P e r c e p t i o n s , " 2 8 - 3 8 : Serhii Plokhy, The Cossacks and Religion in Early Modern Ukraine ( O x f o r d : O x f o r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 2001), 3 2 1 - 2 7 ; t h e p a t r i m o n i a l claim m a y be g l e a n e d f r o m t h e o c c a s i o n a l a d d i t i o n of " P r i n c e of Kyiv" t o t h e tsar's title. See for e x a m p l e , Vossoedinenie Ukrainy s Rossiei: Dokumenty i materialy v trekh tomakh, 3 vols. ( M o s c o w : A N S S S R , 1953), 3: 506. 25 R.P. D m i t r i e v a , Skazanie o kniaz'iakh Volodimerskikh ( M o s c o w : A N S S S R , 1955). F o r a m o r e d e t a i l e d analysis of t h e d e v e l o p i n g M u s c o v i t e dynastic ideology, see my " T h e Origins of t h e U n i t y P a r a d i g m : U k r a i n e a n d t h e C o n s t r u c t i o n of R u s s i a n N a t i o n a l H i s t o r y (1620s-1820s)," Eighteenth-Century Studies 35, no. 1 (Fall 2001): 7 0 - 7 6

Notes

• 29

2 6 D a v i d B. Miller, " T h e Velikie Chetii a n d t h e Stepennaia Kniga of M e t r o p o l i t a n M a k a r i i a n d t h e O r i g i n s of R u s s i a n N a t i o n a l C o n s c i o u s n e s s , " Forschungen zur osteuropäischen Geschichte 26 (1979): 263-382. 2 7 T h e Book of Degrees was p u b l i s h e d in v o l u m e 21 of t h e Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei ( P S R L ) (St. P e t e r s b u r g : Izd. I m p e r a t o r s k o i A k a d e m i i n a u k , 1908); cited h e r e a r e pt. 1. 5 (on O l h a ) ; pt. 1, 135 (on V o l o d i m e r ) ; pt. 2 , 6 2 9 (on Ivan I V ) . 28 G r i b o e d o v , xv. 29 Sinopsis, ed. R o t h e , 7 2 - 8 5 . R o t h e also c o v e r s t h e d e b a t e s o v e r t h e a u t h o r s h i p of t h e Synopsis, 4 2 - 6 4 . In discussing t h e Synopsis, as well as early m o d e r n U k r a i n i a n a n d Russo-Ukrainian R u s s i a n c u l t u r e in g e n e r a l , I r e p e a t p o i n t s m a d e in my The Question of Unity and Ukrainian Distinctiveness in Early Modern Ukrainian Thought and Culture, O c c a s i o n a l P a p e r no. 280 ( W a s h i n g t o n , D C : K e n n a n Institute, 2001). 30 Sinopsis, ed. R o t h e , 149-51. T h e a u t h o r c o n t i n u e s to use t e r m s russkie a n d Rossiia t o d e s c r i b e b o t h V l a d i m i r - M o s c o w a n d t h e U k r a i n i a n lands f r o m the t h i r t e e n t h to t h e fifteenth c e n t u r y , see Sinopsis, 328, 335, 349, 351, 354. His pravoslavnorossiiskii narod designates both U k r a i n i a n s and Muscovites u n d e r Aleksei Mikhailovich, Suiopjis, 2 7 8 , 3 6 4 - 6 5 . 31 For t h e first use of t h e t e r m gosudarstvo Velikii Samoderzhets Rossiiskii, Sinopsis, 32 Sinopsis. 33 Sinopsis. 34 Sinopsis.

Ruskoe, 216.

see Sinopsis,

167. V o l o d i m e r is called

208. 353. 360.

35 Sinopsis, 364. 36 See K o h u t , The Question of Unity, 1 - 4 . 37 See F r a n k E . Sysyn, " T h e C u l t u r a l , Social, and Political C o n t e x t of U k r a i n i a n H i s t o r y Writing, 1620-1690," Europa Orientalis 5 (1986): 285-310; i d e m , " C o n c e p t s of N a t i o n h o o d in U k r a i n i a n H i s t o r y Writing, 1620-1690," Concepts of Nationhood in Early Modern Eastern Europe, H a r v a r d U k r a i n i a n S t u d i e s 10, nos. 3/4 ( D e c e m b e r 1986): 3 9 3 - 4 2 3 ; and Plokhy, The Cossacks and Religion, 145-75. 38 A . Iu. S a m a r i n , Rasprostranenie i chitatel' pervykh pechatnykh knig do istorii Rossii (konets XVU-XVUI v.) ( M o s c o w : M G U P , 1998), 6, 2 0 - 7 6 . 39 Mazurinskii letopisets, ed. V. I. B u g a n o v and p r e p a r e d by F.A. G r e k u l i i a n d V.l. K o r e t s k i i , vol. 31 of Polnoe sobranie russkikh letopisei ( M o s c o w : N a u k a , 1968), 1 - 1 7 9 . T h e s o u r c e s used by S n a z i n , including all t h e lines c o p i e d f r o m the Synopsis, h a v e b e e n s t u d i e d by A.P. B o g d a n o v , Letopisets i istorik kontsa XVII veka ( M o s c o w : G o s u d a r s t v e n n a i a p u b l i c h n a i a i s t o r i c h e s k a i a b i b l i o t e k a Rossii, 1994), 2 6 - 3 6 . 40 Mazurinskii 41 Mazurinskii

letopisets, letopisets,

156-157. 91.

42 Mazurinskii 43 Mazurinskii 44 Mazurinskii

letopisets, letopisets, letopisets,

98. 119, 150. 164.

45 For a s o m e w h a t d a t e d a n d very Soviet s u m m a r y of this q u e s t i o n , see M . A . A l p a t o v , "Variazhskii v o p r o s v russkoi d o r e v o l i u t s i o n n o i istoriografii," Voprosy istorii 5 (1982): 31-45. 46 S.L. P e s h t i c h , Russkaia istoriografiia XVIII veka, pt. 2 ( L e n i n g r a d : Izd. L e n i n g r a d s k o g o u n i v e r s i t e t a , 1961-65); R u d o l p h L. D a n i e l s , V.N. Tatishchev. Guardian of the Petrine Revolution ( P h i l a d e l p h i a : F r a n k l i n , 1973); V. F u r s e n k o , " S h c h e r b a t o v , k n i a z ' M i k h a i l M i k h a i lovich," Russkii biograficheskii slovar', 25 vols. (St. P e t e r s b u r g : Izd. I m p e r a t o r s k o g o R u s s k o g o i s t o r i c h e s k o g o o b s h c h e s t v a , 1896-1918), 24: 105-124; L.M. G a v r i l o v a a n d A . L . Shapiro, "M.V. L o m o n o s o v v r u s s k o i istoriografii X V I I I v e k a , " Istoriia SSSR 6 (1986): 87-95; V. I k o n n i k o v , " B o i t i n Ivan Nikitich," Russkii biograficheskii slovar', 3 : 1 8 5 - 2 0 4 ; A . G . K a m e n s k i i , "G.F. Miller i n a s l e d i e V.N. Tatishcheva," Voprosy istorii 12 (1987): 154-58;

3 0 • Zenon

E.

Kohut

M.V. L o m o n o s o v , Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. Trudy po russkoi istorii, obshchestvennoekonomicheskim voprosam i geografii, 1747-1765, vol. 6 ( M o s c o w a n d L e n i n g r a d : A N S S S R , 1952); H a n s R o g g e r , National Consciousness in Eighteenth-Century Russia ( C a m b ridge, Mass.: H a r v a r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1969); D.N. Shanskii, Iz istorii russkoi istoricheskoi mysli. I.N. Boitin ( M o s c o w : Izd. M o s k o v s k o g o u n i v e r s i t e t a , 1983); [ M . M . S h c h e r b a t o v ] , Sochineniia kniazia M.M. Shcherbatova. Istoriia Rossiiskaia ot drevnieishikh vremen, 7 vols. (St. P e t e r s b u r g : Izd. k n i a z i a B.S. S h c h e r b a t o v a , 1901), vols. 1 - 2 ; S.M. Solov'ev, " P i s a t e l i russkoi istorii X V I I I v e k a , " Sobranie sochinenii Sergeia Mikhailovicha Solov'eva (St. P e t e r s b u r g : O b s h c h e s t v e n n a i a p o l ' z a , 1901), 1317-88; V.N. Tatishchev, Istoriia Rossiiskaia, 7 vols. ( M o s c o w : A N S S S R , 1962), vol. 1; E d w a r d C. T h a d e n , "V.N. Tatishchev, G e r m a n Historians, and the St. P e t e r s b u r g A c a d e m y of Sciences," Russian History 13, no. 4 (1986): 367-98. 47 N.M. K a r a m z i n , Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskogo, 5 t h ed., 12 vols. (St. P e t e r s b u r g , 1842-43). O n K a r a m z i n , see J.L. B l a c k , Nicholas Karamzin and Russian Society in the Nineteenth Century: A Study in Russian Political and Historical Thought ( T o r o n t o : U n i v e r s i t y of Tor o n t o Press, 1975). I discuss K a r a m z i n a n d U s t r i a l o v in " T h e Origins of t h e Unity P a r a d i g m " and in " T h e D e v e l o p m e n t of U k r a i n i a n N a t i o n a l H i s t o r i o g r a p h y in I m p e r i a l R u s s i a " in T h o m a s S a n d e r s , ed., Historiography of Imperial Russia: The Profession and Writing of History in a Multinational State ( A r m o n k : M . E . S h a r p e , 1999), 4 5 3 - 7 7 . 48 K a r a m z i n , Istoriia gosudarstva rossiiskogo, 3: 2 8 , 1 6 0 , 165. 49 D a v i d B. S a u n d e r s , " H i s t o r i a n s a n d C o n c e p t s of N a t i o n a l i t y in Early N i n e t e e n t h - C e n t u r y Russia," Slavonic and East European Review 60, no. 1 ( J a n u a r y 1982): 4 4 - 6 2 . 50 N. Ustrialov, O sisteme pragmaticheskoi russkoi istorii (St. P e t e r s b u r g , 1836), 37-38. Q u o t e d f r o m S t e p h e n V e l y c h e n k o , National History as Cultural Process ( E d m o n t o n : C a n a d i a n I n s t i t u t e of U k r a i n i a n S t u d i e s Press, 1992), xix-xx. 51 N.G. Ustrialov, Russkaia istoriia. 2d ed., 5 vols. (St. P e t e r s b u r g : Tip. E k s p e t s i i z a g o t o v l e n i i a g o s u d a r s t v e n n y k h b u m a g , 1839), 1: 16. 52 Velychenko, National History, xix-xx.

Spectacles of Subversion: Sexualized Scenarios, Gendered Discourses and Social Breakdown in Nineteenth-Century Russia ABBY M.

SCHRADER

G e n d e r e d discourses and sexualized scenarios were central to the morality tales— published and unpublished, anonymous and attributed, fictional and non-fictional—woven by nineteenth-century Russians. From the era of Nicholas I (1825-1855) through the fin de siècle, critics of autocratic institutions repeatedly invoked the notion that depraved private practices and disorderly public politics were mutually reinforcing. Arguing that perverted personal relationships were contagious and threatened to undermine not only individual households but the state itself, the authors of these tales, who stood on the margins of officialdom, deployed their narratives in an attempt to renovate Russia's social and political order. These lurid accounts are fascinating in their own right. Yet their significance transcends the historian's penchant for voyeurism. Examining these sexualized scenarios in relation to official sources that voiced social anxieties in gendered terms illuminates important questions at the heart of the project of writing imperial Russian history. What were the political and social implications of these morality tales? In what ways did their authors draw on and problematize official conceptions of domesticity and official fears about disorderly conjugal and household relations? A n d , equally important, how does the examination of gendered and sexualized discourses illuminate broader historical processes and historiographical questions?

SEXUAL DISORDER A N D SOCIAL IN T H E R U S S I A N

MORALITY

PERVERSION TALE

In an anonymous confession penned during the 1840s, one provincial nobleman depicted his fall from grace by linking the abuses inherent in serfdom to Russian society's sexual degeneration. His morality tale opens in the early years of Nicholas's reign. Even in the wake of Nicholas's suppression of the 1825 Decembrist Revolt, university circles were abuzz with change. During this heady decade, students and professors believed that serfdom constituted a "cruel evil" and, railing

32 • Abby M.

Schroder

against the social system from which they derived unprecedented benefits, championed reform. Circumstances afforded the author the opportunity to do nore than parrot such ideas. While at school in St. Petersburg, the nobleman learned that his recently deceased elderly grandmother had bequeathed to him her and and "souls"—the un-free labor inhabiting the estate. Although he lamentec his education's interruption, the youth eagerly set out to practice the enlightened notions that he had preached. 1 T h e author arrived in the provinces to find the estate mired in disorder. His grandmother had placed her property in the hands of an overseer whom shehad taken as a lover late in life. This D e c e m b e r - M a y affair was only the tip ol the estate's sexual perversions. The cruel overseer also "rewarded himself foi his harsh tasks by mistreating elderly peasant women and virgins. Nothing preveited him from doing what he wanted to do; power was in his hands, making it eas' for him accomplish his goals. ...Apparently, there was not a single young wom;n in the entire village who had not been with him. When drunk, he subjected then to the most torturous things." Male heads of household ( b o l ' s h a k i ) who resistec the overseer's advances to their daughters or sisters were banished to Siberia the overseer then forced himself upon the female kin left behind. 2 However, lascivious abusers like the overseer were not the only ones who ractured family bonds and raped the undefended. Depravity was inherent ii all power relations in the pre-emancipation countryside. Overwhelmed by the ttmptation to abuse his own authority, the narrator "admitted that the power" th;t he "possessed and exercised was unjust, but refused to heed" his own warnings ax>ut the consequences of his actions. Thus, not long after taking charge of the estate, the young owner found himself sexually aroused by a female serf "who cane to [him] not out of love... but because I was her owner." 3 Serfdom violated gender norms not simply because it encouraged immoralsexual conduct but also because it infringed upon "natural" female domestcity. Drawing an analogy between the exploitation of female labor and rape, the aithor noted that, "upon seeing women bending down to the earth or lifting a heavxpail during milking, I would feel shame and become sick. ...I was violently ripping them from their blood families, tearing them away from their domestic dities, from caring for their children. ...I was using them as one would machines.'The young narrator implied that subjecting women to manual labor constituted auniversal wrong because it unsexed them and led to disorder within the houseiold. Yet his efforts to transform the division of labor to conform to what he deemed t o be enlightened ideals about sex-specific gender roles was thwarted by the facithat power dynamics precluded change. While the youth "wished to the fullest e:tent possible to free women from more or less difficult work... the [new] overseerconvinced [him] that this...would lead to the entire estate's demise." 4 Ultimately, the overseer's assessment could not have been further from the ruth. Sexual despotism and social tyranny functioned as a unit to undermine the hiusehold. To clarify this point, the narrator quickly slipped from discussing hov hie

Spectacles of Subversion

• 33

a b u s e d w o m e n to r e c o u n t i n g the p a t h by which he c a m e to rely on t h e lash to chastise his souls. O n e day, the o v e r s e e r r e q u e s t e d permission to flog a r u d e serf. T h e a u t h o r reflected: "Punishing a m a n o v e r w h o m . . . I had n o p o w e r . . . c o n s t i t u t e d t y r a n ny. A n d for what? B e c a u s e he did n o t want to h e e d illegal f o r c e ? . . . A n d c o r p o r a l p u n i s h m e n t d e g r a d e s h u m a n dignity! All of this s e e m e d repulsive to me, and I answ e r e d t h e overseer: can't it be h a n d l e d in a n o t h e r m a n n e r ? " W h e n the a u t h o r sugg e s t e d that the recalcitrant serf be b r o u g h t b e f o r e the police, w h o " a t least constitut e d a legitimate, legal p o w e r , " the o v e r s e e r c o u n t e r e d with the traditional a r g u m e n t that flogging was the only penalty that t h e p e a s a n t r y u n d e r s t o o d : " B e a t [him], sire, b e a t him without fail! W h y else a r e you an e s t a t e owner, if you d o n ' t w a n t to p u n i s h y o u r p e o p l e ? You d o n ' t k n o w what they a r e like, they are such brigands, a n d it's a birch f o r a birch [with t h e m ] . . . . T h e y d o w h a t e v e r they want, a n d you let t h e m get a w a y with it all. N o w we m u s t t a k e b a c k o u r will!" T h e n o b l e m a n r e l e n t e d . H o w ever, he worried that flogging the " u n d e f e n d e d and d e g r a d e d " might t u r n him into a "vile o p p r e s s o r who n o longer had t h e right to consider himself a highborn m a n . " 5 P l a g u e d by his c o n s c i e n c e , t h e i n e x p e r i e n c e d l a n d l o r d t u r n e d t o n e i g h b o r i n g e s t a t e o w n e r s f o r advice. U n a b l e t o f a t h o m t h e a u t h o r ' s d i l e m m a , o n e — a r e t i r e d a r m y o f f i c e r — a s s e r t e d : " T h e r o d , my d e a r sir, t h e rod! It's t h e only way to c o n s e r v e o r d e r . . . . T h e s o l d i e r n e e d s t h e r o d , t h e lackey n e e d s t h e r o d , t h e

muzhik

n e e d s t h e r o d , and f o r e v e r y o n e it is n e c e s s a r y t h a t t h e tsar e m p l o y t h e g o o d r o d . " Yet, n o t e v e r y o n e in R u s s i a w a s s u s c e p t i b l e to t h e rule of t h e rod; a f t e r all, nobles, m e r c h a n t s of t h e first t w o guilds, a n d t h o s e with h i g h e r e d u c a t i o n w e r e s p a r e d floggings by i m p e r i a l d e c r e e . E s t a t e o w n e r s clearly c o m p r e h e n d e d

the

i m p l i c a t i o n s of this s y s t e m . A s o n e n e i g h b o r p u t it, "Is he y o u r b r o t h e r ? A r e n ' t you an o w n e r , a n d he a s e r f ? You s h o u l d be a s h a m e d to i d e n t i f y with him. W h y else a r e you a n o b l e m a n , if you d o n ' t h a v e t h e right to b e a t y o u r l a c k e y ? " By d e p l o y i n g physical v i o l e n c e against t h e i r inferiors, elite R u s s i a n s m a r k e d r e i n f o r c e d their own s u p e r i o r status.

and

6

R u s s i a ' s social p y r a m i d w a s also f u n d a m e n t a l l y p a t r i a r c h a l : m a r i t a l r e l a t i o n s a n d s e r f d o m s h a r e d a c o m m o n f o u n d a t i o n a n d t h e u n e v e n d i s t r i b u t i o n of p o w e r within t h e public s p h e r e w a s m i r r o r e d a n d justified by i n e q u a l i t y within t h e priv a t e s p h e r e . R h e t o r i c a l l y linking social a n d familial v i o l e n c e , o n e

neighbor

m u s e d , "[y]ou know, in t h e old days, w o m e n w h o s e h u s b a n d s did n o t b e a t t h e m c o m p l a i n e d t h a t their h u s b a n d s did n o t love t h e m ! In p e a s a n t daily life, this cust o m is still p r a c t i c e d . . . . [ T ] h e R u s s i a n m a s s e s . . . h a v e e v e n c o m m e m o r a t e d it in a saying: ' T h e o n e I love, is t h e o n e I b e a t ' ( ' k o g o liubliu, togo zhe

b'iu')."1

B e c a u s e v i o l e n c e w a s intrinsic to t h e a u t o c r a t i c social s y s t e m , it was i n e v i t a b l e t h a t the a u t h o r b e g a n t o use it t o a d m i n i s t e r his e s t a t e ; this, in t u r n , r e i n f o r c e d his proclivity t o w a r d s sexual tyranny. 8 O n c e h e h a d i n t e r n a l i z e d t h e r u l e of t h e r o d , t h e young m a s t e r t o o k t o r a p i n g a n d i m p r e g n a t i n g f e m a l e serfs. His i m m o r a l s e x u a l c o n d u c t carried o v e r i n t o his r e l a t i o n s h i p s with w o m e n w h o o s t e n s i b l y s h a r e d t h e privileges of his own milieu: m a r r y i n g a w o m a n against h e r will, t h e n o b l e m a n sexually f o r c e d himself u p o n h e r in o r d e r t o fulfill his c o n j u g a l p r e r o g a t i v e s .

34 • Abby M. Schroder Hence, the perverted master's transgressions not only victimized the lower classes but also allegedly highborn women. 9 The narrative closes in the 1840s with its author's downfall: The nobleman lost his f o r t u n e in an unexplained m a n n e r and, simultaneously, his wife and daughter died. Left alone to c o n t e m p l a t e the mechanisms by which abuse begot abuse, the author reflected that, while he was guilty of actual wrongdoings, the lion's share of the blame for his decline—and that of the entire nobility—resided in the political o r d e r predicated upon serfdom. Because the nobleman o p e r a t e d within the context of this institution, his fate was predetermined: serfdom led to a violation of domesticity, sexual abuse, and physical violence. Not only did women and serfs suffer because of these offenses; so did the author and his estate. 1 0 Should this morality tale be dismissed as the confession of a broken and remorseful serf owner? D o e s it merely constitute an apologia through which the author absolved himself of real blame and held statesmen and tsars responsible for personal failings? Certainly, the a n o n y m o u s narrative does function in these ways. However, situated in the context of b r o a d e r literary and historical trends, this handwritten account, which lacks concrete information about its author and intended audience, acquires additional meaning. 1 1 Works such as the anonymous n o b l e m a n ' s were apparently exceptional in Nicholaevan Russia, where censorship was strict and addressing themes of political importance was expressly forbidden. Nonetheless, this piece can be read as an early prototype for a literary tradition that became prominent at the fin de siècle. Writing in the wake of the 1861 emancipation of the serfs and the substantial yet incomplete reform of Russia's judicial, penal, and administrative institutions, writers increasingly linked sexual depravity to social ills, arguing that private abuses did violence to and infected all sectors of Russian society. This line of reasoning is illustrated by two particularly impassioned sexualized scenarios p e n n e d during the opening years of the twentieth century. The first, published in 1907, is a non-fictional account composed by D o c t o r V.Ia. Kokosov, who supervised the administration of floggings in a Kara prison during the 1870s. In his memoirs, Kokosov repeatedly returned to the theme of the shame involved in witnessing the spectacle of the flogged female body. H e lamented: "It is sad to gaze upon the women brought in for punishment. ...The katorzhnaia is exiled to penal servitude, but she is still a woman. The pain of the lash is the pain of the lash, but the shame of a baba (peasant w o m a n ) remains with her f o r e v e r . . . . The executioner is a muzhik (peasant man), all a r o u n d her are muzhik... and the u n f o r t u n a t e w o m a n has to undress, is stripped naked. ... They observe her from all sides, she becomes ashamed, and she is ready to fall through the ground. ...She grows pale, like a dead woman." 1 2 For Kokosov, the horror associated with flogging women contaminated society. H e clarified this when he described a beating that Nikolai Aleksandrovich Sharabarin, a prison warden whom Kokosov sarcastically nicknamed " S w e e t h e a r t " (Laskovoi), inflicted upon Var'ka Bashmakova.

Spectacles of Subversion • 35 Kokosov's depiction of this flogging is suggestive of rape. First, Sharabarin t a u n t e d Bashmakova mercilessly, driving her to her knees. The warden then o r d e r e d Cossacks to surround Bashmakova. "[OJne grabbed hold of her head, a n d a n o t h e r her feet: two took hold of birch branches and stood on either side of the n a k e d woman." Sharabarin snarled at the frightened woman: "[A]re you lying d o w n , girl? G o o d , good, very good. ...You should have been this way a long time ago." Kokosov rendered Bashmakova's metaphoric rape even more perverse by likening it to lawful marital relations. Explicitly calling attention to B a s h m a k o v a ' s sexually vulnerable predicament, Sharabarin continued: "[D]o you see how white a n d blushing you are? You could be married off, you would show much kindness to any man. ...Lie down, lie down, lie down. ..." Deriving prurient, voyeuristic p l e a s u r e f r o m watching the Cossacks' f r e n z i e d birching of B a s h m a k o v a , Sharabarin urged them on: " . . . G o on, molodtsy (good boys), yes, [beat her] harder, yes, harder, harder, like you teach your [own] wives. ...More strokes, brothers, m o r e and harder, so that our Varen'ka will r e m e m b e r . Five! Six! Listen to my orders, use your muscles, use your muscles...li-ke th-a-at, like th-a-at. ..." For Kokosov, the sexualized violence to which Bashmakova was subjected paralleled the abuse that transpired within legally sanctioned heterosexual marriage; the difference between the two was one of degree, not kind. By correlating the flogging to sadistic conjugal relations, Kokosov implied that depraved sexual tendencies m a r k e d both. 1 3 Equally significant, Kokosov suggested that the lower-estate muzhiki who beat Bashmakova were not the only ones who abused and raped their spouses. R a t h e r , Sharabarin identified with—and acted through—Cossack executioners. Sharabarin, whose experiences as prison warden m a d e him "always fearful, for every hour, every minute of his life," was brutalized by the violent scenarios over which he presided. This led him to "systematically t o r m e n t " inmates with "corporal punishment, infusing this with all of his hatred for the people whom he feared." Moreover, the boundaries between public and private life, fear and torture, and flogging and rape were p e r m e a b l e and easily transgressed. Kokosov noted that "Sharabarin was married, and his relationship to katorga carried over to his own family; that is, he was the same sort of suspicious executioner and torturer in his own family. ,.." 1 4 Yet the sexualization of the penal spectacle engendered more than heterosexual sadism perpetrated by male executioners and overseers on the bodies of female convicts and their own wives. It also led male floggers and officials to perform sadistic acts on the bodies of male victims. These commonplace homosexual spectacles of violence seemed even more lascivious than their heterosexual counterparts and critics implied that they would destroy Russian society. This was the focus of one of Leo Tolstoy's many invectives against corporal punishment, the short story "After the Ball" ("Posle bala"), p e n n e d in 1903, just a year before Nicholas II spared peasants the birch. The story's protagonist recounts how his entire life changed in one night. In the 1840s, Ivan Vasil'evich

36 • Abby M. Schroder had b e e n a young d a n d y : by day, he was an i n d i f f e r e n t student; at night, he attended p a r t i e s and balls. O n the e v e n i n g in q u e s t i o n , Vasil'evich m a d e the acquaint a n c e of a colonel's d a u g h t e r , an e n c h a n t i n g young beauty with w h o m he immediately fell in love. L e a v i n g the ball at d a w n , Vasil'evich could not contain himself a n d raced across town to see his b e l o v e d . A s he a p p r o a c h e d the estate, he heard "cruel, rough music." A h u n d r e d p a c e s later, he c a m e u p o n rows of soldiers; alongside t h e m a d r u m m e r a n d a flutist p l a y e d their instruments. H e i n q u i r e d what was going o n a n d was i n f o r m e d that a T a t a r d e s e r t e r was r u n n i n g the g a u n t l e t . When Vasil'evich d r e w n e a r the e x e c u t i o n site, he "saw s o m e t h i n g horrific"—a man " b a r e d to the waist" being d r a g g e d t h r o u g h the lines; with each blow, the man e x c l a i m e d , " [ B J r o t h e r s , have m e r c y ! " T h e T a t a r ' s spine was " s o m e t h i n g so motley, d a m p , red, and u n n a t u r a l , that [Vasil'evich] could not believe that this h a d b e e n the b o d y of a m a n . " Suddenly, Vasil'evich realized that the individual w h o o r d e r e d this flogging was n o n e o t h e r t h a n his b e l o v e d ' s f a t h e r . W h e n the soldiers refused to use the full s t r e n g t h of their switches on the T a t a r ' s back, the colonel supplied the soldiers with new b r a n c h e s to e n s u r e that the flogging was harsh a n d threate n e d the soldiers with a b e a t i n g if they failed to h e e d his orders. 1 5 Clearly e n t h r a l l e d by t h e spectacle, the colonel derived increasing pleasure with each painful blow sustained by the Tatar, p l e a s u r e suggestive of frenzied, h o m o - e r o t i c , a n d sexualized sadism p u n c t u a t e d a n d a c c e n t u a t e d by t h e steadily increasing d r u m b e a t . Just as this was a b o u t to reach a crescendo, the colonel recognized o u r protagonist. A b r u p t l y , Vasil'evich was o v e r c o m e by s h a m e , which he associated with his own role as v o y e u r to this sadistic spectacle: "I was so a s h a m e d that I did not k n o w w h e r e to look, as if I myself h a d b e e n caught in this s a m e s h a m e f u l transgression. . . . M e a n w h i l e , in my heart I felt a nearly physical, almost sickening anguish so that it s e e m e d to m e that I would just a b o u t be c o n s u m e d by all the h o r r o r of this spectacle." I n d e e d , f o r Vasil'evich—and Tolstoy—this spectacle was r e p l e t e with d a n g e r . O v e r t a k e n by psychological t r a u m a so p r o f o u n d that it p r e v e n t e d him f r o m sleeping, Vasil'evich escaped to a f r i e n d ' s h o m e w h e r e he d r a n k himself into a s t u p o r . But a single alcoholic binge could not e r a s e the spectacle's h o r r o r s . T h e story concludes with Vasil'evich, n o w a n old m a n , r e c o u n t i n g h o w this incident p r e vented him f r o m accomplishing anything in life: he refused to e n t e r military or civil service a n d "was suited to n o t h i n g . " M o r e o v e r — n d this is essential—Vasil'evich was u n a b l e to love. A f t e r this incident, w h e n e v e r Vasil'evich saw his b e l o v e d , he b e c a m e o v e r w h e l m e d by the revulsion that he had experienced w h e n he witnessed the flogging. Ultimately, " l o v e . . . l o v e f r o m that day subsided. . . . A n d love also c a m e to nothing." 1 6 E v e n e n l i g h t e n e d d o c t o r s who c o m p r e h e n d e d that d e p r a v i t y was i n h e r e n t in the Russian p e n a l r e g i m e — a n d not just dandified s t u d e n t s like Tolstoy's p r o t a g o n i s t — w e r e d e b i l i t a t e d by its impact. Reflecting on the first flogging that he supervised, Kokosov r e c o u n t e d h o w his own m o r a l t o r m e n t m i r r o r e d that of t h e lashed criminal: when the convict with his "grey, deathly-pale eyes" emitted a "soul-

Spectacles of Subversion • 37 wrenching, inhuman, wild, animal howl...a frightened half-tremor spread across" Kokosov's back. A f t e r witnessing this beating, which "provoked in [him] a sense of shame," Kokosov became an insomniac predisposed toward uncontrollable bouts of depression during which "scalding tears of shame and helplessness p o u r e d f r o m [his] eyes." Infected by his observation of violence, Kokosov identified with the punished man, whose "legs shook the entire time, involuntarily clanging the shackles," whose "pale-gray, lean faces" convulsed, and who emitted hysterical cries. The doctor described how his own "face burned from the blood that rushed to it," how his "own legs trembled" and "knees gave out," how his own "eyes brimmed with tears," and how his own "head was filled with all sorts of f r a g m e n t a r y thoughts and could concentrate on nothing." 1 7 A n d , as another physician, Doctor P.N. Konovalov, put it, "the sort of moral anguish" that doctors underwent at the scaffold "can manifest itself in the sharpest forms and even induce temporary nervous and psychic illness." 18 No one was immune f r o m the effects of abusive regimes. Through these scenarios, authors like Kokosov and Tolstoy suggested that the continued practice of violence associated with the autocratic system was not merely problematic because it impeded the process of civilizing marginal and debased subjects, but because violence p e r v a d e d the autocratic system and e n d a n g e r e d all of Russian society. Like the landlord who p e n n e d his anonymous challenge to serfdom sixty years earlier, critics who composed their scenarios in the wake of the abolition of serfdom argued that one could not return to society unscathed after exposure to the abuses central to the functioning of the autocratic system. Although the direct targets of such violence were lower-class and marginal subjects, its practice was contagious and its consequences could not be contained. Sexually depraved and socially sickening, these spectacles perverted witnesses' sexual impulses, pathologizing t h e m and making them unable to participate in communal or familial life and unwilling to procreate. Replete as they were with horrific meaning, such scenarios not only led to the victim's civil death but also to the death of Russian civilization. Locating Kokosov's and Tolstoy's morality tales within a longer tradition that includes the anonymous n o b l e m a n ' s depraved scenario demonstrates that sex was not only a "political subject in late imperial Russia." Rather, invoking anxieties about the social implications of sexual disorder was apparently a well-established practice in Russia even before the era of the G r e a t Reforms. 1 9 Examining these tales in relation to the context in which they were p r o d u c e d further bolsters this argument. In deploying gendered language to argue that developments in the private and public spheres were interdependent, the a u t h o r s of these morality tales drew on rhetoric in official circulation. This makes a great deal of sense. A f t e r all, while each of these writers d e n o u n c e d autocratic institutions, they still occupied the margins of official Russia and, their personal discomfort notwithstanding, benefited f r o m the social, educational, and intellectual privileges that their society reserved for elites. 20

38 • Abby

M.

Schroder

N e v e r t h e l e s s , a l t h o u g h critics o f a u t o c r a t i c i n s t i t u t i o n s a n d s t a t e

servitors

b o t h p l a c e d i d e a s a b o u t g e n d e r at t h e c e n t e r o f t h e i r c o n c e p t i o n s o f R u s s i a n s o c i a l o r g a n i z a t i o n a n d v o i c e d f e a r s a b o u t d i s o r d e r in g e n d e r e d a n d s e x u a l i z e d t e r m s , t h e s t r u c t u r e , t h e m e s , a n d p o l i t i c a l m e s s a g e s t r a n s m i t t e d by t h e t w o t y p e s o f d i s c o u r s e s w e r e v e r y d i f f e r e n t . E x p l o r i n g t h e c o n t o u r s o f official a r g u m e n t s , as well as t h e i r i m p l i c a t i o n s , lays b a r e t h e l i m i t a t i o n s o f t h e

state-sponsored

r h e t o r i c o f g e n d e r . T h i s a n a l y s i s a l s o p r o v i d e s insight i n t o why t h o s e w h o c h a l l e n g e d t h e limits o f official e f f o r t s t o r e f o r m R u s s i a n s o c i e t y f o u n d g e n d e r e d a n d s e x u a l i z e d d i s c o u r s e so a p p e a l i n g a n d s o u g h t t o r e f a s h i o n a n d a p p l y t h e m t o e n d s u n a n t i c i p a t e d by s t a t e s e r v i t o r s .

G E N D E R E D D I S C O U R S E S IN OFFICIAL RUSSIAN

RHETORIC

A t least since the e r a o f N i c h o l a s I, s t a t e s e r v i t o r s c o n c e i v e d o f R u s s i a ' s p o l i t i c a l a n d s o c i a l o r d e r in g e n d e r e d terms. T h e y c e l e b r a t e d f e m a l e d o m e s t i c i t y but saw its f u n c t i o n as public, not private. A s R i c h a r d W o r t m a n has d e m o n s t r a t e d , in t h e e a r l y n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y , t h e a u t o c r a c y f o r g e d a new familial " s c e n a r i o o f p o w e r " in which d o m e s t i c t r a n q u i l l i t y c o n s t i t u t e d a m i c r o c o s m o f a n d s e r v e d to p r o m o t e s o c i a l o r d e r . A c c o r d i n g t o this s c e n a r i o , P r i n c e s s C h a r l o t t e ( b a p t i z e d A l e x a n d r a F e d o r o v n a ) t r a n s f o r m e d the pugilistic N i c h o l a s into a " l o v i n g h u s b a n d a n d c a r i n g f a t h e r " by h e e d i n g the " n o b l e and r o m a n t i c c a l l i n g " and b e c o m i n g a d e v o t e d wife a n d m o t h e r w h o was " a h o l y and uplifting f o r c e . " 2 1 E v e n as the t s a r i n a was r e p r e s e n t e d as situated within the private s p h e r e , the familial display blurred distinctions b e t w e e n the p u b l i c and p r i v a t e a n d was c e n t r a l to the c o n s t i t u t i o n o f p o l i t i c a l relationships.22 T h e i m p e r i a l f a m i l y was n o t t h e o n l y f a m i l y e s s e n t i a l t o t h e s c e n a r i o o f wello r d e r e d N i c h o l a e v a n R u s s i a . A u t h o r i t i e s b e l i e v e d that p r o p e r d o m e s t i c r e l a t i o n s s y m b o l i z e d R u s s i a ' s a t t a i n m e n t o f civilization and s e r v e d t o uplift t h e m a s s e s in a g e n e r a l i z e d s e n s e , e x t e n d i n g e v e n t o t h e s t a t e ' s margins. T h r o u g h o u t this e r a , f o r e x a m p l e , officials c o n t e n d e d that it w o u l d b e p o s s i b l e to curtail v a g r a n c y a n d c r i m i n a l i t y a m o n g S i b e r i a n e x i l e s by e n c o u r a g i n g t h e m to m a r r y a n d e s t a b l i s h f a m i l i e s . 2 3 A s N. L i n k n o t e d in an 1 8 3 7 a r t i c l e surveying u r b a n life in T o b o l ' s k p r o v i n c e , " p a t r i a r c h a l p o w e r in T o b o l ' s k is t h e m o s t o p p o r t u n e a n d c e r t a i n m e a n s o f c h e c k i n g passions, p r e v e n t i n g d e s c e n t i n t o q u a r r e l , and c o n s e r v i n g

order,

p e a c e , and a c c o r d . " 2 4 A t t r i b u t i n g v a g r a n c y and social u n r e s t to t h e s e v e r e g e n d e r i m b a l a n c e a m o n g exiles, officials a s k e d the c h u r c h to e a s e r e s t r i c t i o n s on e x i l e marriages, provided monetary incentives to Slavic old-timers ( s t a r o z h i l y e ) who b e t r o t h e d f e m a l e kin t o exiles, and i n s t i t u t e d m e a s u r e s to s a f e g u a r d t h e r e p r o d u c t i v e c a p a c i t i e s o f w o m e n t r a n s p o r t e d to S i b e r i a . A u t h o r i t i e s b e l i e v e d t h a t t h e v e r y institution o f m a r r i a g e civilized e x i l e s e v e n when t h e wives t h e m s e l v e s w e r e hardened felons.25

Spectacles of Subversion • 39 Equally important, nineteenth-century state servitors articulated their anxieties in g e n d e r e d terms, arguing that distorted relations between the sexes and the p u b l i c and private abuse of women symbolized b r o a d e r cultural breakdown. 2 6 This concern was central to authorities' imagination of developments on the e m p i r e ' s peripheries. In ethnographic analyses of Siberia's indigenous peoples (inorodtsy) u n d e r t a k e n in the 1830s and 1840s, officials associated with the Ministry of Internal Affairs sought to explain population attrition amongst aboriginal tribes. Noting that "today, only the faintest, weakest ghost of the awesome M o n g o l name—which used to convey a t r e m e n d o u s impression from one end of Asia to the other, threatened E u r o p e with destruction, and is associated with such b i t t e r m e m o r i e s in our Fatherland's history—drags out a miserable existence in t h e d e e p e s t wasteland of the steppes," one author sought to clarify why "[o]nly pitiful, paltry fragments of this mighty tribe...remain." 2 7 Another, Frants Iosofovich Beliavskii, had spent three years working for the Physician's Council ( V r a chebnaia uprava) in Siberia. Dispatched by the crown in 1832 to investigate the o u t b r e a k of illnesses among the far northern Samoeds and Ostiaks, the doctor r e c o u n t e d in his travelogue that "on this trip I saw Siberia with its dejected, b o u n d l e s s wastelands. A d e e p silence reigned over its snow-covered expanses, w h e r e travelers rarely encounter the yurtas of indigenous peoples." 2 8 Even pers o n n e l like State Councilor P. Kirilov, whose twenty-seven-year stint in the Siberian service had left him with an altogether m o r e positive assessment of the region than his colleagues, r e m a r k e d that, while Siberia's Russian population was on the rise, "the inorodtsy, in contrast, are, for various reasons, in decline." 2 9 N u m e r o u s factors contributed to this d e m o g r a p h i c crisis. Certainly, authorities believed that diseases, some of which resulted f r o m contact with Russian merc h a n t s and settlers, had taken their toll on the inorodtsy.30 In 1832, Doctor Kruze b l a m e d the attrition of Irkutsk's Iakut tribes upon severe climate, lack of exposure to sunlight during the long winters, and the smoke-filled and "spoiled air" that filled "uncleanly" aboriginal yurtas, "where people and animals resided side by side." Yet he also suggested that other aspects of their "way of life" contributed to extraordinarily high mortality rates. 3 1 A n d Kirilov noted that, while some indigen o u s peoples transferred out of their clans into the official Russian estate system a n d others succumbed to illnesses, these populations were also decimated by "various discomforts and shortcomings attributable to their nomadic lifestyle." 32 For officials, these "discomforts" were expressed through and amplified by distorted gender relations. First, they accused aboriginal peoples of lacking a d e q u a t e m a r k e r s for differentiating between the sexes. G. Gorokhov, who spent six years as a Tomsk rural district police officer ( z e m s k i i ispravnik), was struck that the "naturally lazy" and illiterate Altai Kalmyks, who were predisposed toward alcoholism, also blurred gender lines in disturbing ways. A woman wore the same clothing as a man and physically resembled her male counterparts in terms of the "filthiness of her body and the unattractive aspect of her face." Likewise, Kruze reflected that, while some Iakut men had " p l e a s a n t " Tatar physical attributes,

40 • Abby M. Schroder "among the women, there was not o n e face that could be d e e m e d at all attractive." According to Beliavskii, female Ostiaks, who were of middling height and had dark hair and small eyes, were "very un-stately." Much of this lack of comeliness was attributable to their possession of " n o n e of the delicacy natural to the fairer sex. In contrast, their facial features and entire constitution are completely coarse." Disconcertingly, they garbed themselves in the same clothing as men and could not beautify themselves in the way that Russian women did. Similarly, while government officials conceded that, on the whole, Mongol-Buriat women were "comelier than m e n " and "one might even call some of them pretty," they lamented that female Buriats "concealed their bodies" in unisex and "unattractive, wide, and disorderly 'dygyi," "ruined their faces" by wearing masculine fur caps, and d o n n e d decidedly unfeminine heavy boots. 3 3 Ethnographers were not only disquieted by aboriginal women's asexual external appearances; inorodlsy also transgressed the purportedly natural precepts governing gender. Gorokhov complained that fathers taught daughters the same skills as sons, notably fishing and trapping. Beliavskii recounted that Ostiak w o m e n not only took responsibility for domestic chores but all of life's needs: in addition to sewing and cooking, they constructed and transported the yurta. fished, h u n t e d birds, carried water, and collected firewood.34 The consequences of these activities were dire: "ceaseless hard labor" caused women to grow old and wizened by age thirty, while their "lazy husbands" remained youthful. 3 5 G e n d e r role reversals also explained why aboriginal women lacked r u d i m e n tary maternal instincts. Authorities were troubled that "mothers, who worked incessantly, dragged their babies with them in baskets," suspending them f r o m convenient posts or trees "in the cold and dirt." This m a l t r e a t m e n t , which aggravated already high infant mortality rates, allegedly explained why "children rarely survived the first year of their lives" and why aboriginal parents failed to n a m e offspring who were under age five. Similarly alarming, Kalmyk w o m e n r e f u s e d to nurse their young, many of whom languished and finally died of hunger. Instead of providing children with nourishing mother-milk, aboriginal women polluted them. A t one popular festival, Kruze witnessed how e v e r y o n e — m a l e and female, young and old—drank to excess; shockingly, mothers even served alcoholic beverages to toddlers. Moreover, because the "wild" and simple aboriginals were unaware that they were being decimated by venereal diseases, they infected o n e another by engaging in sexual relations "and were guilty of bringing into existence martyred, innocent children." Children who somehow managed to survive infancies of neglect and the ravages of disease were left to their own devices; G o r o khov reported that eight- and ten-year-old Kalmyks ran about naked; Beliavskii was astounded that m o t h e r s never b o t h e r e d to wash even older children. 3 6 While ethnographers used disparaging tones to depict aboriginal w o m e n ' s habits, they reserved their most scathing attacks for male m e m b e r s of inorodets households. Even as critics censured fathers and husbands f o r forcing their daughters and wives to p e r f o r m labor that violated the precepts of f e m a l e d o m e s -

Spectacles of Subversion • 41 ticity, they also accused them of privatizing women in a m a n n e r that was u n a m biguously oppressive. Laying bare the commodified n a t u r e of aboriginal marriage, Beliavskii d e e m e d it "essential to recognize that indigenous women are not only considered inhuman, but also are viewed as unclean merchandise." A b original men "purchased wives for themselves" and, " t r e a t i n g ] them like slaves," "dealt with them in a barbaric manner." The author of one survey underscored that " f r o m childhood the Buriat woman is exposed to folk customs and religious precepts that teach her that, once she weds, she must become a servant and slave." 37 Such callous attitudes were manifested in violent "Asiatic marital customs." Fathers betrothed their newborn or young daughters to men who, at most, had seen their brides once prior to the wedding. The ceremony itself consisted of the g r o o m handing a gown to the bride's father, making a bed, forcing his wife to sleep with him in it, and, if he was satisfied with her in the morning, paying his inlaws an additional gown and some reindeer to cement the deal. The maiden was never consulted and any attempts to ward off a suitor's advances were in vain: a f t e r all, the groom was obeying well-regarded "native customs" when he "violently dragged his bride off into his own yurta." These inauspicious beginnings set a violent tone that persisted for the entirety of an aboriginal woman's conjugal life. A Buriat woman's existence was t a n t a m o u n t to "real slavery (rabstvo), or more correctly, female bondage (rabotnichestvo)." She lived in fear of her father and husband who subjected her to "veritable sultanic capriciousness. The will of these unlimited lords is a holy law for their wives." 38 P e r v e r t e d domestic relations not only h a r m e d indigenous females; according to e t h n o g r a p h e r s , they led to t h e whole p o p u l a t i o n ' s decline. Beliavskii explained that, "because husbands are devoid of warmth toward their wives," they subject pregnant wives to various t o r t u r e s and even threaten them with d e a t h if they do not confess to extramarital relations that challenge the husb a n d ' s paternity. Given that violence and abuse were endemic to aboriginal connubiality, it was no w o n d e r that "the S a m o e d and Ostiak w o m e n are so infertile. To what should this be attributed? To their h u s b a n d s ' frigidity (khladnost')l The filthiness of their f o o d ? Or, perhaps, since they are forced to marry against their will, they spend their entire lives in a state of dissatisfaction, want, and l a b o r ? " In deriving this conclusion, Beliavskii intertwined all of the features of aboriginal life that c o n t e m p o r a r y Russian e t h n o g r a p h e r s found so troubling. Tyrannical patriarchal relations, the subjection of w o m e n to labor that violated allegedly natural precepts governing femininity and challenged acceptable notions of masculinity, the practice of what was t a n t a m o u n t to marital rape, and the neglect of the few children that such unions p r o d u c e d had brought indigenous Siberian tribes to the brink of extinction. 3 9 O n the surface, the arguments advanced by authorities in Siberia resemble those elaborated in the morality tales. In each case, well-functioning and p r o p e r patriarchal relations are lauded for their power to safeguard social stability, while even legally-sanctioned abusive relationships are portrayed as leading to

42 • Abby M. Schroder d e p o p u l a t i o n . H o w e v e r , scrutinizing the rhetoric in which e t h n o g r a p h e r s couched their critique of aboriginal gender practices and situating their claims within the larger discursive structures of Russian imperialism clarify important distinctions between the two positions. W h e r e a s the a n o n y m o u s n o b l e m a n , Kokosov, and Tolstoy believed that perverted domestic a r r a n g e m e n t s were communicable and infected the elites exposed to them. Siberian e t h n o g r a p h e r s cont e n d e d that, even given the prevalence of diagnosable diseases a m o n g aboriginals, Russian settlers in Siberia were relatively immune f r o m the impact of the depravities decimating the inorodtsy.40 Nevertheless, even though they portrayed aboriginal depopulation as a localized problem, e t h n o g r a p h e r s were indeed troubled by the negative ramifications of such depopulation in much the same way that imperial authorities were disquieted by exile criminality and vagrancy. In both cases, disorder impeded official a t t e m p t s to settle Siberia, which had become an increasingly pressing goal during the first half of the nineteenth century. 4 1 Hence, administrators sought to reinvigorate aboriginal households and domesticate criminals banished to the realm. Placing a premium on transforming Siberia into a well-ordered imperial domain, they d e e m e d it possible—even if difficult—to instill in the nomadic inorodtsy and vagrant criminals sedentary habits that gradually would allow them to transfer into the state peasantry. Articulating idealized notions of female domesticity and introducing measures to help aboriginal and convict populations establish p r o p e r gender relations seemed critical to the process of transforming potentially problematic and marginal subjects into upstanding and useful settlers. Although authorities invoked g e n d e r e d explanations for the ills that beset Siberia's aboriginals and exiles and a t t e m p t e d to use notions of domesticity to rectify these problems, they a p p e a r e d unwilling to interrogate how gender troubles pervaded the power dynamics of social relations in the Russian E m p i r e generally. This willingness to use the language of gender to sort out social ills whilst refusing to question whether the lower-classes' and marginal populations' abusive sexual and domestic practices indicated the weakness of Russian civilization as a whole can also be detected in a n o t h e r case. In the 1820s. officials began to challenge the propriety and efficacy of putting women to the knout and lash. They c o n t e n d e d that it was essential to free women from floggings both because female reproductive nature m a d e women distinct f r o m and biologically w e a k e r than men and because the shame associated with public lashings compromised femininity and threatened to u n d e r m i n e familial structures and the imperial social order. 4 2 These protests came to a head in the era of the G r e a t R e f o r m s that got u n d e r way upon Alexander II's accession in 1855. In the a f t e r m a t h of Russia's devastating Crimean War loss, enlightened b u r e a u c r a t s were anxious to m o d e r n i z e Russia and ensure its vitality as a E u r o p e a n power. They believed that, a m o n g o t h e r things, it was necessary to emancipate Russia's serfs, introduce rural self-government by establishing the zemstvos, and r e n o v a t e the empire's judicial a n d penal systems. Nevertheless, they shied away f r o m instituting thoroughgoing change,

Spectacles of Subversion • 43 f e a r i n g that this would impede the autocratic system's functioning.To curb potential disruptions, authorities devised a broad range of bureaucratic measures to alter Russia's cultural, social, and political structure in a controlled manner and s o u g h t to limit the scope of the r e f o r m s that they enacted. 4 3 In implementing this strategy, authorities drew on well-established discourses of gender. This is evident in the 1863 "great r e f o r m " of corporal punishment. Alexander II not only abolished branding, prohibited regular criminal courts from lashing convicts, and broadened the number of groups spared corporal punishment on the basis of status, service, and education, but also abrogated floggings for women of all estates except recidivist female exiles. 44 Contending that the spectacle of the beaten female body might incite the masses to riot and correlating the widespread use of the lash to lower-class men's penchant to beat their wives, reformers implied that brutality in the public and domestic spheres reinforced the Russian masses' moral depravity. As Minister of Internal Affairs, R A . Valuev declared, "it is well known that among the lower and, in part among the middle estates, women do not enjoy the respect that they deserve. Even husbands do not perceive their wives as equals, but frequently consider them slaves and treat them cruelly." 45 G u i d e d by such assumptions, enlightened bureaucrats and educated Russians maintained that sparing women the lash and birch would serve larger social goals. Valuev contended that, since "women have considerable influence over their husbands and relatives," freeing members of the "fairer sex" from floggings would have "positive consequences for the family and society." 46 Extricating women's bodies f r o m the spectacular economy of judicial beatings would transmit to the lower estates an example of proper behavior that would promote the civilizing process. 47 Although enlightened bureaucrats sought to renovate the Russian social order, they remained wedded to working within the f r a m e w o r k of the state's traditional institutions. They suggested that enacting limited r e f o r m s like freeing women f r o m lashing, eliminating the penalty of flogging f r o m the regular penal code, and doing away with serfdom would gradually civilize the masses and improve the functioning of the autocratic system. Yet, refusing to entertain the notion that p e r p e t u a t i n g social distinctions not only did violence to Russia's unprivileged masses but to elites themselves, Russian officials failed to abrogate all forms of corporal punishment, dismantle the exile system, or end the practice of treating m e m b e r s of the rural estate as second-class subjects. Hence, the changes that they enacted were, by design, conservative. 4 8

CHALLENGING AUTOCRATIC

POLITICS

Critics of autocratic policies in the late imperial era picked up on and exploited the contradictory bases of these reforms. In essence, enlightened bureaucrats' attempts to elevate the Russian peasantry by freeing w o m e n from floggings had o p e n e d up a P a n d o r a ' s box. The strategies that authorities used end up providing

44 • Abby M. Schroder educated and reform-minded Russians with the opportunity to deploy g e n d e r e d discourses in their own, b r o a d e r campaign against the remnants of corporal punishment and, by extension, the r e m n a n t s of the old order. 4 9 Extending the fears voiced by state servitors during the early and mid-nineteenth century, late imperial critics suggested that beatings were socio-sexually dangerous and would u n d e r m i n e Russian civilization generally, and not just particular components. Russian officials during the eras of Nicholas I and Alexander II had c o n t e n d e d that perverted notions of gender and the depraved treatment of women impeded the proper functioning of peasant and aboriginal families and t h r e a t e n e d to destroy these sectors of imperial society. In contrast, educated Russians who stood on the margins of officialdom extended these traditional arguments to suggest that floggings and abuse transmitted depraved lessons to all Russians. Elements of this analysis were already evident in the critiques against corporal punishment launched by m e m b e r s of Russia's radical intelligentsia during the G r e a t Reforms. For example, o n e jurist, who published an exposé on lawlessness in c o n t e m p o r a r y Russia in the radical journal Sovremennik under the pseudonym " G r e t s k o " in 1860, attributed criminality to "a lack of a reasonable outlook on women." H e suggested that practices like forced marriage, rape, and domestic abuse led to the breakdown of morality and social order in a broad sense. 5 0 Sovremennik's editors were even more emphatic about this point. In a May 1863 article reporting the abolition of flogging for women, they declared that "[t]he question of women's condition was raised by us a long time ago and we have already written much on this matter; as we can see, most educated people agree with our opinion...that w o m e n ' s status in our society is abnormal. ...In general, their role turns them into helpless or sorry creatures. [It would be p r e f e r a b l e ] to draw them into social life. ...Then they will be able to uplift themselves and thereby uplift all of society."51 In advancing this position, critics accused officials of failing to completely grasp the point raised by the anonymous nobleman in the first scenario, namely, that abusive relations within the private sphere were not limited to the lower estates. This line of reasoning gathered strength during the fin de siècle and came to a head in the sexualized morality tales produced by Kokosov and Tolstoy. In deriving their conclusions, the two authors indicated that little had changed over the course of the nineteenth century in Russia. Returning full circle to the observations that were central to the sexualized tale woven by the a n o n y m o u s serf owner in the 1840s, they suggested that abusive social practices e n g e n d e r e d d e p r a v e d personal relations and that the two operated in tandem and were m u t u ally constitutive. The only means of short-circuiting this vicious cycle a p p e a r e d to be abolishing, not tinkering with, the politics of autocracy. Placing all three of these morality tales within the broader context of official discourse d e m o n s t r a t e that ideas about gender and sexuality were central to the discussions about far-reaching political and social questions in which Russians engaged and that such concerns were enduring throughout the n i n e t e e n t h centu-

Spectacles

of Subversion

• 45

ry. Yet, in Russia, like elsewhere in contemporary Europe, notions of how gender and sexuality both symbolized and structured developments in the public sphere were made and did not constitute a priori essential categories; this elaboration took shape within the frameworks of legal, bureaucratic, and medical institutions. 52 As these institutions evolved, so did the sexualized morality tales. During the Nicholaevan era. these scenarios were marginal in two ways. They literally took shape on the margins of imperial society, namely, in the ethnographies woven by Siberian administrators—and one would suspect elsewhere in the borderlands—and in policies concerning outcasts like banished exiles. Or they were figuratively marginal in that they remained unpublished and anonymous. By the post-reform era, matters had changed somewhat. While Kokosov's and Tolstoy's narratives still revolved around marginal people—runaway soldiers and exiles—these works were published and widely disseminated to a larger reading public. At the century's close, educated Russians had greater opportunity to comment on matters of political importance and were more willing to identify with their social inferiors because they were more keenly aware of how elites were oppressed by autocratic political praxis. The tone of such appeals was amplified once the limitations of the Great Reforms became broadly apparent to educated Russians. Operating within a complicated social context in which lines between officialdom and educated society were often blurry and privy to the contours of authorities' arguments revolving around gender and sexual relations, late imperial critics used sexualized rhetoric to ends unintended by Russian officials. Rather than portray distorted gender relations as confinable, they perceived these problems as diffuse and infectious. For them, eradicating domestic abuse and fostering gender-specific roles for aboriginal men and women were simply not enough. Likewise, freeing peasant women from floggings and abolishing public lashing and branding amounted to insufficient palliatives. Rather, denying official attempts to perpetuate social divisions and explicitly linking their own predicament to that of marginalized imperial subjects, the authors of sexualized morality tales argued that perversion in the domestic sphere pervaded the socio-political fabric of the autocratic system and threatened the very integrity of the Russian state.

Notes Research for this article was funded by grants from the International Research and E x c h a n g e s Board, the Eurasia Program and Joint C o m m i t t e e on the Soviet U n i o n and Its Successor States of the Social Science Research Council, the National E n d o w m e n t for the Humanities, and the Faculty Research Fund of Franklin and Marshall College. I am grateful to my colleagues at Franklin and Marshall College, R e n e e Samara and Kathy Brown, for their critical comments and suggestions. Portions of this paper appear in my Languages of the Lash: Corporal Punishment and Identity in Imperial Russia (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2002) and are reprinted with permission.

46 • Abby

M.

Schroder

1 Gosudarstvennaia publichnaia biblioteka (St. Petersburg) [hereafter GPB], Manuscript Division, Olenin Personal Collection, f. 550, OSRK, Q l l , d. 144 (n.d.), II. 4,5-6.This handwritten document is part of the collection maintained by Alexei Olenin, who directed the Russian State Library from 1811 until his death in 1843. 2 Ibid., 1. 6. In an ukaz of 30 September 1812 (Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii [hereafter PSZ], ser. 1 (St. Petersburg, 1830), no. 25,238), the Senate upheld the rulings of 13 December 1760, which permitted noble landowners to transport those serfs who behaved badly or who had committed misdemeanors to Siberia, and of 17 October 1799, which stipulated that resettled serfs could not be separated from spouses who were willing to accompany them into Siberian exile. However, it was not until 1832 that the Senate concluded that "wives of serfs, exiled by the will of their lords, must follow their husbands, even if they were born into free status groups; but upon the death of their husbands, they are able to live wherever they wish." Nevertheless, although landowners were prohibited from separating married couples; they were not compelled to maintain the sanctity of other kinship relationships. On this, see the ukaz of 22 March 1832 (PSZ, ser. 2, no. 5243). 3 GPB, Manuscript Division, Olenin Personal Collection, f. 550, OSRK, Q l l , d. 144 (n.d.), 11. 16-19. 4 Ibid., II. 11-13. 5 Ibid., 11. 19-21, 24. Imperial state servitors engaged in reforming Russia's penal system during the eras of Nicholas I and Alexander II frequently asserted that the lower estates required floggings and that, for the peasantry, abolishing corporal punishment would be tantamount to doing away with all penalties. For example, see RGIA, f. 1251, op. 1, 1829-1844, d. 147,11. 70-71, 84-85; R G I A , f. 1149, t. 5, 1863, d. 47,11. 359ob-360; Rossiia: Gosudarstvennyi Sovet, Departament Zakonov, Ob otmene telesnykh nakazanii (St. Petersburg, 1862), 2: 71-77,134-35. On the problematic underpinnings of this argument, see Stephen P. Frank, Crime, Cultural Conflict, and Justice in Rural Russia, 1856-1914 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 226-35. 6 GPB, Manuscript Division, Olenin Personal Collection, f. 550, OSRK, Q l l , d. 144, (n.d.), 11. 27, 29-30. Catherine the Great exempted nobles and merchants of the first two guilds from corporal punishment in the ukazes of 21 April 1785, PSZ, ser. 1, nos. 16,187 and 16,188. These decrees, which were predicated on the notion that corporal punishment was incompatible with elite social standing, served as the basis for the subsequent broadening of the notion of privilege in nineteenth-century Russia. For example, see the ukazes of 17 May 1808, ibid., no. 23,027; 31 July 1811, ibid., no. 24,739; 13 April 1832, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 5284; 7 February 1834, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 6788; 29 March 1839, PSZ, ser. 2, nos. 12,186 and 12,187; 1 January 1841, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 14,146; 23 June 1842, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 15,886; 30 June 1844, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 18,115, and 10 June 1847, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 21,308. 7 GPB, Manuscript Division, Olenin Personal Collection, f. 550, OSRK, Q l l , d. 144, (n.d.), I. 32. 8 Drew Faust explores this theme in the context of the ante bellum American South in James Henry Hammond and the Old South: A Design for Mastery (Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 1982). The two situations are clearly analogous, and in each case a master's ideals are perverted by the very order of serfdom or slavery. 9 GPB, Manuscript Division, Olenin Personal Collection, f. 550, OSRK, Q l l , d. 144, (n.d.), II. 49,53-54. 10 Ibid., 11. 94. 11 This manuscript collection, which was personally compiled and managed by Olenin—who conceived of the library as a temple of Enlightenment and a cultural center—contains numerous files depicting provincial life during the reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I. Unfortunately, the catalogue to the Olenin Collection and the handwritten document itself fail to include details about this particular work's author, the circumstances under

Notes

12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

20

21 22 23

24 25

• 47

which the piece was written, its precise date of composition, or how Olenin came to acquire it. I was able to arrive at an approximate date of composition based on references the author makes to knouting, which was abolished by the 1845 penal code. V.Ia. Kokosov, Rasskazy o Kariiskoi katorge (iz vospominanii vracha) (St. Petersburg, 1907). 123. Kokosov, Rasskazy o Kariiskoi katorge. 245-47; emphasis added. Kokosov, Rasskazy o Kariiskoi katorge, 235-37. L.N.Tolstoy,"Posle baia," Sobranie sochinenii, 20 vols. (Moscow: Gosud. Izd. Khudozh. Lit, 1964), 14: 7-16. Ibid., 16-17. Kokosov, Rasskazy o Kariiskoi katorge, 105-6,113. P.N. Konovalov, Roi i dushevnoe sostoianie vracha v naznachenii i pri ispolnenii telesnykh nakazanii (Krasnoiarsk, 1896), 13. In formulating this argument, I take issue with some of the conclusions reached by Laura Engelstein in The Keys to Happiness: Sex and the Search for Modernity in Fin-de-Siècle Russia (Cornell: Cornell University Press, 1992). While Engelstein asserts that sex was central to Russian political culture, she nevertheless deems sexuality to be a product of socalled modernity and suggests that the Great R e f o r m s constituted a turning point that afforded Russians greater exposure to Western ideas, which allowed them to use sexuality to contest the nature of autocratic authority. While ideas about sex and gender did change in significant ways in the late imperial period, such discourses were central to political developments at least as far back as the early nineteenth century and were rooted in both Russian and E u r o p e a n traditions. For a fuller development of this argument, see Schrader, The Languages of the Lash, chaps. 5,6. The anonymous nobleman attacked serfdom whilst benefiting from his official rank (chinstvo) and reaping status-related privileges, including the right to own and dispose of his serfs. Likewise, the doctors who criticized penal practices nonetheless were state employees who paid for government-sponsored education by ministering to imprisoned exiles. And, while moral philosopher and writer Leo Tolstoy was a vocal critic of numerous Russian institutions who had ceased attempting to alter the system from within after his efforts to improve his serfs' lot proved futile, even he never entirely opted out of the system. His solid education, first at home by tutors and later at Kazan University, belied his privileged origins and, although he refused to take a degree and engage in a traditional career path, he served as an army officer while stationed in the Caucasus. Richard S. Wortman, Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), 1: 252-4,260. Ibid, 334-5. See the ukazes of 22 July 1822, articles 225-232, PSZ, ser. 1, no. 29,128; 11 October 1823, ibid., no. 29,624; 20 May 1831, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 4582; 29 O c t o b e r 1834, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 7504; 7 September 1836, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 9504; 10 July 1850, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 24, 316; 29 October 1851, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 25, 960. To compel exiled women to marry male exiles, authorities prohibited these women from wedding free settlers in Siberia under the ukaz of 8 April 1852, PSZ, ser. 2, no. 26,148. N. Link, "Statisticheskoe opisanie gorodov Tobol'skoi gubernii," Zhurnal ministerstva vnutrennikh del, pt. 23, bk. 1 (January 1837): 20. Women constituted only one-fifth of judicial exiles and between one-sixteenth and oneeighteenth of those consigned to penal servitude. For official complaints about this gender imbalance and measures authorities adopted to facilitate exile domesticity, see R G I A , f. 1264, op. 1, 1824, d. 493,1. 1; R G I A , f. 1264, op. 1,1825-6, d. 415,1. 6ob-7; R G I A , f. 1264, op. 1,1825-6, d. 598,11. l o b , 3-3ob; R G I A , f. 1264, op. 1,1827-8, d. 51, II. 178-178ob, 181-2; R G I A , f. 1264, op. 1,1829-30, d. 53, II. 283ob-285; R G I A , f. 1264, op. 1,1828-37, d. 427,11.

4 8 • Abby

M.

Schroder

1 4 - 1 5 , 2 6 , 6 1 o b , 87ob, 9 6 - 1 0 0 o b , 1 0 9 - 1 0 9 o b , 1 1 8 - 1 1 9 , 164ob-165; R G I A , f. 1149,1.2. 832, d. 43. II. 1 4 - 1 4 o b , 2 2 - 3 : R G I A , f. 1264. op. 1, 1833-4, d. 457, 1. 4 o b - 8 ; R G I A , f. 11491. 3, 1840, d. 53,11. 3 2 o b - 3 3 , 408-409. 612, 744; u k a z e s of 22 M a r c h 1828, P S Z , ser. 2. no. 893; 22 M a r c h 1832, ibid., no. 5243; 14 A p r i l 1834. ibid., no. 6989; 2 J a n u a r y 1836. Ibid., no. ¡745. 26 For a d e p i c t i o n of t h e " r u i n o u s c o n s e q u e n c e s for public m o r a l s as well as the l a m e n a b l e a n d d a n g e r o u s t e m p t a t i o n for t h e e n t i r e n a t i o n " w r o u g h t by p e r v e r t e d familial r e l a i o n ships within t h e R o m a n o v h o u s e , s e e W o r t m a n , Scenarios of Power, 1:251. A l s o see Eigelstein. Keys to Happiness, 19,28. 27 " M o n g o l y - B u r i a t y v N e r c h i n s k o m o k r u g e I r k u t s k o i g u b e r n i i , " Zhurnal rennikh del, pt. 3, bk. 7 (July 1843): 3. N o a u t h o r is i n d i c a t e d . 28 F r a n t s l o s o f o v i c h Beliavskii, Poezdka k Ledovitomu moriu ( M o s k v a , 1833), iii. 29 P. Kirilov, " O c h e r k Sibiri," Zhurnal ministerstva vnulrennikh 1839): 434. 30 Beliavskii, Poezdka

k Ledovitomu

moriu,

ministerstva

Fr. Beliavskago

s

mut-

risuikami

del, pt. 34, bk. 1 ( D e c e n b e r

vii.

31 D o c t o r K r u z e , " P u t e v y i a zapiski ot I r k u t s k a d o Viliuiska v 1832 g o d u , " Zhurnal miiisterstva vnutrennikh del, pt. 11, bk. 1 ( J a n u a r y 1834): 7 2 - 7 3 . 32 P. Kirilov, " O c h e r k Sibiri," 434. 33 G. G o r o k h o v , " K r a t k o e e t n o g r a f i c h e s k o e o p i s a n i e Biiskikh, ili Altaiskikh Kalmyk© 1 sost a v l e n n o e iz z a p i s o k b y v s h o g o z e m s k o g o i s p r a v n i k a v Biiskom u e z d e T o m s k o i Gu»ernii g. G o r o k h o v a , " Zhurnal ministerstva vnutrennikh del, pt. 38, bk. 11 ( D e c e m b e r , 1840: 209, 2 1 4 - 1 7 ; K r u z e , " P u t e v y i a zapiski," 59-60; Beliavskii, Poezdka k Ledovitomu moru, 68, 7 2 - 7 3 , 78 ( e m p h a s i s a d d e d ) ; " M o n g o l y - B u r i a t y v N e r c h i n s k o m o k r u g e , " 13. 34 G. G o r o k h o v , " K r a t k o e e t n o g r a f i c h e s k o e o p i s a n i e , " 213; Beliavskii, Poezdka vitomu moriu, 119-122.

k

Ledo-

35 " M o n g o l y - B u r i a t y v N e r c h i n s k o m o k r u g e , " 14. 36 G. G o r o k h o v . " K r a t k o e e t n o g r a f i c h e s k o e o p i s a n i e , " 213; Beliavskii, Poezdka k Ledovitomu moriu, 71, 119-122, 132-136; K r u z e . " P u t e v y i a zapiski." 60; A k u s h e r A l e l s a n d r U k l o n s k i i , " K r a t k i i a m e d i k o - t o p o g r a f i c h e s k i i a i chastiiu statisticheskiia z a m e c h a i i i a o Viliuiskom o k r u g e I a k u t s k o i o b l a s t i , " Zhurnal ministerstva vnutrennikh del, pt. 39 bk. 1, ( J a n u a r y 1841), 96. 37 G. G o r o k h o v , " K r a t k o e e t n o g r a f i c h e s k o e o p i s a n i e , " 210-214; Beliavskii, Poezdka vitomu moriu, 117-119; " M o n g o l y - B u r i a t y v N e r c h i n s k o m okruge,"15. 38 39 40 41

kLedo-

" M o n g o l y - B u r i a t y v N e r c h i n s k o m o k r u g e , " 15. Beliavskii, Poezdka k Ledovitomu moriu, 119-121. Kirilov, " O c h e r k Sibiri," 434. O n this, see S c h r a d e r , Languages of the Lash, c h a p . 4.

42 For details, see ibid., chaps. 5 , 6 . 43 O. A . V o l k e n s h t e i n , Velikiie reformy 60-kh godov (Moscow, 1910), 2 8 , 3 2 - 7 , 7 3 - 4 , 8 6 - ' ; A . A . G o l o v a c h e v , Desiat' let reform, 1861-1871 gg. (St. P e t e r s b u r g , 1872); Bruce W. Lincoln, In the Vanguard of Reform: Russia's Enlightened Bureaucrats, 1825-1861 ( D e k a l b : Ncrthern Illinois University Press, 1982), 7 7 - 8 3 , 1 9 3 ^ 1 , 2 0 0 ; Lincoln, Nikolai Miliutin:An Enlivened Russian Bureaucrat (Newtonville, Mass.: O r i e n t a l R e s e a r c h P a r t n e r s , 1977), 3 0 - 3 6 . 44 R a t h e r t h a n r e p u d i a t e t h e n o t i o n t h a t status, service, a n d e d u c a t i o n c o n s t i t u t e d l e g t i m a t e c r i t e r i a f o r e x e m p t i o n f r o m floggings, t h e 1863 r e f o r m w i d e n e d t h e g r o u p s s p a r e d c o r p o ral p u n i s h m e n t . A l e x a n d e r II g r a n t e d this privilege t o C h r i s t i a n sacristans; n o n - C l r i s t i a n clergy a n d t h e i r c h i l d r e n ; t e a c h e r s in p o p u l a r p r i m a r y schools; g r a d u a t e s of a g n n o m i c i n s t i t u t e s and o t h e r e d u c a t i o n a l e s t a b l i s h m e n t s : a n d p e a s a n t s elected to c o m m u n t y service. See u k a z of 17 A p r i l 1863, P S Z , ser. 2, no. 39,504. 45 Ob otmene

telesnykh

nakazanii,

35, 109.

46 Ibid.\ R G I A , f. 1181, op. 1 5 , 1 8 6 1 , d. 111,1. 10.

Notes

• 49

47 On this issue, see Schrader, The Languages of the Lash, chaps. 5, 6. 48 Ibid., chap. 6; Lincoln, In the Vanguard of Reform, 139-47, 166-83, 193-4, 200; idem, Nikolai Miliutin. 36. 49 Civil society's campaign against floggings was launched by "the most diverse congresses and societies," including teachers' organizations, school boards, juridical and medical societies, and zemstvo associations. Downey, "Civil Society and the Campaign Against Corporal Punishment," 100-68; D.N. Zhbankov, Kogda u nas prekrashaetsia telesnye nakazaniia? (St. Petersburg, 1905). 10-4; R G I A , f. 1291. op. 2, 1895, d. 110, 1. 66ob; Schrader, Languages of the Lash, chap. 6. 50 Gretsko, "Ugolovnye prestupniki," Sovremennik 1 (1860): 298-300. 51 " O telesnykh nakazaniiakh, po povodu novogo ukaza po etomu predmetu," Sovremennik 5 (1863): 191 (emphasis added). 52 Michel Foucault, History of Sexuality, trans. Robert Hurley (New York: Vintage Books, 1990); Catherine Gallagher and Thomas Laqueur, eds., The Making of the Modern Body. Sexuality and Society in the Nineteenth Century (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987); Isabel V. Hull, Sexuality, State, and Civil Society in Germany, 1700-1815 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1996); Lynn Hunt, The Family Romance of the French Revolution (Berkeley: University of California Press. 1992); Hunt, ed., Eroticism and the Body Politic (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1991), Joan B. Landes, Women in the Public Sphere in the Age of the French Revolution (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988); Thomas Laqueur, Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990); Carole Pateman, The Sexual Contract, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1988); Michelle Perrot, ed., A History of Private Life. From the Fires of Revolution to the Great War (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990); and James F. Traer, Marriage and the Family in Eighteenth-Century France (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980). On the production and reproduction of social categories within institutional frameworks, see Scott, Gender and the Politics of History (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 28-50; Louis Althusser, "Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses," in Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays, trans. Ben Brewster (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1971), 133, 170-7; Catherine Belsey, Critical Practice (London: Methuen Press, 1980), 56-84; Nancy Fraser, Unruly Practices: Power, Discourse and Gender in Contemporary Social Theory (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 114-5; and Paul Smith, Discerning the Subject (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988). 3-23. On Russia, see Wagner, Marriage, Property, and Law in Late Imperial Russia (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994) and Engelstein, The Keys to Happiness.

National Narratives in the Representation of Nineteenth-Century Russian Monarchy R I C H A R D S. WORTMAN

It is a truism in the l i t e r a t u r e a b o u t Russian nationalism that a p o p u l a r , d e m o c ratic n a t i o n a l i s m failed to a p p e a r in p r e - r e v o l u t i o n a r y Russia. Russia diverged f r o m the W e s t e r n E u r o p e a n m o d e l , exemplified by E n g l a n d , France and S w e d e n , w h e r e a c o n c e p t of n a t i o n evolved u n d e r the aegis of a m o n a r c h y providing continuity b e t w e e n p r e - m o d e r n dynastic c o n c e p t s of n a t i o n and m o d e r n civic nationalism. 1 O n e r e a s o n that this transition did not occur in Russia was that the rulers p r e e m p t e d n a t i o n a l a p p e a l s a n d e n d e a v o r e d to p r e s e n t themselves as the expression of the will of the Russian people. Russian m o n a r c h s utilized this f o u n d a t i o n not only to bolster their authority, but also to p r e c l u d e the possibility of civic nationalism and to show that d e m o c r a t i c institutions were alien to Russia. Russian m o n a r c h s s o u g h t to m a k e " n a t i o n a l i t y " ( n a r o d n o s t ' ) an a t t r i b u t e of imperial p o w e r reflected in the past activity and identity of the m o n a r c h y — t o find in the w e s t e r n i z e d court a n d m o n a r c h y a c o m m o n past with the Russian people. To d e m o n s t r a t e their national credentials, Russian m o n a r c h s of the n i n e t e e n t h century e l a b o r a t e d mythical narratives that d e m o n s t r a t e d their b o n d with the Russian p e o p l e . Such n a r r a t i v e s show the ancient c h a r a c t e r of nations, c o m m o n origins evolving f r o m the past. They e v o k e what E t i e n n e B a l a b a r called a "fictive ethnicity which m a k e s it possible for the expression of a preexisting unity to be seen in the state, a n d continually to m e a s u r e the state against its 'historic mission' in the service of the n a t i o n , a n d as a c o n s e q u e n c e to idealize politics." 2 In Russia the mythical "idealization of politics" t o o k the f o r m of an e f f o r t to identify the Petrine heritage—the westernized Russian monarchy and multinational e m p i r e — with narodnost', the term that gained currency a n d r e s o n a n c e in the first d e c a d e s of the n i n e t e e n t h century. T h e word narodnost' s e e m s to have b e e n used first by the p o e t P e t e r Viazemskii as a translation of the F r e n c h nationalité in 1819. (Nationalité did not a p p e a r in a French dictionary until 1835.) It d e n o t e d a distinctive native c h a r a c t e r or identity, but what that identity was and w h e r e it was to be f o u n d r e m a i n e d unclear. W h e t h e r nationality was located in a national literature, language, customs, institutions, p e o p l e or history, or s o m e or all of t h e preceding, was the q u e s t i o n intellectuals d e b a t e d d u r i n g successive decades. In

52 • Richard S.

Wormian

any e v e n t t h e search f o r a distinctive c h a r a c t e r i s t i c b e g a n u n d e r t h e influence of t h e F r e n c h R e v o l u t i o n a n d G e r m a n idealistic philosophy, w h e t h e r o r not the w o r d narodnost'

was u s e d . 3

T h e R u s s i a n m o n a r c h y s o u g h t to a p p r o p r i a t e n a t i o n a l i t y f o r itself, d e n y i n g a s e p a r a t e e x i s t e n c e t o t h e p e o p l e , a n d t r y i n g to s q u a r e t h e circle t o s h o w t h a t t h e w e s t e r n i z e d a b s o l u t e m o n a r c h y w a s n a t i v e in origin a n d spirit. 4 H e r e I will a r g u e t h a t this a p p r o p r i a t i o n of t h e i d e a of n a t i o n a s s u m e d t w o q u i t e d i f f e r e n t s y m b o l i c f o r m s f o r m s in t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y — t h e official nationality, which d e f i n e d t h e r e l a t i o n s b e t w e e n t s a r a n d p e o p l e d u r i n g t h e r e i g n s of N i c h o l a s I a n d A l e x a n d e r II, a n d w h a t I call t h e n a t i o n a l m y t h , which w a s p r o p a g a t e d d u r i n g t h e r e i g n s of A l e x a n d e r III a n d N i c h o l a s II. T h i s f o r m u l a t i o n d i v e r g e s f r o m t h e c o n v e n t i o n a l view of A l e x a n d e r I l l ' s n a t i o n a l i s m as a c o n t i n u a t i o n of N i c h o l a s I's. A l e x a n d e r I l l ' s n a t i o n a l i m a g e r y , I c o n t e n d , i n t r o d u c e d n o t only a d i f f e r e n t c o n c e p t i o n of t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n t h e m o n a r c h a n d R u s s i a n p e o p l e , b u t a n e w c o n c e p t i o n of t h e s t a t e t h a t p l a y e d a crucial role in s h a p i n g t h e policies of t h e a u t o c r a c y in t h e e a r l y t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y .

OFFICIAL

NATIONALITY

N i c h o l a s I, following t h e p a t t e r n of his f o r b e a r s , t o o k on a c o n c e p t p r e v a l e n t in t h e West a n d i n c o r p o r a t e d it into i m p e r i a l mythology. T h e w o r d " n a t i o n a l i t y " sugg e s t e d an idea or spirit distinctive to a p e o p l e ; N i c h o l a s 1 a n d his a d v i s o r s identified this spirit with t h e w e s t e r n i z e d R u s s i a n m o n a r c h y a n d its past. T h e c e n t r a l t h e m e s of official n a t i o n a l i t y w e r e e x p r e s s e d in t h e m a n i f e s t o a n n o u n c i n g t h e sentencing of t h e D e c e m b r i s t s issued o n 13 July 1826. T h e D e c e m b r i s t s ' design t o i n t r o d u c e w e s t e r n c o n s t i t u t i o n a l i n s t i t u t i o n s was alien t o t h e R u s s i a n p e o p l e . " N e i t h e r in t h e c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s n o r t h e w a y s of t h e R u s s i a n is this design t o be f o u n d . .. .The h e a r t of R u s s i a w a s a n d will b e i m p e r v i o u s t o it." T h e m a n i f e s t o c o n t i n u e d , "In a s t a t e w h e r e love f o r m o n a r c h s a n d d e v o t i o n to t h e t h r o n e a r e b a s e d on t h e n a t i v e c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s of t h e p e o p l e , w h e r e t h e r e a r e laws of t h e f a t h e r l a n d a n d firmness in a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , all e f f o r t s of t h e e v i l - i n t e n t i o n e d will be in vain a n d insane." 5 T h e f a i l u r e of t h e D e c e m b r i s t u p r i s i n g was itself proof of t h e love of t h e p e o p l e f o r t h e m o n a r c h y a n d its n a t i o n a l c h a r a c t e r , which set R u s s i a a p a r t f r o m E u r o p e a n s t a t e s t h a t h a d c o m e t o rely o n r e p r e s e n t a t i v e institutions. T h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t of political a u t h o r i t y w a s m o s t s u c c e s s f u l in R u s s i a b e c a u s e of t h e R u s s i a n p e o p l e ' s love f o r t h o s e w h o h a d c o m e f r o m o u t s i d e , o r a p p e a r e d t o c o m e f r o m o u t s i d e , a n d g o v e r n t h e m . T h e R u s s i a n p e o p l e set t h e m o d e l of o b e d i e n c e a n d loyalty f o r t h e o t h e r n a t i o n a l i t i e s of t h e e m p i r e , w h o also a c c e p t ed s u b o r d i n a t i o n t o a m u l t i n a t i o n a l elite, s h a r i n g t h e w e s t e r n c u l t u r e of t h e Pet e r s b u r g c o u r t . T h e m o n a r c h y d e m o n s t r a t e d t h e h i s t o r i c d e v o t i o n of t h e R u s s i a n p e o p l e to t h e i r c o n q u e r o r s a n d rulers, in c e r e m o n y , h i s t o r y a n d c h u r c h a r c h i t e c ture. T h e first c e r e m o n i a l display of this t y p e t o o k p l a c e a f e w m o n t h s a f t e r t h a t

National Narratives • 53 m a n i f e s t o in the s u m m e r of 1826. Following the coronation service in the Assumption Cathedral, Nicholas I made the traditional procession in full regalia, stopping first at the Archangel, then the Annunciation Cathedrals. Then he ascended the R e d Staircase b e f o r e the Palace of Facets, turned to the crowd, and bowed three times, to their t h u n d e r o u s Hoorahs! The bow was an initial ceremony of recognition b e t w e e n the e m p e r o r and the Russian people, expressing an unspoken bond of devotion. It was a true "invented tradition," which was repeated on future cere m o n i a l visits of the e m p e r o r s to Moscow and at all f u t u r e coronations. Later in t h e century, the triple bow came to be hallowed as an "ancient tradition" distinctive to Russia, expressing the popular character of the monarchy. ñ Historical narratives now incorporated the Russian people into the dominant Pe trine myth, giving the monarchy a patina of democracy by showing it to be the choice of the nation. The founding legend for the myth was the invitation to Viking princes in 862 by the people of Novgorod with the words: " O u r land is great and rich, but there is no o r d e r in it. C o m e to rule and reign over us." Nicholas Karamzin's popular History of the Russian State (1818-1829) had described this as "an astonishing and nearly unparalleled case in the chronicles. ...Everyw h e r e the sword of the powerful or the cunning of the ambitious introduced absolute monarchy (samovlastie), in Russia it was confirmed by the general agreement with the citizens. ...The Slavs voluntarily destroy their ancient popular government and d e m a n d sovereigns from the Varangians." 7 T h e historian Michael Pogodin argued that the invitation revealed the paradigm of the historical development of Russia and the political order exemplified by Nicholaean autocracy. In a lecture delivered in 1832 in the presence of the Assistant Minister of Education, Sergei Uvarov, Pogodin declared: "The Varangians came to us, but voluntarily chosen, at least from the start, not like Western victors and conquerors—the first essential distinction in the kernel, the seed of the Russian State." 8 The Russian people had invited their rulers, had obeyed and loved them; autocracy had national roots. The acceptance and worship of the s u p r e m e foreign ruler had become the distinguishing mark of the Russian people. The invitation was enshrined as the official version of foundation of the Russian state. In 1851 the first volume of Sergei Solov'ev's History of Russia argued that the invitation took place in 852, rather than 862, and provoked angry responses f r o m Pogodin, N.M. Ustrialov, and others. Pogodin declared Solov'ev's contention a blasphemy against o n e of the "sacred dates" of Russian history. In 1852 Nicholas I issued an order to the Minister of Education insisting that higher educational institutions preserve the traditional date of 862. 9 The ideological formulation of these themes was the work of the Minister of Education, Sergei Uvarov, who coined the slogan, "orthodoxy, autocracy, nationality" (pravoslavie, samoderzhavie, narodnost'). Uvarov advanced eighteenth-century utilitarian justifications of autocracy as the institution that had created and saved the Russian state. H e made no mention of divine sanction; autocracy was "the necessary condition of the existence of the empire." Orthodoxy was present-

54 • Richard S. Wortman ed not as a revealed truth, but as " g u a r a n t e e of social and family happiness." The Russian nation was defined not as an ethnic entity, but by the utter devotion of the Russian people to their rulers, which set them apart from western peoples, seduced by liberal ideas. 10 The principles of Uvarov's slogan were proclaimed and d e f e n d e d by a n u m b e r of official writers, contributing to such state-subsidized journals as Severnaia Pchela and Moskvitianin and reflected the views of much of the educated public at the time. 11 The subtext of the new version of the Petrine myth was that the institutions of the Russian state had been consecrated by its history: they were not to be judged by western ideas or the experience of western states. The history followed Karamzin's linear pattern, the passing of the tradition of autocracy from reign to reign, its culmination in the existing Russian state. The official nationality doctrine preserved and enhanced the Petrine identification of the e m p e r o r with the state. Michael Cherniavsky wrote that Peter's governmental institutions all were "executive extensions of Peter's personal will." 12 Much the same can be said for the institutions of Nicholas's state. Although the Russian administration had attained massive dimensions by the end of his reign, Nicholas regarded the state as inseparable f r o m his own personal authority. He took care to watch over his officials as closely as possible, either through the function of nadzor (administrative supervision) or through the Third Section of his Chancellery, which served, among other functions, as an organ of personal surveillance over the administration. Nicholas's person was omnipresent, and officials regarded him as the incarnation of the state. " H e gives meaning and color to everything," wrote Baron Modest Korf, a State Secretary of Nicholas's. "All the radii of the many sided public activity converge on him." The imperial court in Nicholas's reign served as a display of the unity of the highest officials of the administration with the emperor and o t h e r m e m b e r s of the imperial family. 13 Nicholas remained fully G e r m a n in manner, t e m p e r a m e n t and dress, and m a d e known his admiration for Frederick the G r e a t and Prussian monarchy. A t the same time, he openly displayed his predilection for Russian culture and history. This took many forms: for example preservation of artifacts of the Russian past, encouraging a national style in church architecture and Russian music, arranging ceremonial visits to Moscow. It was m a d e clear that these were not mere instances of personal taste, but visual statements of the monarchy's identity and past. A new style in church architecture gave visual expression to Nicholas's conception of Russia's national past. Konstantin Thon created an official national style, which in 1841 was established by decree. Breaking f r o m the eighteenth-century classical models, T h o n designed five-cupola churches on the model of the Vladimir and Moscow Assumption Cathedrals. His Moscow-Byzantine style is exemplified by the massive Christ the R e d e e m e r Cathedral in Moscow, which has recently b e e n rebuilt at its original site in the center in Moscow. The Cathedral identifies Russian O r t h o d o x y with the Byzantine imperial tradition, stating its distance f r o m the western monarchical tradition, which had proved weak and decadent.

National

Narratives

• 55

N e o - B y z a n t i n e d e c o r a t i v e e l e m e n t s w e r e g r a f t e d o n t o a massive w e s t e r n n e o classical s t r u c t u r e , c r e a t i n g a f u s i o n of R u s s i a n a n d w e s t e r n m o t i f s c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of t h e eclectic spirit of N i c h o l a e a n culture. 1 4 N i c h o l a s d e m o n s t r a t e d t h e m o n a r c h y ' s a t t a c h m e n t t o t h e t r a d i t i o n s of p r e P e t r i n e R u s s i a at c e r e m o n i a l a p p e a r a n c e s in t h e M o s c o w K r e m l i n , w h e r e he r e p e a t e d t h e t r i p l e b o w he h a d p e r f o r m e d in 1826. T h e s e trips a s s u m e d especial i m p o r t a n c e a f t e r t h e R e v o l u t i o n of 1848, w h e n a n c i e n t R u s ' signified t h e religious national faith that preserved Russia from the dissension and upheavals that had a f f l i c t e d t h e W e s t . T h i s display of n a t i o n a l affiliation c o n f i r m e d r a t h e r t h a n cont r a d i c t e d t h e a u t h o r i t y of N i c h o l a s ' s w e s t e r n i z e d elite. H e called u p o n t h e tradit i o n s of a n c i e n t M o s c o w b u t w i t h o u t wishing t o revive t h e m . S o m e of t h e m o r e nationally inclined writers, like P o g o d i n and S t e p a n Shevyrev, o n t h e o t h e r h a n d s a w t h e e m p e r o r ' s p r e s e n c e as a sign of a r e t u r n t o M u s c o v i t e c u l t u r e . T h e d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n their image of a n a t i o n a l m o n a r c h y a n d t h e e m p e r o r ' s b e c a m e c l e a r d u r i n g a visit to M o s c o w in 1849 t o d e d i c a t e T h o n ' s n e w Kremlin Palace. Pogodin wrote that Nicholas assumed a different persona when h e left t h e s e t t i n g of t h e palace. " A r e t h e R u s s i a n T s a r a n d t h e E u r o p e a n E m p e r o r t w o p e r s o n s ? N o , t h e y a r e o n e ! F r o m t h e V l a d i m i r H a l l [of t h e n e w K r e m l i n P a l a c e ] it is o n l y a f e w s t e p s t o t h e Hall of Facets a n d t h e R e d Staircase. O n c e [Nicholas] o p e n s t h e d o o r t o t h e p e o p l e , o r e v e n o p e n s t h e w i n d o w of T s a r A l e x e i M i k h a i l o v i c h , all of M o s c o w , a n d with h e r all of R u s s i a will see a n d h e a r h i m a n d a n s w e r , ' T h e E u r o p e a n E m p e r o r is again t h e R u s s i a n T s a r ! ' " P o g o d i n ' s article, h o w e v e r , did n o t p a s s t h e censors. 1 5 T h e e f f o r t s of t h e S l a v o p h i l e s to r e c a p t u r e t h e i r c o n c e p t i o n of early R u s s i a n culture evoked a sharp response. W h e n Alexei Khomiakov, Konstantin A k s a k o v a n d s e v e r a l o t h e r S l a v o p h i l e s v e n t u r e d to a p p e a r at c o u r t in b e a r d s a n d w h a t t h e y b e l i e v e d w a s t h e R u s s i a n c l o t h i n g of early R u s s i a , a swift r e b u k e c a m e d o w n f r o m t h e M i n i s t r y of I n t e r i o r . A c i r c u l a r of t h e M i n i s t r y of I n t e r i o r t o p r o v i n c i a l m a r shals of t h e nobility a n n o u n c e d t h a t " T h e T s a r is d i s p l e a s e d t h a t R u s s i a n n o b l e m e n w e a r b e a r d s . B e c a u s e f o r s o m e t i m e n e w s h a s b e e n r e c e i v e d f r o m all p r o v i n c e s t h a t t h e n u m b e r of b e a r d s has g r e a t l y i n c r e a s e d . " It w e n t o n t o e x p l a i n that in t h e West b e a r d s w e r e "a sign of a c e r t a i n t y p e of ideas. We d o n o t h a v e this here." T h e T s a r , it c o n c l u d e d , " c o n s i d e r s t h a t b e a r d s will i n t e r f e r e with t h e n o b l e m a n ' s elective service." 1 6 In N i c h o l a s ' s f r a m e of mind, b e a r d s signified n o t R u s s i a n s b u t Jews a n d radicals. T h e official view identified t h e n a t i o n with t h e ruling weste r n elite, a n d t h e s u g g e s t i o n t h a t t h e r e was a n o t h e r , c o n t r a d i c t o r y m e a s u r e of n a t i o n in t h e p e a s a n t r y o r t h e p a s t i n t i m a t e d r e b e l l i o n . N i c h o l a s ' s s h o w s of n a t i o n a l spirit w e r e m e a n t t o p r e s e r v e , n o t to n a r r o w t h e d i s t a n c e b e t w e e n t h e a u t o c r a t i c - n o b l e elite a n d t h e r u l e d : to d r a m a t i z e o b e d i e n c e as a spiritual q u a l i t y of the n a t i o n . A u t h e n t i c i t y , t r u t h a n d o t h e r v e r s i o n s of t h e n a t i o n a l past j e o p a r dized t h e m o n o l o g i c u n i v e r s e of t h e i m p e r i a l m y t h . T h e b e a r d s y m b o l i z e d a c o m ing t o g e t h e r of elite a n d p e o p l e in a n a t i o n a l c u l t u r e w h o s e f e a t u r e s w e r e n o t defined by t h e a u t o c r a t i c p o w e r . 1 7

56 • Richard S. Wortman B u t t h e official n a t i o n a l i t y also p r o v i d e d t h e g r o u n d i n g f o r a d y n a m i c view of t h e m o n a r c h as t h e r u l e r of a r e f o r m e d s t a t e , leading a mission of building a dynamic and powerful Russian Empire. Such

figures

as N.N. Muraviev, A.P.

Balasoglo, N.I. N a d e z h d i n , a n d o t h e r m e m b e r s of t h e R u s s i a n G e o g r a p h i c a l Society e n v i s i o n e d a r e v i t a l i z e d R u s s i a n E m p i r e t h a t would r e p r e s e n t the R u s s i a n n a t i o n . 1 8 T h e p r e s u m p t i o n of t h e d e v o t i o n of t h e Russian p e o p l e to a m o n a r c h who embodied the state and empire underlay the rationale for the Great Reforms. T h e s t e p s t a k e n in b e h a l f of t h e p e o p l e by t h e m o n a r c h i c a l s t a t e justified t h e love of t h e p e o p l e to t h e i r s o v e r e i g n . R e f o r m h a d b e e n a goal of N i c h o l a s ' s e n l i g h t e n e d d e s p o t i s m , t h o u g h f e a r of d i s r u p t i o n d e t e r r e d all b u t a few e f f o r t s to i n t r o d u c e c h a n g e . A l e x a n d e r II's s c e n a r i o a d a p t e d t h e ideas a n d i m a g e s of official n a t i o n a l i t y to a p r o g r a m of r e f o r m . H e a p p e a r e d as t h e h u m a n e

European

monarch, conferring benefactions on a grateful and devoted people—the emancip a t i o n of t h e serfs, t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t of r e f o r m e d c o u r t s a n d o r g a n s of local selfg o v e r n m e n t . T h e G r e a t R e f o r m s w e r e p r e s e n t e d as e x p r e s s i o n s of the love uniting s o v e r e i g n a n d p e o p l e distinctive t o R u s s i a , which w o u l d e n a b l e R u s s i a to r e a p t h e b e n e f i t s of i n c r e a s e d f r e e d o m a n d social d e v e l o p m e n t while a v o i d i n g t h e political u p h e a v a l s of t h e West. F o l l o w i n g t h e p r o m u l g a t i o n of t h e E m a n c i p a t i o n M a n i f e s t o in F e b r u a r y 1861, d e m o n s t r a t i o n s of g r a t i t u d e a n d a p p r o v a l by t h e people show the popular

g r o u n d i n g of m o n a r c h i c a l p o w e r f u n d a m e n t a l

to

o f f i c i a l - n a t i o n a l i t y t h i n k i n g . T h e t s a r r e m a i n e d t h e s u p r e m e w e s t e r n i z e d figure of g o d l i k e e l e g a n c e , d i s t a n t f r o m his p e o p l e a n d b e s t o w i n g the b e n e f i t s of p r o g r e s s and civilization u p o n t h e m . P o p u l a r p r i n t s ( l u b k i ) issued in t h e e r a of E m a n c i p a t i o n p r e s e n t A l e x a n d e r II s t a n d i n g a b o v e p e a s a n t s a n d w o r k e r s on their k n e e s in p r a y e r , d i s p l a y i n g g r a t i t u d e a n d a d o r a t i o n t o t h e e m p e r o r , a figure f r o m a higher r e a l m . 1 9 T h e a n n i v e r s a r y of t h e M i l l e n i u m of R u s s i a in N o v g o r o d in 1862 celeb r a t e d t h e e m b l e m a t i c act of r a p p o r t b e t w e e n r u l e d a n d t h e i r r u l e r s in 862. A l e x a n d e r a d d r e s s e d t h e N o v g o r o d nobility calling t h e c e l e b r a t i o n "a n e w sign of t h e i n d e s t r u c t i b l e b o n d of all t h e e s t a t e s of t h e R u s s i a n land with t h e g o v e r n m e n t with o n e g o a l , t h e h a p p i n e s s a n d w e l l - b e i n g of o u r d e a r f a t h e r l a n d . " 2 0

THE NATIONAL

MYTH

T h e g r e a t divide in t h e history of t h e r e p r e s e n t a t i o n of the R u s s i a n e m p e r o r in t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y o c c u r r e d n o t with t h e C r i m e a n W a r and d e a t h of N i c h o l a s I, b u t with t h e a s s a s s i n a t i o n of A l e x a n d e r II in 1881. T h e assassination d e a l t t h e final blow to t h e P e t r i n e m y t h , t h e n o t i o n t h a t t h e R u s s i a n m o n a r c h y e m b o d i e d t h e ideal of t h e E u r o p e a n a b s o l u t e s t a t e , b u t s u r p a s s e d its m o d e l s in p o w e r , m a j e s t y , a n d virtue. If t h e official n a t i o n a l i t y d o c t r i n e a c c o m m o d a t e d t h e c o n c e p t of n a t i o n to t h e P e t r i n e m y t h , A l e x a n d e r I l l ' s s c e n a r i o p r e s e n t e d t h e e m p e r o r as t h e h e r o of a n a t i o n a l m y t h t h a t e m p h a s i z e d his e t h n i c c h a r a c t e r , as t h e m o s t R u s s i a n of Russians, w h o was a b o v e a n d a p a r t f r o m t h e w e s t e r n i z e d R u s s i a n state.

National Narratives • 57 T h e images and themes of the myth took form in the 1860s and the 1870s a m o n g the m e m b e r s of the so-called "Russian party," which consisted of officials a n d journalists, disaffected one way or a n o t h e r f r o m the policies of Alexander II, such as Konstantin Pobedonostsev, Mikhail Katkov, and Vladimir Meshcherskii. T h e i r conceptions of the nation were vague and diverse, but they all opposed w h a t they perceived as irresolute domestic foreign policies and a want of characteristically Russian traits. But none of their views corresponded to the notion of civic nation, which they considered alien to Russia's culture and past. T h e new national myth was elaborated in the manifesto of 29 April 1881. The manifesto, drafted by Pobedonostev, brought to an end the discussions of governm e n t a l reform that had continued u n d e r Loris-Melikov's direction in the weeks a f t e r the assassination. 2 1 The manifesto m a d e the autocratic, unlimited power of t h e tsar a p p e a r as both a divinely ordained obligation and the m a n d a t e of the Russian people. Revising the initial text, Pobedonostsev changed the words "the b u r d e n of supreme rule" ('bremia verkhovnogo pravlenia') to "the Holy Duty of Autocratic rule" {'Sviashchennyi dolg Samoderzhavnogo pravleniia').21 This gave divine sanction to the tsar's absolute p o w e r — n o t only to the sources of imperial p o w e r , but also to the way it was exercised. The people displayed their devotion to the monarchy not as they had under A l e x a n d e r II, in demonstrations of gratitude for benefactions bestowed on them. R a t h e r they showed that the forms of national consent were religious, d e m o n strated through the institutions of the church, in prayer: "the fervent prayers of a pious people known throughout the entire world for their love and devotion to their sovereigns." These prayers brought divine blessing on their sovereign. The manifesto replaced the early eighteenth century with a new founding period of Russian monarchy. Pobedonostsev wrote not of the Russian state or empire, but the "Russian land" ('zemlia russkaia'). The "Russian land" evoked a Slavophile picture of the unity of all estates in Russia, a single people, living in harmony with their tsar. The people in this way became inseparable f r o m an image of an original undifferentiated, abstraction of the land, uncorrupted by the institutions of the Russian state. The Russian land now had been disgraced by vile sedition, but "hereditary tsarist p o w e r " continued to enjoy the love of its subjects, and this power "in u n b r e a k a b l e . . . u n i o n with O u r land" had survived such troubles {smuty) in the past. The historical paradigm now shifts f r o m the legend of the calling of the Varangians to a picture of an idealized Muscovite state. The elevation and glorification of the monarch now take place by claiming to inhabit a n o t h e r time frame, when the tsar was in contact with the nation. The distance between the ruler and educated society was the distance between him and the manifestations of the fallen present that e n c u m b e r e d his power. A f t e r A l e x a n d e r I l l ' s death in 1894, Moskovskie Vedomosti described him as the initiator of a new period in Russian history, "the Russian period"; he was the "great moral gatherer of Russian land," placing him a m o n g the princes of Moscow. H e had restored "Russian autocracy," which had b e e n realized in Muscovy when the idea of autocracy

58 • Richard S.

Wortman

r e c e i v e d f r o m B y z a n t i u m had g a i n e d its distinctively Russian c h a r a c t e r . If the n a t i o n a l m y t h s o u g h t t o divest R u s s i a n a u t o c r a c y of its w e s t e r n t r a p p i n g s , it also a n n o u n c e d t h e s e p a r a t i o n f r o m its B y z a n t i n e origins, which h a d b e e n e m p h a s i z e d u n d e r N i c h o l a s I. 2 3 T h e s y n c h r o n i c m o d e c h a r a c t e r i s t i c of late n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y nationalist a n d racial i d e o l o g i e s r e p l a c e s the l i n e a r d e v e l o p m e n t of t h e P e t r i n e m y t h . T h e sync h r o n i c m o d e was p r o f o u n d l y a n t i - t r a d i t i o n a l , f o r it d i m i n i s h e d t h e h e r i t a g e of t h e e i g h t e e n t h a n d n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r i e s a n d d e l e g i t i m i z e d t h e legalistic b u r e a u cracy, t h e intelligentsia, a n d the d y n a m i c of r e f o r m that h a d r e a c h e d its c u l m i n a tion in t h e p r e v i o u s reign. It l o o k e d b a c k to a timeless heritage, u n t o u c h e d by historical c h a n g e . T h e R u s s i a n e m p e r o r m i g h t live in w e s t e r n - s t y l e palaces, c o n s o r t with w e s t e r n royalty, a n d s h a r e E u r o p e a n c u l t u r e , b u t these superficial o v e r l a y s c o n c e a l e d a n a t i o n a l s u b s t r a t u m ( u s t o i ) t h a t could be r e c o v e r e d t h r o u g h a r e s t o r ation of t h e e a r l i e r political a n d s p i r i t u a l o r d e r . T h e image of tsar a n d p e o p l e e x p r e s s e d t h e close cultural a n d even e t h n i c affinity that A l e x a n d e r III c l a i m e d with his subjects. A g a i n , t h e p e r s o n a of t h e e m p e r o r was displayed early in his reign, a n d in public c e r e m o n i a l

form.24

A l e x a n d e r III was p r e s e n t e d as " R u s s i a n t s a r " in t h e first m o n t h s of his reign. D e s p i t e his p a r e n t a g e , c u l t u r e a n d f r e q u e n t trips to D e n m a r k , he w a s e l e v a t e d as t h e e m b o d i m e n t of t h e n a t i o n . A l e x a n d e r ' s g r e a t size, his surly a n d u n c o u t h m a n ner, his i m p a t i e n c e with t h e niceties of society m a d e it possible t o p r e s e n t him as o n e alien to t h e e d u c a t e d elite, w h o s e c h a r a c t e r was close to t h e R u s s i a n

narod.

Most obviously, he was t h e first R u s s i a n m o n a r c h since the s e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y t o wear a beard. While wearing beards had become fashionable among the upper classes by t h e 1880s, a large red b e a r d o n t h e face of R u s s i a n m o n a r c h was a statem e n t of association with p r e - P e t r i n e Russia. T h e i m a g e of his massive figure in a R u s s i a n h a t a n d jack b o o t s w a s t h e antithesis of t h e f o r m e r sleek look of t h e g u a r d s ' regiments. It e v o k e d t h e i m a g e of t h e bogatyr',

t h e burly epic h e r o e s of

early Russia, a r e a f f i r m a t i o n of s t a t e p o w e r c o m i n g f r o m within, f r o m R u s s i a itself. T h e c h a n g e was d i s p l a y e d in a n e w look given to t h e military. S h o r t l y a f t e r his accession, A l e x a n d e r issued p e r m i s s i o n , which was t a k e n as an o r d e r , f o r g u a r d s officers to w e a r b e a r d s . ( G u a r d s m e n p r e v i o u s l y h a d b e e n a l l o w e d only a t w o finger-widths

u n s h a v e n strip o n t h e i r chins.) S o o n n e a r l y all g u a r d s officers

a p p e a r e d with b e a r d s , t h o u g h a f e w t h o u g h t t h a t this gave t h e m t h e l o o k of p e a s ants (omuzhlchanie). New Russian-style uniforms were introduced, including the high R u s s i a n b o o t s a n d f u r hats. A t t h e s a m e time, t h e g u a r d s , t h e p a r a g o n of P e t r i n e w e s t e r n i z a t i o n , w e r e s u r r o u n d e d by religious s y m b o l s of O l d R u s s i a . F o r t h e first t i m e b a n n e r s of t h e r e g i m e n t s w e r e e m b l a z o n e d with icons of t h e i r patron

saints. E i g h t - p o i n t e d

flagstaffs.25

Orthodox

crosses appeared

at t h e t o p of

the

V.I. G u r k o later w r o t e t h a t this f u s i o n of " m i l i t a r y a n d religious c e r e -

m o n i e s " p r o d u c e d a f e e l i n g of e l a t i o n , as t h e m o n a r c h b e c a m e t h e s y m b o l of t h e p e o p l e ' s might. Such c e r e m o n i e s , he w r o t e , " w e r e a d i s t i n g u i s h i n g f e a t u r e of t h e R u s s i a n c o u r t , which r e f l e c t e d t h e spirit of ' t h e a n c i e n t M u s c o v i t e E m p i r e ' p e r -

National Narratives • 59 r n e a t e d with religious and secular powers which complemented each other and f o r m e d one whole." 2 6 T h e representations of the monarchy now sought to detach the image of imperial Russia from St. Petersburg and locate it in a new image of Moscow. Symbolic M o s c o w did not encompass m o d e r n Moscow, the city of factories, the liberal intelligentsia and often fractious nobility. It was the Moscow of the Kremlin and Red S q u a r e , recalling an idealized past of spiritual unity between tsar and people and a devotion to the autocratic ruler unsullied by foreign doubts. In the summer of 1881, less than six months after his accession, Alexander unexpectedly announced hns desire to travel to Moscow. In the Kremlin he declared, "Moscow has always served as an example for all of Russia. I hope this will be true in the future. Moscow has attested and now attests that in Russia, Tsar and people compose o n e , concordant (edinodushnoe) strong whole." 2 7 Then, after a religious service, h e stepped out onto the Red Staircase to p e r f o r m the triple bow and to receive t h e acclaim of the crowd. A l e x a n d e r ' s coronation in 1883 confirmed his belief that he was returning Russia to its Muscovite roots. In a letter to the Empress on its first anniversary, he described the coronation as a "great event for us. A n d it proved to a surprised and morally corrupt E u r o p e that Russia is still the same holy, O r t h o d o x Russia as it was under the Muscovite tsars and, if G o d permits, as it will remain forever." 2 8 T h e new prominence of the O r t h o d o x Church showed the persistence of "holy. O r t h o d o x Russia." Under Pobedonostsev's direction the church supplanted the state as the principal national institution of the monarchy. The Holy Synod encouraged the spread of religious literature, the building of church schools, and t h e expansion of church construction. It permitted the spread of pastoral movem e n t s among the secular clergy. The spirit of Russia's religious past was recalled in great religious c o m m e m o r a t i o n s staged to show the autocracy's debt to O r t h o d o x y and the national following c o m m a n d e d by the church. 2 9 A new official national style of church architecture d e m o n s t r a t e d a return to an original Russian spirit. The government gave proof of the vitality of early Russia by building O r t h o d o x churches in Muscovite style. A l e x a n d e r himself wanted the Cathedral of the Resurrection to be built on the site of his f a t h e r ' s assassination in "the Russian style." Russian style meant for him not the Thon, Moscow-Byzantine style of the R e d e e m e r Cathedral but "the style of the times of Moscow tsars of the seventeenth century." By this Alexander meant the flamboyant forms of Vasilii the Blessed on Moscow's Red Square. The external devices— tent forms, the tracery, kokoshtiiki, and shirinki borrowed f r o m a great n u m b e r of seventeenth century churches in the Moscow-Iaroslavl style—are in great contrast with the more reserved and symmetrical forms of the R e d e e m e r Cathedral. Although the Resurrection Cathedral, usually called "the Savior on the Blood," was not consecrated until 1907, it provided the model for church design in the official Russian style after 1881. 30 A report Pobedonostsev wrote as Chief Procurator of the Synod in the 1890s asserted that Alexander himself reviewed pro-

60 • Richard S. Wortman jects for churches and "willingly approved those projects that reproduced the ancient tradition of Russian churches." 3 1 The evocation of Muscovy, couched in Slavophile rhetoric and images, distanced the person of the monarch not only from westernized educated society, but f r o m the institutions of the absolute state, encumbered by forms of European legality and institutional autonomy. For Alexander III and his advisors, the monarchy could regain its lost authority only by a signal rejection of more recent governing traditions, which had enervated and constrained the exercise of autocratic power. The Russian tsar now embodied not the existing state, but the nation, existing from distant times, and it was his personal authority, wielded with diminished regard for legal and bureaucratic formalities, that could bring about the spiritual union between tsar and people. The seventeenth century provided a paradigm for a state power of a different type, a government responsive to the monarch's will that could reunite an administration divided by considerations of legality and institutional autonomy. The manifesto of 29 April 1881 associated the origins of the Russian nation with the restoration of monarchical authority after the breakdown of the Time of Troubles. The "Voice of G o d " ("Glas Bozhii") had summoned the tsar "to turn vigorously to the task of Ruling, with hope in Divine Providence." H e would rule, he promised, "with faith in the force and truth of Autocratic power, which we have b e e n summoned to confirm and preserve for the people's welfare from all encroachments." The word bodro (vigorously) bespoke an assertion of energetic, ruthless authority, inspired by the faith in G o d and the prayers of the people. Bodro became a c o m m o n term in the rhetoric of conservative periodicals in the call for reaffirmation of autocratic power. Alexander's stern and brooding mien, his brusqueness and crudity, presented him as a model of that era, an incarnation of unyielding will and determination. H e sought to restore early Russian autocracy by making the spheres of government directly responsive to his wishes—police, finances, and foreign policy. These spheres would be directed by men completely loyal to him, those whom he regarded as truly Russian. The elite of the Russian monarchy now narrowed to those sharing the tsar's national vision, who were endowed with energy and shared Alexander's arrogance of u n t r a m m e l e d power. Together he and his servitors created an image of strength that exalted the Russian monarchy when the empire's international standing had declined, its finances were in disorder, and many high officials cherished a sense of legality that challenged the totality of autocratic rule. The anti-bureaucratic rhetoric that the Slavophiles had used to d e n o u n c e the entire state administration now served to discredit those parts of the government resistant to the personal power of the monarch, especially the State Council and the court system. The contrast with Nicholas I's official nationality doctrine, which validated the perfection and reinforcement of the existing administrative system, is clear. A n article in Moskovskie Vedomosti upon Alexander I l l ' s death remarked that the official nationality doctrine under Nicholas I remained some kind of

National Narratives • 61 " s t a t e patriotism" ( k a z e n n y i patriotizm) and "was not embodied in living phen o m e n a . " Nicholas I "was not yet conscious with full clarity of the complete sepa r a t i o n between Russia and E u r o p e by type, was not conscious of the complete distinction of Russian autocracy f r o m Western E u r o p e a n monarchism." 3 2 T h e model for Alexander I l l ' s national state was set forth in the pages of Russkii Vestnik by Mikail Katkov's protégé, the Simbirsk landlord, Alexander P a z u k h i n . Pazukhin evoked a seventeenth century Russian state based on close c o o p e r a t i o n between nobility and bureaucracy, where noblemen served as willing e x e c u t o r s rather than as independent citizens. For Pazukhin, the seventeenth century was a period of administrative consolidation and growing state power in Russia. The "land" (zemlia) comprised for him not a community of the people, as it had for the Slavophiles, but the "state ranks" (gosudarstvennye chiny). "The e s t a t e organization in the mind of the old Russian person was the g u a r a n t e e of o r d e r and tranquillity in the country." Peter was not the founder but the beneficiary of an estate system that he used to bring Russia closer to the West. 33 T h e Slavophile picture of the seventeenth century served to delegitimize the p o s t - r e f o r m state with its striving for legality and autonomy. Pazukhin's writings provided a historical paradigm for counter-reforms that aimed to extend the authority of the monarch through administrative institutions of the Ministry of Interior, to the local landed nobility, reconstituting the personal bond between t h e monarch and the estates that had presumably existed in seventeenth-century Russia. The national myth also provided a historical grounding for the enhancem e n t of the role of Russian religion and language in the governing of subject nationalities. It announced a break with the old model of a multinational elite—a g r o u p united by service to their sovereign and a common domination over subject nationalities, among whom the Russian people were exemplary in their devotion and subservience. Now the non-Russian elites could no longer be trusted. The national autocracy identified loyalty and administrative effectiveness with Russian ethnicity and Russian domination of other nationalities. In the western provvinces and Poland the new myth justified policies of Russification, while in Central Asia they provided a rationale for a Russian colonial administration ruling over subject nationalities. To be sure, few of these goals were realized during Alexander I l l ' s brief reign. Pobedonostev's schemes to reinvigorate the clergy as agents of national conscious f o u n d e r e d on his policies of central administrative control of the activities of the church. The counter-reforms were resisted and in many ways emasculated in the State Council. The Petrine state asserted itself in the persons of the liberal bureaucrats and noblemen from the reform era who continued to oppose changes in government particularly in the State Council and the Senate. E f f o r t s at Russification in most areas e n c o u n t e r e d practical obstacles in the local nobilities and administration and fell short of their original goals. In many areas they awakened the national consciousness and stimulated opposition among the subject nationalities.

62 • Richard S. Wortman The national myth continued to define the goals and to represent the symbolic reality of autocratic Russia after A l e x a n d e r ' s death in 1894. Nicholas II saw himself not as heroic westernized ruler, asserting his power through the Petrine state, but as exemplar of the nation, and unlike his father he did not envision a new administration or officials in the image of Pobedonostsev's ideal officials. Nicholas's distrust of governmental officials was visceral—more p r o f o u n d , all encompassing, and undifferentiated than his father's. In the first years of the twentieth century, the imperial Russian state came under challenge both from growing opposition movement d e m a n d i n g constitutional r e f o r m and a no less insurgent monarch, determined to create a form of personal rule that would express his direct bonds with the Russian people, the peasants. 3 4 Russian monarchical nationalism presented appeals to counter democratic ideologies, seeking to thwart the transition from dynastic to civic nationalism that had taken place in the West. National narratives first evoked a past that presented the westernized autocracy as the object of the Russian people's desire for strong authority imposed from above. Later, they emphasized the Russian character of the tsar, who restored strong autocratic rule based on an original unity between tsar and people that had been destroyed by western thought and culture. The image of national monarch sustained the mythical aura of the emperor. It helped preserve forms of mythical thinking that precluded any hint of dissent or politics that might mar the epic unity and silence of the myth by admitting negotiation and compromise. Monarchical nationalism in Russia proved a potent factor impeding the rise of a democratic nationalism that might unite state and society. This became clear after the Revolution of 1905, when efforts to work within the conservative f r a m e work of the Third and Fourth D u m a s e n c o u n t e r e d Nicholas II's stubborn distrust and resistance. The great historical celebrations that took place between 1909 and 1913, and especially the tercentenary celebrations of 1913, he believed, showed that the people were devoted to him and not to elective institutions. Civic or even ethnic concepts of the unity of the Russian nation could not be reconciled with a narrative that emphasized the historical bonds of the people with the monarch. The popular, conservative Russian nationalism that began to spread through m o d e r a t e society after the Revolution of 1905 appeared to Nicholas II as merely another threat to the unity of tsar and people contributing to division and strife in Russian society. O n the other hand, liberal thinkers and political leaders found it difficult to disengage concepts of nationality from the institution that represented a backward and oppressive order. The various groups in Russian society could find little grounds for unity on the eve of a massive war that d e m a n d e d the c o m m o n efforts f r o m a united nation.

Notes • 63

Notes This article is partially drawn from sections and materials in my study of Russian monarchy Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, vol. 1, From Peter the Great to the Death of Nicholas I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995), vol. 2, From Alexander 11 to the Abdication of Nicholas I (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000). 1 See Alain Guéry, "L'état monarchique et la construction de la nation française," Revue de la Bibliothèque Nationale 32 (Summer 1989): 6-17; Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, /707-1837 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992). This corresponds to the first type of nation building in Miroslav Hroch's model. Miroslav Hroch, "From National Movement to the Fully-Formed Nation: The Nation Building Process in Europe," in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds., Becoming National:A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 61. On Russia see Hans Rogger, "Nationalism and the State: A Russian Dilemma," Comparative Studies in Society and History 4 (1961-1962): 253-56; Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), xxiv, xxvi. 2 Etienne Balabar, "The Nation Form: History and Ideology," in Geoff Eley and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds., Becoming National: A Reader (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 133,140,143-44. 3 On the question of nationality see Nathaniel Knight, "Ethnicity, Nationality, and the Masses: Narodnost' and Modernity in Imperial Russia," in David L. Hoffman and Yanni Kotsonis, eds., Russian Modernity: Politics, Knowledge, Practices (Houndsmills: St. Martin's, 2000), 41-64. 4 This corresponds to the type of national myths imposed by authoritarian states, rather than those worked out through open processes of discussion. David Miller observes that the distortion of the truth in such cases may be blatant, particularly when it touches on the legitimacy of the ruler. David Miller, On Nationality (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995), 39. 5 N.K. Shil'der, Imperator Nikolai Pervyi: ego zhizn' i tsarstvovanie, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1903), 1:704-06. 6 See Scenarios of Power, 1: 290-92. 7 Ol'ga Maiorova, "Bessmertnyi Riurik: Prazdnovanie 'Tysiacheletiia Rossii' v 1862 ," Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 43, no. 3 (2000): 137. 8 M.P. Pogodin, Istoriko-kriticheskie otryvki (Moscow, 1846), 6-8; original emphasis. 9 Maiorova, "Bessmertnyi Riurik," 137-40. 10 On the idealistic and utilitarian grounds of Uvarov's slogan see Andrei Zorin, "Ideologiia 'Pravoslaviia-Samoderzhaviia-Narodnosti': Opyt rekonstruktsii," Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie 26 (1996): 86-87,92-101. 11 Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas 1 and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), passim. 12 Michael Cherniavsky, Tsar and People: Studies in Russian Myths (New York: Random House, 1969 [1961]), 86. 13 M.A. Korf, "Iz zapisok," Russkaia Starina 98 (1899): 373. 14 E.A. Borisova, Russkaia arkhitektura vtoroi poloviny XIX veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1979), 106-09; E. Kirichenko, Khram Khrista Spasitelia v Moskve (Moscow: Planeta, 1997), 61-63. 15 Nikolai Barsukov, Zhizn' i trudy M.P. Pogodina, 22 vols. (St. Petersburg: Tip. M.M. Stasiulevicha, 1898), 10: 234-35, 238. 16 Ibid., 10: 250-51. 17 On the meanings imputed to the wearing of beards among the Slavophiles, and the Slavophiles' responses see N.N. Mazur, "Delo o borode: Iz arkhiva Khomiakova: pis'mo o

64 • Richard

S.

Wortman

z a p r e s h c h e n i i n o s i t ' b o r o d u i r u s s k o e p l a t ' e . " Novoe 127-38.

lileraturnoe

obozrenie

6 (1993-1994):

18 M a r k Bassin, Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840-1865 ( C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1999), 12-13, 94-101; N a t h a n i e l K n i g h t , " N a r o d n o s t ' a n d M o d e r n i t y in I m p e r i a l R u s s i a , " 48-50; N a t h a n i e l Knight, " S c i e n c e , E m p i r e , a n d N a t i o n a l i t y : E t h n o g r a p h y in the R u s s i a n G e o g r a p h i c Society, 1844-1855," in J a n e B u r b a n k a n d D a v i d L. R a n s e l , eds., Imperial Russia: New Histories for the Empire ( B l o o m i n g t o n : I n d i a n a University Press, 1998), 108-42. 19 See Scenarios of Power, 2: 7 1 - 7 5 . 20 V.N. Tatishchev, Imperator Aleksandr 21 Polnoe 118.

Sobranie

Zakonov

Rossiiskoi

II, 2 vols. (St. P e t e r s b u r g , 1903), 1: 404. Imperii,

ser. 3, 45 vols. (St. P e t e r s b u r g , 1885), 1: no.

22 O. M a i o r o v a , " M i t r o p o l i t Moskovskii Filaret v o b s h c h e s t v e n n o m soznanii k o n t s a X I X veka," Lotmanovskii Sbornik ( M o s c o w : O.G.I., 1997), 2: 617. 23 S. Petrovskii, ed., Pamiati Imperatora 175,286. 24 See Scenarios of Power, 2: 204-06.

Aleksandra

III ( M o s c o w : Izd. S. P e t r o v s k a g o , 1894),

25 Ibid., 2 : 2 4 4 - 5 6 . 26 V.l. G u r k o , Features and Figures of the Past. Government and Opinion in the Reign of Nicholas II, J.E. Wallace Sterling, X e n i a J o u k o f f E u d i n and H. H. Fisher, eds.. trans. L a u r a M a t v e e v ( S t a n f o r d : S t a n f o r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1939), 340. 27 Vsemirnaia Illiustratsiia 656 (1881): 102. 28 G o s u d a r s t v e n n y i A r k h i v Rossiiskoi F e d e r a t s i i [ G A R F ] , f. 642. op. 1, d. 7 0 9 , 2 4 - 2 5 , letter of 16 May 1884. 29 S e v e n t e e n j u b i l e e c e l e b r a t i o n s m a r k e d g r e a t religious e v e n t s of Russia's past d u r i n g A l e x a n d e r ' s reign. T h e five-hundredth a n n i v e r s a r y of the Tikhvin M o t h e r - o f - G o d and the c e n t e n a r y of the d e a t h of T i k h o n Z a d o n s k i i t o o k place in 1883. T h e m i l l e n n i u m of Cyril a n d M e t h o d i u s f o l l o w e d in 1885, t h e n i n e - h u n d r e d t h a n n i v e r s a r y of the b a p t i s m of R u s ' in 1888, t h e fiftieth a n n i v e r s a r y of t h e union with the U n i a t e s of the N o r t h w e s t e r n region and the five-hundredth a n n i v e r s a r y of t h e d e a t h of Sergei of R a d o n e z h in 1892. See A . Iu. Polunov, Pod vlast'iu ober-prokurora: gosudarstvo i iserkov' v epokhu Aleksandra III ( M o s c o w : A I R O - X X , 1996); Scenarios of Power, 2: 239-44. 30 S c e n a r i o s of Power, 2: 2 4 4 - 5 6 . 31 Polunov, Pod vlast'iu ober-prokurora,16. 32 Petrovskii, Pamiati Imperatora Aleksandra

III, 2 8 8 - 8 9 .

33 A . D . P a z u k h i n , " S o v r e m e n n o e s o s t o i a n i e Rossii i soslovnyi vopros," Rtisskii Vestnik ( J a n u a r y 1885): 4 1 - 4 7 . A l f r e d J. R i e b e r has s u g g e s t e d that P a z h u k h i n ' s text m a y d a t e f r o m as early as 1881.This w o u l d i n d i c a t e t h a t his r h e t o r i c and historical i m a g e r y was r o o t e d in A l e x a n d e r ' s s c e n a r i o as it was p r e s e n t e d in t h e first years of the reign. See his Merchants and Entrepreneurs in Imperial Russia ( C h a p e l Hill: University of N o r t h C a r o l i n a Press, 1982), 95n. 34 See Scenarios

of Power, 2: c h a p . 11.

II IMPERIAL R U S S I A : A

MULTICULTURAL S O C I E T Y AND ITS BORDERLANDS

Precarious Existences: Middling Households in Moscow and the Fire of 1812 ALEXANDER M.

MARTIN

The news of the fire of Moscow struck us like lightning. It was fine for Pushkin to exclaim with poetic rapture, a dozen years later: 'Burn, great Moscow!' But the general feeling while it was burning, as far as I know, was not enthusiastic AT

KAROLINA

KARLOVNA

PAVLOVA1

The French historian Arlette Farge gave her book on the common people of eighteenth-century Paris the title Fragile Lives to suggest the precariousness that poverty, disease, and old-regime values and structures imparted to their daily existence. 2 In the case of Moscow, those gritty realities are sometimes hidden from posterity's view by the glitter of the aristocratic life depicted in Aleksandr Griboedov's Woe From Wit and Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace. This essay will explore one aspect of that "fragility": the efforts by Moscow's middling social groups to emulate the elite's way of life, and the disaster that befell those efforts in the 1812 war. Like other societies in the old-regime Atlantic world, imperial Russia was conceived as a hierarchy of estates, each of which was to have a distinct way of life. A development of fundamental importance in the eighteenth-century West was the growing porousness of socio-cultural boundaries, as intermediate social strata adopted cultural patterns traditionally characteristic of the elite. Increasingly, consumer behavior was driven by a quest for conspicuous refinement and improved physical well-being, dress habits reflected heightened concerns about comfort, hygiene, and fashion, and the secular literary high culture acquired a mass audience. In this context, historians have spoken of a "consumer revolution," a "vestimentary revolution," and a "reading revolution." 3 Collectively, these "revolutions" masked or blurred estate identities, subverted habits of austerity and asceticism, encouraged the idea that social status was a function of consumption and culture rather than lineage and occupation, and—by reducing the pressure on individuals to conform to traditional communal norms—facilitated social climbing and individual self-expression.

68 • Alexander

M. Martin

This process was underway in Russia as well. It aroused deep misgivings among the Russian elite and its foreign sympathizers, 4 but to the participants it held out the prospect of a life of greater ease, choice, and dignity. However, emancipation from the constraints of tradition rested on a fragile material base. In Moscow, that base was shattered for many by the cataclysmic events of 1812, which prompted an immense collective howl of pain that created the source base for this essay: the petitions for financial assistance after the Napoleonic occupation. That occupation lasted seven weeks, 2 September/7 October (old style), during which the city (which most of its inhabitants had abandoned in haste) was burned and sacked. As the population gradually r e t u r n e d to the charred remains of their homes and possessions, the government sought to provide relief. Muscovites were invited to inform the authorities of the property they had lost, and could qualify for assistance if they had been left destitute and had not, before the war, been beggars, drifters, or alcoholics. 5 They could also write directly to the E m p r e s s M o t h e r Mariia Fedorovna, the patroness of many charitable institutions and symbolic mother of the dynasty and the nation. 6 Three hundred seventy-six of these documents—full-text petitions, petitions summarized by officials, and appeals to Mariia Fedorovna, all of them written between 1812 and 1826—found their way, without c o m m e n t a r y or apparent order, into the first nine volumes of Petr I. Shchukin's d o c u m e n t collection Bumagi, otnosiashchiiasia do Otechestvennoi voiny 1812 goda. These petitions, which apparently have not been the object of systematic analysis before, provide a rare glimpse of life at the lower end of the propertied classes: low- and mid-level officials, merchants, clerics, and prosperous townspeople {meshchane).1 (The documents define social identity by service rank or estate status; this essay will do the same.) Unfortunately, their formats vary in ways that m a k e systematic statistical analysis difficult, especially since many favor an exclusively narrative approach. Furthermore, while the information they provide on immovable property (land and buildings) could be verified at the time against official records, claims about movable property (furniture, personal effects, cash, and so on) were often vague, generally unverifiable, and considered susceptible to error or fraud, so they were often ignored in the official summaries of petitions; besides, they never list small items that might reveal much about their o w n e r ' s personal habits and way of life, such as the utensils for shaving, writing, or cleaning. Lastly, the Shchukin volumes tend to reproduce the original petitions (complete with personal narratives and/or household inventories) for higher-status petitioners, but only brief official summaries of those filed by people of lower status, and the collection does not address at all the degree to which these petitions may have been representative of 1812 petitions in general. The present analysis recognizes the uncertainties and biases of the source base and t h e r e f o r e m a k e s n o claim to comprehensiveness or finality. However, it may perhaps c o n t r i b u t e a few pieces to the puzzle of Russia's part in the socio-cultural transformation of the Atlantic world in the A g e of Enlightenment.

Precarious Existences • 69 This essay will begin by discussing a provincial clergyman whose life is known to us in ways that clearly reveal the linkages between middling social status, a changing intellectual and material culture, and the evolution of m a n n e r s and behaviors. Subsequently, we will examine evidence that suggests analogous develo p m e n t s a m o n g petitioners from the Moscow parish clergy and meshchanstvo. Finally, the bulk of the essay will focus on the households of junior and middling officials, the social group most strongly represented among the petitioners. ^ ^

^

The f e r m e n t in Russian society a r o u n d 1800 reached d e e p into traditionally isolated and conservative milieus. An example of this p h e n o m e n o n is Father Ioann Martinov, the priest of a village 100 miles east of Moscow, whose way of life we know f r o m the memoirs of his son. 8 Father Ioann was a prosperous householder in a mostly cashless economy, where food was obtained from the family farm and the nearby woods, h o m e m a d e benches and tables served as furniture, and people ate with their fingers or with wooden spoons f r o m a common pot. Into this premodern world, Father Ioann introduced a new level of gentility. O n e of the t o p graduates of his seminary, he had earlier d r e a m e d of going to medical school and had read Voltaire. In many ways, he routinely defied village tradition: he scoffed at folk superstitions; he was sparing in his use of the cane; on his daughter's wedding night, he refused to let the guests inspect her shirt for proof of her virginity; and, appalled at the widespread overindulgence in the local homebrew, he b o u g h t and served tea instead. His wife, a literate woman of similar outlook, p r e f e r r e d contemporary urban styles of dress and commercially distributed cotton fabrics to traditional village costume and h o m e s p u n linen. For special occasions, the couple acquired chairs, pewter plates, and forks, and they allowed three of their grown sons—much-needed workers on the f a r m — t o leave h o m e forever in pursuit of a higher education in faraway St. Petersburg. The factors that motivated Father Ioann to m a k e these cultural efforts and financial sacrifices—the education that had b r o a d e n e d his intellectual horizons, his desire to emulate the gentility he observed a m o n g the nobles, and the o p p o r tunities m a d e available to consumers by his region's growing ties to domestic and world markets—were, of course, all the more powerfully at work in Moscow, Russia s largest city, the hub of its inland trade, and the gathering place for its nobility and merchantry. Evidence of this is contained in the fourteen petitions f r o m Father Ioann's c o u n t e r p a r t s in the Moscow parish clergy, five of w h o m mention books: three specify that their libraries were worth 150, 300, and 360 rubles (the latter representing 430 volumes) and explain that the books were in Greek.Latin, and Russian, i.e., the languages used in the church seminaries w h e r e a growing segment of the clergy was receiving a sophisticated education. (All prices snd incomes are in assignats.) O n e archpriest, Ivan Savel'ev, included a list of boocs that, along with writings of a religious nature, included the complete works Df Cicero, a French dictionary and grammar, and (apparently) Nikolai

70 • Alexander

M. Martin

Ivanovich Novikov's Drevniaia rossiiskaia vivliofika ('Ancient Russian library'). Of the five clerics who reported the value of their movable property, four gave estimates between 933 and 4,519 rubles, while the fifth reported 20,000 rubles. 9 The household of archpriest Timofei Iakovlev, worth 4,519 rubles, included 1,500 rubles worth of clothing, 1,055 rubles worth of linens, and 434 rubles worth of pots, pans, and dishes—the makings of the genteel lifestyle to which Father Ioann likewise aspired. 1 0 By comparison, for c o m m o n Russians untouched by the consumer, vestimentary, and reading "revolutions," a few hundred rubles was plenty to equip a comfortable household: a man could outfit himself in traditional garb at little expense, with a shirt ( r u b a k h a ) worth 1 ruble, boots worth 2 rubles, pants m a d e from coarse linen (kholst) worth 24 kopecks per arshin (28 inches), and a sheepskin coat (tulup) worth 20 rubles, while for transportation, a simple cart (telega) was worth 10 rubles. Most of this was h o m e m a d e and involved little cash expenditure. As for the cost of food in and a r o u n d Moscow, rye flour—the staple—cost 3 - 4 kopeks a pound, chickens were valued at 30 kopeks, and many houses had fruit orchards or vegetable gardens. 1 1 C o m p a r e d with those f r o m the clergy, the 42 petitions from meshchane offer fewer revealing details about their a u t h o r s ' material possessions, although we do gain a general impression f r o m the 26 who assessed the overall value of their movable property: nine (35 percent) r e p o r t e d 250-750 rubles, 13 (50 percent) rep o r t e d 1,000-5,000 rubles, and the r e m a i n i n g four (15 p e r c e n t ) r e p o r t e d 7,000-15,000 rubles; only five (13 percent) reported owning a house. A m o n g these dry and sketchy documents, the petition f r o m Semen Pavlov Kaftannikov stands out. All we learn about him personally is that he, his wife, and a young o r p h a n (Sergei Ivanov Lugovskii) who was their ward, rented an a p a r t m e n t in the house of a noble widow for 180 rubles a year. However, we are exceptionally well informed about the contents of their household. The Kaftannikovs owned 4,590 rubles worth of possessions, and young Lugovskii another 3,000 that may have represented his inheritance. O n e might expect a meshchanstvo household to exhibit signs of cultural traditionalism, and to a degree that is the case. Both K a f t a n n i kov's and Lugovskii's inventories begin by listing their icons, which r e p r e s e n t e d 15 percent of the entire household's value and emphasize the centrality of O r t h o d o x piety. By contrast, they refer only vaguely to "spiritual books and noteb o o k s " and m a k e no mention of a desk or of musical instruments, suggesting that reading, writing, and a refined cultivation of the arts had little importance for them. However, the silver spoons, forks, and knives, the tea cups, plates, and n a p kins—a dozen of each of these items—as well as the tablecloth, two silver salt shakers, three tea pots, four mahogany tables and twelve chairs, and so forth, indicate an aspiration to gentility in dining and hospitality. Mrs. Kaftannikova must have looked more stylish and affluent than the average meshchanka in her 700 rubles fur coat, five dresses of imported taffeta, calico, and chintz, and two muslin skirts, as did her husband in his fur coat, tailcoat, and pantaloons. The presence of a washstand and towel, two mirrors, and two handkerchiefs shows that a p p e a r a n c e and

Precarious Existences • 71 m a n n e r s were valued, while the clock on the wall suggests a modern, abstract s e n s e of time. Kaftannikova's undershirts, of which she owned a dozen (equal to only half the n u m b e r her social peers in Paris owned at the time, but enough to p e r m i t regular laundering), suggest a sensibility about cleanliness and personal m o d e s t y that was gaining ground in E u r o p e but that Western observers thought peculiarly lacking among the Russian common people. 1 2 The Kaftannikovs were o l d - f a s h i o n e d in storing their possessions in trunks, traditionally associated with t h e peripatetic existence of the poor, but young Lugovskii already owned a chest of drawers—typically a bulky, expensive piece of f u r n i t u r e that permitted the orderly arranging of many possessions and implied a more settled life of relative m a t e r i a l plenty. 1 3 Thus, in important ways, the household displayed characteristic f e a t u r e s of upwardly mobile middle strata in eighteenth-century Europe. 1 4 T h e same is true of Pavel Kharlamov A n a n ' i n , a serf who, with his mistress's c o n s e n t , worked as a cook in an aristocratic household. Although he assigned t h e m no monetary value, his petition indicates that, in addition to well over a d o z e n icons, he and his family owned ( a m o n g many other items) fashionable attire for adults and children (the latter a luxury, since the children would soon o u t g r o w it), the accoutrements for an elegant table, enough linens to allow freq u e n t laundering, and a modest library. 15 As with Kaftannikov, we lack c o m p a r a ble inventories from social peers to c o m p a r e with Anan'in's, and no doubt their cases were unusual. Nonetheless, both constitute evidence that elite material culture sometimes reached wider strata of society. This is also apparent in the petitions f r o m merchants (most of which, however, focus on their lost merchandise, not personal effects). This way of life must likewise have "trickled d o w n " to o t h e r g r o u p s that came into contact with elite material culture, including army veterans whom the army had accustomed to shaving and wearing uniforms, liveried house serfs, residents and employees of institutions that sought to inculcate "enlighte n e d " habits and values (the Foundlings Home, schools, hospitals, and so forth), subaltern government employees, and also through the trade in second-hand clothing and household items. *

*

*

The group most strongly identified with social mobility and cultural emulation, however, were officials in ranks X I V through VI: officers f r o m ensign to colonel, bureaucrats f r o m collegiate registrar (kollezhskii registrator) to collegiate councilor (kollezhskii sovetnik), and their widows, orphans, and unmarried daughters. Of the 217 petitions from ranked officials (which represented 58 percent of all the petitions), 194 come f r o m these ranks, which were divided into two categories— ober-officers ( X I V - I X , 137 petitions) and s/ifafe-officers ( V I I I - V I , 57 petitions). The numerical weight of these groups is a p p a r e n t when one considers the overall composition of the civilian bureaucracy, as shown in Table 5.1. 16 Ofter-officers increasingly formed the bulk of Russian officialdom; a r o u n d 1800, the average rank of officials was X. Mostly of c o m m o n origin, officials

72 • Alexander

M. Martin

TABLE THE COMPOSITION

Clerks (below X I V ) Mid-18 l h century

70%

Mid-19 l h century

26%

5.1

OF THE R U S S I A N

CIVILIAN

Ofter-officers (XIV-IX) 20%

60%

BUREAUCRACY

5/woft-officers

"Generals"

(V1II-VI)

(V-I)

8%

2%

11%

2%

Source: Boris N. Mironov, Sotsial'naia isloriia Rossii perioda imperii (XVIII-nachalo XX veka). Genezis lichnosli, demokraticheskoi sem'i, grazhdanskogo obshchestva i pravovogo gosudarstva, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg: Dmitrii Bulanin, 1999). 2: 207.

b e c a m e p e r s o n a l nobles at r a n k X I V a n d h e r e d i t a r y nobles at r a n k VIII (rank X I V in the army). T h e s e m e n were key figures in dealing with the general p o p u lation: thus, the officials of the district courts ( u e z d n y i sud) and rural police ( n i z h nii zemskii sud) held r a n k s X I V - V I I I , 1 7 a n d the police in each of M o s c o w ' s 20 w a r d s (chasti) was h e a d e d by a chastnyi pristav w h o usually held rank V I I , while the f o u r or five precincts ( k v a r t a l y ) that m a d e u p a ward were run by kvartal'nye nadzirateli, typically rank IX officials. While socially inferior to senior officials and aristocrats, they t o w e r e d a b o v e most of their compatriots, to w h o m their uniforms, titles, b u r e a u c r a t i c j a r g o n a n d p r o c e d u r e s , and b r u s q u e t o n e r e p r e s e n t e d the public face of imperial authority. T h e i r e c o n o m i c situation reflected this i n t e r m e d i a t e social s t a t u s . T h e i r salaries typically r a n g e d f r o m a b o u t 100 to 400 r u b l e s a year (for ober-officers), or 3 0 0 - 6 0 0 (for s/ifafr-officers), in the bureaucracy, and twice that in the army. By c o m p a r i s o n , the g o v e r n o r of M o s c o w P r o v i n c e e a r n e d 1,800 rubles, while a washe r w o m a n in a St. P e t e r s b u r g hospital e a r n e d 60. 1 8 Yet even the g o v e r n o r ' s salary was, in a way, m o d e s t — t h e f a t h e r of A l e k s a n d r Nikitenko, a m e r e serf, was paid 1,000 rubles a year plus housing and f o o d to be the steward of a wealthy n o b l e w o m a n ' s estate, a n d G e r m a n o b s e r v e r s d i s a g r e e d a b o u t w h e t h e r the 2,000 r u b l e s that Moscow University paid its ( f r e q u e n t l y G e r m a n ) p r o f e s s o r s was a d e q u a t e to s u p p o r t a r e s p e c t a b l e b o u r g e o i s h o u s e h o l d . 1 9 Evidently, an official's salary was not e x p e c t e d to cover most of a h o u s e h o l d ' s expenses, as the g o v e r n m e n t a c k n o w l e d g e d by o f f e r i n g g e n e r o u s f o o d a n d housing s u p p l e m e n t s to i m p o r t a n t officials (for instance, the Moscow g o v e r n o r received 2,400 r u b l e s in " t a b l e mon e y " ) , providing d o m e s t i c s for i m p e c u n i o u s a r m y officers, and s o m e t i m e s p e r m i t ting officials to live r e n t - f r e e at their place of work. 2 0 Of the p e t i t i o n s f r o m ober- and i/ztab-officers, s o m e indicate t h e value of b o t h m o v a b l e and i m m o v a b l e property, s o m e only o n e or the o t h e r , a n d many, n e i t h e r . Tables 5.2 and 5.3 s u m m a r i z e those n u m b e r s , b r o k e n down by o w n e r s h i p of m o v -

Precarious Existences • 73

TABLE

5.2

V A L U E O F I M M O V A B L E P R O P E R T Y FOR O B E R - A N D

SHTAB-OFFICERS

Total

Houses of

Houses

number

unknown

of known

in rubles (as % of all houses

value

of known value)

of houses value

Value of houses where known,

3,500-

Ober-officers

33 (24%

22 (66%

11 (33%

(137

of all

of all

of all

petitions)

petitions)

houses)

houses)

Shlab-

27 (47%

10 (37%

17 (63%

of all

officers (57 petitions)

of all

petitions)

houses)

of all

12,001

20,000

30,000-

12,000

19,999

30,000

60,000

5 (45%)

1 (9%)

5 (45%)

7 (41%)

1 (6%)

7(41%)

2 (12%)

houses)

TABLE

5.3

V A L U E OF M O V A B L E P R O P E R T Y FOR O B E R - A N D

SHTAB-OFFICERS

06er-officers ( X I V - I X )

Shtab-officers (VIII-VI)

Total of 137 petitions

Total of 57 petitions

Known value of

Owners

Not owners

Owners

Not owners

movable property,

of houses

of houses

of houses

of houses

in rubles (as % of all properties of known value) 350-800 r.

1 ( 5%)

13 (26%)

1.000-5,000 r.

6 (32%)

24 (48%)

2 (15%)

5 (33%)

5.001-15,000 r.

11 (58%)

9 (18%)

5 (38%)

4 (27%)

15.00:-30,000 r.

1 ( 5%)

3 ( 6%)

4 (31%)

3 (20%)

1 ( 2%)

2 (15%)

1 ( 7%)

Over 30,000 r.

2 (13%)

Total jf movable

19 (58% of

50 (48% of

14 (52% of

15 (50% of

properties of

all owners

all non-owners

all owners

all owners

knows value:

of houses)

of houses)

of houses)

of houses)

Total of movable

14 (42% of

54 (52% of

14 (52% of

15 (50% of

properties of

all owners

all non-owners

all owners

all non-owners

unkncwn value:

of houses)

of houses)

of houses)

of houses)

74 • Alexander

M. Martin

a b l e o r i m m o v a b l e p r o p e r t y ( t h e l a t t e r i n c l u d i n g p e t i t i o n e r s w h o lived with their parents). G i v e n t h e limited s o u r c e base, a n d with n o d a t a o n half the p e t i t i o n e r s , t h e p r e cision of t h e s e figures is of c o u r s e illusory. N o n e t h e l e s s , certain p a t t e r n s e m e r g e clearly. M o s t o w n e d m o r e t h a n o n e m i g h t e x p e c t in light of their salaries, a n d s/ziafe-officers w e r e w e a l t h i e r t h a n ober-officers. T h e salary d i f f e r e n c e s alone d o n o t s e e m q u i t e a d e q u a t e to explain this discrepancy, which also is not a f u n c t i o n of a g e d i f f e r e n c e s — t h e a v e r a g e age of p e t i t i o n e r s at each r a n k f r o m level X I V to V I r a n g e d f r o m 41 t o 53, b u t t h e r e is n o direct c o r r e l a t i o n b e t w e e n h i g h e r r a n k a n d m o r e a d v a n c e d age, p e r h a p s b e c a u s e m a n y p e t i t i o n e r s w e r e r e t i r e e s or t h e w i d o w s of d e c e a s e d officials, so we c a n n o t a s s u m e that the m o r e s e n i o r officials h a d simply h a d m o r e t i m e t o a c c u m u l a t e possessions. T h e key p r e d i c t o r of t h e v a l u e of o n e ' s m o v a b l e p r o p e r t y a p p e a r s to h a v e b e e n o w n e r s h i p of a h o u s e . For b o t h groups, h o m e v a l u e s a r e evenly d i v i d e d b e t w e e n t h e s a m e t w o c o n t r a s t i n g price r a n g e s ( 3 , 5 0 0 - 1 2 , 0 0 0 versus 20,000-30,000 rubles), b u t t h e shtab-officers

a r e twice as likely to o w n a h o u s e in t h e first place. O v e r a l l ,

t h e e c o n o m i c d i s p a r i t i e s within e a c h g r o u p a r e e n o r m o u s . A small h a n d f u l of p e t i t i o n e r s h a d f o r t u n e s in excess of 100,000 rubles, a n d it s e e m s likely t h a t o t h e r s w e r e similarly w e a l t h y b u t did n o t b o t h e r t o a p p l y f o r s t a t e assistance. By c o n t r a s t , m a n y o w n e d only a b o u t as m u c h (1,000-5,000 r u b l e s ) as did t h e typical meshchanstvo

p e t i t i o n e r . B e n e a t h t h a t level w e r e t h e p o o r officials w h o p o s s e s s e d

o n l y m o v a b l e p r o p e r t y w o r t h 3 0 0 - 8 0 0 rubles. U n f o r t u n a t e l y , their p e t i t i o n s p r o vide no detailed inventories, but Akakii Akakievich Bashmachkin, the t i t u l a r c o u n c i l o r ( r a n k IX) f r o m G o g o l ' s The Overcoat—a

fictional

m a n w h o s e f a n t a s i e s of

p r o s p e r i t y r e v o l v e a r o u n d t h e d r e a m of o w n i n g a new c o a t — m a y b e l o n g in this c a t e g o r y . A t t h e b o t t o m of t h e scale, finally, w e r e p e t i t i o n e r s w h o o w n e d a l m o s t n o t h i n g a n d w h o s e f e w m a t e r i a l p o s s e s s i o n s a r e n o t d e s c r i b e d in detail; that w a s a l s o t h e s i t u a t i o n of m o s t p e t i t i o n e r s w h o w e r e clerks, n o n - c o m m i s s i o n e d officers, o r soldiers. Thus, t h e s u m m a r y of r e t i r e d l i e u t e n a n t ( r a n k X I I I ) Il'ia K o t e l ' n i k o v ' s p e t i t i o n n o t e d simply t h a t " o w i n g to his i m p o v e r i s h e d state, he h a d n o loss of p r o p e r t y " in 1812. 21 V a r i o u s f a c t o r s a p p e a r t o h a v e c o n t r i b u t e d t o t h e s e discrepancies, a l t h o u g h t h e i r r e l a t i v e weight r e m a i n s unclear. A n official's c h a n c e s of r e a c h i n g a high r a n k w e r e p r e s u m a b l y r e l a t e d t o t h e social p r o m i n e n c e ( a n d h e n c e t h e w e a l t h ) of his family, so t h e shtab-officers

m a y h a v e c o m e f r o m families t h a t w e r e r i c h e r t o

b e g i n with t h a n t h o s e of ober-officers. F u r t h e r m o r e , e m p i r e - w i d e , o n e - t h i r d of r a n k e d officials c a m e f r o m n o b l e l a n d l o r d (pomeshchik)

families, 2 2 which sug-

g e s t s t h a t l a n d e d e s t a t e s m a y have c o n t r i b u t e d to the i n e q u a l i t y of o b s e r v e d in t h e petitions. H o w e v e r , m o r e t h a n half of all R u s s i a n

wealth

pomeshchiki

o w n e d o n l y 20 o r f e w e r m a l e " s o u l s " a n d h e n c e could e x p e c t n o m o r e t h a n a f e w h u n d r e d r u b l e s a n n u a l i n c o m e f r o m t h e i r e s t a t e s . 2 3 In any case, a m o n g the p e t i t i o n e r s , only f o u r ober- a n d eight shtab-officers—3

p e r c e n t a n d 14 p e r c e n t , r e s p e c -

tively, of t h e t w o c a t e g o r i e s — i n d i c a t e d t h a t t h e y or any relatives o w n e d or h a d

Precarious Existences • 75 ever owned peasant serfs, an important issue that the petitions were expected to a d d r e s s and that the authorities could verify; some others mentioned en passant that they owned a few house serfs. Income f r o m landed estates, while more prevalent in the higher ranks, therefore does not a p p e a r to have played a decisive financial role in the petitioners' lives. A n o t h e r source of income may have been the bribe-taking for which the bureaucracy and police were infamous and which likewise favored those in higher ranks. For instance, in a letter citing a host of details a n d witnesses, an outraged French widow n a m e d Madeleine Pierson reported in D e c e m b e r 1812 that Moscow police officers had groundlessly accused her of collaborating with the enemy during the occupation and illegally bullied her into surr e n d e r i n g 2,240 silver rubles (equivalent to about 10,000 rubles assignats). City Police Chief (oberpolitseimeister) Petr Alekseevich Ivashkin noted with apparent irritation that only 2,050 silver rubles (which he r e t u r n e d to Pierson) had actually reached his office. The rest, equal to the annual salary of two precinct police chiefs, 2 4 had somehow disappeared, and so he ordered the accused officer's superior to investigate. Summoned to the police station and confronted with the officer whom she had accused, however, Pierson reportedly recanted and declared that it had all been a misunderstanding, so the case was closed. Such incidents were probably commonplace, as Mar'ia Filippova. the widow of a ward police chief in rank VIII, obliquely confirmed by lamenting that "because he was a good m a n , " her husband "had not succeeded in acquiring a f o r t u n e " and therefore left her "in p o v e r t y " when he died. 2 5 A n o t h e r source of revenue was rental income, which additionally offered security in case of death, disability, or old age, and which of course saved homeowners the expense of paying rent to others. Rents varied greatly: in one case, a sacristan rented out a small room for 30 rubles a year; on the other hand, a substantial house—with twenty rooms, a stable, and a carriage shed—cost around 2,000 rubles a year. 2 6 Only seven ober- and three s/iiai>-officers explicitly mention renting out their house, but it was an option for any h o m e o w n e r . A m o n g the petitioners who were police officers in rank IX, the wealthiest was a mere scribe (pisar') who earned only 120 rubles at his job but owned an 8,000-ruble house that, by 1818, yielded 100 rubles income. In another case, a family had borrowed heavily after the war to build a house that yielded 900-1,000 rubles. Ensign (rank XIV) G o r iushkin received an invalid's pension of only 36 rubles to support himself, his wife, and their young daughter, but they made a comfortable living from their 25,000ruble house. 2 7 Renting out one's house a p p e a r s to have been particularly common among the parish clergy, since they had low incomes but were allotted land by the church; of the 14 petitions from this group, five indicate that they had rented out all or part of their homes. These houses, worth 2,500-5,000 rubles, were probably fairly modest, but they rented for 150-500 rubles a year, as much as most officers' annual salary. 28 Money-lending is an option m e n t i o n e d by five officials. For example, the young o r p h a n Mar'ia Ivanova Voronina (rank IX) inherited 5,900 rubles that had been loaned to individuals; in just one year (1815), she earned 332.50

76 • Alexander M. Martin rubles on 1,500 rubles worth of these loans, i.e., an interest rate in excess of 20 percent. 2 9 Similarly, the rank XIV widow Nastas'ia Osipova Ivanova supported herself, her young daughter, and her elderly m o t h e r with the interest from her 4,000 rubles in loans. To achieve any degree of affluence, an official or his family thus usually had to b e c o m e a rentier. For most petitioners, this involved not the "aristocratic" path of owning serfs, but rather the "bourgeois" approach of lending money and investing in real estate. 3 0 However, since this strategy presupposed the wherewithal for the initial investment, it tended to magnify the discrepancies between haves and have-nots among officials with similar ranks and salaries. O t h e r ways to increase one's income could include work by other family members and support f r o m more distant relatives. However, almost none of the petitioners (who, of course, were trying to show that they were destitute) lived in households where both fathers and sons were gainfully employed. Wives and daughters—about half the petitioners were widows or unmarried women—worked for an income only as a last resort if there was no male breadwinner, evidently because of the visible downward social mobility this represented; a few specified that they m a d e clothing or practiced "handicrafts," but most only described their activities vaguely as "labor." 3 1 Lastly, inheritance probably played a significant role in allowing families to accumulate money and possessions. The pressure to adopt an upper-class lifestyle was strong among officials. To begin with the obvious, every official needed a uniform, usually dark green, that could not be made f r o m homespun linen and was of sufficiently complex design to require the services of a tailor. That made it expensive: in one case, the uniform of a rank X official was estimated to be worth 100 rubles, 32 p e r h a p s half the m a n ' s annual salary. To protect him from the cold, he would also need a cloth overcoat that might cost a n o t h e r 50-100 rubles, while fur coats cost anywhere f r o m 150 to 1,500 rubles. His wife required clothing of similar quality. A dress m a d e f r o m chintz might cost a r o u n d 25 rubles, but then, chintz only cost about 2 rubles p e r arshin; more elegant fabrics cost more—prices varied greatly, with petitioners reporting that calico cost 3.50 rubles, satin and cambric 5 - 8 rubles, velvet 12 rubles, and muslin 25 rubles per arshin. Unlike peasants, m e n and w o m e n of t h e higher classes were expected in addition to wear white linen shirts priced a r o u n d 10 rubles, as well as socks and stockings; unlike outer garments, these n e e d e d to be washed regularly, which meant, aside f r o m the labor involved, that one n e e d ed to own an a d e q u a t e supply. Horse-drawn vehicles likewise varied in price b u t were generally expensive: while a peasant telega might cost only 10 rubles, a Moscow cartwright's petition lists droshkies worth 110,130,200,350,450,650,800, and 1,000 rubles, 3 3 and Moscow's climate called for a sleigh in addition. It was costly in any case to appear more genteel than the c o m m o n masses; t h e broad range of qualities and prices of luxury items made for intense competition within the "respectable" classes as well, but it also allowed individuals of limited m e a n s to make powerful social statements by acquiring a few expensive, d r a m a t ic items. As elsewhere in E u r o p e , it seems that the growing interest in fashion w a s

Precarious Existences • 77 associated with a sartorial gender gap—in one petition, the husband's wardrobe is valued at only 40 percent of his wife's, in a n o t h e r at a mere 9 percent, and the s a m e g e n d e r gap is apparent in the households of archpriestTimofei Iakovlev and t h e meshchanin Semen Kaftannikov, two petitioners whom we discussed earlier. 3 4 This may reflect, in part, the success of uniforms in redirecting men's status competition away from the pursuit of conspicuous vestimentary consumption, whereas early a t t e m p t s to do the same for w o m e n , by requiring them to wear dresses m o d e l e d on their husbands' uniforms, were soon abandoned. 3 5 Instead, the E u r o p e a n - w i d e tendency prevailed that a woman's clothing served as a showcase f o r her h u s b a n d ' s wealth. An external appearance that exuded wealth and refinement was a wise investm e n t . Sixty percent of Moscow's pre-1812 population consisted of serfs or state peasants, while at the same time the city had a tiny but conspicuous population of extravagantly rich aristocrats. Since social status and official rank regulated many aspects of social interactions—e.g., how o n e was addressed in public or was treated by the police or by the servants of powerful lords—it was desirable to place oneself symbolically on the side of the aristocrats, not the commoners. F u r t h e r m o r e , in a city where genuinely public spaces were scarce, the contexts in which "society" amused itself and where struggling officials could pursue the career, patronage, and matrimonial strategies vital to their futures—balls at the noble assembly, promenading on the boulevard, evenings at the theater, the famous " o p e n tables" of the elite—were d o m i n a t e d by aristocrats and often took place at their city mansions or suburban estates. Fortunately, upper-class Moscow was f a m o u s for its lavish hospitality. As m e n t i o n e d earlier, the governor had a " t a b l e " budget of 2,400 rubles. Tat'iana Ivanova Mansurova, whose father had been an army major (rank VIII), furnished her two houses—which, taken together, had 23 rooms and which she rented out for a handsome 3,600 rubles a year— with 18 tables, eight card tables, five couches, and 140 chairs, which suggests that she expected her tenants to entertain many guests. Nikanor Egorov Vinogradov (by far the richest of the rank VIII petitioners, with property worth almost 165,000 rubles), reported having 16 card tables and 206 chairs in his house, in addition to 168 teacups, 240 porcelain plates, and 240 crystal wine glasses, while rank IV official Sergei Mikhailov Vlasov r e p o r t e d the loss of 3,000 bottles of C h a m p a g n e , Burgundy, and other expensive wines totaling 20,000 rubles. 3 6 Such hospitality must have mitigated the poverty of many lower-ranking officials, but appropriate dress was of course a sine qua non. So was transportation. For example, Natal'ia A n d r e e v a Iakimova, daughter of a deceased rank X official, wrote that she had been left "utterly destitute" by the war. The graduate of a respected imperial boarding school, she most likely had the polish and social graces required for escaping poverty by finding patrons and p e r h a p s a husband, but such strategies must have been severely h a m p e r e d by the fact that she apparently owned no carriage. As a result, unless she paid for a cab, the young woman's round trip f r o m her h o m e at the Donskoi Monastery to the theaters or soirées in

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d o w n t o w n M o s c o w w o u l d have b e e n a five-mile walk down dimly lit nighttime streets that w e r e d e s e r t e d by all but the most w r e t c h e d , crisscrossed by the speeding carriages of t h e rich, a n d icy and wind-swept during the nobility's winter social season. 3 7 ( W h e n G o g o l ' s A k a k i i A k a k i e v i c h r e t u r n s on foot f r o m an evening with friends, he is p r o m p t l y m u g g e d . ) T h e petitions also give us s o m e sense of their a u t h o r s ' private relationship to the world of culture, even in cases w h e r e we h a v e n o c o m p l e t e h o u s e h o l d inventories. P e t i t i o n e r s s o m e t i m e s p r o v i d e d a brief list of possessions they evidently d e e m e d especially valuable or i m p o r t a n t . T h e s e lists occur m o r e f r e q u e n t l y as b o t h the r a n k of the p e t i t i o n e r a n d the overall value of the possessions rise. Interestingly, half of the twelve such lists f r o m ober-otficers include icons, usually at the h e a d of t h e list, w h e r e a s n o n e of the d o z e n f r o m sftiafr-officers do. O n the o t h e r h a n d , t h e s/ifab-officers twice m e n t i o n b o o k s a n d musical instruments, while the ober-officers n e v e r do. This m a y not reflect a f u n d a m e n t a l d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n the t w o g r o u p s ' p o s s e s s i o n s — c o m p l e t e i n v e n t o r i e s f r o m shtab-oihceT h o u s e h o l d s d o include i c o n s — b u t for l o w e r - r a n k i n g officials w h o were less extensively socialized into elite culture, icons evidently h a d g r e a t e r symbolic i m p o r t a n c e (as they did for m e r c h a n t s a n d meshchane) relative to books. A certain d e t a c h m e n t f r o m the high c u l t u r e of Russia's " G o l d e n A g e " w o u l d not be surprising in light of the costs involved. Giving o n e ' s children a sophisticated e d u c a t i o n was expensive: a f o r e i g n t u t o r cost over 1,000 r u b l e s a year, a n d even in provincial P e n z a , a year at a pansion cost 100-150 r u b l e s tuition, plus a n o t h e r 150 f o r r o o m and b o a r d . 3 8 T h e a t e r tickets (which s t a r t e d a r o u n d o n e r u b l e ) w e r e a f f o r d a b l e , but buying b o o k s — t h o u g h p e r h a p s not b o r r o w i n g t h e m — was o f t e n a luxury: for instance, bibliophiles in 1802 could buy the w o r k s of N i k o lai Mikhailovich K a r a m z i n f o r prices r a n g i n g f r o m 60 k o p e k s to 9.10 r u b l e s ( f o r all six v o l u m e s of Pis'ma russkogo puteshestvennika ( ' L e t t e r s of a Russian travele r ' ) , a n d a y e a r ' s subscription to K a r a m z i n ' s Vestnik Evropy ( ' E u r o p e a n m e s s e n g e r ' ) cost 12 rubles. K e e p i n g a b r e a s t of the latest fashions f r o m E u r o p e t h r o u g h the Journal des dames et des modes de Paris cost 57 rubles annually. K a r a m z i n ' s j o u r n a l o f f e r e d a p e r h a p s unwitting c o m m e n t a r y on the e c o n o m i c status of its r e a d e r s w h e n , in a solicitation for d o n a t i o n s to a school w h e r e e d u c a t i n g a s t u d e n t cost 150 r u b l e s a year, it a s k e d , " W h a t o t h e r p l e a s u r e can we buy so c h e a p l y ? " 3 9 T h e e n j o y m e n t of b o o k s a n d t h e a t e r m a y also have been a f f e c t e d by p o o r eyesight. M o r e o r less p r o f e s s i o n a l eye care was a v a i l a b l e — a n 1820s M o s c o w g u i d e b o o k listed five opticians a n d o n e " e y e o p e r a t o r " 4 0 — b u t despite s o m e p e t i t i o n e r s ' i n a d e q u a t e vision ( i n v o k e d by several to explain their inability to work), 4 1 only one, the hugely wealthy N i k a n o r Vinogradov, m e n t i o n e d o w n i n g eyeglasses ( w o r t h 25 r u b l e s ) . G i v e n t h a t o t h e r p e t i t i o n e r s r e p o r t e d that they h a d lost p r o missory notes, jewelry, p a t e n t s of nobility, 4 2 and o t h e r easily p o r t a b l e items of great value d u r i n g the N a p o l e o n i c o c c u p a t i o n , it seems unlikely t h a t they h a d all r e m e m b e r e d to t a k e their r e a d i n g glasses with t h e m when they fled M o s c o w . I n s t e a d , in a society w h e r e spectacles w e r e expensive and wearing t h e m in p u b l i c

Precarious Existences • 79 was d e e m e d foppish and vaguely insolent, 4 3 it seems likely that corrective lenses lay b e y o n d the cultural horizons and financial means of many petitioners, who instead went about in a p e r m a n e n t fog. Here, both the "consumer revolution" and t h e " r e a d i n g revolution" may have reached their limits. For most of the petitioners, the effects of the N a p o l e o n i c occupation were shattering. T h e lost clothing, china, furniture, and so forth were irreplaceable tokens of m e m b e r s h i p in the privileged class, and often included the valuable linens and o t h e r items that, accumulated over many years, f o r m e d the trousseau without which o n e ' s daughters had little hope of finding a husband. 4 4 The blow was even h a r s h e r if the loss of one's house had removed a vital source of income, had added rent p a y m e n t s to the b u r d e n s on a household's already strained budget, and—in a cruelly ironic twist—destroyed the collateral required for the government loan n e e d e d to rebuild one's life. Petitioners who had invested their savings by loaning t h e m to others o f t e n found that their debtors were now b a n k r u p t or the promissory notes were gone, yet the petitioners themselves still had to repay their own o u t s t a n d i n g debts. To complete the disaster, the p r e m a t u r e death or disability of m a n y a breadwinner eliminated even the small salary he had received. Previously p r o s p e r o u s families found themselves reduced to abject poverty; thus, Nikanor Vinogradov, owner of a lavish household worth almost 165,000 rubles, lost everything and wrote bitterly that "were it not for the little assistance we receive from charitable and sympathetic people," his family would be forced to go begging. 4 5 This sense of hopelessness is echoed in the petitions' alternately stoic, pleading, or despairing appeals for cash assistance, for help in recovering lost possessions, for a pension, or for one's children to be admitted f r e e of charge to an imperial b o a r d i n g school. A m o n g those who never got back on their feet were retired captain (rank IX) Petr A n d r e e v Baskov and his wife Katerina. H e had served in the cavalry for 22 years b e f o r e retiring in 1795. W h e n they lost 8,000 rubles worth of possessions in 1812, he petitioned for relief but received none. H e tried, he later wrote, to get a j o b "in the water-transport d e p a r t m e n t , the liquor d e p a r t m e n t , and t h e postal d e p a r t m e n t , but received rejections everywhere." In 1818, his wife was g r a n t e d 200 rubles in state assistance, but that was not nearly enough to remedy the situation. The elderly couple ended up in the town of Zaraisk, 90 miles f r o m Moscow, where "I now live like a p a u p e r and have to m a k e the rounds of people's houses each day to beg for alms," as did his wife, while the local elite refused to take them u n d e r their wing "even t h o u g h I have a certificate of discharge [stating] that I always served honorably, and even now I live h o n o r a b l y despite my poverty." Finally, in h o p e f u l anticipation of the 1826 coronation of Nicholas I, "I have c o m e to Moscow like a p a u p e r " ("all my clothing is falling off my shoulders," he explained, "it is that t h r e a d b a r e " ) " t o petition the Lord E m p e r o r , but they would not allow a poor man like me petition him." C r u s h e d , he wrote to E m p r e s s M o t h e r Mariia Fedorovna, begging her for a few rubles so he could go h o m e to Zaraisk. Alternatively, he a d d e d , could she not arrange for

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h i m — t h e t s a r ' s l o y a l o f f i c e r a n d g e n t l e m a n — t o b e h i r e d as a s i m p l e w a t c h m a n (strazh)

a t t h e F o u n d l i n g s H o m e ? S y m p a t h e t i c , b u t p r o b a b l y o v e r w h e l m e d by

t h e c o n t i n u i n g flood of p e t i t i o n s , t h e m o t h e r of t h e d y n a s t y m e r e l y n o t e d at t h e b o t t o m of t h e p a g e t h a t t h e g o v e r n o r of M o s c o w " s h o u l d p l e a s e w h e t h e r a s s i s t a n c e is r e q u i r e d . "

investigate

46

*

*

*

T h i s e s s a y h a s s u g g e s t e d t h a t b y 1812 a s u b s t a n t i a l i n t e r m e d i a t e social s t r a t u m , h i g h l y d i v e r s e in legal s t a t u s a n d e c o n o m i c c o n d i t i o n , h a d a b s o r b e d a s p e c t s of a p a n - E u r o p e a n , m i d d l e - c l a s s w a y of life. T h e i r s h a r e d m a t e r i a l c u l t u r e t e n d e d t o b l u r t h e b o u n d a r i e s s e p a r a t i n g t h e s e g r o u p s f r o m e a c h o t h e r a n d f r o m t h e elites, and reflected the conspicuous c o n s u m p t i o n and socio-cultural emulation that we c o n v e n t i o n a l l y a s s o c i a t e w i t h a m o d e r n m i d d l e class. So f a r . t h e h i s t o r i o g r a p h y of e a r l y n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y R u s s i a h a s f o c u s e d p r i n c i p a l l y o n its elites, t h e s t a t e , a n d t h e p e a s a n t r y , b u t p e r h a p s f u t u r e r e s e a r c h will s h e d light o n t h e m i d d l e g r o u p s as well a n d t h e r e b y r e p l a c e i m p e r i a l R u s s i a i n t o t h e w i d e r A t l a n t i c c o n t e x t of t h e s h i f t f r o m a n o b l e - d o m i n a t e d s o c i e t y of o r d e r s t o w a r d a b o u r g e o i s - d o m i n a t e d s o c i e t y of classes. T h e p o l a r i t i e s t h a t d e f i n e o u r c o n v e n t i o n a l u n d e r s t a n d i n g of pre-reform Russia—"society" (obshchestvo) versus "the p e o p l e " (narod), weste r n i z a t i o n v e r s u s n a t i o n a l t r a d i t i o n , a n d s o f o r t h — m a y b e in n e e d of r e v i s i o n t o a c c o m m o d a t e t h e r o l e of i n t e r m e d i a t e g r o u p s w h o s e e x p e r i e n c e a l l o w e d e l e m e n t s of e l i t e m a t e r i a l c u l t u r e a n d e v e r y d a y b e h a v i o r s a n d m a n n e r s t o s p r e a d t o w i d e r social s t r a t a . If t h a t is i n d e e d t h e c a s e , i m p e r i a l R u s s i a m a y h a v e b e e n a m o r e " n o r m a l " E u r o p e a n society than scholars have traditionally imagined.

Notes The research for this essay was made possible in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. I thank Boris Gorshkov, Michael Melancon, and John Steinberg for their insightful comments on this essay. 1 K.K. Pavlova, "Moi vospominaniia," Russkii Arkhiv 4, no. 10 (1875): 222-40, 224. 2 Ariette Farge, Fragile Lives : Violence, Power and Solidarity in Eighteenth-Century Paris, trans. Carol Shelton (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). 3 Jack P. Greene, Pursuits of Happiness: The Social Development of Early Modern British Colonies and the Formation of American Culture (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 108-13; Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution ( N e w York: Vintage Books, 1991), 34-36, 136-37, 347-69; Daniel Roche, La Culture des apparences. Une histoire du vêtement (XVIl'XVIII' siècle) (Paris: Fayard, 1989), 13-14, 479-82; Richard van Dülmen, Kultur und Alltag in der Frühen Neuzeit, 2d ed., 3 vols. (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1999), 2: 188, 3: 241; see also the essays in Hans Erich Bödeker, ed., Lesekulturen im 18. Jahrhundert, Interdisziplinäre Halbjahresschrift zur Erforschung des 18. Jahrhunderts und seiner Wirkungsgeschichte 6, no. 1 (Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1991). 4 Ruskoi vestnik (June 1811), 76-86; Emile Dupré de Saint-Maure, L'Hermite en cited in Le Voyage en Russie. Anthologie des voyageurs français aux XVIIIe " XIXe

Russie, siècles,

Notes

• 81

e d . C l a u d e d e G r è v e (Paris: R o b e r t L a f f o n t , 1990), 9 3 4 - 3 5 : E n g e l b e r t W i c h e l h a u s e n , Züge zu einem Gemähide von Moskwa ( B e r l i n : Bei J o h a n n D a n i e l S a n d e r , 1803), 3 2 7 - 2 8 : H e i n r i c h S t o r c h , Cemaehlde von St. Petersburg, 2 vols. ( R i g a : Bei J o h a n n Friedrich H a r t k n o c h . 1794), 2:389-90. do otechestvennoi voiny 1812 goda, 10 5 P e t r I. S h c h u k i n , ed., Bumagi, otnosiashchiiasia vols. ( M o s c o w : T o v a r i s h c h e s t v o tipografii A . I. M a m o n t o v a , 1897-1905), 1: 125, 2: 155, 6: 74-76,81-88. 6 R i c h a r d S. W o r t m a n , Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, 2 vols. ( P r i n c e t o n : P r i n c e t o n U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1995,2000), 1 : 2 5 0 - 5 4 . 7 T h e 376 p e t i t i o n e r s a r e identified as: h o l d e r s of r a n k s X 1 V - I (217), n o n - c o m m i s s i o n e d o f f i c e r s and clerks (14), soldiers (11), meshchane (42), m e r c h a n t s (40), white and black clergy (15), and v a r i o u s o t h e r g r o u p s (37). Russia in the Age of Enlightenment: The Memoir of a 8 D m i t r i i I. Rostislavov. Provincial Priest's Son. trans., ed., a n d with an i n t r o d u c t i o n by A l e x a n d e r M. M a r t i n ( D e K a l b : N o r t h e r n Illinois U n i v e r s i t y Press, 2002). 9 S h c h u k i n , Bumagi, 2: 142-44 ( A . Ivanov, G. Vasil'ev), 2: 159-60 (P. Ivanov), 2: 166-67 ( S a v e l ' e v ) . 3: 9 9 - 1 0 1 ( I a k o v l e v ) , 5: 2 0 0 - 0 1 ( K o b r o n o v a ) . 10 Ibid., 3: 99-101. 11 Ibid., 1: 2 5 - 3 6 , 2 : 1 6 1 ( M u s i n a - P u s h k i n a ) , 202 ( V i n o g r a d o v ) , 5: 8 8 - 9 2 ( M a n s u r o v a ) . 12 R o c h e , La Culture des apparences, 164; M a r i e - D a n i e l d e C o r b é r o n , Un diplomate français à la cour de Catherine II (1775-1780) and J e a n - B a p t i s t e May, Saint-Pétersbourg et la Russie en 1829, cited in Le Voyage en Russie, 950-54. 13 D a n i e l R o c h e , Le Peuple de Paris. Essai sur la culture populaire au XVIIIe siècle, 2d e d . (Paris: F a y a r d , 1998), 200-05. 14 R o c h e , La Culture des apparences, 110-13; S h c h u k i n , Bumagi, 6: 2 3 - 2 6 . 15 Ibid., 6: 3 0 - 3 3 . 16 B o r i s N. M i r o n o v , Sotsial'naia istoriia Rossii perioda Imperii (XVIII-nachalo XX veka.). Genezis lichnosti, demokraticheskoi sem 7, grazhdanskogo obshchestva i pravovogo gosudarstva, 2 vols. (St. P e t e r s b u r g : D m i t r i i B u l a n i n , 1999): 2: 207. 17 Rossiiskaia Imperiia razdelennaia v gubernii v 1796 i 1797 godakh. Prezhde byvshie staty gubernskie, koi nyne peremeneny. 1776 do 1796 ( U n d a t e d p r i n t e d d o c u m e n t , e v i d e n t l y f r o m the 1790s, w i t h o u t p a g i n a t i o n or publishing i n f o r m a t i o n ) . 18 H e i n r i c h S t o r c h , Rußland unter Alexander dem Ersten, 9 vols. (St. P e t e r s b u r g , Leipzig: Bei J o h a n n Friedrich H a r t k n o c h , 1804-08), 3: 92; S h c h u k i n , Bumagi, 5: 207 ( S h i k h l a r e v a ) ; H e i n r i c h v o n R e i m e r s , St. Petersburg am Ende seines ersten Jahrhunderts, 2 vols. (St. P e t e r s b u r g , Penig: Bei F. D i e n e m a n n , 1805), 2 : 1 4 1 . 19 A l e k s a n d r N i k i t e n k o , Up From Serfdom: My Childhood and Youth in Russia, 1804-1824, trans. H e l e n Saltz J a c o b s o n ( N e w H a v e n , L o n d o n : Yale U n i v e r s i t y Press, 2001), 54; G e o r g R e i n b e c k , Flüchtige Bemerkungen auf einer Reise von St. Petersburg über Moskwa, Grodno, Warschau, Breslau nach Deutschland im Jahre 1805,2 vols. (Leipzig: Bei Wilhelm R e i n , 1806), 1: 296-306; J o h a n n R i c h t e r , Russische Miszellen, 3 vols. (Leipzig: Bei J o h a n n Friedrich H a r t k n o c h , 1803-04), 2, no. 5: 2 1 1 - 1 4 . 20 R e i m e r s , St. Petersburg, 1: 296; S t o r c h , Rußland,

2 : 1 3 9 , 1 4 1 ^ 1 7 , 2 1 1 - 1 4 , 2 1 7 - 1 8 ; R e i n b e c k , Flüchtige 3: 9 2 , 9 : 12-13.

21 S h c h u k i n , Bumagi, 7: 124. 22 Mironov, Sotsial'naia istoriia

Rossii, 2: 200.

23 J e r o m e B l u m , Lord and Peasant in Russia From the Ninth ( P r i n c e t o n : P r i n c e t o n U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1961), 368. 24 S h c h u k i n , Bumagi,

5: 2 1 4 , 9 : 113 ( S h t e n d e r ) .

25 Ibid., 7: 9 8 - 1 0 2 , 1 1 7 - 1 8 , 1 2 4 .

Bemerkungen,

to the Nineteenth

Century

8 2 • Alexander

M.

Martin

26 " I m p e r a t o r s k i i M o s k o v s k i i u n i v e r s i t e t v v o s p o m i n a n i i a k h M i k h a i l a P r o k h o r o v i c h a Tret ' i a k o v a . " Russkaia Starina 75 ( J u l y - S e p t e m b e r 1892): 104-131, 124; Friedrich R a u p a c h , Reise von St. Petersburg nach dem Gesundbrunnen zu Lipezk am Don. Nebst einem Beitrage zur Charakteristik der Russen ( B r e s l a u : Bei Wilhelm G o t t l i e b K o r n , 1809), 8 9 - 9 0 . 27 S h c h u k i n , Bumagi, 2: 206 ( B u r a v o v a ) , 3 : 6 3 ( A n d r e e v a ) , 5: 2 1 4 , 9 : 112 ( G a l d a n o v a ) , 5 : 2 1 5 , 7:115 (Nefed'eva). 28 Ibid., 2: 142-44 (G. Vasil'ev, A . I v a n o v ) , 159-60 (P. Ivanov), 3: 151 ( I v a n o v a ) , 5: 188-89 (I. Vasil'ev). 29 Ibid., 4: 257-59. 30 Ibid.,3:

149 ( N e f i m o n o v ) , 5: 185-86 (N. I v a n o v a ) .

31 For e x a m p l e : Ibid., 7: 118 ( K a r t e i ' ) , 9: 1 1 2 - 1 3 ( E . I v a n o v a , B e k l e m i s h e v a ) . 32 Ibid.,2: 146 ( C h u m i c h e v a ) . 33 Ibid., 6: 2 6 - 2 8 ( S u r k o v o - A r b a t s k i e ) . 34 Ibid., 2: 178-202 ( V i n o g r a d o v ) , 161-62 ( M u s i n a P u s h k i n a ) . 35 L e o n i d E . Shepelev, Chinovnyi mir Rossii. XVIlI-nachalo XX v. (St. P e t e r s b u r g : IskusstvoSPb, 1999), 203. 36 S h c h u k i n , Bumagi, 1: 156,2: 1 7 8 - 2 0 2 , 5 : 8 8 - 9 2 . 37 Ibid., 5:205, 9:99-100 ( I a k i m o v a ) ; see also S i m o n e D e l a t t r e , Les Douze heures noires. La nuit ä Paris au XIX'siede (Paris: A l b i n Michel, 2000), 7 9 - 9 1 , 1 4 5 . 38 S t o r c h , Rußland, 2: 1 6 8 - 6 9 , 4 : 130; R a u p a c h , 2 5 8 - 6 1 . 39 Vestnik Evropy 1, no. 4 ( F e b r u a r y 1802): 103-04; 6, no. 23 ( D e c e m b e r 1802): 229; 8, no. 8 ( A p r i l 1803): 325; R i c h t e r , Russische Miszellen 3, no. 7: 161-72. 40 A l e k s a n d r Kuznetsov, Almanakh na 1826 dlia priezzhaiushchikh v Moskvu i dlia samikh zhitelei sei stolitsy, Hi Noveishii ukazatel' Moskvy ( M o s c o w : V Tipografii Avgusta S e m e n a . pri I m p e r a t o r s k o i M e d i k o - K h i r u r g i c h e s k o i A k a d e m i i , 1825), 66, 7 5 - 7 6 . 41 S h c h u k i n , Bumagi, 2: 213 ( P e l e v i n a ) , 7: 113 ( S a k h a r o v a ) , 119 ( M a r ' i a n o v a ) . 42 For e x a m p l e : Ibid.,2: 151-52 (Savin), 3: 66 ( M a k a r o v , A . l a k o v l e v ) . 43 Iurii M. L o t m a n . Besedy o russkoi kul'ture. Byt i traditsii russkogo (XVIII-nachalo XIX veka) (St. P e t e r s b u r g : I s k u s s t v o - S P B , 1994), 129. 44 For e x a m p l e : S h c h u k i n , Bumagi, 5:200-01 ( K o b r o n o v a ) . 45 Ibid.,2:179. 46 Ibid., 5: 203, 6: 9 7 - 9 8 .

dvorianstva

The Rise of Male Secondary Education in Provincial Russia: D.A. Tolstoy's Ministry Revisited MARINA

LOSKOUTOVA

The social history of education has been for many years a rather neglected field of research. When professional historians did turn to the field of education, their attention has been usually directed to state policy. In this respect, Russian, Soviet and American scholarship displayed a remarkable similarity, despite their theoretical and methodological frameworks. American studies of Russian education, beginning in the 1960s and through the last decade, commonly adopted a master narrative of the struggle between Russian society and the authoritarian state where the forces were manifestly unequal and the state was always allowed to win. 1 Soviet historians, although ascribing the primary role to socio-economic processes, in their detailed archival research were still mainly interested in exploring the policy of the government, 2 which was implicitly presented, in both Soviet and American research, as coherent and possessing limitless resources and room for maneuver. Studied through the prism of legislation, the history of education has been almost invariably written as the story of drafting new statutes, reform projects, and the struggles over them in upper government circles. This familiar narrative acquired an additional dimension in the last two decades, when nineteenth-century Russian history has been often uncritically used to provide straightforward justifications and explanatory models for an understanding of current events. Perhaps one of the most pervasive of these models, which gained tremendous popularity in the time of perestroika and has retained its strength up to the present day, is the narrative of reforms versus counter-reforms. Applied to education, this narrative framework portrays the decade of liberal reforms of the late 1850s—early 1860s as the golden age of Russian education, in the nineteenth century at least. Indeed, it was in that period when Russian faculty and students achieved a considerable degree of academic freedom under the new university statute of 1863. Newly created zemstvos and city dumas, as institutions of local self-administration, were empowered to support and partially control elementary and post-elementary education, a new system of supervision over primary school was established to boost the development

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of this long neglected field, women's education was actively p r o m o t e d and finally, secondary schooling was r e f o r m e d in order to make room in its curriculum for the natural sciences and m o d e r n technology. Progressive reforms, however, were rapidly aborted after the Polish uprising of 1863 and Karakozov's attempted assassination of the tsar in 1866. According to a well-established tradition stretching back to the nineteenth century, the Ministry of D.A. Tolstoy, who presided over educational affairs of the Russian E m p i r e from 1866 to 1880, is considered an early manifestation of a counter-reform policy of the autocratic government, a policy that engulfed all o t h e r spheres of administration in the 1880s. 3 For D.A. Tolstoy and his advisors secondary education was evidently the key sector that had to be restructured. The new secondary school statutes of 1871-1872 considerably strengthened the position of the curriculum based on Latin and Greek at the expense of the natural sciences and restored centralized control over the school administration, including the imposition of uniform study programs and textbooks. The behavior of teachers and students and their extramural activities were subjected to rigid disciplinary regulations. These statutes were enacted with a fierce struggle between D.A. Tolstoy and the champions of real—that is m o d e r n as opposed to classical—education in the State Council. Understandably, the details of this opposition were in the focus of attention for nineteenth-century publicists and latter-day historians. The tsar's e n d o r s e m e n t of the statutes was thus the end of the story: any further discussion of the curriculum was precluded at least for the time being and the Ministry was f r e e to implement the policy, whose principles had been already clear from the normative acts. As contemporary observers and latter-day historians concentrated on the classicalreal controversy, a massive expansion of the secondary school sector that occurred precisely in the 1870s passed almost unnoticed. The scale of growth, particularly in the sector of men's secondary education, was in fact unprecedented for nineteenth-century Russia. During the Ministry of D.A. Tolstoy the n u m b e r of men's secondary schools in the E u r o p e a n part of the empire (without Poland and Finland) rose f r o m 94 to 238. 4 A n average annual increase of the student body in the whole imperial territory was approximately 520-530 students in 1833-1843, 220-230 in 1843-1853, 860 in 1853-1863,1.700 in 1863-1873, 5,000 in 1873-1877, reaching more than 6000 students per a n n u m in 1878-1882. A rapid increase in the student population was halted in t h e mid1880s, when the n u m b e r of schools stabilized; respective figures for s t u d e n t s were falling at a rate of about 3,800-3,900 students per annum in the period of 1883-1888. The student population began growing again only in the very last decade of the nineteenth century, remaining, however, still less p r o n o u n c e d than in thel870s (2,800 average increase per annum). It was only in the first d e c a d e s of the twentieth century that men's secondary education underwent a new wave of rapid expansion. 5 The actual importance of this statistical data can only be properly u n d e r s t o o d if o n e turns f r o m the conventional approach concerning ideology and politics to

Male Secondary Education • 85 the much b r o a d e r issues of the role of education in the making of modern society. Unlike education in its most general sense, the spread of formal schooling that targeted a broad stratum of the population is considered to be a feature of modernity. If in the medieval and early m o d e r n periods learning was associated with specialized forms of clerical, legal and crafts training that affected only very narrow strata of the population, the national educational systems that emerged in the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth century b e c a m e an integral part of the state apparatus. These educational systems imposed national and religious uniformity, instilled moral discipline and rationality, and transformed the political and economic creeds of the dominant classes into the consensual "wisdom" of the society as a whole. 6 Applying Gramscian and Foucauldian models to the social history of education in Western E u r o p e and North America, some recent research even establishes a link between the new educational practices and a general shift in the technologies of governing the population that occurred at the end of the eighteenth and beginning of the nineteenth centuries. The government, which had been previously directed at the land or territory, now focused upon the population itself; new technologies of power were aimed at making the behavior of individuals, social groups and institutions increasingly more visible to the state authorities. The emergence of the interrelated system of schools, school administration and control is seen then as a part of this more general process. 7 The latter approach in particular accentuates the spatial dimension of social change. Indeed, as the state increasingly penetrated the local level, no place could be allowed to escape from control and supervision. The regulatory authorities of various kinds m a p p e d their success developing institutional networks. The very concept of a network is based on a premise that the influence of a given institution—be it a school, a library, or a health center—was to be spread evenly across the population. The concept became so familiar and self-evident that contemporary scholars rarely view it historically, tacitly assuming that it had been ready available for the educational authorities at least from the time when the Ministry of Public Education was created in the first decade of the nineteenth century. Perhaps for that reason n u m e r o u s studies on the history of education in late imperial Russia paid little attention to its geography. However to identify and m a p numerous secondary schools, which were opened in the 1870s, would be only the first stage of such research. In order to understand emerging patterns one would need to know the entire decision-making process behind the opening of a new school. It is this task that I u n d e r t a k e in this article. The state of archival materials, unfortunately, imposed its own limitations upon the scope of research. D o c u m e n t a t i o n on the establishment of new secondary schools with classical curricula—gymnasia or pro-gymnasia (i.e., an incomplete gymnasium without several finishing forms)—is scattered across a vast n u m b e r of files in the collection of the Ministry of Public Education, demanding a substantial amount of time to locate and examine. The haphazard location of the documents is revealing in itself: the Ministry apparently did not have a coherent vision

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as to where new school should have been created, processing each case individually. Unlike pro-gymnasia, most realschulen (i.e., secondary schools with a modern curriculum) were o p e n e d in a relatively brief period of time, from 1872 when the respective statute defining this institution was enacted, to 1878 when the Balkan War imposed severe constrains on the state budget. Perhaps for this reason the fate of the ministerial correspondence on the opening of realschulen was different and the bulk of d o c u m e n t a t i o n went to several separate files for respective educational circuits. 8 T h e r e f o r e I was able to obtain detailed information only on the latter institutions. U p to the 1860s-1870s, men's gymnasia in Russian heartland provinces were restricted almost exclusively to the main provincial centers, where they had been founded in the first few decades of the nineteenth century. The secondary school reform of 1864, which was so much lauded for the boost it gave to the modern curriculum, produced in fact little impact upon the school network, since it merely converted a n u m b e r of pre-existing secondary schools into real gymnasia (i.e., schools that taught natural sciences instead of Latin and Greek) and no new establishments were opened. 9 The situation was somewhat different in western Ukrainian, Belorussian, Lithuanian, and Baltic provinces where quite an impressive n u m b e r of secondary schools had been in operation outside of the central provincial cities. Many of these schools date back to the eighteenth or even seventeenth centuries, being initially affiliated with Catholic or Protestant churches and monastic orders. 1 0 In the late 1860s in the aftermath of the Polish uprising, the number of schools in the western provinces actually decreased, as the imperial government closed down some of them, such as the gymnasia in Keidany and Ponevezh, the pro-gymnasium in Svisloch, schools for noblemen in Vitebsk and Mogilev. Many others were converted into post-elementary district schools. A similar fate awaited so-called schools for noblemen that existed in the western Ukrainian provinces. In 1868-1869 they passed through a similar transformation: the best of them, located in Kiev, Zlatopole and Ostrog, were converted into regular gymnasia, while the other five schools were simply closed down. 1 1 The gap between the western provinces and the heartland Russian provinces became less pronounced, and in the 1870s the situation was completely reversed in favor of the center. As the Ministry of Public Education had only limited means for initiating reform, it had f r o m the start to acknowledge the right of private individuals, estates, churches, zemstvos and municipalities to participate in establishing and supporting secondary schools. Thus the statutes of 1871-1872 left considerable room for local bodies to play an active role in founding new educational institutions, while leaving the Ministry with the last word in deciding whether a given locality would be assigned a school or not. Besides, the Ministry had to decide where to open the first few realschulen financed by the State Treasury. The correspondence between the central apparatus of the Ministry in St. Petersburg and the administration of educational circuits reveals that, by the time the statute on realschulen was endorsed by Alexander II, the Ministry did not

Male Secondary Education • 87 have a clear perspective on the location of these schools. From the 1864 reform the Ministry had inherited a n u m b e r of so-called real gymnasia, most of which were situated in the western provinces. In 1872-1873, they were reorganized into realschulen.^2 In doing so the Ministry evidently thought that the d e m a n d for real e d u c a t i o n would be reasonably met in the region without opening any such new institutions supported by the State Treasury. Solving the problem for the western provinces, the Ministry still had to decide where to open the state-funded realschulen on the remaining territories of Russia. In June 1872 the Ministry asked the heads of the educational circuits to submit their opinion on the issue. A s the Ministry was most interested in procuring supp l e m e n t a r y financial support f r o m local sources, the curators of the circuits were also asked to consult with the governors of their respective provinces, marshals of nobility, city dumas and zemstvo executive boards. 1 3 Characteristically, the circuit curators in their replies to the Ministry did not come up with any general strategy concerning the issue, merely restating the opinions given by gymnasium headmasters and school inspectors on individual localities. 14 A s a result, by the late a u t u m n of 1872 the Ministry was only able to work out a list of places where it proposed to o p e n those realschulen that were supported mainly by the State Treasury, failing to formulate any general strategy concerning the issue. In the absence of a general plan of development, the fate of individual localities d e p e n d e d mainly on the initiative and material resources of city municipalities and zemstvos. If in theory the statutes of 1871-1872 envisaged a situation when educational institutions could be opened and supported by various voluntary organizations, estates, churches and private individuals, in practice it was only the zemstvos and city dumas that actively participated in establishing new schools. 15 For realschulen I was able not only to m a p the location of the establishments, but also to trace the fate of those initiatives that were turned down by the Ministry. Characteristically, among all the petitions for opening a new realschule that I was able to locate, only three came from the western provinces, where no zemstvo institutions were created under the legislation of 1864. 16 Indeed, the very geography of the petitions supports the argument that, without these structures of self-administration created in the G r e a t Reforms era, local societies had been unable to organize themselves and—even more importantly—to raise necessary funding. As the marshal of the Mogilev nobility stressed in his letter to the Ministry, local landowners were sympathetic to the establishment of a realschule but were deprived of an opportunity to help "because of the absence of both zemstvo institutions and assemblies of nobility." 17 Thus, very few secondary schools were opened in that period in the western provinces: from the middle decades of the nineteenth century the region lost its advantage over the Russian heartland provinces. In the zemstvo provinces, most realschulen were o p e n e d in the major provincial centers, while smaller district towns were m o r e likely to establish a pro-gymnasium. Such a pattern, however, was not the result of a conscious plan. Several

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factors, in my view, contributed to this particular configuration of a secondary school network. First, if the Ministry did not have a clear policy on where to o p e n new realschulen, it did have its own sense of priorities: it strongly favored a classical curriculum. D.A. Tolstoy and his advisors evidently realized that not all students aspiring to a secondary education would be able for various reasons to complete the course of a gymnasium. A n d yet, the primary concern of the Ministry under D.A.Tolstoy was to secure the position of classical schooling. In the 1870s the leading experts on the issue in the Ministry were still not certain w h e t h e r a given gymnasium would be able to enroll sufficient number of applicants to function properly. They were also afraid of, from their point of view, unnecessary competition for students between gymnasia and realschulen. The Ministry under D.A. Tolstoy evidently found it desirable that those students who opted for a secondary education at least started in a school with a classical curriculum. Characteristically, in trying to find ways to cut down the secondary school budget, the Ministry designed two different schemes for a realschule and for a gymnasium. The gymnasium statute of 1871 allowed the opening of a pro-gymnasium—a school with the same curriculum as a full gymnasium but consisting only of four or six junior forms. A similar clause was included in the 1872 statute on realschulen, the only difference was that a realschule, if necessary, could consist only of two, three, four, or five senior forms. Such a structure meant that before admission into a realschul a student had to complete a program for the missing one, two, three or four years. If parents, local zemstvos and ultimately the Ministry itself held the view that it was possible to p r e p a r e a student for entering the second form directly at h o m e or at a district school ( u e z d n o e uchilishche), then the only place to complete the program over the next two or three years (as was necessary if the realschule consisted only of two classes) was in a gymnasium or pro-gymnasium. 1 8 This provision alone—when it was properly explained to a local society interested in establishing a secondary school—could p r o m p t it to decide in favor of a pro-gymnasium. Second, a realschule, even without its lower forms, was still m o r e expensive to o p e r a t e than a pro-gymnasium, and the Ministry often reminded local bodies of this simple fact, particularly when it expected them to supply the larger share of the school budget. For that reason, few zemstvos and city dumas of a district level could realistically hope to raise sufficient f u n d s for a realschule if the Ministry refused to cover most part of a school budget. As a result, most realschulen were o p e n e d in the m a j o r provincial centers where local bodies had considerably m o r e resources to support them. The geographical distribution of the new schools, as well as examined petitions for the opening of a realschule across G r e a t Russian, eastern Ukrainian, a n d the southern and eastern provinces was also uneven. Most active were the zemstvos and cities of the central industrial and central agricultural regions, three Ukrainian provinces on the left bank of D n e p r and the Black Sea coastal area. Evidently the

Male Secondary Education • 89 high population density and the prefisence of the zemstvo institutions were two m a j o r factors that accounted for the general configuration of the school network. However, a careful examination of the location of the schools established in that period suggests that some other factors might have also been significant. I n d e e d , most cities and towns that petitioned for the opening of a realschule were located along the railroads. It is worth r e m e m b e r i n g that the period of the late 1860s and the first half of the 1870s was a time of large-scale railroad construction that affected precisely the center of the empire. The major lines, such as Moscow-Yaroslavl-Vologda, Moscow-Tambov, Tambov-Saratov, Moscow-Brest, K i e v - B r e s t , Kursk-Kiev, Kursk-Kharkov, K h a r k o v - O d e s s a , K h a r k o v - R o s t o v , Voronezh-Rostov, R i g a - S m o l e n s k - O r e l - E l e t s - G r i a z i , and V i a z ' m a - K a l u g a - T u l a - M o r s h a n s k - P e n z a - S y z r a n , were all c o m p l e t e d in t h e period b e t w e e n 1868-1875. 1 9 Many applications for a realschule came from places that were at the same time the sites of active railroad construction. Such a correlation is particularly p r o n o u n c e d in the case of small district towns of the central agricultural region and central industrial regions. In fact, a n u m b e r of petitions specifically stressed that a given city or town had or would soon have excellent communication facilities that would enable a school to enroll students from other localities— a weighty argument for ministerial officials. Railroads hastened local initiative by creating a d e m a n d for trained personnel, but also in a more subtle way by stirring new expectations and bringing a sense of modernity into the stagnant waters of provincial life—a motif appearing in some petitions. 2 0 The concentration of the landowner nobility in the belt of provinces running f r o m Kovno and Vilno to Mogilev, Smolensk, Chernigov, to Poltava, Kharkov, Kursk. Orel and Riazan' 2 1 might also be considered as an explanatory factor for the presence or absence of local initiative. Indeed, if such provinces as Penza, Simbirsk or even Tambov were ostensibly less developed in terms of the density of a school network as c o m p a r e d to the equally heavily populated Orel and Poltava provinces, it might have b e e n because these f o r m e r provinces lacked the people who would be most interested in securing secondary school provisions for their children and who had a greater leverage in the decision-making process during the allocation of zemstvo or municipal resources. Many petitions indeed emphasized the educational needs of this particular social stratum. 2 2 Sparsely populated provinces of the n o r t h e r n part of Russia submitted rather few applications. As very few schools subordinated to the Ministry of Public Education were opened in these provinces outside of provincial centers, church schools or seminaries were the most available educational institutions of a secondary level in the districts. 23 What impact this pattern had on the local population still remains to be explored. It is quite remarkable, however, that the petitions from small, r e m o t e towns of the Russian north and northeast were a m o n g the few that displayed a trace of active involvement, not only of local zemstvo or city duma but also of ordinary townspeople, some of whom identified themselves as stna 1 merchants or meshchane. They might have organized subscriptions to

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raise m o n e y f o r t h e s c h o o l , o r t h e y just c o l l e c t e d the s i g n a t u r e s of t h e p e o p l e i n t e r e s t e d in t h e o p e n i n g of t h e i n s t i t u t i o n . In d o i n g so they w e r e e v i d e n t l y motiv a t e d by a sense t h a t w i t h o u t t h e i r active e f f o r t s t h e g o v e r n m e n t w o u l d hardly r e m e m b e r their G o d - f o r s a k e n place. 2 4 Similar p e t i t i o n s w e r e also r e c e i v e d by t h e Ministry f r o m t h e w e s t e r n p r o vinces w h e r e t h e initiative e v i d e n t l y b e l o n g e d t o t h e Jewish c o m m u n i t i e s . 2 5 T h e p r e s e n c e of e t h n i c m i n o r i t i e s is visible in a f e w o t h e r cases, such as t h e G e r m a n L u t h e r a n p a r i s h society in S a r a t o v 2 6 o r t h e A r m e n i a n c o m m u n i t i e s in N a k h i c h e v a n 2 7 a n d A s t r a k h a n . 2 8 In t h e s e cases t h e societies t o o k care to p r o v i d e a p p r o p r i a t e religious and l a n g u a g e i n s t r u c t i o n f o r t h e children on an o p t i o n a l basis, the costs b e i n g c o v e r e d by t h e local b o d i e s i n v o l v e d . W h e t h e r a p a r t i c u l a r a p p l i c a t i o n s u c c e e d e d or failed d e p e n d e d o n a c o m b i n a tion of factors, b u t first a n d f o r e m o s t was t h e i m m e d i a t e availability of m a t e r i a l r e s o u r c e s . 2 9 Local bodies, with very f e w exceptions, w e r e n o t able t o raise sufficient a m o u n t s of m o n e y to s u p p o r t a s c h o o l entirely on their o w n w i t h o u t the h e l p of t h e S t a t e Treasury. Thus, t h e f a t e of a given e d u c a t i o n a l e s t a b l i s h m e n t was d e c i d e d in t h e p r o c e s s of e x h a u s t i n g n e g o t i a t i o n s b e t w e e n t h e M i n i s t r y a n d t h e local b o d i e s with r e g a r d s to their s h a r e of t h e school f u n d i n g . T h e first issue was t o find s u i t a b l e h o u s i n g f o r the school; m a n y cities simply l a c k e d any building t h a t could b e easily c o n v e r t e d f o r this p u r p o s e . I n d e e d , e d u c a t i o n a l institutions, e v e n at t h e s e c o n d a r y level, w e r e materially d e p r i v e d in midn i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y R u s s i a . E v e n in t h e i m p e r i a l capital, several g y m n a s i a f o u n d ed in t h e 1860s a n d early

1870s h a d t o b e l o c a t e d for d e c a d e s in

rented

a p a r t m e n t s , which did n o t allow sufficient s p a c e f o r t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t of a library, l a b o r a t o r i e s , a n d a r e c r e a t i o n hall. 3 0 T h a t is why, w h e n the M i n i s t r y b e g a n c o n s i d e r i n g t h e location f o r t h e first s t a t e - f u n d e d realschulen,

t h e circuit c u r a t o r s

w e r e specifically i n s t r u c t e d t o p a y p a r t i c u l a r a t t e n t i o n to the availability of h o u s ing in t h o s e localities t h a t t h e y r e c o m m e n d e d . In this early stage m u c h d e p e n d e d o n t h e ability of t h e local f o r c e s t o seize t h e initiative. T h o s e cities t h a t w e r e e a g e r t o p r o v i d e t h e b u i l d i n g a n d at least a m o d e s t financial c o n t r i b u t i o n — n o t e v e n o n a p e r m a n e n t b a s i s — c o u l d b e fairly s e c u r e in their h o p e s of o b t a i n i n g a

realschule.

L a t e r , w h e n t h e S t a t e C o u n c i l a p p r o v e d t h e Ministry's plan f o r w h e r e t o o p e n s t a t e - f i n a n c e d realschulen—the

p l a n t h a t w a s b a s e d o n t h e r e c o m m e n d a t i o n s of

t h e c u r a t o r s of t h e e d u c a t i o n a l circuits a n d t h o s e very first p e t i t i o n s t h a t a r r i v e d at t h e Ministry d u r i n g t h e s u m m e r a n d e a r l y a u t u m n of 1872—it b e c a m e m u c h m o r e difficult f o r an a p p l i c a t i o n to s u c c e e d . N o w a provincial s o c i e t y h a d t o p r o c u r e f u n d i n g f o r t h e realschule

t h a t w o u l d c o v e r at least p a r t of t h e e x p e n s e s

r e l a t e d t o its e s t a b l i s h m e n t a n d a n n u a l b u d g e t . It was p a r t i c u l a r l y d i f f i c u l t t o o b t a i n p e r m i s s i o n t o o p e n a s c h o o l if a n o t h e r realschule

had already b e e n open-

e d , o r w a s going to b e o p e n e d , in t h e s a m e p r o v i n c e . In t h e s e c a s e s t h e M i n i s t r y w a s d e t e r m i n e d n o t to s p e n d m o r e r e s o u r c e s o n real e d u c a t i o n in t h e a r e a , r e q u e s t i n g e v e n relatively small district t o w n s t o p r o v i d e all s u p p o r t — a c o n d i t i o n t h a t m o s t of t h e m c o u l d n o t realistically h o p e to m e e t .

Male Secondary Education • 91 In 1876 when the prospect of a new war in the Balkans became evident to the g o v e r n m e n t , the Ministry of Education started to turn down applications for o p e n i n g new schools because the Ministry of Finance refused to provide extra f u n d i n g . In 1877 the Ministry a p p r o v e d only a few of the incoming applications for a realschul. In all those cases, local bodies o f f e r e d considerable financial contributions, but the fate of those petitions remained uncertain up to the last m o m e n t . 3 1 Thus, the period of energetic establishment of realschulen was practically over in 1877, and the next wave of massive secondary school openings started only in the first decades of the twentieth century. To establish a men's secondary school, the local community had to decide u p o n its curriculum, or rather to choose between two available types—classical or real. W h e n the Ministry began to set up the first few realschulen it was quite willing to respect the wishes of local communities. However, when a n u m b e r of t h e m had b e e n already opened, and the Ministry began to regard the future of real education as secured, it often started to express its doubts concerning the need to have a school with a modern curriculum. O n many occasions, it attempted to force zemstvos and city municipalities to reconsider their petition and opt for a pro-gymnasium. Facing pressure from the Ministry, many provincial societies quickly aband o n e d their initial proposals and agreed to support a pro-gymnasium, as they had indeed very little understanding of the differences between various types of postelementary and secondary schooling. Their confusion was undoubtedly aggravated when in 1872 the Ministry also p r o c e e d e d to reform district schools—educational institutions of post-elementary level created in the early years of the nineteenth century. Indeed, not only many zemstvos and city dumas but also even some high-ranking officials of the Ministry were evidently under the impression that district schools were to be closed down and replaced by realschulen,32 District schools apparently were not popular among the provincial population— many petitions for a realschule emphasize the failure of the f o r m e r institutions to provide adequate schooling. In the eyes of many representatives of zemstvos and city dumas, district schools did not p r e p a r e the students for any occupation, only fostering unrealistic aspirations. 3 3 Those petitions reveal that in many cases local societies were actually looking not for a secondary school but for a kind of a postprimary institution with vocational training in the crafts. This was particularly true for the northern and n o r t h e a s t e r n provinces, where a resident nobility that could aspire to a career in the state bureaucracy for its children was virtually non-existent. If the reform of district schools had proceeded more energetically and m o r e realschulen were opened in the districts, many young people of limited m e a n s probably would not have aspired for a gymnasium education. However, as the ministerial policy m a d e a pro-gymnasium much more accessible to t h e m , they flooded classical schools in great n u m b e r s during the 1870s. 34 *

*

*

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What conclusions can be m a d e f r o m these observations? First, the geography of the emerging school network was very unfavorable to the region where it was most n e e d e d for the successful transformation of the empire along the lines of m o d e r n state formation, i.e., the western borderlands. It would not be entirely correct, however, to say that in the west, government policy explicitly hindered the development of m e n ' s schooling because of the fear that nationalist forces might easily use education. Indeed, the situation in these provinces differed drastically from one in the Kingdom of Poland, where the Ministry spent considerable resources building a dense network of secondary schools that was far superior even to the core provinces of the empire. 3 5 M o r e likely, closing down a substantial n u m b e r of schools in the a f t e r m a t h of the Polish uprising of 1863, the Ministry did not work out any special policy with regards to this region. The opening of new educational establishments in the following years occurred primarily through local initiatives. As the western provinces lacked the principal institution that served as the base for public initiative in that period—the zemstvo—they failed to attract the attention of the Ministry, which would not have established the schools without some local support. As the opening of new secondary schools in the 1860s-1870s proceeded in a rather haphazard way, the actual development of the educational system often occurred before the Ministry was able to identify problems and develop a coherent approach. As I would argue, the reactionary policy of the Ministry in the 1880s can only be properly understood if we appreciate this trait from the previous period. The Ministry of Education u n d e r D.A.Tolstoy explicitly favored classical education, considering it as inherently superior to any other type. The classical curriculum definitely had a touch of social exclusivity; it was not a p p r o p r i a t e for every child. To the extent that real education did in fact correspond to the needs of industrialization, the ministerial policy hindered the process of modernization and can even be considered reactionary. However, it is worth r e m e m b e r i n g that D.A.Tolstoy and his advisors sincerely believed themselves to be reshaping Russian education along E u r o p e a n lines, and indeed the establishment in such countries as G e r m a n y or France (not to speak about England) had very much the same set of ideas about secondary education. However, the educational authorities in Western E u r o p e accepted the f o r m a t i o n of a wide network of secondary and post-elementary schools with a m o d e r n curriculum as long as they did not infringe on the rights and benefits of classical schools. The m o d e r n sector of secondary education that considerably e x p a n d e d f r o m the 1870s to the turn of the century began to function as an outlet for the middle and lower-middle strata of the population that entered the educational system in increasing numbers. A social distinction that was ascribed to the classical curriculum in Western E u r o p e stemmed f r o m its traditional association with the education of elites. However in the period of the 1870s-1920s, it acquired a new dimension. As formal education b e c a m e an indispensable prerequisite for professional career, the educational system started to function as a mechanism for

Male Secondary Education • 93 r e p r o d u c i n g and legitimizing the social hierarchy: thus access to classical education was increasingly restricted. 3 6 In the Russian Empire, however, the situation was in many ways different. Classical education had no venerated tradition, particularly in the provinces. 3 7 In t h e 1830s-1840s under S.S. Uvarov, the Ministry apparently achieved a certain d e g r e e of success in improving gymnasium educational standards. 3 8 T h e data of t h e 1897 census seem to suggest that already by the mid-century more than twothirds of n o b l e m e n in the major provincial centers had some experience of formal secondary schooling, most likely of gymnasium type. As the Ministry u n d e r D.A.Tolstoy firmly supported classical education, it could have acquired with the course of time the same mark of distinction and social exclusivity that it e n j o y e d in Germany. ( A n o t h e r matter is whether it was a worthy model to emulate.) H o w e v e r , it was precisely in the 1870s when the n u m b e r of secondary schools, and classical secondary schools in particular, considerably increased. As the Ministry encouraged and often even pressed local societies to choose in favor of classical curriculum, the pro-gymnasium became in the 1870s the most widespread type of m e n ' s secondary school. Its importance was particularly manifest on the level of the district towns where it was commonly the only secondary school for men available with exception of a clerical school or seminarium—institutions attended almost exclusively by the offspring of the clergy. In fact, the n u m ber of realschulen was comparable to those for pro-gymnasia and gymnasia only on the Kazan educational circuit. Promoting classical schooling, however, the Ministry was rather late in realizing the growing willingness of a wider stratum of the population to complete a secondary education—a p h e n o m e n o n indicated by the proliferation of petitions to o p e n so-called "parallel classes" in m e n ' s secondary schools. The Ministry began to perceive the newcomers as a danger only by the mid-1880s, that is in the period when many other E u r o p e a n countries also expressed a concern over the inflation of educational certificates and the overcrowding of learned professions, and respectively tried to curb down students' enrolments. 3 9 In Russia, however, the ministerial circulars of 1887 that drastically limited the access of Jews and lower classes to secondary schooling seemed to be more repressive, as they were a clumsy attempt to restrict access to the very same schools that were so much promoted in the previous decade, sometimes almost against the wishes of local public. Seen f r o m this perspective, the Ministry of I.D. Delianov was a decisive break from the policy of D.A. Tolstoy, even if I.D. Delianov was known as a close associate of D.A. Tolstoy and exhibited the same ideological preferences.

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Notes This essay is based on the author's unpublished Ph.D. thesis completed at the Central European University, Budapest, under the supervision of A.J. Rieber in 2000. The author also expresses her thanks to the Program "Promoting Social Studies of Education in Russia," at the E u r o p e a n University at St. Petersburg and the Spencer Foundation, Chicago, for the grant that enabled her to continue the research. 1 Patrick L. Alston, Education and the State in Tsarist Russia (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1969); Allen Sinei, The Classroom and the Chancellery: State Educational Reform in Russia under Count Dmitry Tolstoy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1973); Daniel R. Brower, Training the Nihilists: Education and Radicalism in Tsarist Russia (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1975); James C. McClelland, Autocrats and Academics: Education, Culture, and Society in Tsarist Russia (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1979); Samuel D. Kasai, Students, Professors, and the State in Tsarist Russia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989). 2 Sh.I.Ganelin, Ocherki po istorii srednei shkoly v Rossii (Leningrad: Gossudarstvennoe uchebno-pedagogichnoe izd., 1950); N.A.Konstantinov, Ocherki po istorii srednei shkoly (Gimnazii i real'nye uchilishcha s kontsa XIX veka do Fevral'skoi revoliutsii 1917 goda) (Moscow, 1956); L.V. Kamosko, "Izmeneniia soslovnogo sostava uchashchikhsia srednei i vysshei shkoly Rossii (30e-80e gody XIX veka)", Voprosy Istorii 10 (1970): 203-207; A.I. Piskunov, ed., Ocherki istorii shkoly i pedagogicheskoi mysli narodov SSSR. Vtoraia polovina XIX veka (Moscow: Pedagogika, 1976). 3 Ben Eklof and Edward Dneprov, eds., Democracy in the Russian School: the Reform Movement in Education since 1984 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1993). The policy of D.A.Tolstoy was characterized as the policy of "counter-reforms" already in L.V. Kamosko, "Izmeneniia soslovnogo sostava uchashchikhsia," 203-207, and also in G.I. Shchetinina, Universitety v Rossii i ustav 1884 goda (Moscow: Nauka, 1976), 89. 4 The calculations are based on A.V. Dubrovskii, Universitety i srednie uchebnye zavedeniia muzhskie i zhenskie v 50-ti guberniiakh Evropeiskoi Rossii i 10-ti guberniiakh privislianskikh po perepisi 20 marta 1880 goda. Obshchie vyvody (St. Petersburg, 1888), appendix 1; Uchebnye zavedenia vedomstva Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (St. Petersburg, 1895); Izvlechenie iz vsepoddanneishego otcheta Ministra Narodnogo Prosveshchenia za 1871 (St. Petersburg, 1873); Izvlechenie iz vsepoddanneishego otcheta Ministra Narodnogo Prosveshchenia za 1877 (St. Petersburg, 1879); Izvlechenie iz vsepoddanneishego otcheta Ministra Narodnogo Prosveshchenia za 1882 (St. Petersburg, 1886). 5 The calculations are based on the data published in the annual reports of the Ministry of Pufllic Education. Absolute figures are also given in L.V. Kamosko,"Izmeneniia soslovnogo sostava uchashchikhsia," 203-207. 6 A n d y Green, Education and State Formation: the Rise of Education Systems in England, France, and the USA (Hampshire: Macmillan, 1990). 7 Bruce Curtis, Building the Education State: Canada West, 1838-1871 (London, Ontario: Althouse Press, 1988); Bruce Curtis, True Government by Choice Men? Inspection, Education, and State Formation in Canada West (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992); Ian Hunter, Culture and Government:The Emergence of Literary Education (London: Macmillan, 1988); James Donald, Sentimental Education: Schooling, Popular Culture, and the Regulation of Liberty (London: Verso, 1992); James Van Horn Melton, Absolutism and the Eighteenth-Century Origins of Compulsory Schooling in Prussia and Austria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988).

Notes

• 95

8 Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv [hereafter R G I A ] , f. 733, op.162, d. 666 (Kharkov educational circuit), d. 667 (Moscow educational circuit), d. 668 (Odessa educational circuit), d. 669 (St. Petersburg educational circuit), d. 670 (Kiev educational circuit), d. 671 (Vilno educational circuit), d. 672 (Kazan educational circuit). 9 Spisok uchebnykh zavedenii vedomstva Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia (krome nachal'nykh) po gorodam i seleniiam (St. Petersburg, 1883); Uchebnye zavedeniia vedomstva Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia. Spravochnaia kniga, sostavlennaia po ofitsial'nym svedeniiam k 1-mu ianvaria 1895 goda (St. Petersburg, 1895). 10 Ibid. 11 S.V.Rozhdestvenskii, Istoricheskii obzor deiatel'nosti Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia 1802-1902 (St. Petersburg, 1902), 461-470; R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d. 212, d. 213. 12 In practice only nine schools were converted into real gymnasia according to the statute of 1864. They were the seventh St. Petersburg gymnasium (transformed into the first realschule after 1872), gymnasia in Arkhangel'sk, Nikolaev, Belostok, Pinsk, Dinaburg, and Belaia Tserkov'. See R G I A , f. 846, d. 83,11.11,41. Four of the latter institutions were converted in 1872 into realschulen. See R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d. 671. 13 R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d.668, II. 1-4, d. 666,1. 2, d. 667,1. 1 - l o b , d. 669,11. l - 2 o b . 14 R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d. 666, 11. 20-25ob, d.667, I. 1 - l o b , d.668, 11. 1-4, d. 669, 11. l - 2 o b , 3-7ob, 8-10. 15 It can also be confirmed by the data on the secondary school budgets. See A.V.Dubrovskii, Universitety i srednie uchebnye zavedeniia, 52-53. 16 We are talking about Zhitomir, Mogilev-on-the Dnestr, and Minsk. See R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d. 670,11.82-85, 306-308ob, 327-327ob, d. 671,11.216-219. 17 R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d. 670,11. 317ob-318. 18 The Ministry specifically explained these complicated details in a special circular from 31 June 1872. For a contemporary comment see Mikhail Stasiulevich, "'Vidy' i 'soobrazheniia' Ministerstva Narodnogo Prosveshcheniia po delu real'nykh uchilishch," Vestnik Evropy 5, bk. 9 (1872): 383-394, esp. 19 N.A.Kislinskii, Nasha zheleznodorozhnaia politika, vols. (St. Petersburg: Gos. tip., 1902), vol. 2. 20 For example, in a petition from Livny—RGIA, f. 733, op. 162, d. 667,1. 34-34ob. 21 (Author unknown), "Dvorianstvo v Rossii. Istoricheskii i obshchestvenny ocherk," Vestnik Evropy 2, bk. 3 (1887), 253-257; A.P. Korelin, Dvorianstvo v poreformennoi Rossii. 1861-1904 gg. Sostav, chislennost', korporativnaia organizatsiia (Moscow:Nauka, 1979), 34, 40-41,43,292-303. 22 R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d. 666,1. 15ob (petition from Orel), 1. 36ob (petition from Kozlov), d. 669,11. 3 - 7 o b (petition from Velikie Luki), 1. 394-394ob (petition from Livny). 23 Geographical distribution of church secondary schools can be established from A.V. Dubrovskii, Universitety i srednie uchebnye zavedeniia, appendix 1. 24 R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d. 669,11.147ob-149, d. 672,11. 50, 55-59. 25 R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d. 670,11. 82-85,11. 306-309,314-318ob, 327-327ob, 340-343ob. 26 R G I A , f. 733. op. 162, d. 672,11. 13-17,90-91ob. 27 R G I A , f. 733. op. 162, d. 668,11. 157-161ob, 241-244ob, 255-256, 287-287ob, 545,571-572. 28 R G I A , f. 733. op. 162, d. 672., 11. 61-64,112-112ob, 115-115ob. 29 Human resources apparently did not play any considerable role in determining the outcome of an application, even if the question did occasionally pop up in the correspondence between the curators and the Ministry. 30 N.A.Kusov, 25-letie Sankt-Peterburgskoi sed'moi gimnazii (byvshei vtoroi progimnazii) (1867-1892) (St. Petersburg, 1893), 2 - 3 , 1 6 - 1 7 , 2 4 - 3 3 ; A.I. Chevakinskii, Dvadtsatipiatiletie Sankt-Peterburgskoi desiatoi gimnazii 1871-1896 gg. Istoricheskaia zapiska (St. Peters-

96 • Marina

31 32 33 34 35 36

37

3 8

39

Loskoutova

burg. 1897), 1, 31-34; Otchel za pervoe dvadtsatipiatiletie sushchestvovaniia SanktPeterburgskogo vtorogo real'nogo uchilishcha (1873-1898 gg.) (St. Petersburg, 1898), 19-20. R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d. 667,11. 582-591ob, 613, 618-619ob, 625, 697-697ob, 706, d. 666,11. 440-441, d. 668,1. 553, d. 669,1. 510-510ob, d. 670,11. 341-343ob, d. 671,11. 263-254ob. R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d. 668,11. 9-11,13, 15ob, 16-18, 36-39ob. R G I A , f. 733, op. 162, d. 667,11. 584-591, d. 672,11. 3-7ob. Statistical data can be found in L.V. Kamosko, "Izmeneniia soslovnogo sostava uchashchikhsia," 203-207. See also Alston, Education and the State in Tsarist Russia, 127-133. A.V. Dubrovskii, Universitety i srednie uchebnye zavedeniia, appendix 1. Fritz K. Ringer, Education and Society in Modern Europe (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979); Detlef Müller, Fritz K. Ringer, and Brian Simon, eds. The Rise of Modern Educational System. Structural Change and Social Reproduction, 1870-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Editions de La Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1987). The tradition of reading Latin authors in eighteenth-century Russia looks particularly weak in the light of a recent study by Max Okenfuss, even if more research on the problem is needed to support his claims. See Max J. Okenfuss, The Rise and Fall of Latin Humanism in Early Modern Russia: Pagan Authors, Ukrainians, and the Resiliency of Muscovy (Leiden, New York: E.J. Brill, 1995). Cynthia H. Whittaker, The Origins of Modern Russian Education: an Intellectual Biography of Count Sergei Uvarov, 1786-1855 (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1984). See Gary B. Cohen, Education and Middle Class Society in Imperial Austria, 1848-1918 (West Lafayette, In.: Purdue University Press, 1996), 95-108; Konrad H. Jarausch, Students, Society, and Politics in Imperial Germany. The Rise of Academic IIliberalism (Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1982), 57-61; Detlef K. Müller, "The Process of Systematisation: The Case of G e r m a n Secondary Education," in Detlef Müller, Fritz K. Ringer, and Brian Simon, eds.. The Rise of Modern Educational System: Structural Change and Social Reproduction, 1870-1920 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press and Editions de La Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, 1987), 38-41.

Ruslan, Bohdan, and Myron: Three Constructed Identities among Galician Ruthenians/Ukrainians, 1830-1914 IAROSLAV

HRYTSAK

In 1786 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart moved from Vienna to Prague. H e wrote a letter to his friend Gottfried von Jaquin, who stayed in Vienna: Now farewell dearest friend, dearest Hikkity Horky! That is your name, so you will know it; we have all of us on our trip invented names; they follow here. I am Punkitititi.—My wife is Shabla Pumfa. Hofer is Rozka Pumpa Stadler is Notschibikitschibi. Joseph my servant is Sagadarata. Goukerl my dog is Schomanntzky—Madame Quallenberg is Runzifunzi.—Mademoiselle Crux Ps: Ramlo is Schurimuri. Freistadtler is Goulimauli. Have the kindness to communicate to the last mentioned his name. 1 Larry Wolff in his book. Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, treats this episode as "the comical expression of alienation that attended the imaginative eighteenth-century traveler to Eastern Europe. Mozart, born in Salzburg, resident in Vienna, a German by native tongue, was not at home in Slavic Bohemia where the language he heard around him sounded like nonsense." 2 The paradox was, however, that few decades later, some Slavic intellectuals, native-speakers of Slavic languages, also stopped feeling "at home" with their own names. It was their Christian names (i.e., baptismal names of Christian saints) that sounded like nonsense and seemed to alienate them from their own people. This article explores three successive generations of Galician Ruthenian/Ukrainian nationalists and how their choice of names embodies the story of their search for a national identity.

98 • laroslav

Hrytsak RUSLAN

In an introduction to a glossary of Slavic names, published in Buda in 1828, one of its two authors, a Serbian priest Jovan Pacic wrote: I have been thinking that through several centuries we k e e p accepting alien names—e.g., C h a l d e a n , Jewish, G r e e k , Latin and G e r m a n ones— without understanding their meaning. A n d that by absorbing them [...], we k e e p alienating ourselves f r o m our beautiful and beloved Slavdom and S e r b d o m . T h e r e f o r e it is the right time to ask ourselves: why should we not r e t u r n to our own traditions? Why should we not start giving ourselves our own names? 3 In his glossary Pacic collected 800 " t r u e " Slavic first names, based on historical documents and studies of naming habits among Serbs who were believed to have best preserved ancient Slavic traditions. His co-author Jan Kollar, a famous poet and a scholar-dilettante, a d d e d another 2,300 "original Slavic" names that he found in old chronicles, in folklore and in writings of Vuk Karadzic, Nikolai Karamzin, A l e x a n d e r Grach, and other Slavic intellectuals. In composing the list, he pursued a threefold task: to record old traditions; to show the richness of Slavic languages; and to provide an impetus for parents "to revive [their own] nationality" by choosing these names for their children. 4 In 1833 and 1834, the PaCic-Kollar glossary was read in Lemberg (Polish Lwow/Ruthenian-Ukrainian Lviv), the capital of the largest Austrian province Galicia, by two young R u t h e n i a n students at the Greek-Catholic seminary, Markian Shashkevych and Ivan Vahylevych. 5 Together with their friend, Iakiv Holovats'kyi, another seminary student, they were called by their peers, half mockingly and half seriously, Rus'ka Triitsia (the Ruthenian triad). The reason was rather simple: whenever they strolled around the city, whatever they discussed in classrooms or dormitories, they were heard speaking the R u t h e n i a n ( R u s ' k a ) language. In the city, where in 1825 R u t h e n i a n s were a tiny minority of only 5 percent of the population 6 and where the Greek-Catholic priests—the only educated elite among R u t h e n i a n s — s p o k e either G e r m a n (the official language of the H a b s b u r g empire) or Polish (the language of the local nobility), the use of the " p e a s a n t " R u t h e n i a n language was unusual. By the consistent use of this language the three young men wanted to d e m o n s t r a t e their desire to revive their "long b u r i e d " Ruthenian nationality. A n o t h e r manifestation of that desire was a revival of Slavic R u t h e n i a n names. Holovats'kyi wrote later in his memoirs, We came to a c o m m o n a g r e e m e n t that a n y o n e we chose to join our circle had to take an oath that he would work all his life for the benefit of his p e o ple and for the revival of R u t h e n i a n popular literature. To m a k e this o a t h sacred, we accepted Slavic names: Shashkevych became Ruslan, Vahyle-

Rustan, Bohdan vych

became

Dalibor, and

I became

Iaroslav. T h e n

and Myron • 99

there

appeared

L o p a t y n s ' k y i as V e l y m y r . I l ' k e v y c h as M y r o s l a v , my b r o t h e r Ivan as B o h d a n , B u l v i n s ' k y i as R o s t y s l a v . . . ; t h e r e also a p p e a r e d V s e v o l o d s , Mstyslavs, V o l o d a r s a n d others. 7 F r o m t h e b e g i n n i n g of t h e 1830s, t h e R u t h e n i a n t r i a d signed t h e i r w o r k s as Ruslan

S h a s h k e v y c h , Dalibor

V a h y l e v y c h a n d Iaroslav

t h e y c o m p i l e d a l i t e r a r y a l m a n a c Rus'ka

Zoria

H o l o v a t s ' k y i . In 1834,

("Ruthenian star') that included

f o l k l o r e as well as t h e i r o w n l i t e r a r y works. T h e a l m a n a c r e v e a l e d a c l e a r U k r a i n i a n o r i e n t a t i o n by s t a t i n g t h a t R u t h e n i a n s in G a l i c i a a n d Little R u s s i a n s ( U k r a i n i a n s ) in t h e R u s s i a n E m p i r e m a d e a single n a t i o n . T h e A u s t r i a n c e n s o r s f o r b a d e t h e p u b l i c a t i o n of Rus'ka because

of w h a t

Zoria

n o t so m u c h b e c a u s e of its c o n t e n t , b u t

t h e y saw as l o n g - t e r m

political i m p l i c a t i o n s of t h e

local

R u t h e n i a n s ' c h o i c e of a U k r a i n i a n o r i e n t a t i o n f o r t h e H a b s b u r g m o n a r c h y , e s p e cially in r e l a t i o n s b e t w e e n V i e n n a a n d St. P e t e r s b u r g . 8 T h e c e n s o r s ' d e c i s i o n did n o t s t o p t h e R u t h e n i a n t r i a d . In 1837 t h e y p u b l i s h e d t h e a l m a n a c in a slightly c h a n g e d f o r m a n d u n d e r a n e w title, Rusalka

Dnistrova

( ' W a t e r n y m p h of t h e

D n i e s t e r " ) in B u d a , w h e r e c e n s o r s h i p r e g u l a t i o n s w e r e n o t as strict as in t h e A u s t r i a n p a r t of t h e H a b s b u r g E m p i r e . P u n i s h m e n t s o o n f o l l o w e d . All t h r e e w e r e s u b j e c t e d t o d i s c i p l i n a r y trials a n d w e r e r e p r i m a n d e d , which h a d s e r i o u s c o n s e q u e n c e s f o r t h e i r c a r e e r s a n d lives. T h e h i s t o r y of t h e R u t h e n i a n t r i a d is r a t h e r well k n o w n . S c h o l a r s , h o w e v e r , h a v e n e v e r p a i d a d e q u a t e a t t e n t i o n to t h e issue of t h e n e w n a m e s a c c e p t e d by S h a s h k e v y c h , V a h y l e v y c h a n d H o l o v a t s ' k y i . E v e n t h o u g h this issue f e a t u r e d in m a t e r i a l s of t h e official i n v e s t i g a t i o n , 9 l a t e r h i s t o r i a n s c o n s i d e r e d it of m i n o r i m p o r t a n c e . A n d y e t in a l a r g e r c u l t u r a l a n d g e o g r a p h i c a l p e r s p e c t i v e , t h e issue of c h o o s i n g n e w n a m e s h e l p s to i d e n t i f y s o u r c e s of i n t e l l e c t u a l i n s p i r a t i o n f o r t h e R u t h e n i a n T r i a d . All b u t o n e of t h e Slavic n a m e s t a k e n by t h e m a n d t h e i r f o l l o w e r s c o u l d b e f o u n d in t h e P a c i c - K o l l a r glossary. T h e o n l y e x c e p t i o n r e f e r s t o t h e c a s e of " R u s l a n , " a n a m e t h a t w a s n o t r e c o r d e d b y e i t h e r PaSic o r Kollar. T h e g l o s s a r y i n c l u d e s t h e n a m e s of " R u s , " " R u s k o , " a n d " R u s m y r , " e a c h of t h e m i m p l y i n g t h e e t h n i c n a m e of R u t h e n i a n s ( R u s y n y ) a n d t h e i r l a n d niaIRus'). Other

nineteenth-century

Slavic o n o m a s t i c g l o s s a r i e s

(Ruthe-

mentioned

r e l a t e d n a m e s like " R u s a k , " " R u s a n , " " R u s i a n , " " R u s y n k o , " " R u s l a v , " " R u s m y r , " "Rusanets'," "Rusynets'," "Rus'."

10

O n t h e m a r g i n s of E a s t Slavic o e c u m e n u m ,

t h e e t h n i c n a m e " R u s y n " as first n a m e w a s r e g i s t e r e d as l a t e as t h e s e c o n d half of t h e e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y , 1 1 a n d H o l o v a t s ' k y i u s e d this f o r m f o r his p e n - n a m e , Havrylo Rusyn.

12

N o n e of t h e s e o p t i o n s s e e m e d to satisfy S h a s h k e v y c h , w h o c h o s e t h e n a m e " R u s l a n . " T h e r e a r e t w o h y p o t h e s e s e x p l a i n i n g his choice. A c c o r d i n g to t h e first, R u s l a n was a p o e t i c version of R u s y n . It was b o r r o w e d f r o m t h e so-called " U k r a i n i a n " s c h o o l in t h e Polish p o e t r y ( 1 8 2 0 - 1 8 3 0 s ) a n d w a s c o i n e d f r o m an ancient ethnic n a m e "Roxolanus."13 No further arguments are provided, howev-

100 • laroslav

Hrytsak

er. So it remains unclear why Shashkevych did not use the original form, "Roxolan(us)." A n o t h e r hypothesis draws a parallel between " R u s l a n " and the G e r m a n name for Russia, " R u ß l a n d . " This explanation originated f r o m a misinterpretation of a letter that was written by Mykhailo Levyts'kyi, the Greek-Catholic Metropolitan, to the Austrian G e n e r a l G o v e r n o r in Lviv (27 May 1835). In this letter he allegedly indicated that the n a m e chosen by Shashkevych was certain proof of the latter's Russian orientation. The problem is that the original of this letter was u n k n o w n at the time of its publication, so most historians referred to a preserved copy. A recently found original, however, revealed that it was misquoted, and the n a m e of Ruslan was m e n t i o n e d t h e r e in a quite d i f f e r e n t c o n t e x t , as Shashkevych's attempt to disguise his own identity, and no connection has been m a d e between Ruslan and Rußland. 1 4 T h e r e is, however, a simpler explanation. In the 1830s the n a m e of Ruslan was widely known a m o n g r e a d e r s of Slavic literature, since it had been i n t r o d u c e d by A l e x a n d e r Pushkin in his 1820 p o e m , " R u s l a n and L i u d m i l a " ( L i u d m y l a in Ukrainian). 1 5 O n e has to look closer at the Pushkin p o e m to imagine possible readings in remote Austrian Galicia. Pushkin's Ruslan, an ancient mighty hero, is d e f e n d i n g Rus' and its capital, Kyiv (Kiev), which was the Ruthenian triad's center of the imagined R u t h e n i a n / U k r a i n i a n motherland. In his "Psalms of Ruslan" Shashkevych revealed the same heroic ethos as he answered in the n a m e of Ruslan to an invisible enemy: "[A]nd you can tear apart my eyes and take away my soul, but you cannot take away my love, and you cannot take my faith, because I have a Ruthenian heart and a Ruthenian faith!" 1 6 Pushkin had written his poem in 1817-1820, a few years after the publication of Karamzin's History of Russian Statehood. Some of Pushkin's heroes—Prince Vladimir, R a k h d a i and Farlaf—are directly taken from Karamzin's History,17 but Ruslan is not m e n t i o n e d there. Most probably Pushkin's Ruslan is a modified form of the n a m e s " E r u s l a n " and "Oruslan," which one can find in Russian folk tales and which, in turn, c a m e from the Tatar word arslan (lion). 1 8 "Ruslan and Liudmila" contained many other borrowings from folk tales. 19 A m o n g them was Rusalka (water nymph), a traditional heroine of t h e Eastern E u r o p e a n folk culture. O n e detail has to be emphasized here: Pushkin's Rusalka, both in "Ruslan and Liudmila" as well as in a later unfinished p o e m " R u s a l k a , " dwells in the D n i e p e r ( D n i p r o in Ukrainian). By the beginning of t h e n i n e t e e n t h century in St. Petersburg cultural life, Rusalka was known in her U k r a i n i a n (Little Russian) form, according to the contemporary, imported R o m a n t i c fashion for Little Russian themes. O n e of the most popular St. Petersburg o p e r a s of that time has the title Dneprovskaia Rusalka ('The D n i e p e r water n y m p h ' ) , with music by C a t t e r i n o Cavos and libretto H. Krasnopol's'kyi, first p e r f o r m e d at t h e Bolshoi T h e a t r e on 5/17 May 1804. The opera was allegedly a source of inspiration for Pushkin and had been inspired by the G e r m a n opera Das Donauweibchen ("The D a n u b e Water N y m p h " ) , written by Ferdinand Kauer. 2 0

Ruslan,

Bohdan

and Myron

• 101

T h e r e is a n o b v i o u s s i m i l a r i t y b e t w e e n t h e i m a g e s of t h e D n i e p e r a n d D a n u b e w a t e r n y m p h s a n d t h e title of t h e first U k r a i n i a n a l m a n a c in A u s t r i a n G a l i c i a . I n d i r e c t l y , it p r o v e s a h y p o t h e s i s a b o u t P u s h k i n ' s i n f l u e n c e o n S h a s h k e v y c h : b o t h " R u s l a n " a n d Rusalka

Dnistrova

b e l o n g t o t h e s a m e c u l t u r a l circle, a n d t h i s is

hardly a coincidence. BOHDAN

Stories a b o u t R u s l a n and R u s a l k a s h o w explicitly that n e i t h e r Pushkin nor Shashk e v y c h w e r e t h a t o r i g i n a l in t h e i r a r t i s t i c i n v e n t i o n s . B o t h b o r r o w e d i d e a s a n d i m a g e s t h a t a c t i v e l y f u n c t i o n e d in a l a r g e c u l t u r a l s p a c e b e t w e e n V i e n n a in t h e W e s t a n d Kyiv in t h e E a s t , St. P e t e r s b u r g in t h e N o r t h a n d t h e B a l k a n s in t h e S o u t h . A l a r g e p a r t of this t e r r i t o r y w a s i n h a b i t e d by E a s t e r n Slavs. T h e y s p o k e m u t u a l l y c o m p r e h e n s i b l e d i a l e c t s , r e t a i n e d a d i f f u s e m e m o r y of t h e i r d e s c e n t f r o m K y i v a n R u s ' as well as a s h a r p e r s e n s e of t h e i r c o m m o n E a s t e r n C h r i s t i a n — e i t h e r O r t h o d o x o r G r e e k - C a t h o l i c — r i t e . In t h e 1830s this s p a c e w a s n o t y e t clearly divided b e t w e e n different national projects. Only gradually, u n d e r cent r i f u g a l i n f l u e n c e s of l a r g e

urban

centers

such

a s St. P e t e r s b u r g ,

Vienna,

B u d a p e s t , V i l n i u s , Kyiv a n d o t h e r s , d i d d i s t i n c t i v e n a t i o n a l i d e n t i t i e s e m e r g e . 2 1 G a l i c i a o c c u p i e d t h e f u r t h e s t w e s t e r n p a r t of t h i s t e r r i t o r y , a n d Lviv w a s a m a j o r c e n t e r of p o l i t i c a l p o w e r a n d c u l t u r a l p r o d u c t i o n . L o c a l R u t h e n i a n i n t e l lectuals significantly influenced d e b a t e s on h o w to carve new national m o t h e r l a n d s f r o m t h i s E a s t e r n S l a v i c / E a s t C h r i s t i a n w o r l d . T h e y d i s c u s s e d a v a r i e t y of options: they c o u l d f o r m a unified E a s t Slavic n a t i o n , be assimilated into the n e w l y e m e r g i n g P o l i s h o r R u s s i a n n a t i o n s , a s s e r t t h e i r i d e n t i t y as U k r a i n i a n s l i n k e d w i t h t h e s o - c a l l e d L i t t l e R u s s i a n s in t h e R u s s i a n E m p i r e o r as A u s t r i a n R u t h e n i a n s s e p a r a t e l y , o r c r e a t e m i x e d (e.g., B e l o r u s s i a n - U k r a i n i a n ) i d e n t i t i e s . F r o m t h e 1830s u n t i l t h e First W o r l d W a r , t h e g e n e r a l b a l a n c e b e t w e e n d i f f e r ent national o r i e n t a t i o n s a m o n g Galician R u t h e n i a n s c h a n g e d several times.22 S u f f i c e it t o s a y t h a t , of t h e R u t h e n i a n T r i a d , V a h y l e v y c h s h i f t e d t o t h e P o l i s h identity, H o l o v a t s ' k y i later chose a p r o - R u s s i a n o r i e n t a t i o n , and o n e w o n d e r s w h a t w o u l d h a v e h a p p e n e d if S h a s h k e v y c h h a d n o t d i e d y o u n g . T h e r e w e r e m a n y r e a s o n s w h y t h e o r i g i n a l l y U k r a i n i a n o r i e n t a t i o n of t h e R u t h e n i a n T r i a d f a d e d , m o s t h a v i n g t o d o w i t h c h a n g e s in t h e p o l i t i c a l c o n j u n c t u r e . T h e r e was, h o w e v e r , an intellectual r e a s o n that s t e m m e d f r o m the way t h e R u t h e n i a n

Ukrainian

n a t i o n was i m a g i n e d b y S h a s h k e v y c h , H o l o v a t s ' k y i a n d V a h y l e v y c h . T h e R u t h e n i a n T r i a d d e f i n e d t h e i r n a t i o n as a c u l t u r a l c o m m u n i t y t h a t s p o k e t h e R u t h e n i a n l a n g u a g e , 2 3 which m a d e the nation d e p e n d e n t on f u t u r e linguistic d e v e l o p m e n t s . In a s i t u a t i o n w h e n g r a m m a r s of t h e R u t h e n i a n l a n g u a g e w e r e f e w a n d v o c a b u laries non-existent, only s o m e e d u c a t e d R u t h e n i a n s could m a n a g e to speak the l a n g u a g e a n d e v e n a s m a l l e r n u m b e r t o w r i t e it. A n d t h o s e w h o c o u l d w e r e o f t e n m o c k e d for t h e u s e of a " p e a s a n t " l a n g u a g e t h a t w a s h a r d l y s u i t a b l e f o r a " h i g h style." In r e s p o n s e , s o m e R u t h e n i a n a u t h o r s s t a r t e d u s i n g e x i s t i n g " h i g h s t y l e "

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Russian forms, adding some borrowings from Church Slavonic, G e r m a n and Polish. By producing such a macaronic language, they sought to create a distance from the language of " u n e d u c a t e d peasants." But this did not help to overcome the identity crisis. In the 1850s, Kornylo Ustyianovych, a young national activist, wrote to his father, the R u t h e n i a n poet Mykola Ustyianovych: "Tell me, father, who we really are? We think G e r m a n , speak Polish, and write Russian." 2 4 A solution was suggested by B o h d a n Didyts'kyi (1827-1909), a prolific Ruthenian author and publicist. In 1866 he published anonymously a brochure under the title, "It takes only one hour for a Little Russian to learn the Russian language." 2 5 According to him, all differences between the two languages stem from different pronunciations of four characters in the Church Slavonic Cyrillic—"!)," "r," "H"and " e " after consonants. Ukrainians and Russians pronounced them differently. Once "Little Russians" would learn "in an h o u r " how to pronounce these vowels in the " R u s s i a n " way, they would automatically understand the Russian language. A n d vice versa, Russians could easily teach themselves the Ukrainian language, if they would memorize these differences in pronunciation. The mutual comprehensibility of Ukrainian and Russian was for Didyts'kyi a sure proof that both could develop their own literatures without any harm to their cultural and national unity. Their philological differences did not matter as long as they kept to the Church Slavonic Cyrillic alphabet. In that sense the "philological" definition of a nation became even narrower than the one developed by the Ruthenian Triad: now the main criterion was not a language, but the characters in which it was written and the way they were p r o n o u n c e d . Didyts'kyi came to these conclusions based on his own experience. H e was born in a R u t h e n i a n priest's family, and he and his twin-brother were baptized as Theodosii and Antionii, in honor of two Kyiv O r t h o d o x saints. Despite his origins, he was brought up in Polish schools and only learned to read Cyrillic characters at the age of 21, during the 1848 Revolution. Then he made a literary d e b u t in Ruthenian literature as a poet. H e signed his poetry with a pseudonym " B o h d a n , " which was a literary Slavic translation of the G r e e k name "Theodosii." 2 6 Together with another " B o h d a n " (Iakiv Holovats'kyi's brother Ivan), Mykola Ustyianovych and Mykhailo Kossak, they edited the official Halyts'ko-Rus'kyi Vistnyk ('Galician Ruthenian H e r a l d ' ) in 1849. Editing proved to be much harder than writing poetry. The f o r m e r required constant translations of official G e r m a n documents full of abstract terms. A n d these terms were absent in both the R u t h e n i a n vernacular and Church Slavonic. To meet this challenge, Didyts'kyi started to compile a list of terms b o r r o w e d f r o m Ukrainian writings published in the Russian Empire and f r o m Russian, Czech, and Serbian-Croatian vocabularies. H e soon concluded that the Russian vocabulary fits best for such purposes; for 100 words in the Russian vocabulary there were hardly 10 that would not be perfectly understood by Galician R u t h e nians. In 1849 he also met with officers of the Russian Imperial Army, which was crossing Galicia on the way to revolutionary Hungary. In discussions with t h e m ,

Ruslan, Bohdcin and Myron • 103 he discovered "the rule of the four characters" and he gave up his plans to create a literature in a " p e a s a n t " language. 2 7 His new literary idols became Nikolai Gogol and Alexander Pushkin. H e f o u n d their works in the private library of (by then) Professor Holovats'kyi. Both Didyt'skyi and Holovats'kyi were preoccupied with a question put by Pushkin, "Will all the Slavic streams flow into the Russian sea, or will they simply dry u p ? " Didyts'kyi found an answer in the words of Gogol who understood Little Russians and Russians as twin souls that complement each o t h e r and he refused to give priority to one over the other. 2 8 Didyts'kyi was a key figure in the R u t h e n i a n national c a m p f r o m the 1860s to the early 1880s, when it was d o m i n a t e d by the Russophile orientation. In 1861-1871 he edited a leading Ruthenian newspaper Slovo ('the word'), which in 1866 proclaimed the doctrine of cultural unity of the all-Russian nation " f r o m the Carpathians to the Urals." It would be a crude oversimplification, however, to label Didyts'kyi and other Russophiles Russian nationalists. Their position was more n u a n c e d . 2 9 As in Gogol's case, 30 Didyts'kyi never wanted Ukrainians to be assimilated into the all-Russian culture. Quite to the contrary, he envisaged the strength and vitality of the latter in preserving elements of different ethnic cultures, both Ukrainian and Russian. A guarantee for such coexistence was, to his mind, the preservation of the Church Slavonic characters. For these ends he fought against the introduction of Latin characters into Ruthenian publications (1851-1859), and against a simpler Cyrillic alphabet (so-called phonetyka) that would render more explicitly the Ukrainian character of the Ruthenian language. H e succeeded in the former, but he lost in the latter, for in 1892 phonetyka was introduced into the Galician school curriculum. Until the very end of his life he considered it his personal tragedy since phonetyka sealed the victory of the Galician "Ukrainian separatists" over his beloved all-Ruthenian project.

MYRON

O n e of the first literary critics who drew attention to the Ukrainian origins of Pushkin's "Rusalka" was Ivan Franko (1856-1916), a leading Galician Ruthenian/Ukrainian intellectual. 3 1 Like Shashkevych he also used Ruslan as his pseudonym. But it did not have such a profound meaning for him as for his famous forebear; he used it very sporadically and for a very short period of time (1879-1883). 3 2 Differences in usage of this pseudonym between Shashkevych and Franko— deeply symbolic and profoundly affectionate for the f o r m e r and sporadic for the latter—reflected, to a large extent, the dynamics of the R u t h e n i a n / U k r a i n i a n nationalism in Austrian Galicia, its shifts to new narrative strategies and new symbols, as it evolved into a mass movement. While Shashkevych's production was aimed at Ruthenian literati, who like him were basically Greek-Catholic priests, Franko wrote for new mass readers, secular intellectuals and literate peasants.

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T h e c o n t e n t of w h a t w a s p r o d u c e d a n d w h a t was r e a d had c h a n g e d too. W h e n F r a n k o r e a d " R u s a l k a D n i s t r o v a " in t h e 1870s, he hardly u n d e r s t o o d it, and its idea s e e m e d to him very v a g u e a n d u n a r t i c u l a t e d . 3 3 A c c o r d i n g to F r a n k o , Shashk e v y c h ' s literary p r o d u c t i o n w a s r e v o l u t i o n a r y only to t h e e x t e n t t h a t it introd u c e d t h e " p e a s a n t " l a n g u a g e i n t o " h i g h " l i t e r a t u r e . 3 4 F r a n k o ' s activity was r e v o l u t i o n a r y in m a n y m o r e ways: h e w a s a socialist and an a t h e i s t , a h e r a l d of f e m i n i s m a n d " f r e e love." H e w a s b r o u g h t to trial a n d jailed several times. F r a n k o ' s f r e q u e n t use of p s e u d o n y m s was an efficient way to b r e a k t h r o u g h c e n s o r ship. A n d while F r a n k o w a s t h e first R u t h e n i a n intellectual w h o lived totally by t h e p e n , h i d i n g his i d e n t i t y b e h i n d p s e u d o n y m s was f o r him, to a large e x t e n t , an issue of survival. F r a n k o ' s f a v o r i t e p s e u d o n y m ( u s e d in 178 o u t of the 337 k n o w n cases) was " M y r o n . " 3 5 C o n t r a r y t o " R u s l a n " b u t like " B o h d a n , " " M y r o n " was a " n a t u r a l , " n o t i n v e n t e d n a m e . It w a s t h e n a m e of a C h r i s t i a n m a r t y r a n d w a s listed in t h e C h r i s t i a n c a l e n d a r u n d e r 7 A u g u s t (old style, respectively 20 A u g u s t , n e w style). 3 6 In a t r a d i t i o n a l C h r i s t i a n s o c i e t y — a n d F r a n k o was b o r n in a village in t h e C a r p a t h i a n region t h a t w a s very t r a d i t i o n a l — t h e C h u r c h c a l e n d a r p r e d e t e r m i n e d a choice of n a m e f o r a n e w b o r n child. If a b o y was b o r n , say, f e w d a y s b e f o r e o r a f t e r t h e Saint D y m y t r i i f e a s t d a y (8 N o v e m b e r ) , he most likely w o u l d be b a p tized as " D y m y t r i i . " It w a s b e l i e v e d t h a t a child " b r o u g h t a n a m e with himself." Since F r a n k o was b o r n o n 27 A u g u s t 1856, it might be e x p e c t e d t h a t h e w o u l d b e given t h e n a m e " M y r o n . " F r a n k o w r o t e a s e r i e s of allegedly a u t o b i o g r a p h i c a l stories a b o u t "little M y r o n , " a small village b o y w h o he claimed was called t h a t n a m e by his p a r e n t s .

37

H e r e is w h e r e t h e m y s t e r y begins. A c c o r d i n g to an entry in t h e c h u r c h register of his n a t i v e village, F r a n k o w a s b a p t i z e d as " I v a n " and was given n o s e c o n d n a m e . M o r e o v e r , the c h u r c h register d o e s n o t c o n t a i n any e x a m p l e of a child w h o w a s b a p t i z e d " M y r o n " in t h e village d u r i n g t h e p e r i o d of 1848-1864. 3 8 O n e e x p l a n a t i o n is t h a t children b o r n in w e d l o c k w e r e b a p t i z e d with t h e n a m e of t h e C h r i s t i a n saint t h a t s t o o d at t h e b e g i n n i n g of t h e C h u r c h c a l e n d a r f o r any given day while illegiti m a t e c h i l d r e n w e r e given n a m e s f r o m t h e very e n d of each c a l e n d a r entry, i.e., n a m e s of little k n o w n s a i n t s . 3 9 " M y r o n " certainly b e l o n g e d to t h e l a t t e r g r o u p . W h y w o u l d F r a n k o ' s p a r e n t s call h i m by such a s t r a n g e n a m e ? A c c o r d i n g t o o n e hypothesis, it h a d to d o with a special history s u r r o u n d i n g his b i r t h . F r a n k o was a

first-born

son in t h e family. For his f a t h e r , it was his s e c o n d m a r r i a g e ; his

first wife d i e d leaving h i m n o c h i l d r e n . H e was a f r a i d to lose his first-born s o n , a n d t h e r e f o r e the family allegedly u s e d a trick t o " c h e a t d e a t h " : if p a r e n t s w e r e a f r a i d of losing t h e i r c h i l d r e n , t h e y c a l l e d t h e m an a l t e r n a t i v e n a m e at h o m e . S u c h a n a m e w a s s u p p o s e d to b e very r a r e o r e v e n a b s e n t in a given village, so d e a t h " c o u l d n o t find t h e child." 4 0 T h i s p r a c t i c e w a s w i d e s p r e a d in t r a d i t i o n a l s o c i e t i e s in E a s t e r n a n d C e n t r a l E u r o p e , but n o n e of t h e n u m e r o u s d o c u m e n t s r e l a t e d t o F r a n k o ' s b i o g r a p h y c o n t a i n a single p r o o f t h a t it was t h e case in his family. Q u i t e to t h e c o n t r a r y , t h e r e is e v i d e n c e t h a t u n d e r m i n e s its credibility. A c c o r d i n g t o

Rustan, Bohdan and Myron • 105 some memoirs, in his native village F r a n k o was called by his first name, "Iasio" (diminutive of "Ivan"). 4 1 T h e r e are good reasons to believe that Franko's choice of " M y r o n " as his p s e u d o n y m was a part and parcel of his attempt to coin "a peasant identity." The n a m e contained a hidden message: as suitable for bastards only, it signified someo n e who by definition was very different f r o m other " n o r m a l " peasant children. A n d the real story of F r a n k o ' s life was very different. Franko was born in a village, but it did not m a k e him a peasant. His family was mixed in a social sense. His f a t h e r was a wealthy village blacksmith, allegedly (as F r a n k o himself believed) of G e r m a n origin. His m o t h e r ' s family belonged to petty nobility. In terms of property size, these impoverished nobles did not differ very much from local peasants. However, they did their best to preserve their social distance f r o m the peasantry, they lived separately, dressed differently, had their own moral code and tended to marry a m o n g themselves or to s o m e o n e they considered equal in social status. 4 2 T h e latter was the case with F r a n k o ' s father. He came f r o m a free peasant family, was a wealthy and respected m e m b e r of the village community, and in this sense was considered a legitimate match for a noble woman. 4 3 Franko's early biography differed radically f r o m traditional patterns of peasant childhood. Peasant children started to work very early, at the age of five to seven and by the age of eight a boy would already be assisting his father in the field.44 Until his father's d e a t h in 1865, F r a n k o never did any physical work. The most distinctive f e a t u r e of Franko's early biography is that from the age of eight in 1864 he went to a school in the neighboring Drohobych, where in 1875 he completed the gymnasium and enrolled in Lviv University. A t that time, such cases among peasant offspring in Austrian Galicia were extremely rare. In the countryside parents were very reluctant to send a child to school for a longer period of time, fearing its undermining effects. H a r d physical work was the absolute core of peasant identity. Peasants looked with contempt at the habits of the privileged classes, including intellectual work, which was to them not work at all. In the peasant worldview, education was a dividing line between " u s " and "them," " L o r d s " were not noblemen only, but represented all educated society in general. In a sense, such peasant attitudes reflected the basic repudiation of m o d e r n culture and educated classes as its bearers. 4 5 As a rule peasants yielded only to pressure f r o m outside, usually by a local priest or teacher, who a t t e m p t e d to persuade parents to send a talented son to a gymnasium. (The idea of female education was non-existent then.) F r a n k o ' s fate was determined by his g r a n d m o t h e r on his m o t h e r ' s side, Ludwika Kulczycka, who took care of her talented grandson. She herself was early widowed, but she managed to provide an education for all of her male children. To this end she took the radical step of selling her land, a behavior alien to peasant attitudes. For peasants, their land was sacred, it was their " m o t h e r / f a t h e r l a n d " that should not and might not be sold, least of all for such purposes as educating children. As his education progressed, F r a n k o felt more and more alienated f r o m his

106 • laroslav

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n a t i v e village. Since he was early o r p h a n e d , he rarely visited it. T h r o u g h his uncle o n his m o t h e r ' s side, a G r e e k - C a t h o l i c priest, he b e c a m e increasingly i n t e g r a t e d into t h e clerical milieu. A t s o m e p o i n t h e fell in love with a n o t h e r priest's d a u g h t e r a n d s p e n t most of his vacations in h e r f a t h e r ' s house. Young F r a n k o was c o n s i d e r e d a very g o o d m a t c h . B e c a u s e of his early r e v e a l e d literary talents, he was e x p e c t e d t o b e c o m e a university o r at least g y m n a s i u m p r o f e s s o r and in that way t o a c q u i r e a s t a b l e position. H e did his best t o m e e t t h e s e expectations, as well as t h e stand a r d s of his new social e n v i r o n m e n t : his p i c t u r e s of that time show him d r e s s e d as a y o u n g dandy, and he c o r r e s p o n d e d with his s w e e t h e a r t in G e r m a n . 4 6 A s a y o u n g writer he e n j o y e d f a m e u n d e r a fancy p s e u d o n y m of " D z h e d z h a l y k . " In that period he was very close to t h e R u s s o p h i l e o r i e n t a t i o n . H e considered writing f o r t h e R u t h e n i a n e d u c a t e d elite only a n d had n o i n t e n t i o n — a s he c o n f e s s e d t o his f r i e n d — t o write "in t h e p e a s a n t way [language] a b o u t p e a s a n t s a n d f o r peasants." 4 7 C h a n g e c a m e d u r i n g his s e c o n d u n i v e r s i t y in 1876, u n d e r t h e influence of Kyiv p r o f e s s o r M y k h a i l o D r a h o m a n o v . In 1875 D r a h o m a n o v had b e e n e x p e l l e d f r o m Kyiv U n i v e r s i t y f o r his p r o - U k r a i n i a n a n d socialist activities. H e l e f t t h e R u s s i a n E m p i r e f o r the West, a n d o n his way to V i e n n a visited Lviv. D r a h o m a n o v was s h o c k e d by t h e p r o v i n c i a l c h a r a c t e r of t h e R u t h e n i a n intellectual life t h e r e a n d s o u g h t to " E u r o p e a n i z e " a n d " U k r a i n i z e " it. A s t h e m a i n agent f o r his plans, h e c h o s e t h e R u t h e n i a n s t u d e n t j o u r n a l Druh, his " T h r e e L e t t e r s t o Druh"

of which F r a n k o was a c o - e d i t o r . In

(1875-1876) D r a h o m a n o v encouraged students to

r e a d as m u c h R u s s i a n l i t e r a t u r e as possible. R u s s i a n realism w o u l d lead t h e m to khlopomania

( ' l o v e f o r p e a s a n t s ' ) a n d khlopomania,

u n d e r c o n t e m p o r a r y cir-

c u m s t a n c e s , was e q u a l to U k r a i n o p h i l i s m . 4 8 T h e " T h r e e L e t t e r s . . . " p r o v o k e d an i n t e l l e c t u a l r e v o l u t i o n within t h e s t u d e n t milieu. F r a n k o ' s f r i e n d , M y k h a i l o Pavlyk, w r o t e to M y k h a i l o D r a h o m a n o v in N o v e m b e r 1876: " N e w i d e a s w o r k s u r r e ptitiously, b u t very p r o f o u n d l y . . . . Y o u w o u l d not r e c o g n i z e F r a n k o . H e w a s a b o u t t o c o m m i t suicide [so a s h a m e d w a s he] of w h a t we w r o t e a n d said b e f o r e . " 4 9 A m o n g t h e R u t h e n i a n s t u d e n t s F r a n k o a n d Pavlyk w e r e t h e m o s t r e s p o n s i v e t o D r a h o m a n o v ' s m e s s a g e . U n d e r his t u t e l a g e t h e y c r e a t e d a n d led a m o v e m e n t t o t u r n y o u n g R u t h e n i a n i n t e l l e c t u a l s i n t o U k r a i n i a n socialists. T h e y led by v i r t u e of b e i n g " p e a s a n t s ' sons," t h o u g h it w a s t r u e only f o r Pavlyk. F r a n k o w a s d i f f e r e n t , b o t h in his origin a n d c u l t u r e , a n d Pavlyk o f t e n castigated h i m f o r "his n o b l e h a b i t s " a n d f o r his c o n n e c t i o n s with t h e clergy, u n w o r t h y of a t r u e socialist. B u t F r a n k o w a s quick t o l e a r n . H e quit using t h e G e r m a n l a n g u a g e in c o r r e s p o n d e n c e with his s w e e t h e a r t . A f t e r his " c o n v e r s i o n , " F r a n k o w r o t e to her: Y o u m a y ask why I w r i t e in R u t h e n i a n now, and n o t in G e r m a n . Well, this is a simple thing. T h e G e r m a n l a n g u a g e is f o r m e a f a s h i o n a b l e suit, w h i c h is o f t e n w o r n by a d a n d y with e m p t y p o c k e t s . A n d t h e R u t h e n i a n l a n g u a g e is f o r m e a b e l o v e d n a t i v e dress, in which e v e r y o n e p r e s e n t s himself t o o t h e r s t h e way he really is, a n d in which I like y o u t h e m o s t ! T h e R u t h e n i a n lang u a g e is t h e l a n g u a g e of my h e a r t !

Rustan, Bohdan and Myron • 107 A later picture of Franko in 1881 testifies that he was true to his words in another sense: his youthful Bohemian dress disappeared and was replaced by an unpret e n t i o u s embroidered shirt, a symbol of Ukrainian peasant culture. 5 0 H e also shed his fancy pseudonym " D z h e d z h a l y k " which he replaced by the peasant-like "Myron." He used this pseudonym for his most inflammatory poetry a n d revolutionary writings. In his autobiographical stories Franko was trying to p e r s u a d e readers that Galician villages were full of " M y r o n s " like him, peasant children endowed with many talents. But in most cases, they were lost because they either did not get any education or gave up their distinctiveness u n d e r the pressure of society. A n d only few—again, like him—managed to persist, and now they were bringing a word of truth " u n d e r the thatched roofs." 5 1 The implication was that once social barriers were removed, there would be a whole nation of "Myrons." In the 1880s and 1890s such an ethos p e r m e a t e d young R u t h e n i a n intellectuals, who like Franko preferred the Ukrainian orientation. Franko became a role model, not so much as a physical "Ivan," but as an imaginary "Myron," as an attractive symbol of self-sacrifice for the noble cause of national and social emancipation of peasants. 5 2 But he was not r e m e m b e r e d this way in his native village and in the neighboring village where his family lived. The local nobility still regarded him as their own, claiming that no peasant son could produce such outstanding literature. On the other hand, some local peasants treated him with scorn and ridicule and considered him insane and punished by G o d for his education and his atheism. 5 3 It took more effort and a longer time until both intellectuals and peasants started to accept F r a n k o as their own. F r a n k o was instrumental in making t h e m both feel "at h o m e " in their newly discovered Ukrainian m o t h e r l a n d . Of special importance was his contribution to the making of the m o d e r n Ukrainian language, as can be seen in interwar U k r a i n i a n vocabulary with its f r e q u e n t q u o t e s f r o m Franko. F r a n k o ' s language m a d e a d e e p impression on intellectuals born " u n d e r thatched roofs." By hearing this language full of abstract terms, they could feel that they were no longer in e m b r o i d e r e d shirts, but in fancy G e r m a n clothes. 5 4 EPILOGUE

In the 1890s Lviv witnessed an emergence of mass R u t h e n i a n / U k r a i n i a n politics. Its debut was the 1893 reburial of Ruslan Markian Shaschkevych, "the most zealous son of Rus'." O n that occasion his mortal remains were brought f r o m a remote village and buried in the Lviv central cemetery. As a correspondent of a Lviv Polish newspaper, Ivan F r a n k o described that event and noticed that never before had Lviv seen so many R u t h e n i a n s (about 10,000 including peasants). 5 5 Five years later, to counteract official celebrations of the 50 th anniversary of Franz Josef's rule, R u t h e n i a n / U k r a i n i a n institutions organized a series of alternative

108 • laroslav

Hrytsak

mass festivities in Lviv: the 25 th anniversary of Franko's literary activity, the 50 th anniversary of the abolishment of serfdom in Galicia, the hundred years of Ukrainian literature, and 250 years of the Ukrainian Cossack uprising led by Bohdan Khmel'nyts'kyi. 5 6 All of them were heavily attended. A distinguished result of these festivities was that from this time on the Ruthenian camp started to use consistently a new national n a m e — " R u s ' - U k r a i n a " (Ruthenia-Ukraine)—instead of the previous Rus'. 5 7 The 1916 funeral of Ivan Franko was attended by 10,000 people (considering that it occurred in the second year of the war, this was a huge n u m b e r ) . In n u m e r o u s mourning speeches and addresses—some delivered or signed by peasants and peasant communities—Franko was called "the greatest son of Ukraine." 5 8 Bohdan Didyts'kyi had passed away unnoticed and his funeral was a t t e n d e d only by a small group of people. From a perspective of the victorious Ukrainian nationalism (and, respectively, Ukrainian national historiography), he made a wrong choice by shifting f r o m the Ukrainophile to the Russophile orientation. T h e r e f o r e in contemporary Ukrainian Lviv one may find n u m e r o u s signs and symbols which c o m m e m o r a t e F r a n k o and Shashkevych, from the local university n a m e d a f t e r Ivan Franko to a private sewer firm called "Rusalka D n i s t r o v a . " T h e r e is, however, no sign in memory of Bohdan Didyts'kyi. A n d that is no wonder, given the strong anti-Russian resentments in the city that has the image of a stronghold of Ukrainian nationalism. 5 9 CONCLUSIONS

The story of pseudonyms, chosen by the most distinguished representatives of three generations of Galician R u t h e n i a n / U k r a i n i a n nationalists in 1830-1914, can be written so far only on the margins of great national narratives. Yet this marginal story calls for a reconsideration of history writ large. First of all, it u n d e r m i n e s the perspective according to which the history of the Ruthenian victory in forming Ukrainian identity is presented as a contest b e t w e e n pro-Ukrainian and pro-Russian orientations. The picture is m o r e n u a n c e d . T h e r e were more options than two, and shifting f r o m one to a n o t h e r was not a "zerosum game." As all t h r e e cases suggest, for a long period of time U k r a i n i a n and Russian orientations were not mutually exclusive. They could be relatively easily reconciled within a broad and vague concept of Rus'. Second, the international context has to be taken into account. Galicia was t h e furthest western region of Rus' where Eastern nationalisms ( U k r a i n i a n , Russian, and, to a large extent, Jewish) were met by Western nationalisms (Polish a n d Austrian G e r m a n ) . In this context, the making of one nation was the u n m a k i n g of another. This point has b e e n vigorously and persuasively m a d e by R o m a n Szporluk. 6 0 What is absent in this scheme, however, is Rus'. Both the " m a k i n g of U k r a i n e " and the "making of Russia" were not only unmaking each other, but they were also " u n m a k i n g of Rus'," which was defined for a long time in pre-national

Ruslcin, Bohdan

and Myron

• 109

t e r m s as a territory of Eastern Slavs, Eastern Christianity and the Church Slavonic language. Eastern nationalisms were n u r t u r e d in this territory in response to challenges m a d e by western nationalisms, the Polish one above all. But many "weste r n i z e d " impulses reached Galicia through a medium of intensive contacts with o t h e r parts of Rus', represented either by St. Petersburg or Kyiv. Finally, " M y r o n " adds a n o t h e r i m p o r t a n t aspect to this history. The explanation for the final result of this quest for identity should not be looked for only in the field of contesting nationalisms. In this contest over group loyalties and identities of Galician Ruthenians, t h e r e was m o r e than one "ism" involved. O t h e r ideologies, and socialism above all, also contributed to the way in which U k r a i n i a n identity triumphed. A social dimension—how to integrate p e a s a n t s into these contested p r o j e c t s — w a s equally significant. T h e r e w e r e leftist U k r a i n i a n activists, like D r a h o m a n o v and Franko, who o p e n e d venues for merging intellectuals and peasants into o n e c o m m o n body. To do so, they had to start speaking "peasant," not only in philological terms, as the R u t h e n i a n Triad had suggested, but in social terms as well. Again, as in the case with nationalism, socialism was a " w e s t e r n " ideology that arrived, to a large extent f r o m the East, as a result of political and intellectual f e r m e n t in the Russian Empire. It is this " b o r d e r l a n d " character of Austrian Galicia that makes studies of this region both so complicated and so fascinating.

Notes 1 Larry Wolff, Inventing Eastern Europe. The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994), 107. 2 Idem. 3 Ioann Pachich [Jovan Pa£ic], Foreword to Imenoslov Hi rechnik lichny imena razny naroda slavenski. Skupio Ioann Pacic a latinskim ortografiom izrazio, i primechania dodao Ioann Kollar (Buda: Slovima Kr. Vseucil. Pestanskog, 1828), unnumbered pages. 4 Jan Kollar, Addition to foreword in Pa£ic, Imenoslov. 5 "Rusalka Dnistrova," in F.I. Steblii, O.A. Kupchyn'skyi, et al., eds., Dokumenty i materialy (Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1989), 42,46. 6 Poles had 55 percent and Jews made 37 percent. Ruthenians (Ukrainian Rusyny; Polish Rusini; German Ruthenen ), however, made the largest ethnic group in the crownland (46.8 per cent out of 4,290,000 of inhabitants living in Galicia in 1849) and outnumbered Poles (45.9 percent), Jews (6.7 percent) and Germans (0.55 percent). They made an outspoken majority in the twelve eastern Galician districts (71 percent versus 20.4 percent for Poles, 7.9 percent for Jews, 0.6 percent for Germans) that made historical Galicia (i.e., the lands of the twelfth and thirteenth century Ruthenian Galician princedom). 7 "Rusalka Dnistrova," 298. 8 See a censorial decision on the Rus'ka Zoria written by Jernez Kopitar, who himself was a connoisseur of Slavic antiquities. "Rusalka Dnistrova," 52. 9 Josef Safarik believed that their pagan names were one of the main reasons for the punishment of the Ruthenian triad. See his letter to Nikolai Pogodin, 18 July 1837, in "Rusalka Dnistrova," 114.

1 1 0 • laroslav

Hrytsak

10 M. M o r o s h k i n , ed., Slavianskoi imennoslov ili sobranie slavianskikh lichnykh imen v alfavitnom poriadke (St. P e t e r s b u r g : Tip. V t o r o g o o t d e l a s o b s t v e n n o i E.l.V. k a n t s e l a r i i , 1867), 170; N . M . Tupikov, Wörterbuch der altrussischen Personennamen, a f t e r w o r d by E r n s t E i c h l e r ( C o l o g n e : B ö h l a u , 1989), 3 4 2 - 3 4 4 . I I S . Ia. C e r n y k h , Slovar' mariiskikh licnykh imen/Marii Mariiskii g o s u d a r s t v e n n y i u n i v e r s i t e t , 1995), 381.

en him-vlakh

muter

(Ioshkar-Ola:

12 " R u s a l k a D n i s t r o v a , " 247. 13 W. S h c h u r a t , Na dosvitkakh novoidoby (Lviv, 1919), 102. 14 Y e v h e n H u m e n i u k , " S l i d a m y biohrafiv M a r k i a n a S h a s h k e v y c h a , " in Shashkevychiana: Zbirnyk naukovykh prats' (Lviv, W i n n i p e g : I n s t y t u t u k r a i n o z n a v s t v a N A N Ukrai'ny,2001), 3 - 4 : 396-397. I w o u l d like t o t h a n k D r . F e o d o s i j Steblij for d r a w i n g my a t t e n t i o n to this publication. 15 M.V. Biryla, Belarus'kaia antrapanimiia, ( M i n s k : N a u k a i t e k h n i k a , 1982), 10.

vol. 3, Struktura

ulasnykh

muzchinskikh

16 M a r k i a n S h a s h k e v y c h , Tvory (Kyiv: D n i p r o , 1973), 118. 17 B. T i c h o n i u k , Nazwy osobowe w poemacie A. Puszkina 'Ruslan i Ludmila', k o w e Wyzszej Szkoly P e d a g o g i c z n e j w O p o l u . Filologia 28 (1991): 7 3 - 7 6 . antrapanimiia , 106. 18 Biryla. Belarus'kaia

imen

Zeszyty Nau-

19 " P u t e v o d i t e l ' p o P u s h k i n u , " in A l e x a n d r P u s h k i n , Polnoe sobranie sochinenii. (Moscow: V o s k r e s e n i e , 1997), 19: 1253. 20 V. R e t s e p t e r , M. S h e m i a k i n , Vozvrashchenie Pushkinskoi "Rusalki" (St. P e t e r s b u r g : G o s u d a r s t v e n n y i pushkinskii t e a t r a l ' n y i t s e n t r , 1998), 150; "Cavos, C a t t e r i n o A l ' b e r t o v i c h , " in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2d ed. ( N e w York: G r o v e , 2001), accessed 15 D e c e m b e r 2001, http://www.grovemusic.com/shared/views/article.html. 21 H e r e I a m using t h e s c h e m e t h a t was s u g g e s t e d by J o h n A. A r m s t r o n g , b a s e d on t h e linguistic t h e o r i e s of t h e F r e n c h scholar A n t o i n e M a r t e l . J o h n A r m s t r o n g , " M y t h and H i s t o r y in the E v o l u t i o n of U k r a i n i a n C o n s c i o u s n e s s . " in P e t e r J. Potichnyj, M a r c R a e f f , J a r o s l a w P e l e n s k i , G l e b N. Z e k u n i n , eds., Ukraine and Russia in Their Historical Encounter ( E d m o n t o n : C a n a d i a n I n s t i t u t e of U k r a i n i a n S t u d i e s Press, 1992), 129-130. 22 J o h n - P a u l H i m k a , " T h e C o n s t r u c t i o n of N a t i o n a l i t y in Galician R u s ' : I c a r i a n Flights in A l m o s t All D i r e c t i o n s " in R o n a l d G. Suny, M i c h a e l D. K e n n e d y , eds., Intellectuals and the Articulation of the Nation ( A n n A r b o r : U n i v e r s i t y of Michigan Press, 1999), 109-164; I v a n L. R u d n y t s k y , Essays in Modern Ukrainian History ( E d m o n t o n : C a n a d i a n Institute of U k r a i n i a n S t u d i e s Press, 1987), 333-346. 23 Jan Kozik, The Ukrainian National Movement in Galicia: 1815-1849, e d . a n d i n t r o d u c t i o n L a w r e n c e D. O r t o n ( E d m o n t o n : C a n a d i a n I n s t i t u t e of U k r a i n i a n S t u d i e s Press, 1986), 66. 24 K o r n y l o U s t y i a n o v y c h , M.E Raievskii i rosiis'kii panslavizm. Spomynky peredumanoho (Lviv: N a k l a d o m K. B e d n a r s ' k o h o , 1884), 11.

z perezhytoho

i

25 [ B o h d a n D i d y t s ' k y i ] , " V o d i n chas n a u c h y t y s i a M a l o r u s y n u p o v e l y k o r u s k y " (Lviv, 1866). 26 L v i v s ' k a N a u k o v a B i b l i o t e k a imeni Vasylia S t e f a n y k a N A N Ukrainy. Viddil rukopysiv, f. 2, od.zb. 330/2,1. 65ob. 27 See his a u t o b i o g r a p h y Svoiezhittievyie zapiski Bohdana A.Didyts'koho, vol.1, Hde-shcho do istoriisamorozvitiia iazyka i azbuky Halitskoi Rusi (Lviv, 1906), p a s s i m . 28 Svoiezhittievyie zapiski Bohdana A.Didyts'koho, halitskoi Rusi v XIX st. (Lviv, 1908), 17.

vol.2, Vzhliad

na shkolnoe

obrazovan'e

29 For an e x c e l l e n t a n d d e t a i l e d o v e r v i e w of t h e R u s s o p h i l e o r i e n t a t i o n s e e A n n a V e r o n i k a W e n d l a n d , Die Russophilen in Galizien. Ukrainische Konservative zwischen Österreich und Russland, 1848-1915 ( V i e n n a : Ö s t e r r e i c h i s c h e A k a d e m i e d e r W i s s e n s c h a f t e n , 2001). 30 G e o r g e S.N. L u c k y j , Between Gogol' and 1798-1847 ( M u n i c h : W. Fink, 1971), 123. 31 Ivan F r a n k o , Zibrannia

tvoriv,

Sevcenko.

Polarity

in the Literary

50 vols. (Kyiv: N a u k o v a d u m k a , 1978), 11: 286.

Ukraine,

Notes

-111

32 Ivan Franko, Bibliohrafiia tvoriv. 1874-1964. Sklav M.O. Moroz (Kyiv: Naukova dumka, 1966), 439-440. 33 Ivan Franko, Zibrannia tvoriv, 49: 243. 34 Ivan Franko, Zibrannia tvoriv, 26: 89-93. 35 Ivan Franko, Bibliohrafiia tvoriv, 439-440. The bibliography does not, however, provide the n u m b e r of the cases when Ivan Franko was using cryptonyms I F., I.Fr., Iw.Fr. 36 Mesiatseslov v pozdravlenie uhors'kykh rusynov na hod 1857 (Lviv, 1856); Mesiatseslov hospodarskii L'vovskii na hod 1857 (Lviv, 1856). 37 They were published in a separate collection. Ivan Franko, Halyts'ki obrazky, 1st ed. (Lviv, 1885), and then were republished several times. 38 Tsentralnyi Derzhavnyi Istorychnyi Arkhiv (Lviv), f. 201, op. 4-a, od.zber. 4024,1. 37. 39 Yaroslav Hrytsak, "History of Names: A Case of Constructing a National Historical Memory in Galicia, 1830-1930." Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropa 49 (2001) : 171-172. 40 R o m a n Horak, "Lehendy pro narodzhennia Ivana Franka," Literaturna Ukraina 30 (August 2001). 41 Vasyl Stefanyk, Vybrane (Uzhhorod: Karpaty, 1979), 231,237. 42 Krzysztof Slusarek, Wloscianscy i niewloscianscy mieszkancy wsi galicyjskiej w XIX wieku. Wzajemne relacje, Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Jagielloriskiego, Prace Historyczne 126 (1999): 118,122. 43 Ivan Nehrebets'kyj, " D o rodovodu Ivana Franka," Literaturno-naukovyj vistnyk 90, nos. 7 - 8 (1926): 233. 44 R o m a n Chmelyk, Mala ukrains'ka selians'ka simia druhoi polovyny XIX-pochatku XXst. (Lviv: Institut narodoznavstva N A N Ukrainy, 1999), 104-105. 45 Leonid Heretz, "Russian Apocalypse, 1891-1917: Popular Perceptions of Events from the Year of Famine and Cholera to the Fall of the Tsar" (Ph.D. diss. Harvard University, 1993), 184-186; Zenon Pelens'kyj, "Mizh dvoma konechnostiamy. Prychynok do sotsiolohii ukrains'koho nacional'no-vyzvol'noho revoluciinoho rukhu v Zakhidnii Ukraini mizh oboma svitovymy voinamy," in Yevhen Konovalets' ta ioho doba (Munich: Fundatsiia Yevhena Konovalets'ia, 1974), 513-516; Yu.P. Prysiazhniuk, "Mental'nist' ukrajins'koho selianstva v umovakh kapitalistychnoi transformacii suspil'stva (druha polovyna X I X - p o c h a t o k XX st.)," Ukrains'kyi istorychnyi zhurnal 3 (1999): 25-27. 46 I.P. Slups'kyi, ed., Ivan Franko. Dokumentalni fotohrafii, 2d and rev. ed. (n.d., n.p. [Lviv: Kameniar, 1971]), 23,25. 47 Perepyska Mykhaila Drahomanova z Mykhailom Pavlykom (1876-1895), vol. 2,1876-1878 (Chernivtsi, 1910), 96. 48 For more details see John-Paul Himka, Socialism in Galicia. The Emergence of Polish Social Democracy and Ukrainian Radicalism, 1860-1890 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 46-56. 49 Perepyska, 2: 26. 50 I.P. Slups'kyi, Ivan Franko, 27. 51 Franko, Halyts'ki obrazky, passim. 52 Uliana Kravchenko, Pamiati druha. Virshi v prozi, statti, spohady, lysty (Lviv: Kameniar, 1996), passim; Instytut literatury imeni Tarasa Shevchenka NAN Ukrainy, f. 3, od.zb. 1603, 11. 111-113. 53 Ivan Kobylets'kyi, " D e s h c h o pro Ivana Franka," in M. Hnatiuk, ed., Spohady pro Ivana Franka (Lviv: Kameniar, 1997), 41. 54 Iurii Sherekh, lurii Shevelov: Vnesok Halychyny vu formuvannia ukrains'koi literaturnoi movy (Lviv-New York: Naukove tovarystvo imeni Shevchenka, 1996). 55 [Ivan Franko], "Pogrzeb popiolów sp. Marciana Szaszkewicza," Kurjer Lwowski 304 (2 N o v e m b e r 1893): 2; " Z pogrzebu Szaszkewicza," Kurjer Lwowski 305 (3 N o v e m b e r 1893): 3.

112- lar osla v Hrytsak 56 M y k h a i l o H r u s h e v s ' k y ¡ . " A p o s t o l o v i p r a t s i , " in M y k h a i l o H n a t i u k . ed., Spohady Franka (Lviv: K a m e n i a r , 1997), 214-215.

pro

¡vana

57 For d e t a i l s see t h e very i n f o r m a t i v e t h o u g h slightly biased b o o k I e v h e n N a k o n e c h n y i , Ukradene im'ia. Chomu rusyny staly ukraintsiamy (Lviv: Institut u k r a d ' n o z n a v s t v a i m e n i K r y p ' i a k e v y c h a N A N U k r a i n y , 2001), p a s s i m . 58 M y k h a i l o V o z n i a k , Pamiaty Ivana Franka: Soiuz vyzvolenia U k r a i n y , 1916), passim.

Opys zhyttia,

diial'nosty

i pokhoronu

59 S e e my "Lviv: A M u l t i c u l t u r a l H i s t o r y t h r o u g h the C e n t u r i e s , " Harvard 24, nos. 1/4 (2002).

Ukrainian

(Vienna: Studies

60 R o m a n S z p o r l u k , " U k r a i n e : F r o m an I m p e r i a l P e r i p h e r y to a Sovereign State," Daedalus. Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Science 126, no. 3 ( S u m m e r 1997): 8 5 - 1 1 9 .

From Elisavetgrad to Broadway: The Strange Odyssey of Iakov Gordin JOHN

KLIER

It is doubtful that the crowds that made Mirele Efros one of the most popular dramas on the Yiddish stage at the turn of the century were aware of the colorful past of its author, I.M. Gordin. They might have been surprised to learn that the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs had ordered that, should Gordin appear at any Russian border crossing, he was to be immediately arrested and dispatched to St. Petersburg. What was the dark secret of Gordin's early career? Was he a revolutionary terrorist or master criminal? Surprisingly, Gordin's road to notoriety led along the path of religious reform. This article will explore the transformation of a would-be reformer of Russian Jewry into a target of the Russian secret police. It will offer the portrait of a man who, having achieved notoriety in both Russian and Jewish circles as a would-be religious reformer, achieved his most lasting fame in America as a reformer of quite a different sort: of the modern Yiddish stage. Religious reform was an integral part of the so-called "Jewish Question" in Russia, which was itself a transplantation into Russia of the attitudes towards the Jews that evolved in European Enlightenment thought. 1 Drawing on E u r o p e a n conceptions of the Jews, Russian officials divided the Jewish Question into two components, religious and socio-economic. (There was some disagreement as to which component deserved priority and the extent to which they were innate to Jews and Judaism, or environmental, the product of centuries of persecution.) The former was characterized as "religious fanaticism," through which Jews considered themselves a "chosen people," superior to all the other nations of the earth. It was exemplified and codified by the dictates of the Talmud, which demanded that the Jews keep themselves apart from the non-Jewish goyim, to whom they owed no moral duties or respect. Out of these feelings of superiority and exclusiveness arose "economic exploitation." The Jews felt no moral restraint against cheating and despoiling the goyim, through a parasitic existence at the non-Jews' expense. Thus, the typical Jewish occupations were petty trade and huckstering, and pursuits that ^relied on human weakness, such as tavern keeping and usury. The solution to the Jewish Question was to wean the Jews away from their tal-

114 • John Klier mudic fanaticism, while turning them to "productive" economic endeavors, especially agriculture. A t least some of these assumptions were to be found in the Haskalah, the Jewish variant of the E u r o p e a n - w i d e Enlightenment movement. Many of the maskilim, as the p r o p o n e n t s of the Haskalah were called, sought to strip away the centuries-old accretions of superstition and fanaticism which persecution had encouraged, and recover the "pure core of the Mosaic belief." This had the added virtue, for its proponents, of being m o r e "rational" and closer to the Enlightenment ideals of "Natural Religion." While the maskilim attributed their co-religionists' undesirable economic pursuits to medieval persecution, they nonetheless strongly c o n d e m n e d them and argued for policies that would m a k e the Jews more productive. In Eastern E u r o p e , the maskilim were the special foes of the Hasidim, followers of the Jewish revivalist m o v e m e n t , Hasidism, associated with Israel Baal Shem Tov and his followers. 2 By the last q u a r t e r of the nineteenth century, therefore, there was already a tradition of debate, especially in the Jewish press, over the need for the religious reform of Judaism paralleling, but not identical with, non-Jewish Russian critiques of Jewish religious and socio-economic life. Indeed, given their isolation amidst the numerically superior community of Jewish traditionalists, religious r e f o r m e r s were almost totally d e p e n d e n t upon the Jewish press to disseminate their views. What was unique about the reform movements of the 1880s, including Iakov Gordin's, was that they were also widely r e p o r t e d and c o m m e n t e d upon by the Russian press. Iakov Mikhailovich Gordin (Jacob G o r d i n ) was born in Mirgorod, Poltava province, in 1853, and died in New York City in 1909. He was educated according to maskilic principles, and in the 1870s began to publish sketches drawn f r o m Jewish life in the liberal and Judeophile Russian press. Gordin developed a personal philosophy that led him to attempt a reform of Judaism following rationalistic and ethical-social principles. His prescriptions for change were very much a reflection of ideas that were in the air. H e stressed the need for physical labor by Jews, himself included, as an essential ingredient for personal self-development. G o r d i n attempted to p r o p a g a t e these ideas through the establishment, in the city of Elisavetgrad, of a fellowship which he named the "Spiritual Biblical B r o t h e r h o o d " ( D u k h o v n o - B i b l e i s k o e Bratstvo) in January of 1880. 3 "The core of pure Mosaic belief" and productive labor—in m o r e normal times Gordin might have expected a hearty welcome for his movement f r o m the side of " e n l i g h t e n e d " Jewish opinion, as r e p r e s e n t e d by the Russian-language Jewish press. 4 A n d indeed, the first reports in the Jewish press were generally favorable. But these were not normal times. On 1 March 1881, members of the revolutionary terrorist group, the People's Will (Narodnaia volia), assassinated E m p e r o r A l e x a n d e r II. In the confused weeks and months that followed, there were a n u m ber of o u t b r e a k s of popular disorder, including a wave of anti-Jewish violence, the pogroms, which began in mid-April 1881 and persisted sporadically until the fall of 1882. 5 The pogroms have rightly been seen as a major turning point in m o d e r n

From Elisavetgrad

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• 115

J e w i s h history. W h i l e they did n o t e n t i r e l y discredit a liberal ideology that envision e d t h e g r a d u a l e m a n c i p a t i o n of R u s s i a n Jewry, as h a s o f t e n b e e n c l a i m e d in t h e s e c o n d a r y l i t e r a t u r e , they did give rise to n e w political i d e o l o g i e s a m o n g t h e J e w s of E a s t e r n E u r o p e , m o s t n o t a b l y t h e p r o t o - Z i o n i s t m o v e m e n t of H o v e v e - Z i o n ( t h e L o v e r s of Z i o n ) a n d distinctively Jewish f o r m s of socialism, c u l m i n a t i n g in t h e B u n d . 6 T h e m o v e m e n t of G o r d i n a n d his c o l l a b o r a t o r s has b e e n d i s m i s s e d by m o s t h i s t o r i a n s of R u s s i a n Jewry as u n i m p o r t a n t a n d i r r e l e v a n t , d e s p i t e t h e m o m e n t a r y s t o r m t h a t they raised. N o n e t h e l e s s , given t h e ferocity of t h e p o l e m i c t h a t s u r r o u n d e d t h e r e f o r m e r s , their m o v e m e n t s a r e w o r t h a closer e x a m i n a t i o n . T h e first p o g r o m of 1881 o c c u r r e d o n 15-17 A p r i l in E l i s a v e t g r a d , K h e r s o n p r o v i n c e , t h e b i r t h p l a c e of t h e Spiritual Biblical B r o t h e r h o o d [SBB]. G o r d i n ' s r e s p o n s e m u s t b e v i e w e d against t h e b a c k g r o u n d of t h e press d e b a t e s o v e r r e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r this first p o g r o m , a n d t h o s e t h a t f o l l o w e d it. J u d e o p h o b e s w e r e q u i c k t o p l a c e t h e b l a m e on t h e Jews t h e m s e l v e s . It w a s Jewish e x p l o i t a t i o n , t h e y c l a i m e d , t h a t d r o v e t h e p e a s a n t s , r u i n e d by Jewish u s u r y a n d t a v e r n k e e p i n g , t o r e s p o n d in t h e only way they knew. W h i l e o n e could n o t t o l e r a t e such p r i m i t i v e , p o p u l a r v e n g e a n c e , it was e n t i r e l y c o m p r e h e n s i b l e . Jewish publicists initially s o u g h t to c o u n t e r such claims by a t t r i b u t i n g t h e p o g r o m s t o r e v o l u t i o n a r y agitat i o n , a i m e d at w e a k e n i n g p u b l i c o r d e r , a n d s u b s e q u e n t l y by b l a m i n g t h e r e s t r i c t ed legal p o s i t i o n of t h e Jews, which p l a c e d t h e m o u t s i d e the p r o t e c t i o n of t h e law in t h e e y e s of t h e " d a r k masses." 7 In early J u n e of 1881, as p o g r o m s e r u p t e d s p o r a d i c a l l y across U k r a i n e , G o r d i n p u b l i s h e d a m a n i f e s t o in the n a m e of t h e B r o t h e r h o o d in t h e K h a r k o v n e w s p a p e r Iuzhnyi

krai, which a p p e a r e d to a c c e p t t h e J u d e o p h o b e side of t h e a r g u m e n t .

G o r d i n l a m e n t e d t h a t " w e Jews h a v e a m o r a l illness, which c a u s e s g r e a t e r s o r r o w , t o r m e n t a n d s u f f e r i n g t h a n t h e w o r s t physical m i s f o r t u n e : o u r b a d h a b i t s t h a t h a v e t a k e n r o o t d e e p l y in o u r life." H o w was it possible, he a s k e d , t h a t in t h e a f t e r m a t h of b r u t a l i t y such as t h e p o g r o m s , n o b o d y s y m p a t h i z e d with t h e J e w s o r o f f e r e d t h e m a s s i s t a n c e ? W h y w e r e all s t r a t a of R u s s i a n society u n i t e d a g a i n s t t h e J e w s ? Jewish a p o l o g i s t s p r e f e r r e d t o a t t r i b u t e such hostility t o religious p r e j u d i c e . T h e f a u l t actually lay with t h e Jews t h e m s e l v e s . " O u r g r e e d , insatiability, cove t o u s n e s s , cupidity, o u r p e r s i s t e n c e , p u s h i n e s s , o u r e x t r e m e willingness t o

flaunt,

o u r e x t r a v a g a n c e , o u r slavish a n d s t u p i d i m i t a t i o n of p r o u d a n d u n b r i d l e d R u s sian h a u g h t i n e s s , o u r usury, t a v e r n - k e e p i n g , h u c k s t e r i n g , a n d similar s h o r t c o m i n g s p r o v o k e t h e R u s s i a n p e o p l e against us, stirring u p t h e envy of t h e m e r c h a n t a n d t h e c o n t e m p t of t h e n o b l e . " G o r d i n u r g e d J e w s t o r e j e c t d i s h o n o r a b l e u n d e r t a k ings such as u s u r y a n d t a v e r n k e e p i n g , a n d to i m i t a t e t h e r e f o r m e d e c o n o m i c a n d spiritual life p i o n e e r e d by t h e B r o t h e r h o o d . " C o m e to us, b e l o v e d b r o t h e r s , c o m e ! . . . I m p a t i e n t l y a w a i t i n g you is a s p i r i t u a l f a m i l y w h o a r e g o o d , s y m p a t h e t i c a n d r e s p o n s i v e . . . . W e love you w a r m l y a n d deeply, a l t h o u g h s o m e t i m e s we tell you the bitter truth."8 T h i s b r o a d s i d e p r o v o k e d a s t o r m of c o n t r o v e r s y in the press. G o r d i n ' s " c o m ing o u t " as a s t r o n g critic of t r a d i t i o n a l J u d a i s m m a y h a v e given c o n f i d e n c e t o o t h -

116- John Klier ers to take a similar stand in public. In Odessa, a young teacher at a state Jewish school, Iakov Priluker, used the local press to announce the foundation of another reform group, "New Israel." 9 The movement claimed to base itself on the rational principles of the Mosaic Law. It sought to reform contemporary Jewry, turn Jews into "productive and useful sons of the Fatherland," and to ease their rapprochement with the Christian population. Priluker presented a list of fifteen essential dogmas. They were a naive blend of serious concerns and ludicrous trivialities, and might be contrasted with the greater simplicity of Gordin's approach. 1 0 1. Rejection of Talmudic interpretations of the Pentateuch. 2. Designation of Sunday as the Sabbath. 3. Rejection of the rite of circumcision. 4. Compilation of a r e f o r m e d prayer book written in Hebrew. 5. Renaming "shuls" as "churches." 6. Acceptance of a printed Torah which fully spelt the n a m e of G o d . 7. A b a n d o n m e n t of the dietary rules of kashrut. 8. Celebration of all (non-Talmudic) Jewish holidays. 9. Obligation to learn and use the Russian language. 10. Obligation to obey all state laws, including those on military service. 11. Members forbidden to practice usury or keep houses of prostitution. 12. Request official recognition of the sect. 13. U p o n formal recognition of the sect, all members obliged to name their first-born children either A l e x a n d e r or Alexandria. 14. Request for the grant of full civil rights and official approval of mixed marriages. 15. So that they might be fully distinguished from rabbinical Jews, all m e m b e r s to be allowed to wear a distinguishing mark. 1 1 Priluker's doctrines were essentially a point by point accommodation of the criticisms of Jews and Judaism (especially the Talmud) made by Russian J u d e o phobes. They would have reduced the core of Judaism to the P e n t a t e u c h , while eliminating virtually every aspect that differentiated Jews from Christians. R a t h e r than "reform," these doctrines suggested the repudiation of Judaism. Priluker was motivated by the open desire—which many critics saw as p r e m a t u r e and u n s e e m ly—of securing special privileges and rights for his sect. Priluker followed the succès de scandal occasioned by the a p p e a r a n c e of this article with the publication of a pamphlet, issued under the p s e u d o n y m of " E m m a n u e l Ben-Sion," entitled "Jewish R e f o r m e r s " ( E v r e i - R e f o r m a t o r y ) } 2 T h e historian of the Jewish press Yehuda Slutsky characterized "Jewish R e f o r m e r s " as a "violent attack on the Talmud and traditional Judaism, thus supplying material for antisemitic propaganda." 1 3 W h a t e v e r the uses to which the p a m p h l e t might ultimately have been put, it may fairly be characterized as an a t t e m p t to o f f e r a balanced discussion of the p o g r o m s and a more serious, albeit hostile, analysis

From Elisavetgrad to Broadway • 117 of rabbinical Judaism. Priluker adopted the curious literary device of posing as a n e u t r a l observer of the movement, thus allowing himself to conduct a discussion with '"Mr. Priluker" (i.e., himself) as a separate person. He also criticized several of t h e very dogmas that he had promulgated in Odesskii listok, specifically numbers f o u r t e e n and fifteen. The pamphlet was a convenient compendium of the beliefs of the two sects and was extensively reviewed in the Russian press, including a discussion by Iakov Gordin. 1 4 This first meeting of the two reformers, if only in a n e w s p a p e r , was significant, since Priluker's much smaller movement eventually m e r g e d with the Spiritual Biblical B r o t h e r h o o d in 1883. 1 5 Given the events that touched on the status of the Jews in Russia after 1881, including the pogroms themselves, the d e b a t e over their causes, the committees c o n v o k e d in every province to report on the Jews, and the behind-doors maneuvering which preceded the publication of the notorious May Laws, it might at first sight a p p e a r astonishing that so much attention was devoted to a few tiny reform m o v e m e n t s in the midst of a religious minority. A closer look reveals that all comm e n t a t o r s used their discussion to support their own particular vision of the best way to resolve the Jewish Question, or to score points against polemical rivals. T h e close attention paid by the Jewish press was perhaps most understandable, given the long-standing interest of acculturated Jews in the question of religious reform. Indeed, the Jewish press was generally welcoming to Gordin's m o v e m e n t in 1880 and early 1881. 16 Their editorial tone sharpened considerably after G o r din's i n t e m p e r a t e post-pogrom attack on the Jews. The Jewish press treated it as a virtual declaration of war, and the Hebrew-language Hamelits called for the B r o t h e r h o o d ' s "moral death." 1 7 A Russkii Evrei editorial described G o r d i n ' s letter as "filled with banal phrases, like those teeming in Kievlianin [a leading J u d e o p h o b e newspaper] editorials; this is simply a cloying morality, taken out on lease." T h e anti-Talmudic rhetoric of the B r o t h e r h o o d was calculated only to gain the support of "a certain kind of newspaper." These anti-Talmudists were either fools or rogues. 1 8 For Rassvet, G o r d i n ' s statements were the "prologue and epilogue" of the pogroms, which the B r o t h e r h o o d was happy to manipulate for its own purposes. G o r d i n ' s rhetoric was dismissed as "arrogant and superior." 19 The columns of both newspapers carried letters from Elisavetgrad, which blackened the activities and motives of the B r o t h e r h o o d . R u m o r s circulated that all the Brothers were kulaks, 2 0 that they had participated in the pogroms, or that G o r d i n was a m e m b e r of a committee that had been organized to assist the families of arrested pogromshchiki,21 For A. Landau, the editor of Voskhod, "these saviours of the Jews have nothing but a flashy nickname, u n d e r which is concealed flashy, high-blown phrases, disguising moral and intellectual emptiness." It was indeed a strange religious sect, he noted, that propagated its religious beliefs through the periodical press, rather than through sermons, preaching, or even the example of a good life. 22 The liberal and m o d e r a t e Russian press, such as the Russkii vedomosti, were sceptical that the sectarians could have a beneficial effect on the Jewish c o m m u -

118 John Klier nity as a whole. M.M. Filippov, writing in Vek in July of 1882, dismissed the potential of an " i m m a t u r e rationalist" like Gordin, who was too learned for the masses and too much the a m a t e u r for the intelligentsia. Golos doubted that "the type of dishes one eats f r o m is the key to the Jewish Question." 2 3 The J u d e o p h o b e press, in contrast, greeted the sectarians with glee. Novoe vremia praised the B r o t h e r h o o d as "more important than all the commissions and committees on the Jewish Question," since it offered the promise of a truly radical solution. The sectarians, with their criticisms of the Talmud, were only confirming what the J u d e o p h o b e s had been saying for years. As Odesskii vestnik headlined an article of 21 January 1882, which was a description of the SBB by one of its members, "The Jews Themselves Recognize the Necessity of Regeneration and Self-Development." Volyn, with Gordin rather than Priluker in mind, a p p l a u d e d the announced intentions of the sectarians to achieve internal r e f o r m before they d e m a n d e d full civil rights, contradicting the Judeophile position that discriminatory legislation was itself the major factor underlying the Jewish Question. A magazine affiliated with the Russian O r t h o d o x Church, TserkovnoObshchestvennyi vestnik, presented a four-part review of Ben-Sion's "Jewish Reformers," using the occasion to chronicle all the alleged faults of the Jews which r e n d e r e d reform a necessary prelude to any sort of Jewish emancipation. The ultimate problem, the author a n n o u n c e d , was that, due to the Talmud, "the basic principles of their lives make the Jews our enemies." 2 4 Literary Judeophobes discovered, in the public debate over the sectarians, a cudgel with which to beat one of their favorite targets, the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia. O n e of the distinctive shifts in Russian Judeophobia that occurred during the R e f o r m Era in Russia (1855-1881) was the relocation of the essence of the Jewish Question from the Jewish masses to the Jewish intelligentsia. Russian critics of the Jews and the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia 2 5 had once shared a consensus that the Jewish masses were backward and fanatical, engaged in occupations, such as usury and tavern keeping, which d e p e n d e d on human weakness. The Jewish Question would be resolved by acculturation and economic r e f o r m (to which agenda the Jewish intelligentsia a d d e d the abolition of the Pale of Settlement). 2 6 A parting of the ways had c o m e at the end of the 1860s, when J u d e o p h o b e s rallied to the ideas of the Jewish renegade, Iakov B r a f m a n . B r a f m a n claimed that the Jewish masses were so difficult to reform because they were held in thrall by a secret, universal Jewish g o v e r n m e n t , the kahal. The kahal was dominated by the communal oligarchy that used the precepts of the Talmud t o justify exploitation of the Christian peasantry. Only the abolition of the kahal could resolve the Jewish Question. 2 7 When the Russian-Jewish intelligentsia r e f u s e d to confirm B r a f m a n ' s fantasies, they were c o n d e m n e d as "agents of the kahal." The d e b a t e over the sectarians allowed J u d e o p h o b e s to reprise this t h e m e . T h e Jewish sectarians and their supporters led the way. The veteran Jewish critic of traditional Judaism, V. Portugalov, c o n d e m n e d the Jewish press for "closing its eyes b e f o r e the true but bitter reality, b e f o r e the imperfect moral physiognomy of

From Elisavetgrad to Broadway -119 Russian Jewry." 2 8 Priluker, writing under his Ben-Sion pseudonym in Nedelia, d e n o u n c e d his critics in the Jewish press as m o d e r n Pharisees who hurled libellous falsehoods at the sectarians. G o r d i n also writing in Nedelia, portrayed Jewish journalists as a clique that was completely unsympathetic to the interests of the Jewish masses, and intent only on pandering to their subscribers. 2 9 The J u d e o p h o b e press was quick to develop this theme. Nedelia, which had earlier in 1880 published an article by Portugalov in which he c o n d e m n e d the Jewish press as "slaves of the Jewish bourgeoisie," asked rhetorically in 1882 why the Jewish press was so hostile to the r e f o r m e r s ? A f t e r all, they were merely implementing r e c o m m e n d a t i o n s which Jewish journalists had b e e n making for years. 3 0 Istoricheskii vestnik took an early interest in the Spiritual Biblical Brot h e r h o o d and urged its readers to peruse closely the p a m p h l e t of Ben-Sion. The Jewish intelligentsia now stood in opposition to these reformers, a situation which clearly revealed the hopelessness of relying upon the f o r m e r to bring any changes to the life of the Jewish masses. 31 The J u d e o p h o b e Russkii kurer complained that the Jewish intelligentsia "sows not peace but hostility between them [the Jews] and Russians." A subsequent article observed that since the Jewish intelligentsia had b e e n brought up on Russian literature and journalism, they had to be aware of t h e importance of self-criticism. Even the haughty Poles were now willing to admit that their national decline could not be blamed solely on outsiders. Yet educated Jews continued to insist that they would never criticize their own people until they had been given full civil rights. Russkii kurer declared itself in favor of greater rights, but rejected the Jewish failure to be self-critical. "The sun has spots. T h e Jews have shortcomings. ...It follows that the more attentive and objective of the Jews should examine the more crying of their shortcomings which stand b e t w e e n them and the local population in areas where they live." Their persistent failure to do so was a serious obstacle to the ultimate resolution of the Jewish Question. 3 2 T h e subsequent fate of the diverse reform m o v e m e n t s is as fascinating as the polemics they aroused in 1881-82. The m o v e m e n t of Rabinovich 3 3 remained in the public eye most consistently since it held out the illusory promise of the mass conversion of Russian Jewry to Christianity, and was widely trailed by the conservative and religious press. As n o t e d above, the small New Israel group of O d e s s a d i s a p p e a r e d a f t e r its merger with the Spiritual Biblical B r o t h e r h o o d in 1883. D u r i n g the period of the press d e b a t e s G o r d i n had been attempting to put his beliefs into practice by establishing a small agricultural c o m m u n e in the countryside. A n u m b e r of the Brothers joined the post-pogrom emigration m o v e m e n t to A m e r i c a , with the intention of taking up farming there. In 1884, G o r d i n r e t u r n e d to Elisavetgrad to rebuild and re-energize his movement. W h a t were the motives and aspirations that influenced G o r d i n ? Much of the available i n f o r m a t i o n a b o u t G o r d i n and the SBB comes f r o m a lengthy police file in t h e Russian archives which shows that the m o v e m e n t had been u n d e r police observation almost f r o m its f o u n d a t i o n . G o r d i n and the SBB clearly

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u n d e r w e n t c h a n g e s o v e r t i m e , a n d t h e historical l i t e r a t u r e t e n d s t o r e a d back l a t e r d e v e l o p m e n t s in t h e m o v e m e n t t o its origins. A c c o r d i n g to t h e s e l a t e r r e p o r t s , G o r d i n was m o t i v a t e d by t h e i d e a s of t h e social r e v o l u t i o n a r y m o v e ment, revolutionary (Narodrtiki).™ Narodnaia

a g r a r i a n socialists k n o w n

generically

as t h e

Populists

H e w a s e v e n a c c u s e d of f o r m i n g a b r a n c h of t h e t e r r o r i s t g r o u p volia

in K r e m e n c h u g . C e r t a i n l y t h e D e p a r t m e n t of Police in St

P e t e r s b u r g i n i t i a t e d s u r v e i l l a n c e o v e r G o r d i n o v e r f e a r of p o s s i b l e socialist s y m p a t h i e s . T h a t said, t h e police w e r e o b s e s s e d with r e v o l u t i o n a r y activity, a n d a l e r t t o its a p p e a r a n c e a n y w h e r e . T h e p o l i c e file o n G o r d i n a n d t h e S B B — f e d by h e l p ful i n f o r m e r s — g r e w i n t o an e v e r m o r e c o m p l i c a t e d n a r r a t i v e o v e r t h e years. By 1889, G o r d i n w a s a c c u s e d of b e i n g p a r t of a social r e v o l u t i o n a r y conspiracy, d a t ing f r o m 1881, to s p r e a d socialist i d e a s a m o n g a C h r i s t i a n s e c t a r i a n m o v e m e n t in U k r a i n e k n o w n as t h e " S t u n d i s t s . " T h a t such w e r e t h e original o b j e c t i v e s of G o r d i n a n d his m o v e m e n t , which r e s t r i c t e d its activity to Jews, a p p e a r s i m p r o b able, to say t h e least. 3 5 I n d e e d , a f t e r a t h o r o u g h i n v e s t i g a t i o n p r o m p t e d by their s u p e r i o r s in St. P e t e r s b u r g , t h e local a u t h o r i t i e s g a v e G o r d i n a n d the B r o t h e r h o o d a clean bill of political h e a l t h in 1884. A s a c o n s e q u e n c e , t h e g r o u p was able to gain t h e right f r o m t h e local police to o p e n its o w n s y n a g o g u e a n d elect its own r a b b i . 3 6 T h e m o v e m e n t also r e q u e s t e d to be given land in o r d e r t o establish a Jewish agricultural c o m m u n i t y , a n d to be a l l o w e d to k e e p its own official vital statistics. T h e r e q u e s t for land was d e n i e d . While t h e Russian state had at o n e t i m e e n c o u r a g e d Jewish agricultural c o l o n i s a t i o n , o n e of the lessons d r a w n f r o m t h e p o g r o m s of 1881-82 (which had included a t t a c k s on existing Jewish a g r i c u l t u r a l colonies) was that Jews had to b e driven o u t of the c o u n t r y s i d e lest they e x p l o i t t h e p e a s a n t p o p u l a t i o n . T h e f r u i t s of this belief were t h e n o t o r i o u s M a y L a w s of 1882, which b a n n e d " n e w " Jewish s e t t l e m e n t in the c o u n t r y s i d e . T h e m o v e m e n t ' s s e l f - i m p r o v e m e n t s c h e m e s fell victim, f o r t h e m o m e n t , to these regulations. T h e q u e s t i o n of vital statistics w a s e v e n m o r e p r o b l e m a t i c . A c c o r d i n g t o legislation of t h e first half of t h e c e n t u r y , e v e r y Jewish c o m m u n i t y h a d t o k e e p a set of r e c o r d s r e g i s t e r i n g t h e b i r t h , d e a t h , m a r r i a g e a n d d i v o r c e of its m e m b e r s . T h e y w e r e k e p t in special n o t e b o o k s , called metricheskie

knigi, in R u s s i a n a n d H e b r e w

o n f a c i n g pages. T h e task of k e e p i n g t h e s e r e c o r d s w a s a s s i g n e d t o t h e s o - c a l l e d " s t a t e " or " c r o w n " r a b b i , e l e c t e d e v e r y t h r e e years by t h e c o m m u n i t y , w i t h t h e r a t i f i c a t i o n of t h e R u s s i a n a u t h o r i t i e s . W h i l e t h e r e c o r d s w e r e u s e d t o d e m a n d s t a t e o b l i g a t i o n s , such as t a x e s o r m i l i t a r y service, t h e y w e r e also t h e b a s i s f o r issuing i d e n t i f i c a t i o n p a p e r s . T h e y also c e r t i f i e d t h a t an i n d i v i d u a l b e l o n g e d t o t h e J e w i s h c o m m u n i t y . W h i l e t h e s t a t e p e r m i t t e d d i f f e r e n t sects t o h a v e t h e i r o w n s y n a g o g u e a n d r a b b i , t h e r e c o r d s w e r e k e p t by t h e d e s i g n a t e d s t a t e c o m m u n a l r a b b i . To give t h e B r o t h e r h o o d t h e right t o k e e p its o w n r e c o r d s w o u l d n o t o n l y c o m p l i c a t e r e c o r d k e e p i n g , b u t m i g h t give t h e " B r o t h e r s " a s p e c i a l status. N o t in t h e h a b i t of g r a n t i n g n e w " p r i v i l e g e s " to t h e Jews, t h e g o v e r n m e n t declined the request.37

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This left the B r o t h e r h o o d in a difficult situation, d e p e n d e n t upon the good will of the state rabbi (who himself owned his election and salary to the Jewish community which he served). The crux of the problem was that the registration of males in the community took place upon the occasion of their circumcision, and the B r o t h e r h o o d was rejecting this rite. Thus, state rabbis were refusing to register uncircumcised children of the "Brothers," with all the legal difficulties to which this gave rise. Therefore, the Brothers submitted a n o t h e r petition in 1888, sweetening it with the request that they be allowed to k e e p their records only in Russian, without the H e b r e w text. No answer was received b e f o r e the disappearance of the sect. 3 8 This was not the best of times for the B r o t h e r h o o d to seek further assistance from the government. The local authorities were unhappy with the p e r f o r m a n c e of the person designated as the "rabbi" of the B r o t h e r h o o d , Mordukh Shmul Shapsovich, who had not been actively engaged in the duties of his post for over a year; meanwhile, the metricheskie knigi of the sect were (perhaps understandably) in disarray. This was not the limit of the Brotherhood's difficulties. If the bureaucrats were unhappy, the Russian O r t h o d o x authorities were even m o r e so. There is a common assumption in the secondary literature that the O r t h o d o x Church was eager to convert Russian Jews to Christianity. As I have argued elsewhere, there was certainly no centralized, co-ordinated policy. 39 If the institutional Church thought about the Jews at all, it was as a threat to the integrity of the faith through "Judaising." A f t e r the great schism in the O r t h o d o x Church in the seventeenth century, popular religion had given rise to numerous sects, some which had characteristics (keeping the Sabbath, circumcision) that resembled Jewish practice and could be blamed on Jewish conversionary activity. Indeed, a law dating to 1825 provided for the expulsion of the Jewish population from any district where "Judaising" sects appeared. 4 0 In May of 1888 the newspaper of the Kherson diocese carried an article which complained of the negative influence of the Brotherhood on O r t h o d o x believers. The office of the Over-Procurator of the Church, the lay administrative arm, asked the police to investigate. The police r e p o r t e d that, in the beginning, some Christians had attended meetings of the sect, but that their curiosity had waned. A n investigation was continuing into the claim that a member of the sect had married a Christian woman according to the (Jewish) rites of the sect, which would have been illegal under Russian law. 41 The governor of Kherson province submitted additional reports to the D e p a r t m e n t of Police in S e p t e m b e r of 1890. It can hardly be said that the report described the movement at its height, because it had u n d e r g o n e a schism, between those m e m b e r s who wished to continue the m o v e m e n t as it was and those who sought to move it in a different direction. T h e culprit for the split was a certain Isaac Fainerman, a Jewish convert to Christianity. Unfortunately, he was the "wrong kind of Christian"—a follower of Count Leo Tolstoy. (Reportedly, Fainerman had even waited upon the Master at his estate of Iasnaia Poliana.) 4 2

122 • John

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W o r s e still, he had sufficient f u n d s to buy land on which to settle m e m b e r s of t h e sect w h o a g r e e d t o live by Tolstoian principles. H e p u r c h a s e d t h e entire, albeit m i n u s c u l e , shtetl of G l o d o s , E k a t e r i n o s l a v district, a n d leased 20 d e s i a t i n a s of l a n d f o r t h e colonists. F a i n e r m a n a n d his disciples lived simply a n d soberly, b u t h a d b e e n s e e n in discussions with Stundists. 4 3 It was against this b a c k g r o u n d t h a t t h e sect a p p r o a c h e d the a u t h o r i t i e s with a r e q u e s t t o elect a n e w r a b b i t o r e p l a c e S h a p s o v i c h . T h e y m a d e it clear t h a t his r e p l a c e m e n t would be G o r d i n . T h e D e p a r t m e n t of Police sent this a p p e a l to t h e D e p a r t m e n t of R e l i g i o u s A f f a i r s f o r F o r e i g n C r e e d s ( D D U I ) . t h e section of t h e M i n i s t r y of I n t e r n a l A f f a i r s with responsibility f o r t h e religious a f f a i r s of t h e Jews. It was a c c o m p a n i e d by t h e bulging file t h a t t h e a u t h o r i t i e s had a s s e m b l e d o n G o r d i n a n d t h e B r o t h e r h o o d . T h e i m p l i c a t i o n s w e r e clear, and t h e D D I I I o b l i g e d , on 30 S e p t e m b e r 1891, by r e s c i n d i n g p e r m i s s i o n f o r t h e B r o t h e r h o o d to h a v e a s e p a r a t e s y n a g o g u e a n d to elect a r a b b i . 4 4 In s o m e ways this was a m o o t p o i n t , since G o r d i n h a d a l r e a d y left the c o u n t r y , a l t h o u g h n o t t h e surveillance of t h e secret police, t h e O k h r a n a . A r e p o r t , d a t e d 26 J a n u a r y 1892, f r o m an a g e n t in N e w York City, i n f o r m e d t h e a u t h o r i t i e s t h a t G o r d i n was n o w an A m e r i c a n citizen w h o styled himself " J a m e s G o r d i n . " ( H e h a d allegedly r e t u r n e d to R u s s i a u n d e r this i n c o g n i t o in M a r c h of 1891.) A c t i n g o n this i n f o r m a t i o n , t h e D e p a r t m e n t of Police sent a circular to all R u s s i a n p o i n t s of e n t r y advising t h e m t h a t , s h o u l d " J a m e s G o r d i n " a p p e a r at the f r o n t i e r , he s h o u l d i m m e d i a t e l y be a r r e s t e d . 4 5 With his B r o t h e r h o o d in ruins, G o r d i n h a d n o n e e d t o r e t u r n to Russia. I n d e e d , he n o w had o t h e r c o n c e r n s . U n s u c c e s s f u l in his e f f o r t s to a c q u i r e land in A m e r i c a f o r p r o d u c t i v e labor, he h a d b e c o m e a Y i d d i s h - l a n g u a g e j o u r n a l i s t a n d playwright, soon to be hailed as " t h e r e f o r m e r of t h e Y i d d i s h stage." In t h e y e a r of his secret visit to R u s s i a , G o r d i n p r e m i e r e d his first fulllength play, ironically e n t i t l e d " S i b i r y a " ( " S i b e r i a " ) . T h e following year, e v e n as h e w a s p l a c e d on t h e O k h r a n a ' s w a n t e d list, he p r o d u c e d o n e of t h e classics of t h e m o d e r n Yiddish stage, " D e r yidisher k e n i g lir" ( " t h e Jewish King L e a r " ) , w h i c h also m a d e a star of t h e a c t o r J a c o b P. A d l e r . 4 6 W h a t c o n c l u s i o n s can be d r a w n f r o m t h e f a t e of I a k o v G o r d i n ' s r e f o r m m o v e m e n t ? It was very m u c h a p r o d u c t of its time, a n d of t h e Jewish H a s k a l a h in R u s s i a , with its e m p h a s i s o n p r o d u c t i v e l a b o r f o r t h e Jews, h e a l t h y self-criticism, and calls f o r acculturation into Russian society. G o r d i n could have a n t i c i p a t e d a w e l c o m e f r o m l i k e - m i n d e d m e m b e r s of t h e R u s s i a n - J e w i s h i n t e l l i g e n t s i a , a n d f r o m R u s s i a n officials intent o n solving t h e Jewish Q u e s t i o n . It was his m i s f o r t u n e to a r r i v e o n t h e s c e n e at t h e very m o m e n t — a n d in t h e exact p l a c e — w h e r e e v e n t s w e r e calling i n t o q u e s t i o n all t h e old n o s t r u m s t h a t h a d s u r r o u n d e d t h e J e w i s h Q u e s t i o n . Jewish liberals h a d n o w t o r e c o n s i d e r w h e t h e r o r n o t R u s s i a m i g h t i n d e e d be m o v i n g t o w a r d Jewish e m a n c i p a t i o n as it e v o l v e d into a m o d e r n s t a t e . ( T h e a n s w e r of socialists a n d p r o t o - Z i o n i s t s , of c o u r s e , was a r e s o u n d i n g " n o ! " . ) T h e R u s s i a n s t a t e itself was t u r n i n g its b a c k o n p a s t policies t o p r o m o t e t h e i n t e g r a t i o n a n d a c c u l t u r a t i o n of t h e Jews a n d m o v i n g in t h e d i r e c t i o n of s e g r e g a t i o n .

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foundered

on t h e new, restrictive M a y Laws. T h e turbulent e n v i r o n m e n t of late

imperial

R u s s i a w a s clearly n o place for v o i c e s calling for internal r e f o r m of the Jews. T h e t r e a t m e n t o f t h e B r o t h e r h o o d b y t h e a u t h o r i t i e s is a c l a s s i c e x a m p l e o f t h e t e n d e n c y of the secret p o l i c e to inflate any private initiative into an anti-state c o n s p i r a c y . H a v i n g d o n e s o , t h e y r e v e a l e d t h e i r i n e p t i t u d e in d e a l i n g w i t h p e r c e i v e d threats: a g e n t s of the s a m e Ministry of Internal Affairs, which had identified the S B B a s a n e s t o f " R e d s , " a u t h o r i z e d its o p e r a t i o n s a s a J e w i s h r e l i g i o u s s e c t . D e s p i t e the insignificance of the B r o t h e r h o o d from the point of view of n u m b e r s o r i n f l u e n c e o n t h e m a s s o f R u s s i a n J e w r y , it g e n e r a t e d a n e n o r m o u s a m o u n t o f p u b l i c i t y in t h e R u s s i a n p r e s s . T h e J e w i s h Q u e s t i o n w a s n o w firmly e n s c o n c e d in t h e p u b l i c m i n d a s a m a j o r s o c i a l i s s u e t h a t h a d t o b e e x p l o r e d in all its d i v e r s e g u i s e s . G o r d i n ' s r e i n v e n t i o n a s a Y i d d i s h p l a y w r i g h t m i g h t s e e m i r o n i c , u n t i l it is r e c o g n i z e d that he u s e d his stage p r o d u c t i o n s to c o n v e y a distinct m o r a l m e s s a g e — i n d e e d , this overt d i d a c t i c i s m w a s the c h i e f critical c o m p l a i n t m a d e against his w o r k . In t h e e n d , h o w e v e r , the b l e n d of historical i r o n i e s a n d surprise e n d i n g s , w h i c h m a r k e d t h e s t o r y o f t h e S p i r i t u a l B i b l i c a l B r o t h e r h o o d , is a p p r o p r i a t e l y e n c a p s u l a t e d in t h e l i f e o f a d r a m a t i s t .

Notes The p r e p a r a t i o n of this article was assisted by s u p p o r t f r o m t h e D e a n ' s Travel F u n d and t h e G r a d u a t e School R e s e a r c h F u n d at University C o l l e g e L o n d o n . 1 I h a v e a r g u e d this p o i n t at length in Russia Gathers Her Jews: The Origins of the Jewish Question in Russia, 1772-1825 ( D e K a l b : N o r t h e r n Illinois U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1986). In partic u l a r I reject the l e a d i n g role t h a t m a n y s e c o n d a r y s o u r c e s h a v e a t t r i b u t e d to " t r a d i t i o n al R u s s i a n religious a n t i s e m i t i s m . " and the Jewish Enlightenment: Their Confrontation in 2 See R a p h a e l M a h l e r , Hasidism Galicia and Poland in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century ( P h i l a d e l p h i a : Jewish P u b l i c a t i o n Society of A m e r i c a , 1985). 3 Evreiskaia entsiklopediia, 16 vols. (St P e t e r s b u r g . 1908-1913), 6: 687. H i s t o r i a n s of t h e m o v e m e n t d i s a g r e e o v e r t h e origins a n d m o t i v e s of G o r d i n ' s activities. T h e brief c h a r a c t e r i s a t i o n in this p a r a g r a p h is b a s e d o n t h e ideas t h a t h e p r o p a g a t e d o p e n l y in the press. Possible u l t e r i o r m o t i v e s a r e discussed below. and 4 J o n a t h a n F r a n k e l m a k e s this point in Prophecy and Politics: Socialism, Nationalism, the Russian Jews, 1862-1917 ( C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1981), 57. 5 See Irwin M i c h a e l A r o n s o n , Troubled Waters: The Origins of the 1881 Anti-Jewish Pogroms in Russia ( P i t t s b u r g h : U n i v e r s i t y of P i t t s b u r g h Press, 1990). U n l e s s o t h e r w i s e i n d i c a t e d , all d a t e s a r e a c c o r d i n g to t h e Julian c a l e n d a r t h e n in use in Russia, which was twelve d a y s b e h i n d the G r e g o r i a n c a l e n d a r in t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y . 6 T h e classic study o n t h e rise of t h e new politics is F r a n k e l ' s Prophecy and Politics. For a n u a n c e d view of 1881 as a t u r n i n g point, see E r i c h E . H a b e r e r , Jews and Revolution in Nineteenth-Century Russia ( C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1995), 206-229. 7 See J.D. Klier, " T h e R u s s i a n Press and the A n t i - J e w i s h P o g r o m s of 1881," American Slavic Studies 17, n o . l (1983): 199-221. 8 R e p r i n t e d in Russkii

evrei 27 (2 July 1881).

Canadian-

1 2 4 • John

Klier

9 T h e r e was yet a t h i r d widely r e p o r t e d m o v e m e n t , " N e w T e s t a m e n t Israelites in the S a v i o u r ' s N a m e , " f o u n d e d in Kishinev in 1883 by J o s e p h R a b i n o v i c h . It was r e c o g n i s e d by t h e Russian a u t h o r i t i e s as a s e p a r a t e Jewish sect in 1884, but was soon t r a n s f o r m e d into a stalking h o r s e for f o r e i g n P r o t e s t a n t m i s s i o n a r y activity in Russia. See S t e v e n J. Z i p p e r stein, " H e r e s y , A p o s t a s y , a n d the T r a n s f o r m a t i o n of J o s e p h R a b i n o v i c h , " in Todd M. E n d e l m a n , ed., Jewish Apostasy in the Modern World ( N e w York: H o l m e s and Meier, 1987), 206-31; a n d Kai K j a e r - H a n s e n , Joseph Rabinowitz and the Messianic Movement ( E d i n b u r g h a n d G r a n d Rapids, Mich.: W m . B. E e r d m a n s , 1995). 10 S t e p h e n M. B e r k d o e s n o t a g r e e , s e e i n g t h e m as " a m o r e sophisticated and radical ' r e f o r m , ' " t h a n G o r d i n ' s in his Year of Crisis, Year of Hope: Russian Jewry and the Pogroms of 1881-1882 ( W e s t p o r t , C o n n . : G r e e n w o o d Press, 1985), 137. 11 Odesskii

listok 25 (31 J a n u a r y 1882). This article was widely r e p r i n t e d in the Russian press.

12 A c c o r d i n g to Y e h u d a Slutsky, it was p u b l i s h e d with g o v e r n m e n t a l assistance. See lopedia Judaica, 16 vols. ( J e r u s a l e m , 1972), 12: 1027.

Encyc-

13 Ibid. 14 Evreiskaia entsiklopediia, 11: 770: Nedelia 45 (4 N o v e m b e r 1884). 15 I. C h e r i k o v e r claims t h a t t h e r e m n a n t s of N e w Israel j o i n e d 1. R a b i n o v i c h ' s Christianising m o v e m e n t . See Evreiskaia entsiklopediia. 11: 770. 16 Rassvet 15 (9 A p r i l 1881). 17 A.S. P r u g a v i n , " D u k h o v n o - b i b l e i s k o e b r a t s t v o , " Istoricheskii 401. 18 Russkii Evrei 27 (2 July 1881). 19 Rassvet 25 (19 J u n e 1881).

vestnik

18 ( N o v e m b e r 1884):

20 T h e t e r m " k u l a k s " at this time had a s s o c i a t i o n s of grasping, exploitative activity in t h e m a r k e t p l a c e , not t h e Stalin-era c o n s t r u c t of a rich p e a s a n t . See Klier, Imperial Russia's Jewish Question, 1855-1881 ( C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1995), 320-8. 21 Russkii Evrei 29 (5 July 1881); Rassvet 26 (26 July 1881); 28 (10 July 1881); 29 (17 July 1881). 22 Voskhod 7 (July 1881): 35. 23 Russkii vedomosti 41 (2 F e b r u a r y 1882); Vek 7 (July 1882); Golos 289 (24 O c t o b e r 1882). 24 Novoe vremia 2991 (27 J u n e 1884): Volyn 31 (22 A p r i l 1883); Tserkovno-Obshchestvennyi vestnik 140 (21 O c t o b e r 1882); 141 (23 O c t o b e r 1882); 147 (4 N o v e m b e r 1882) a n d 148 (6 N o v e m b e r 1882). 25 For the e v o l u t i o n of this t e r m , see Klier, Imperial Russia's Jewish Question, 2 5 - 7 . 26 T h e R u s s i a n Jewish intelligentsia had n o t r o u b l e a g r e e i n g with such negative i n t e r p r e t a tions of t h e Jewish m a s s e s since it was an integral part of t h e H a s k a l a h dialogue. 27 Klier, Imperial Russia's Jewish Question, 2 6 3 - 8 3 . B r a f m a n ' s w o r k went t h r o u g h m a n y p e r m u t a t i o n s , a n d it m a y be c o n s i d e r e d a direct s o u r c e of the ideas set f o r t h in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. 28 Odesskii listok 264 (25 N o v e m b e r 1882). 29 Nedelia 12 (20 M a r c h 1883); 45 (1 N o v e m b e r 1884). 30 Nedelia 14 (6 A p r i l 1880); 43 (24 O c t o b e r 1882). 31 Istoricheskii vestnik 12 ( D e c e m b e r 1882). 32 Russkii kurer 42 (13 F e b r u a r y 1882); 315 (15 N o v e m b e r 1882). 33 See f o o t n o t e 9. 34 For t h e classic s t u d y of the Populist m o v e m e n t , see F r a n c o V e n t u r i , Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth-Century Russia ( N e w York: G r o s s e t a n d D u n l a p , 1966 [I960]). 35 G o s u d a r s t v e n n y i A r k h i v R o s s i i s k o i F e d e r a t s i i ( M o s c o w ) [ h e r e a f t e r G A R F ] , f. 102 ( D P 3 o e d e l o p r o i z v o d s t v o ) , 1881-89, d. 606,11. 15-30.

Notes

• 125

36 This privilege was g r a n t e d on t h e basis of l o n g - s t a n d i n g legislation in the R u s s i a n E m p i r e , originally i n t e n d e d for the H a s i d i c m o v e m e n t , which a l l o w e d Jewish sects in a c o m m u n i ty to have their o w n s y n a g o g u e and religious p e r s o n n e l . In this way, the S B B was de facto given official s t a t u s as a Jewish sect. 37 G A R F . f. 102, d. 606,11. 6 0 - 6 0 o b . 38

Ibid.

39 " S t a t e Policy a n d t h e C o n v e r s i o n of Jews in I m p e r i a l R u s s i a , " in R. G e r a c i a n d M. K h o d a r k o v s k y , eds.. Of Religion and Empire: Missions, Conversion and Tolerance in Russia ( I t h a c a : C o r n e l l University Press, 2001): 9 2 - 1 1 2 . 40 Klier, Russia Gathers Her Jews, 166. 41 G A R F , f. 102, d. 606,11. 61ob. 42 This fact is c o n f i r m e d by the u n f l a t t e r i n g p o r t r a i t of F a i n e r m a n a n d his c o m p a n i o n B u t k e vich, f o u n d in the diary of Tolstoy's wife, Sonia. H e n r i Troyat, Tolstoy ( G a r d e n City: D o u b l e d a y , 1967), 471. 43 G A R F , f. 102, d. 606, II. 57ob. S h l e t l a k h did n o t fall u n d e r the provisions of t h e M a y Laws. 44 Ibid., 1. 73. 45 Ibid., 1. 90. 46 A f u r t h e r irony, given the role of Tolstoian b e l i e f s in t h e b r e a k - u p of the SBB, was the successful staging of G o r d o n ' s Yiddish a d a p t i o n of " T h e K r e u t z e r S o n a t a " in 1902. Encyclopedia Judaica, 7: 787-89.

Colonial Frontiers in Eighteenth-Century Russia: From the North Caucasus to Central Asia MICHAEL

KHODARKOVSKY

"By the late eighteenth century Russia became a full-fledged colonial empire." This statement may be a cause for legitimate arguments and controversy. A f t e r all, the attribute "colonial" is usually reserved for Western powers' overseas expansion, while its expansion into the contiguous territories seemed to disqualify Russia from belonging to an exclusive "club of the colonial empires." In the following pages, I intend to show that Russia's imperial experience in its southern and southeastern regions was not different from other colonial empires, and that Russia should be considered a colonial empire, even though it did not conceive of itself as such. 1 But what is "colonial"? The terms "colonial" and more recently "neocolonial" and "postcolonial" had been so widely used throughout the twentieth century and so frequently deployed to fit numerous political agendas that a natural semantic inflation and corrosion were unavoidable. In the context of this essay, I will define "colonial" by a nature of an encounter between the metropolis and periphery in which periphery is being transformed either through bringing in the settlers from the metropolis or through intrusive policies aimed at transforming the local societies on the model of a metropolis. Thus, it would be incongruous to apply the term "colonial" to the Russianruled Poland or Baltic region where the population was overwhelmingly Christian and where Russia could hardly claim to bring Christianity, Enlightenment and Civilization to the local residents. Just as it would be equally inappropriate, for instance, to apply "colonial" to the Ottoman occupation of eastern Anatolia, where the Porte had little ambition beyond securing the political and military loyalty of the local Muslim tribesmen. In other words, "colonial" implies an asymmetrical relationship between the two distinctly different entities, the dominant metropolis and subjugated periphery, where the former rules the periphery, directly or indirectly, with the ultimate purpose of transforming the periphery into a civilization similar to a metropolis. Such a colonial situation existed in

128 • Michael

Khodarkovsky

Russia's southern and southeastern borderlands. Let us consider some of the policies, attitudes, and issues that emerged as a result of the colonial encounters between Russia and the indigenous peoples throughout the eighteenth century.

PHASE

I: POLITICAL S T A T U S

NON-NEGOTIABLE

The emergence of Moscow and the Muscovite state were intimately connected to the world of steppe politics. For centuries subjected to interminable raids from its belligerent nomadic neighbors in the south, Moscow was p r e p a r e d to purchase peace along the steppe frontier at any price: ornate flattery, trade privileges, military cooperation and, above all, sizable payments to the nomadic chiefs. However, with the simultaneous collapse of the steppe societies and the rise of Muscovy in the middle of the sixteenth century, the autocratic Russian sovereign and the centralized state he represented could now codify his relationship with the disparate non-Christian and non-state-organized peoples only in terms of a suzerain bestowing favors on his subjects. While in the seventeenth century Moscow continued to construct an image of the tsar as that of a benevolent sovereign ready to reward his subjects in exchange for their service and loyalty, a hundred years later it was simply unthinkable for a Russian emperor, regarded as the e m b o d i m e n t of civilized E u r o p e a n values, to be anything but a patron and protector of its barbaric neighbors.The latter attitude was most forthrightly expressed by M u h a m m e d Tevkelev, a Tatar translator of the Office of Foreign Affairs charged with negotiating and executing the Kazakhs' oath of allegiance to the Russian crown. In response to some Kazakh notables who explained that they had sent an envoy to Russia solely to m a k e peace but not to become Russia's subjects, Tevkelev declaimed that "it was not befitting for such an illustrious monarch to have a peace treaty with you, steppe beasts." 2 Yet, it seemed that the "beasts" did not appreciate the privilege of becoming Russian subjects. In 1762, succumbing to the d e m a n d s of the Russian envoys, the Kazakh khan Nuraly swore an oath of allegiance to the newly-enthroned Russian empress, Catherine II, only to explain later that he could not be responsible for his people, who were hostile to the Russian authorities because of their unaddressed grievances. Furthermore, his people disparagingly r e f e r r e d to him as "the Russian." 1 Despite a manifestly adverse reaction of the Kazakhs and an obvious fact that Moscow's rush to confer the status of subjects on the newly e n c o u n t e r e d peoples was little m o r e than wishful thinking, the Russian g o v e r n m e n t continued to insist on an oath of allegiance. During the eighteenth century several p r o m i n e n t natives of the Caucasus, w h o had long been in Russian imperial service, advised the g o v e r n m e n t to a d o p t a more realistic view of the indigenous peoples. In 1714 Prince A l e x a n d e r Bekovich-Cherkasskii wrote to Peter I and stated unambiguously that "these peoples [the Kabardinians] were independent and submitted to no one." Bekovich-

Colonial

Frontiers in Eighteenth-Century

Russia • 129

C h e r k a s s k i i e x p l a i n e d t h a t t h e n a t u r e of r e l a t i o n s b e t w e e n t h e K a b a r d i n i a n s a n d R u s s i a w a s n o d i f f e r e n t t h a n t h a t of t h e K u m y k s with P e r s i a , w h o s e r u l e r s tradit i o n a l l y p r o v i d e d large p a y m e n t s f o r t h e K u m y k s t o e n s u r e t h e i r amity. 4 A d d r e s s i n g t h e s a m e issue in his r e p o r t to t h e S e n a t e in 1762, t h e G e o r g i a n P r i n c e a n d l i e u t e n a n t - c o l o n e l in t h e R u s s i a n army, O t a r T u m a n o v h a d s t a t e d e m p h a t i c a l l y t h a t t h e p e o p l e s of t h e N o r t h C a u c a s u s w e r e R u s s i a n s u b j e c t s m o r e in n a m e t h a n in fact. 5 C o m p e t e n t advice n o t w i t h s t a n d i n g , any a d j u s t m e n t t o the r e a l s i t u a t i o n on t h e g r o u n d w a s resisted in t h e R u s s i a n capital, a n d t h e a u t h o r i t i e s c o n t i n u e d to d e m a n d relentlessly the o a t h s of allegiance t o t h e R u s s i a n s u z e r a i n . O n e n o t a b l e e x c e p t i o n w a s t h e Ossetians. In t h e 1740s, c a r e f u l l y e x p l o i t i n g t h e l o o p h o l e in R u s s o - O t t o m a n and R u s s o - P e r s i a n p e a c e t r e a t i e s t h a t r e c o g n i z e d t h e O s s e t i a n s ' political i n d e p e n d e n c e , t h e R u s s i a n g o v e r n m e n t o r g a n i z e d a C h r i s t i a n mission a m o n g t h e O s s e t i a n s . B u t c o n t r a r y to t h e wishes of t h e z e a l o u s missionaries, t h e S e n a t e o r d e r e d that t h e O s s e t i a n s w e r e n o t to b e s w o r n as R u s s i a ' s subjects, so t h a t such hasty a l l e g i a n c e did n o t a l a r m t h e m a n d j e o p a r d i z e t h e i r c o n v e r s i o n . T h e p r i o r i t i e s of t h e g o v e r n m e n t w e r e clear: it w a s p r e p a r e d t o d e l a y t h e f o r m a l a l l e g i a n c e of t h e O s s e t i a n s in o r d e r to see t h e m b e c o m e O r t h o d o x C h r i s t i a n s . 6 By t h e m i d - e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y a n e w political v o c a b u l a r y a n d m o r e c o m p e t e n t t r a n s l a t i o n s into n a t i v e l a n g u a g e s left n o a m b i g u i t y in R u s s i a ' s p e r c e p t i o n of t h e political s t a t u s of its n e i g h b o r s . T h e increasingly a n t i q u a t e d political t e r m i n o l o g y w a s being r e p l a c e d by a m o d e r n imperial v o c a b u l a r y . T h e n a t i v e chiefs a n d their p e o p l e w e r e n o w d e c l a r e d to b e c o m e a p r o t e c t o r a t e of R u s s i a (v Rossiiskoi tektsii).

T h e i r allegiance to be loyal s u b j e c t s w a s r e f e r r e d to as prisiaga

poddanstvo

na

provernoe

a n d its violation w a s n o w r e g a r d e d as a c r i m e ( k l i a t v o p r e s t u p l e n i e )

a n d was to b e p u n i s h e d . Yet t h e political t e r m s a n d n o t i o n s of b o t h old a n d n e w R u s s i a c o n t i n u e d to collide with t h e t r a d i t i o n a l n o t i o n s of t h e n a t i v e societies. O n e

particular

e n c o u n t e r illustrates t h e s t a r k d i f f e r e n c e s b e t w e e n t h e R u s s i a n n o t i o n of a political p r o t e c t o r a t e a n d t h e n a t i v e s ' n o t i o n of a k i n s h i p - b a s e d p a t r o n a g e . W h e n in 1779 t h e n o b l e s of G r e a t e r K a b a r d a r e f u s e d to s w e a r a l l e g i a n c e t o R u s s i a a n d d e c l a r e d t h a t t h e y h a d t r a d i t i o n a l l y b e e n u n d e r R u s s i a n p r o t e c t i o n as g u e s t s o r allies ( k u n a k s ) b u t n o t subjects, R u s s i a n t r o o p s m a r c h e d into K a b a r d a f o r c i n g t h e K a b a r d i n i a n s t o sue f o r p e a c e a n d to p l e d g e u n c o n d i t i o n a l a l l e g i a n c e . 7 W h e r e f o r c e could n o t be a p p l i e d , t h e lure of p r e s e n t s a n d r e w a r d s w o r k e d to t h e s a m e e f f e c t . P r e s e n t e d with t h e R u s s i a n d e m a n d to t a k e an o a t h of a l l e g i a n c e t o t h e e m p r e s s in 1786, t h e K a z a k h c o m m o n e r s a g r e e d t o d o so u n d e r i n s t r u c t i o n s of their religious l e a d e r , t h e m u f t i , w h o told t h e m t h a t it was n o t against t h e i r law t o lie to C h r i s t i a n s , a n d t h e r e f o r e they c o u l d a g r e e t o t h e R u s s i a n d e m a n d s in o r d e r to r e c e i v e p r e s e n t s . 8 W h e t h e r d e l i b e r a t e l y misled, i n d u c e d by t h e o f f e r s of p r e s e n t s a n d p a y m e n t s , o r i n t i m i d a t e d by t h e f o r c e of t h e R u s s i a n military, t h e d i s p a r a t e p e o p l e s a l o n g t h e R u s s i a n f r o n t i e r h a d t o b e r e d u c e d i n t o s u b m i s s i o n a n d m a d e loyal. T h e polit-

130 • Michael

Khodarkovsky

ical i d e n t i t y of the n a t i v e s as s u b j e c t s of the R u s s i a n c r o w n h a d to be c o n s t r u c t e d a n d r e a f f i r m e d t h r o u g h an o a t h of a l l e g i a n c e . T h i s w a s the b e g i n n i n g of a long and a r d u o u s p r o c e s s of t h e i r p o l i t i c a l i n t e g r a t i o n into the R u s s i a n O r t h o d o x C h r i s t i a n Empire. P H A S E 2: U N I T E AND OR D I V I D E A N D

RULE

RULE?

W h i l e the issue of R u s s i a ' s s u z e r a i n t y o v e r its n e w l y d e c l a r e d s u b j e c t s w a s little m o r e than r h e t o r i c a l e x e r c i s e , the i s s u e of h o w to r u l e such p u r p o r t e d s u b j e c t s w a s f a r f r o m r h e t o r i c a l . A f t e r all, the n e w s u b j e c t s r e m a i n e d f u l l y i n d e p e n d e n t a n d o u t s i d e of R u s s i a ' s i m p e r i a l b o r d e r s , w h i c h w e r e d e f a c t o m a r k e d by the R u s s i a n f o r t i f i c a t i o n lines. T o e x e r t its i n f l u e n c e , the R u s s i a n g o v e r n m e n t f a c e d a t r a d i t i o n a l d i l e m m a of h o w b e s t to p r o j e c t its interests: to r e l y on a l o c a l r u l e r , a k h a n , by b o o s t i n g his p o w e r a n d c o n t r o l o v e r the d i s p a r a t e t r i b a l units, o r b y s u p p o r t i n g l o c a l n o b l e s a n d n o t a b l e s a n d thus e n c o u r a g i n g f u r t h e r d i v i s i o n s a n d f r a g m e n t a t i o n of the i n d i g e n o u s s o c i e t y . E a c h of these p o l i c y a p p r o a c h e s h a d their o w n a d v a n t a g e s a n d d o w n s i d e s . O n e of the m o s t d i s t i n c t f e a t u r e s of the s t e p p e s o c i e t i e s w a s the w e a k n e s s of c e n t r a l p o l i t i c a l a u t h o r i t y . I n i t i a l l y , the s t r e n g t h e n i n g of the a u t h o r i t y of the k h a n s o r s i m i l a r l o c a l c h i e f s w a s a c o r n e r s t o n e of R u s s i a n p o l i c i e s in the r e g i o n . M o s c o w itself h a d b e e n s u b j e c t to s i m i l a r p o l i c i e s by the M o n g o l s s e v e r a l c e n t u r i e s e a r l i e r . T h e r i s e of the p r i n c e s of M o s c o w to the p o s i t i o n of g r a n d p r i n c e s of M u s c o v y a n d l a t e r , the t s a r s of all R u s s i a , w a s in n o s m a l l m e a s u r e a r e s u l t of p o l i c i e s p u r s u e d by the k h a n s of the G o l d e n H o r d e . W h i l e the R u s s i a n l a n d s c o n t i n u e d to b e d i v i d e d i n t o d i s p a r a t e p r i n c i p a l i t i e s u n d e r n u m e r o u s r i v a l p r i n c e s , the k h a n s f o u n d it m o r e e x p e d i e n t to r e l y on the s e r v i c e s of a s i n g l e R u s s i a n p r i n c e to m o b i l i z e a l o y a l m i l i t a r y f o r c e a n d to d e l i v e r t a x e s a n d t r i b u t e s to the khans' capital, Saray. In the r e v e r s a l of f o r t u n e s , by the e a r l y s i x t e e n t h c e n t u r y it w a s M o s c o w ' s turn to f a c e the distinctly d i f f e r e n t r e m n a n t s of the G o l d e n

Horde, a variety

of

n o m a d i c a n d s e m i - n o m a d i c s o c i e t i e s w i t h r u d i m e n t a r y c e n t r a l a u t h o r i t y . In the f o l l o w i n g c e n t u r i e s , M o s c o w ' s p r i o r i t i e s w o u l d b e to s t o p the i n c e s s a n t a t t a c k s a g a i n s t its t o w n s a n d v i l l a g e s a n d to p r o v i d e p e a c e a n d s e c u r i t y a l o n g its s o u t h e r n f r o n t i e r . In d o i n g so, M o s c o w c h o s e to r e l y o n p o l i c i e s w h i c h h a d o n c e b e e n a p p l i e d to R u s s i a by its M o n g o l o v e r l o r d s , i.e., b u t t r e s s i n g the a u t h o r i t y of a sing l e r u l e r c a p a b l e of c u r b i n g his p e o p l e ' s r a i d s a n d a c t i n g as a r e l i a b l e m i l i t a r y ally. N o m i n a l l y , s u c h a r u l e r w i t h s u p r e m e a u t h o r i t y e x i s t e d in b o t h the C r i m e a n a n d K a z a n k h a n a t e s as w e l l as a m o n g the s t e p p e s o c i e t i e s : the N o g a y s , K a l m y k s a n d K a z a k h s . B u t e v e n in the C r i m e a n k h a n a t e , o n e of the m o s t s o p h i s t i c a t e d p o l i t i e s a m o n g the s u c c e s s i v e r e m n a n t s of the G o l d e n H o r d e , the a u t h o r i t y of a k h a n w a s l i m i t e d by the p o w e r f u l a n d e c o n o m i c a l l y i n d e p e n d e n t n o b l e s . T h e p o w e r of a k h a n w a s e v e n m o r e l i m i t e d a m o n g the n o m a d i c

confederations.

Colonial

Frontiers in Eighteenth-Century

Russia • 131

C o n s i d e r i n g a successor t o t h e K a l m y k k h a n Ayuki in 1722, o n e influential Kalm y k n o b l e e x p l a i n e d to a R u s s i a n official: " W h o e v e r b e c o m e s a k h a n would n o t m a t t e r . All he gains is a title a n d p r o m i n e n c e , but his i n c o m e c o m e s only f r o m his o w n ulus [an a p p a n a g e c o n s i s t i n g of p e o p l e and h e r d s ] . O t h e r taishy o w n ulusy

have their

a n d they g o v e r n t h e m i n d e p e n d e n t l y , a n d t h e k h a n is not s u p p o s e d to

i n t e r f e r e ; a n d if he does, n o o n e will obey." 9 T h e politics of t h e " k h a n ' s t i t l e " a n d its e v o l u t i o n i n t o o n e of m o s t i m p o r t a n t t o o l s of R u s s i a n i m p e r i a l policies is p a r t i c u l a r l y visible in t h e case of t h e K a z a k h s . In t h e e i g h t e e n t h

c e n t u r y successive

Russian

officials w h o

were

c h a r g e d with i m p l e m e n t i n g g o v e r n m e n t policies t o w a r d t h e K a z a k h s r e p o r t e d , in c o n t i n u o u s b e m u s e m e n t , h o w little p o w e r t h e K a z a k h k h a n s h a d o v e r t h e i r p e o p l e . T h e g o v e r n m e n t s t r a t e g i e s in t h e K a z a k h s t e p p e w e r e v i g o r o u s l y articul a t e d in t h e 1740s a n d 1750s by O r e n b u r g ' s first g o v e r n o r , Ivan N e p l i u e v , a n d by R u s s i a ' s i n d i s p e n s a b l e n e g o t i a t o r with t h e K a z a k h s , M u h a m m e d Tevkelev, w h o a f t e r his b a p t i s m in 1734 b e c a m e k n o w n as A l e k s e i Tevkelev. T h e t w o d i s a g r e e d o n t h e best policy t o p u r s u e R u s s i a n i n t e r e s t s in t h e r e g i o n . W h i l e T e v k e l e v a d v i s e d s t r e n g t h e n i n g t h e a u t h o r i t y of a k h a n as a best way to c o n t r o l t h e K a z a k h s , N e p l i u e v w a r n e d t h a t this w o u l d be d a m a g i n g t o R u s s i a n i n t e r e s t s a n d , at any r a t e , i m p o s s i b l e t o a c h i e v e . His r e c o m m e n d a t i o n w a s to k e e p t h e K a z a k h s in t h e p r e s e n t state, w e a k a n d d i v i d e d . 1 0 O t h e r r e p o r t s f r o m local g o v e r n m e n t officials s u g g e s t e d t h a t R u s s i a n i n t e r e s t s in t h e r e g i o n would be best s e r v e d by h a v i n g an o b e d i e n t a n d s u b m i s s i v e K a z a k h k h a n directly a p p o i n t e d by t h e R u s s i a n g o v e r n m e n t . T h e y w a r n e d t h a t t h e gove r n m e n t h a d t o p r o c e e d c a u t i o u s l y in this d i r e c t i o n . A t first, it o u g h t t o insist t h a t an a l r e a d y elected k h a n s h o u l d s e e k c o n f i r m a t i o n of his title by an i m p e r i a l d e c r e e , t h u s leaving n o d o u b t as t o his s t a t u s of a R u s s i a n s u b j e c t . T h e g o v e r n m e n t m i g h t also begin c u l t i v a t i n g t h e loyalty of o n e or s e v e r a l K a z a k h s u l t a n s (a title of t h e legitimate s u c c e s s o r s t o a k h a n ) in a d v a n c e . T h e s e s u l t a n s w e r e to be publicly p r a i s e d a n d given m o n e y a n d p r e s e n t s to buy s u p p o r t of o t h e r K a z a k h s . U p o n t h e k h a n ' s d e a t h , o n e of t h e s e s u l t a n s might be a p p o i n t e d a viceroy a n d later, if he p r o v e d loyal t o R u s s i a , d e c l a r e d k h a n . Such w a s t h e advice of two seas o n e d officials c h a r g e d with g o v e r n i n g t h e O r e n b u r g r e g i o n , A l e k s e i T e v k e l e v a n d P e t r R y c h k o v , in their 1759 m e m o r a n d u m to t h e Foreign O f f i c e . " T h e s e were, in e s s e n c e , t h e i d e a s e x p o u n d e d by T e v k e l e v in t h e 1740s a n d t h e n f u r t h e r e l a b o r a t e d a n d s u p p o r t e d by R y c h k o v . B o t h T e v k e l e v a n d R y c h k o v b e lieved it was p a r a m o u n t t o R u s s i a n i n t e r e s t s to d e p r i v e t h e K a z a k h s of t h e ability to elect t h e i r own k h a n s . T h e i r s t r a t e g y w a s t o e n d o w t h e p o s i t i o n of k h a n with s t r o n g e r a u t h o r i t y by e l e v a t i n g him o v e r t h e i n f l u e n c e of his o w n p e o p l e a n d f o r g i n g direct links b e t w e e n a k h a n a n d R u s s i a n a u t h o r i t i e s . A t t h e s a m e time, to p r e v e n t a k h a n f r o m b e c o m i n g t o o p o w e r f u l a n d i n d e p e n d e n t , t h e y u r g e d t h a t t h e k h a n ' s p o s i t i o n n o t b e c o m e h e r e d i t a r y . 1 2 T h e i r views p r o v e d t o be p o p u l a r in St. P e t e r s b u r g a n d b e c a m e t h e f o u n d a t i o n of R u s s i a n policies in t h e following decades.

132 • Michael

Khodarkovsky

The attempts of the Russian g o v e r n m e n t to control its unruly nomadic neighbors by endowing the position of khan with m o r e power and authority ach eved limited success. Such g o v e r n m e n t policy often backfired and instead contributed to the consolidation of opposition against the khan, who was seen as promoting Russian interests at the expense of the Kazakhs. O n other occasions, when a khan chose to use his increased power against Russia, the government was compelled to seek help a m o n g influential K a z a k h nobles and notables. Such a seesaw of first " u n i t e " and then "divide" policies changed only in the 1820s when the Kazakhs of the Lesser and Middle H o r d e s h a d become incorporated into the imperial administrative and political institutions. The position of khan then became superf uous.

P H A S E 3: EXPANSION AND SETTLEMENT With the expanding Russian f r o n t i e r s f u r t h e r encroaching on the traditional nomadic pastures, the acquisition of new lands needed for the construction of forts, settlements, and cultivation brought the Russian government into direct confrontation with the native population over the question of land. Let us consider some aspects of the Russian g o v e r n m e n t ' s land policies, which became a central issue in Russia's colonization of the region. By the mid-eighteenth century Russia's sprawling forts and Cossack settlements studded the banks of the rivers flowing south into the Caspian and Black Seas, while the newly-built fortification lines crossed the steppe in the east-west direction. The Russian g o v e r n m e n t was now in a position to control and often dictate the seasonal migratory r o u t e s to the nomads. To cross the rivers or pass through the fortification lines, the natives had to seek permission from the Russian authorities, which o f t e n used the issue to force the natives' compliance with their various demands. The gradual loss of p a s t u r e l a n d s by the Kalmyks is a typical example of Russian policies in the s o u t h e r n steppe. In 1718 the Tsaritsyn fortification line connected the Volga and D o n Rivers and effectively locked the Kalmyks into the lower Volga area. The line cut off the s u m m e r migration routes of the Kalmyks to the north, and one of the possible escape routes f r o m their traditional foes, the Kuban Nogays. Both the Kalmyks' military f o r t u n e and their economic well being were now increasingly in the h a n d s of the Russian authorities. By the late 1760s the Kalmyks indeed f o u n d themselves f u r t h e r h e m m e d in by the Tsaritsyn and Mozdok fortification lines in the north and south, and by the D o n and Yaik Cossacks in the west and east. Driven into despair by the continuous loss of their grazing g r o u n d s to the G e r m a n colonists and pushed away further into the arid steppe, the Kalmyks resolved to take a dramatic step—exodus of the entire people back to Jungaria, the last such mass migration of a nomadic people in E u r a s i a n steppe. 1 3 The e x p a n d i n g fortification lines b r o u g h t security to the Russian towns and

Colonial

Frontiers in Eighteenth-Century

Russia • 133

v i l l a g e s v u l n e r a b l e to n o m a d i c r a i d s a n d m a d e p o s s i b l e f u r t h e r c o l o n i z a t i o n of t h e s t e p p e . In 1763 t h e g o v e r n m e n t c o m p i l e d a list of " t h e lands t h a t w e r e inside t h e R u s s i a n e m p i r e as well as v a c a n t a n d s u i t a b l e f o r s e t t l e m e n t . " T h e p r o v i n c e s c h o s e n f o r s e t t l i n g w e r e t h o s e of B e l g o r o d , A s t r a k h a n , O r e n b u r g , a n d T o b o l s k ' . In o t h e r w o r d s , t h e g o v e r n m e n t r e s o l v e d t o settle a n d c u l t i v a t e a h u g e e x p a n s e of t h e n o r t h e r n f r i n g e of t h e E u r a s i a n s t e p p e f r o m t h e D o n river in t h e west t o t h e I r t y s h river in t h e e a s t , t h e l a n d s which w e r e t r a d i t i o n a l s u m m e r p a s t u r e s of v a r i o u s n o m a d i c p e o p l e s a n d w e r e n o w c o n s i d e r e d t o be t h e e m p i r e ' s s o u t h e r n borderlands.14 A t t h e c o r e of t h e l a n d d i s p u t e s b e t w e e n the R u s s i a n g o v e r n m e n t a n d t h e n o m a d i c i n h a b i t a n t s of t h e s t e p p e lay f u n d a m e n t a l l y d i f f e r e n t n o t i o n s of land o w n e r s h i p a n d its i n t e n d e d usage. A s far as the R u s s i a n g o v e r n m e n t w a s c o n c e r n e d , t h e newly a c q u i r e d lands w e r e e m p t y spaces b e l o n g i n g to n o one. A s such t h e s e l a n d s had t o b e a p p r o p r i a t e d , t r a n s f o r m e d into a p a r t of t h e i m p e r i a l d o m a i n , d i v i d e d , s e t t l e d , a n d f a r m e d . For t h e n o m a d s , o n t h e o t h e r h a n d , t h e lands w e r e i n d i s p e n s a b l e p a s t u r e l a n d s in c o m m o n p o s s e s s i o n of t h e ulus

or o t h e r

a g g r e g a t e n o m a d i c unit. T h e s e d i v e r g e n t a t t i t u d e s a n d goals w e r e first clearly a r t i c u l a t e d in t h e mids e v e n t e e n t h c e n t u r y d u r i n g o n e of t h e R u s s o - K a l m y k e n c o u n t e r s o v e r t h e issue. C o n f r o n t e d by t h e R u s s i a n d e m a n d s to v a c a t e t h e C a s p i a n s t e p p e , t h e K a l m y k chief, D a i c h i n , insisted t h a t " l a n d a n d w a t e r b e l o n g e d to G o d , " a n d t h e K a l m y k s m e r e l y seized the p a s t u r e s of t h e d e f e a t e d Nogays. 1 5 A c e n t u r y later, g o v e r n m e n t officials h e a r d

similar a r g u m e n t s

from the Kazakhs when

the

government

assigned t h e m p a s t u r e s by d e c r e e s , d e m a n d i n g that t h e K a z a k h s o b t a i n p e r m i s sion f r o m t h e f r o n t i e r a u t h o r i t i e s a n d pay crossing fees. T h e K a z a k h s r e s p o n d e d with a s t o n i s h m e n t : " t h e grass a n d w a t e r b e l o n g to H e a v e n , a n d why s h o u l d we pay a n y f e e s ? " 1 6 T h e i r o b j e c t i o n s n o t w i t h s t a n d i n g , by t h e late e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y t h e K a z a k h s f o u n d t h e m s e l v e s in a s i t u a t i o n similar t o t h e K a l m y k s . T h e O r e n b u r g a n d S i b e r i a n f o r t i f i e d lines o u t l i n e d t h e most n o r t h e r n b o u n d a r i e s of t h e K a z a k h s ' possible m i g r a t i o n s . T h e g r o w i n g p r e s e n c e of R u s s i a n t o w n s a n d f o r t s , s e t t l e r s a n d s o l d i e r s w a s also r a p i d l y c h a n g i n g t h e t r a d i t i o n a l l a n d s c a p e of t h e N o r t h C a u c a s u s . A s e r i e s of f o r t i f i c a t i o n lines in t h e N o r t h C a u c a s u s s q u e e z e d t h e p a s t u r e l a n d s of t h e K u m y k s , K a b a r d i n i a n s , a n d o t h e r p e o p l e s of t h e r e g i o n . T h e newly a c q u i r e d lands did n o t r e m a i n v a c a n t f o r long. O r d e r s c a m e t o f o l l o w t h e e x a m p l e of N o v o r o s s i i s k p r o v i n c e a n d d i s t r i b u t e t h e lands b e h i n d t h e f o r t i f i c a t i o n line. S o m e officials r e c o m m e n d e d t h a t l a n d s a l o n g t h e T e r e k R i v e r s h o u l d be u s e d f o r f a r m i n g , p l a n t i n g v i n e y a r d s , a n d p r o d u c i n g silk. L a n d s a r o u n d M o z d o k w e r e distributed a m o n g the Cossacks, settlers from Russia, and fugitives f r o m

the

C a u c a s u s . 1 7 In time, t h e newly a c q u i r e d lands w e r e c o m p l e t e l y t r a n s f o r m e d f r o m p a s t u r e l a n d s in t h e c o m m o n p o s s e s s i o n of t h e n a t i v e s i n t o f a r m l a n d s in t h e individual p o s s e s s i o n of R u s s i a n s . W h a t h a d b e e n a p e r i l o u s f r o n t i e r h a d b e e n decisively t u r n e d into an i m p e r i a l b o r d e r l a n d .

134 • Michael

Khodarkovsky P H A S E 4: FROM INDIRECT TOWARD DIRECT

CONTROL

RULE

By the late eighteenth century, the numerous peoples of the southern borderlands—the Tatars and Nogays of the Crimea, the Kabardinians of the North Caucasus, the Kalmyks of the lower Volga River, and the Kazakhs of the Lesser Horde—all found themselves under Russia's increasing military, political, and economic dominance. The proximity of the Russian forts and settlements, the growing conflicts with the Russian population over the grazing grounds and fishing sites, and the increased d e p e n d e n c e on the Russian administration were unavoidable facts. As far as St. Petersburg was concerned, the time had come to begin integrating Russia's steppe subjects into imperial administrative and legal structures. In the absence of a political concept of autonomy, and with only a vaguely defined notion of protectorship emerging slowly in the mid-eighteenth century, how were the Russian authorities to resolve frontier disputes with their dubious subjects? In the second half of the eighteenth century, with the relative security of Russia's frontiers and its unquestionable military superiority over the neighboring states and peoples in the south, the government attempted to affect changes directly within the indigenous societies. The Kalmyks were the first to become the target of this new approach. In 1762, as the government conferred the title of viceroy on a new Kalmyk ruler, it also introduced a change in the Kalmyk institution of zargo. Traditionally, a khan's councilor body consisting of eight zayisangs (members of the lesser nobility) solely from the khan's ulus, now zargo was to represent the zayisangs elected by all Kalmyk ulusy in accordance with their population. The reconstitution of the zargo meant to undermine the authority of the Kalmyk khan and to increase the government's leverage over the Kalmyks. But such a strategy backfired. The new Russian approach disturbed the traditional balance of power b e t w e e n the khan and the established Kalmyk secular and clerical elite, who were f u r t h e r antagonized by the intrusive Russian policies. Nine years after the reconstitution of the zargo, its m e m b e r s agreed with the khan that Russia's policies t h r e a t e n e d the very existence of the Kalmyk people. Shortly after a great majority of Kalmyks had left the Volga in 1771 for their historic homeland in Jungaria, a government decree hastily abolished zargo among those Kalmyks who r e m a i n e d in the Caspian steppe. 1 8 The institution of zargo was revived again a m o n g those Kalmyks who remained on the banks of the Volga in 1788. However, now the effective control over the Kalmyks was placed in the hands of the newly established chancellery in Astrakhan. 1 9 In other regions the government undertook similar attempts to r e m o l d the indigenous societies and put them under firmer control of the Russian authorities. Throughout the 1780s in the Kazakh steppe and 1790s in the North Caucasus, the government introduced a new instrument of control, a system of native and f r o n tier courts. Detailed directives came personally from Catherine II, who took a lively interest in "pacifying the wild peoples of Her Empire."

Colonial Frontiers in Eighteenth-Century

Russia • 135

In 1786 the G o v e r n o r - G e n e r a l of Orenburg, Baron Osip Igelstrom, informed the K a z a k h s of the Lesser H o r d e that the empress had decreed that their khan, Nuraly, be detained and his title abolished. The H o r d e was to be divided into three parts, each led by a chief notable elected from among other notables. To resolve frontier disputes, the Frontier Court (pogranichnyi sud, later referred to as divan) was established in O r e n b u r g . It was to be composed of six Kazakh notables and one sultan as well as six Russian officials. This Court was to judge both K a z a k h s and Russians. Each of the three parts of the newly divided Lesser H o r d e was to have its own local court (rasprava) to adjudicate Kazakh matters. A reliable Russian or Tatar informer was to be attached to the local courts in the guise of a deputy. All m e m b e r s of the courts were to be paid by the Russian treasury. 2 0 T h e attempts of the Russian government to institute structural changes a m o n g the Kazakhs brought already familiar results. Russia's reliance on notables and c o m m o n e r s in administering the Kazakhs sharply antagonized the Kazakh nobles and pitched one group against the other. Abolishing the authority of the khan proved to be an extreme step, unpopular with both the nobles and commoners. In 1788 the advice of the local military c o m m a n d e r , D. Grankin, was to impose upon the Kazakhs the Russian administrative and military system: dividing the Lesser H o r d e into four parts similar to Russian counties ( u e z d s ) , and reconstituting the Frontier Court with only six m e m b e r s — o n e notable from each part of the Horde, one Russian secretary with a knowledge of Tatar, and one m e m b e r of the Islamic clergy, a mullah. 2 1 Eight years later, Baron Igelstrom m a d e his last attempt to bring the Kazakh factions together with a modified proposal of establishing a Khan Council, consisting of six notables representing m a j o r clans. When this idea too proved to be unfeasible, Igelstrom decided to move closer to the position of the Kazakh nobility, abolishing the Khan Council and strengthening the authority of the khan appointed by the government. 2 2 Throughout the last quarter of the eighteenth century various attempts by the Russian officials to alter a traditional balance of power among the Kazakh authorities by imposing alien legal and administrative structures proved to be premature. Despite the government's willingness to change the composition of the Frontier Courts or K h a n ' s Council, these very institutions were seen by the Kazakh nobles and notables as too intrusive and undermining their traditional power base. It was not until 1824 that the Kazakhs of the Lesser Horde, no longer capable of resisting the government's plans, found themselves divided into three parts and the position of their khan abolished. Their last khan was brought to O r e n b u r g to reside there with an honorary but perfectly meaningless title of the First M e m b e r of the Frontier Commission.

136 • Michael

Khodarkovsky PHASE 5: TOWARD DISTANT G O A L S IDEALS: CONVERT AND

AND

CIVILIZE

By the e i g h t e e n t h c e n t u r y the Russian g o v e r n m e n t had achieved a r e m a r k a b l e r e v e r s a l of a l o n g e s t a b l i s h e d f r o n t i e r p a t t e r n . T h e p r o t r a c t e d h e m o r r h a g i n g of t h e R u s s i a n p o p u l a t i o n , w h i c h f o r c e n t u r i e s w a s c a p t u r e d a n d sold i n t o s l a v e r y outside

of R u s s i a , h a d

been

largely s t o p p e d . Increasingly, the f o r m e r

non-

Christian raiders were t r a n s f o r m e d into converts and settled within the borders of t h e R u s s i a n E m p i r e . S o m e of t h e m w e r e c a p t u r e d a n d sold i n t o R u s s i a n h o u s e h o l d s , b u t m o s t c a m e t o s e e k r e f u g e of t h e i r o w n v o l i t i o n . While some native p e o p l e s tried to escape the Russian military and administ r a t i v e a r m s by f l e e i n g i n t o t h e m o r e d i s t a n t i m p e r i a l b o r d e r l a n d s , o t h e r s p r e ferred to a b a n d o n their native society and seek opportunities across the frontier in R u s s i a . T h e R u s s i a n a u t h o r i t i e s d i r e c t l y a n d i n d i r e c t l y e n c o u r a g e d t h e e s c a p e a n d m i g r a t i o n of t h e i n d i g e n o u s p o p u l a t i o n i n t o R u s s i a in w h a t b e c a m e o n e of t h e c o r n e r s t o n e s of t h e g o v e r n m e n t c o l o n i z a t i o n p o l i c i e s in t h e f r o n t i e r r e g i o n s . A t t r a c t e d by t h e R u s s i a n g o v e r n m e n t ' s o f f e r s of g e n e r o u s r e w a r d s a n d c o m p e n s a t i o n s , s o m e of t h e n a t i v e e l i t e c h o s e t o l e a v e f o r R u s s i a . B u t e v e n t h o s e w h o s t a y e d b e h i n d f o u n d t h e b e n e f i t s of t r a d e w i t h R u s s i a i r r e s i s t i b l e . T o m a x i m i z e t h e p r o f i t s f r o m s u c h t r a d e , t h e y i n c r e a s e d t a x a t i o n of t h e i r o w n p o p u l a t i o n , i n a d v e r t e n t l y a d d i n g t o t h e n u m b e r s of r e f u g e e s t o R u s s i a . In t i m e , t h e c o m m o n e r s t o o b e g a n f l e e i n g t o R u s s i a t o a v o i d o p p r e s s i o n of t h e i r o w n n o b l e s . 2 3 S u c h a m i g r a t i o n of t h e i n d i g e n o u s p o p u l a t i o n , b o t h e l i t e a n d c o m m o n e r s , a n d its l a r g e r implic a t i o n s r e m a i n v i r t u a l l y u n n o t i c e d a n d u n e x a m i n e d in t h e h i s t o r i o g r a p h y . T h e g o v e r n m e n t c o n t i n u e d t o e x p r e s s i n t e r e s t in d e f e c t o r s , n o b l e s a n d c o m m o n e r s alike, a n d p r o v i d e d t h e m w i t h s t r o n g i n c e n t i v e s t o r e s e t t l e a n d c o n v e r t . In o n e s u c h t y p i c a l e x a m p l e , in 1762 a K a b a r d i n i a n n o b l e c o n v e r t , f o r m e r l y K o r g o k a K a n c h o k i n a n d n o w k n o w n as A n d r e i I v a n o v , p e t i t i o n e d t o b e r e s e t t l e d within Russian borders. To e n c o u r a g e him further, the Senate g r a n t e d him the rank

of l i e u t e n a n t

c o l o n e l , a n d a n e w title a n d

name, Prince

Cherkasskii-

K a n c h o k i n . T h e S e n a t e a l s o listed s e v e r a l o p t i o n s a v a i l a b l e t o h i m . H e w o u l d r e c e i v e a n a n n u i t y of 5 0 0 r u b l e s if h e r e l o c a t e d w i t h i n t h e R u s s i a n b o r d e r s w i t h his p e o p l e . If h e c o u l d n o t c o n v i n c e his p e o p l e t o c o n v e r t a n d j o i n h i m , h e c o u l d m o v e t o t h e R u s s i a n f r o n t i e r t o w n of K i z l i a r a n d r e c e i v e 3 0 0 r u b l e s . Finally, if h e c h o s e t o stay in K a b a r d a , h e w o u l d r e c e i v e 150 r u b l e s a n d h a d t o c o m e t o K i z l i a r t h r e e t i m e s a y e a r t o r e c e i v e his a n n u i t y a n d h a v e his C h r i s t i a n i t y c o n f i r m e d . T h e S e n a t e e x p r e s s e d h o p e t h a t h e a n d his p e o p l e w o u l d t h u s c o n v e r t a n d r e s e t t l e . 2 4 T h e b a p t i z e d f u g i t i v e s w e r e listed as n e w c o n v e r t s , e v e n t h o u g h t h e y h a d little i d e a of t h e i r n e w r e l i g i o n a n d c o n t i n u e d t o p r a c t i c e t h e i r o l d o n e . T o s e c u r e c o n v e r t s as C h r i s t i a n s a n d t o p r o t e c t t h e m f r o m t h e i r k i n ' s r e v e n g e , t h e g o v e r n m e n t m o v e d t h e m a w a y f r o m t h e f r o n t i e r a r e a a n d s e t t l e d t h e m in t o w n s f o u n d e d e s p e cially f o r this p u r p o s e . O n g o v e r n m e n t o r d e r s t h e f o r t of N a g a i b a k in t h e U f a p r o v i n c e w a s b u i l t f o r t h e B a s h k i r c o n v e r t s in 1736. T h r e e y e a r s l a t e r t h e t o w n of

Colonial Frontiers in Eighteenth-Century

Russia • 137

Stavropol was founded to settle Kalmyk converts near the Volga River north of t h e city of Samara. 2 5 Neither these nor o t h e r settlements proved to be at a sufficient distance to prevent the escape of many converts seeking to reunite with their co-religionists and kin. When the issue of the settlement of the Kazakh converts came up in 1763, the Senate decreed that they should be sent f u r t h e r away f r o m O r e n b u r g , Astrakhan, and Kazan provinces and settled on the state lands d e e p in the Russian interior. 2 6 T h e government's principle concern with transforming non-Christians into Russian O r t h o d o x underpinned Russian policies in the frontier area throughout this time. In 1755, responding to the undeniable reality of massive exodus, purchase and conversion of the natives, the government gave a green light to those that wished to purchase and convert the natives in the frontier regions of Astrak h a n , O r e n b u r g and Siberia. In a r e m a r k a b l e violation of the exclusive privilege of the Russian nobility to purchase and own serfs, the government permitted priests, merchants, Cossacks and others to buy, convert and teach non-Christians, w h o were to remain their serfs until the owners' death. The Senate sanctioned t h e purchase of Kalmyks, Kumyks, Chechens, Kazakhs, Karakalpaks, Turkmens, Tomuts, Tatars, Bashkirs, B a r a b a Tatars and o t h e r Muslims and idol-worshippers. Thus, the non-Christians would be acquired without force "so that they could be converted to Christianity." 2 7 The situation in the North Caucasus in the second half of the eighteenth century illustrates with particular clarity the nature of Russian frontier policies and their intended and unintended impact on the indigenous societies. As elsewhere, the numerous pleas from the Kabardinian and other local chiefs to have their fugitives returned continued to fall on deaf ears. But in the mid-eighteenth century with the construction of Mozdok, a new fort a short distance away f r o m some Kabardinian villages, the issue of the fugitives' return took on a different dimension. Despairing Kabardinian nobles complained that they could no longer exercise control over their people, who t h r e a t e n e d to flee and convert to Christianity in Mozdok, Kizliar or Astrakhan. 2 8 A temporary reprieve for the local nobles was achieved in 1771, when Catherine II personally wrote to the Kabardinian people, trying, as always, to reconcile her ideas learned from the books of Western philosophers with the incongruous realities of the Russian Empire. While she nobly declared that "there is no such law in the entire world to reject those who seek Christian faith," she then conceded to the demands that the Kabardinian peasants should be returned "because they have no way of comprehending Christianity and because you need them in the fields."29 Russian policies of providing refuge for fugitives inadvertently led to the growing division between the Kabardinian nobles and the commoners. Exploiting such a rift later became central to the administration's policies in the North Caucasus. By promoting a social conflict within the native society the Russian g o v e r n m e n t sought to weaken the nobles and thus to increase its leverage over the natives. For instance, one of the tasks of the Russian liaison officer residing among the Kabar-

138 • Michael

Khoclarkovsky

dinians was "to incite the c o m m o n e r s to be loyal to Russia," and when in 1767 more than ten thousand Kabardinian peasants rebelled against the nobles and threatened to flee, the Russian m a j o r was sent to convince the rebels to leave their nobles and settle in Russian territory. 3 0 In 1782 Prince G.A. Potemkin-Tavricheskii instructed the c o m m a n d e r of the Russian troops in the Caucasus, G e n e r a l P.S. Potemkin, to reject any requests from the Kabardinian nobles for a return of their commoners who had fled to escape oppression. Leaving no doubt as to his views on the subject, he added: "I regard the separation of the c o m m o n e r s from the nobles the surest way to secure our frontier." 3 1 The idea of converting the natives received another impetus in the late eighteenth century, when Russia's continuous triumphant expansion allowed government officials to e q u a t e a new Russian imperial expansion with propagation of Christianity. In 1784 the G o v e r n o r - G e n e r a l of the Caucasus, P.S. Potemkin, concluded that it was quite possible that the Kabardinians had become duplicitous after they converted to Islam, but that their perfidious nature could be explained by their poor understanding of Islam's tenets. Before this conversion to Islam, the governor continued, they were Christians, and if suitable priests were to be sent to preach a m o n g them, "undoubtedly, they would soon shed the light of divine bliss among all the peoples scattered in the mountains." 3 2 In the last quarter of the eighteenth century, although still mostly concerned with political and military objectives, the government began to embark on a different course of action, now actively seeking to alter the way of life of the peoples of the North Caucasus. A 1778 report by the Office of Foreign Affairs, referring to the Kabardinians. stated explicitly that "until this time there was no need to pay close attention to their internal affairs, and our side had been satisfied merely by pursuit of their political or external loyalty." 33 What changed was more than just Russia's needs. Since the mid-eighteenth century, Russian interests in the region were served by a new, educated, and westernized elite of military officers and government administrators. Typical representatives of the Age of Reason, schooled in contemporary concepts of law, military tactics and administration, and confident of their innate superiority, they brought with them new ideas and new m e t h o d s of governing. From their vantage point, the natives with their "savage c u s t o m s " and "completely corrupt m o r a l s " were "perfidious and unreliable p e o p l e " ( n e p o s t o i a n n y i verolomny), who could not be trusted because of "their fickle and crude n a t u r e " (vetrennosti i grubosti) and "their p r e d a t o r y way of life (khishchnoe remeslo) to which they are predisposed by their very n a t u r e and upbringing." 3 4 These were not merely personal prejudices, but officially sanctioned views. The natives, not unlike other subjects of the empire, were seen and treated as children, a notion unmistakably confirmed by one of the official titles of the Caucasus' g o v e r n o r s in the late eighteenth century, "the guardian and patron of various non-Christians ( o p e k u n raznykh inovertsov)."35

Colonial Frontiers in Eighteenth-Century

Russia • 139

Of course, the children could grow up and achieve redemption by becoming the faithful subjects of the Russian Empire and enjoying the benefits of civilization, which the Russian officials claimed to embody. The natives were not yet romanticized as "innocent children of n a t u r e " or "noble savages" as the natives of t h e New World were or as the natives of the Russian Empire would be in the ninet e e n t h century. First, like any children, they needed to be controlled, instructed and ruled, and if they misbehaved, admonished and punished. Catherine II envisioned the Kazakhs serving as an irregular Russian military and the steppe transformed through the newly built towns, mosques, schools, and trading centers. Islam was to be put in the service of the empire, and her plans included recruiting and paying a loyal mullah from among the Kazan Tatars, who could encourage the Kazakhs' loyalty and ensure their peaceful intentions. O t h e r Muslims, such as merchants of Bukhara and Tashkent with residence in Tobolsk', were exempt from local laws, taxation, or any service, "in order to attract more of them to settle in the Russian Empire and to expand trade with the neighboring peoples." 36 O n e of the most comprehensive plans for colonial administration of the region was submitted by the A s t r a k h a n G o v e r n o r Petr Krechetnikov in 1775. Like previous proposals, this one too was based on the belief that "nothing can tame their b a r b a r i t y b e t t e r a n d m a k e t h e m m o r e docile than their conversion to Christianity," and "because many of these peoples are Muslim only in name, it will not be difficult to convert them, and through the contact with our people it would be possible to have their language and their customs eradicated completely." A school was to be founded in the city of A s t r a k h a n where the local nobles could send their children, and trade would be encouraged so that the natives would get used to Russian merchandise and particularly to using money. To convince the authorities in St. Petersburg to pursue a more active policy in the Caucasus, the governor described how the treasury would benefit from the exploration of the region's natural resources and its fertile lands. F u r t h e r m o r e , the natives could supply cheap labor, and, because the concept of profit was unfamiliar to them, they could be paid very little or be given shirts as a compensation for their labor, as was customary among them. But to achieve this, the governor argued, the Russian authorities needed to create new settlements along the entire frontier line from Kizliar to Mozdok. T h e r e the natives should be settled a m o n g the Russian troops, which should comprise at least one third of its population, be put under Russian command and allowed to intermarry; "this way their way of life, customs, and language will wither away painlessly and easily, and they will become the full subjects of H e r Imperial Majesty." 3 7 He *

*

In the end, the pattern of Russia's changing policies and objectives a p p e a r s to be consistent along the entire stretch of the southern and southeastern frontier. In the initial stage, Russia's goals were to stop the hostile activity of the newly encountered peoples against Russia and redirect it toward Russia's foes. While

140 • Michael

Khodarkovsky

M o s c o w i n v a r i a b l y insisted o n an o a t h of allegiance, its r e l a t i o n s h i p with t h e i n d i g e n o u s p e o p l e s w a s n o m o r e t h a n a m i l i t a r y alliance of c o n v e n i e n c e . D u r i n g this s t a g e M o s c o w b e l i e v e d t h a t its i n t e r e s t s w o u l d be best s e r v e d by a s t r o n g central a u t h o r i t y of a local k h a n o r chief. A s t h e R u s s i a n f r o n t i e r a d v a n c e d f u r t h e r a n d t h e t h r e a t of raids r e c e d e d , t h e g r o w i n g c o l o n i z a t i o n of t h e l a n d s s e c u r e d by t h e fortification line d e m a n d e d n e w priorities. R u s s i a w a s n o w less i n t e r e s t e d in t h e military p o t e n t i a l of its s t e p p e n e i g h b o r s a n d m o r e in t h e i r l a n d a n d r e s o u r c e s . To achieve this objective, it p r e f e r r e d to f u r t h e r d i v i d e a n d w e a k e n t h e i n d i g e n o u s societies. W i t h t h e natives i n c r e a s i n g d e p e n d e n c e o n R u s s i a , t h e g o v e r n m e n t p r o c e e d e d in i n t e g r a t i n g t h e n a t i v e s i n t o t h e i m p e r i a l a d m i n i s t r a t i v e s y s t e m , first t h r o u g h t h e c r e a t i o n of syncretic f r o n t i e r i n s t i t u t i o n s a n d l a t e r by p l a c i n g t h e n a t i v e s u n d e r R u s s i a ' s direct administrative control. Yet a l t e r i n g t h e n a t i v e way of life, a n d m a k i n g t h e m a b a n d o n their religion, c u s t o m s a n d t r a d i t i o n s p r o v e d to b e a task f a r m o r e f o r m i d a b l e t h a n e i t h e r t h e R u s s i a n o r t h e Soviet g o v e r n m e n t s i m a g i n e d . A c o m p e t e n t , w e l l - n u a n c e d a n d ideologically d i s i n t e r e s t e d s t o r y of t h e s u c c e s s e s a n d failures of R u s s i a ' s colonial e n d e a v o r s is yet t o b e told.

Notes 1 For more expansive and substantive arguments, see my Russia's Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500-1800 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001). otnosheniia v 16-18 vekakh: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov 2 Kazakhsko-russkie Ata: A N Kazakhskoi SSR, 1961), no. 33, 53-54. 3 Ibid, no. 2 5 0 , 6 3 9 . 4 Russko-dagestanskie otnosheniia 17-pervoi chetverti 18 vv: Dokumenty i (Makhachkala: D a g e s t a n k o e izd., 1958), no. 9 6 , 2 2 4 - 2 5 .

(Alma-

materialy

5 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv drevnikh aktov ( M o s c o w ) [hereafter R G A D A ] , f. 248, op. 113 (Opis' del Sekretnoi Ekspeditsii Senata), d. 1257,1. 14ob. 6 Russko-osetinskie otnosheniia v 18 veke, 1742-62, comp. by M.M. Bliev (Ordzhonikidze: Izd. IR, 1976), 1: no. 53, 121; nos. 5 6 , 5 7 , 1 2 3 - 2 7 . 7 Kazanskii Universitet, Rukopisnyi otdel, no. 4865; Akty sobrannye Kavkazskoi Arkheograficheskoi komissiei [hereafter A K A K ] , 12 vols. (Tiflis, 1866-83) 1:91. O n patronage, see Ernest Gellner, "Patrons and Clients" in Ernest Gellner and John Waterbury, eds.. Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies (London: Duckworth, 1977), 1 - 6 ; on a notion of kunak in the Caucasus, s e e M.O. Kosven, Etnografiia i istoriia Kavkaza (Moscow: Vostochnaia literatura, 1961), 126-9. 8 Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia v 18-19 Ata: Nauka, 1964), no. 7 0 , 1 2 5 .

vekakh: Sbornik

9 N.N. Pal'mov, Etiudy po istorii privolzhskikh Tip. Kalmoblitizdata, 1926-32), 3^1: 289-90. 10 Kazakhsko-russkie

otnosheniia

v 16-18 vekakh,

kalmykov

dokumentov

i materialov

(Alma-

17 i 18 veka, 5 vols. (Astrakhan:

no. 153,401.

11 Ibid., no. 152,394; no. 2 2 5 , 5 8 0 - 8 3 ; no. 269, 686-87. 12 Ibid., no. 225, 580. 13 Michael Khodarkovsky, Where Two Worlds Met: The Russian State and the Kalmyk mads, 1600-1771 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992), 163, 182-85, 230.

No-

Notes

-141

14 Arkhiv Voenno-Morskogo Flota (St. Petersburg), f. 212. op. 1, d. 33,1.161. 15 Khodarkovsky, Where Two Worlds Met, 249. 16 Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia v 16-18 vv., no. 228, 596; Istoriia Kazakhskoi SSR, 2 vols. (Alma-Ata: AN Kazakhskoi SSR, 1957), 1: 282-83. 17 Kabardino-russkie otnosheniia v 16-18 vv.: Dokumenty i materialy, 2 vols. (Moscow: AN SSSR, 1957), 2: nos. 188-89, 255-59; no. 251, 355. Don i Stepnoe Predkavkaz'e, 18-pervaia polovina 19 v. Zaselenie i khoziaistvo (Rostov-on-Don, 1977), 61. 18 Khodarkovsky, Where Two Worlds Met, 44, 45,225,230-32. 19 P.G. Butkov, Materialy dlia novoi istorii Kavkaza s 1722 po 1803 g., 3 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1869), 1:311. 20 Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii, ser. 1,45 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1830) [hereafter Kazakhsko-russkie PSZ], 22: no. 15,991, 142-44; no. 16,292, 493-95; no. 16,400, 604-6; otnosheniia v 18-19 vv., no. 66, 120; M.P. Viatkin, Batvr Srym (Moscow-Leningrad: AN SSSR, 1947). 225. 21 Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Orenburgskoi Oblasti [hereafter GAOO], f. 5, op. 1, 1788, d. 22, 11. 35-71; Kazakhsko-russkie otnosheniia v 18-19 vv., no. 70, 129-130. 22 Viatkin, Batyr Srym, 352-7. 23 R G A D A , f. 248, op. 126, d. 90 (Dela i prigovory Pravitel'stvuiushchego Senata po Astrakhanskoi gubernii), 1. 13; Khodarkovsky, Where Two Worlds Met, passim. 24 Kabardino-russkie otnosheniia, 2: no. 165, 221-2. 25 R G A D A , f. 248, op. 126, d. 135 (Dela i prigovory Pravitel'stvuiushchego Senata po Orenburgskoi gubernii), 1735-37,1. 78; V.N. Vitevskii, I.I. Nepliuev i Orenburgskii krai v p r e z h nem ego soslave do 1758g., 3 vols. (Kazan: Tip. V.M. Kliuchnikova, 1897), 2: 439. 26 PSZ, 16, no. 11,886,321. 27 Arkhiv vneshnei politiki Rossiiskoi imperii (Moscow) [hereafter AVPRI], f. 119, op. 5 (Kalmytskie dela), 1755, d. 17,11. 17-20. 28 Kabardino-russkie otnosheniia, 2: nos. 98-99, 122-24; no. 124, 167-8; no. 212, 298. For the earliest accounts chronicling Russian expansion in the Caucasus see, S.M. Bronevskii, Istoricheskie vypiski o snosheniiakh Rossii s Persiei, Gruziei i voobshche s gorskimi narodami. v Kavkaze obitaiushchimi, so vremen Ivana Vasil'evicha donyne, ed. I.K. Pavlova (St. Petersburg: Peterburgskoe Vostokovedenie. 1996); Butkov, Materialy dlia novoi istorii Kavkaza, and Michael Khodarkovsky, "Of Christianity, Enlightenment, and Colonialism: Russia in the North Caucasus, 1500-1800," Journal of Modern History 71, no. 2 (1999): 394-430. 29 Kabardino-russkie otnosheniia, 2: no. 213,302. 30 Ibid., nos. 194-95, 269-73; no. 212, 298. 31 Tsentral'nyi gosudarstvennyi voenno-istoricheskii arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (Moscow) [hereafter VIA], f. 52, op. 1, d. 286, pt. 3,11.8-10; Kabardino-russkie otnosheniia, 2: no. 251,355. 32 Kabardino-russkie otnosheniia, 2: no. 256, 360, 362. 33 Ibid., no. 227, 329. 34 Ibid., no. 225, 324; no. 256, 359-63. In 1768 the Kabardinian nobles complained that the Kizliar commander Major-General N.A. Potapov did not come to meet with them in Mozdok and wrote to them that "it was below his dignity to speak to such people as we are." Ibid., nos. 199-200, 276-77. 35 VIA, f. 52, op. 1, d. 264,1. 32; d. 286, pt. 3,11. 2, et al. 36 PSZ, 22: no. 16,292, 493-95; no. 16,400,604-6; no. 16,593,951-2. 37 Kabardino-russkie otnosheniia, 2: no. 220,312-16. Conversion of the Native Americans in the late eighteenth-century North America was also presented in terms of "taming the wild." See Richard White, The Middle Ground: Indians, Empires and Republics in the Great Lakes Region, 1650-1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 506.

Colonization by Contract: Russian Settlers, South Caucasian Elites, and the Dynamics of Nineteenth-Century Tsarist Imperialism NICHOLAS B.

BREYFOGLE

In M a r c h 1845 Prince David Dadiani of Mingrelia a p p r o a c h e d the tsarist administration in the Caucasus with a r e m a r k a b l e proposal that would allow Russian p e a s a n t colonists from the central provinces to settle on his privately owned lands. 1 Believing there to be a shortage of labor on his territory, Dadiani was e a g e r to put this plan into action because he saw in it an opportunity not only to a u g m e n t his wealth but also to increase his power in relations with the tsarist state. Russian officials and settlers were similarly enthusiastic about Dadiani's project. State authorities, who were concerned in the 1840s to respect the property rights of Georgian elites, believed that such colonization a r r a n g e m e n t s would f u r t h e r their imperialist agenda in the region in a variety of ways, particularly economically. For their part, Russian colonists in the South Caucasus— the majority of which were Russian religious sectarians such as D u k h o b o r s , Molokans, and Subbotniks 2 —were confident that relocation to the lands of G e o r g i a n nobles such as D a d i a n i would be economically advantageous for them as well. The settlement a r r a n g e m e n t that Dadiani proposed (and which was sanctioned in a m e n d e d form later that year) represents a stage in the development of an u n u s u a l c o m p o n e n t of Russian imperialism in n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y Transcaucasia, what I call "colonization by contract." In this imperial structure, the tsarist state chose to facilitate Russian in-migration to the region by settling their colonists as tenant farmers on lands owned by Caucasian nobles. These settlements were formalized by term-prescribed contracts that were negotiated between colonists and landowners. Russian peasants had begun living unsystematically on the domains of South Caucasian elites beginning in the late 1830s. These dealings were partially standardized in 1845 with the Dadiani case and fully codified with the passing of a landmark decree in June 1858. This law, which was developed out of the triangular interaction of Caucasian elites, tsarist officials, and Russian peasant colonists, formalized past practice and facilitated such land a r r a n g e m e n t s in the future. 3 Mirroring tsarist ethnic policy broadly in

144 • Nicholas

B.

Breyfogle

t h e r e g i o n , t h e m a j o r i t y of t h e s e cases i n v o l v e d G e o r g i a n nobles, with only a f e w i n c i d e n t s c o n c e r n i n g A r m e n i a n a n d A z e r b a i j a n i notables. 4 D u r i n g t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y , t h e p r o c e s s of c o l o n i z a t i o n by c o n t r a c t inv o l v e d only a f e w t h o u s a n d i n d i v i d u a l s — m o s t R u s s i a n colonists in t h e S o u t h C a u c a s u s settled o n s t a t e - o w n e d l a n d w i t h o u t the n e e d f o r n e g o t i a t e d a g r e e m e n t s . 5 N o n e t h e l e s s , it has i m p o r t a n t i m p l i c a t i o n s f o r u n d e r s t a n d i n g t h e c h a r a c t e r of tsarist e m p i r e - b u i l d i n g . In p a r t i c u l a r , it p e r m i t s an e x p l o r a t i o n of t h e inters e c t i o n of ethnicity, c o n f e s s i o n a l affiliation, a n d social s t a t u s in t h e s t r u c t u r i n g of i m p e r i a l p o w e r relations. It also s h e d s light o n the n a t u r e of land o w n e r s h i p a n d t h e m e a n i n g s of p r o p e r t y in n i n e t e e n t h - c e n t u r y Russia, a n d on t h e flexibility a n d rigidity of tsarist e s t a t e categories. T h e system of R u s s i a n p e a s a n t s e t t l e m e n t o n lands of C a u c a s i a n elites is p a r ticularly i n t e r e s t i n g f r o m t h e p e r s p e c t i v e of global imperialism. T h e S o u t h C a u c a sian r e g i o n was i n c o r p o r a t e d into t h e e m p i r e d u r i n g t h e late e i g h t e e n t h a n d early n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r i e s , b o t h t h r o u g h d i p l o m a t i c n e g o t i a t i o n s and military c o n q u e s t , a n d R u s s i a n officials c o n s i d e r e d it to be a colony. 6 A s p a r t of their i m p e r i a l i s t policies, t h e tsarist s t a t e b e g a n to settle R u s s i a n p e a s a n t s in t h e r e g i o n . Yet, in c o n t r a s t to t h e m a j o r i t y of cases of colonialism in m o d e r n world h i s t o r y ( a n d in o t h e r p a r t s of t h e R u s s i a n E m p i r e ) , h e r e t h e R u s s i a n s t a t e a p p r o a c h e d c o l o n i z a tion of t h e region n o t simply by d i s p o s s e s s i n g t h e C a u c a s i a n p e o p l e s of t h e i r land ( w h i c h t h e y did aggressively f r o m t h e 1810s t h r o u g h t h e 1830s) b u t also by settling their " c o l o n i s t s " on t h e l a n d s of elite m e m b e r s of t h e " c o l o n i z e d " p e o p l e s , at t i m e s in socially a n d e c o n o m i c a l l y d e p e n d e n t relationships. I n d e e d , t h e c o n t r a c t s that indigenous landowners and the sectarians entered into governing land usage a n d r e m u n e r a t i o n belie a n y s i m p l e c a t e g o r i z a t i o n of t h e p o w e r

relationships

b e t w e e n c o l o n i z e r a n d c o l o n i z e d in T r a n s c a u c a s i a . 7 M o r e o v e r , t h e p r a c t i c e of settling these p e a s a n t s on " n a t i v e " n o b l e lands was a n o m a l o u s f o r R u s s i a on a social level, c o n t r a v e n i n g l o n g s t a n d i n g tsarist law a n d practice. R u s s i a n settlers w h o r e l o c a t e d t o Transcaucasia, w h a t e v e r t h e i r original social d e s i g n a t i o n in t h e i n t e r i o r provinces, w e r e almost always classified as " s t a t e p e a s a n t s " a f t e r their arrival o n t h e f r o n t i e r . A c c o r d i n g to t h e s t a t u t e s of R u s s i a ' s " a s c r i p t i v e l e g a l - a d m i n i s t r a t i v e categories," s t a t e p e a s a n t s could be s e t t l e d only o n s t a t e - o w n e d land a n d w e r e to pay d u e s solely to the treasury. 8 Thus, t h e law of 1858, with its c o l o n i z a t i o n by c o n t r a c t , is also n o t a b l e f o r t h e e x c e p t i o n it o f f e r e d in allowing s t a t e p e a s a n t s t o live on t h e p r i v a t e lands of nobles, o n a c o n t r a c t u a l f o u n d a t i o n , while s i m u l t a n e o u s l y r e m a i n i n g in their original ascriptive c a t e g o r y (with its privileges a n d b u r d e n s ) . ACCIDENTAL

SETTLERS

R u s s i a n s t a t e p e a s a n t s b e g a n t o settle on t h e lands of S o u t h C a u c a s i a n elites in unofficial and ad h o c ways well b e f o r e e i t h e r t h e c o n c e p t i o n or p a s s i n g of t h e 1858 law. T h e r e w e r e t h r e e c a u s e s f o r t h e s e u n c o n v e n t i o n a l s e t t l e m e n t a r r a n g e m e n t s :

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ts.arist problems in demarcating the boundaries of private versus state land; confiscation and then return of lands belonging to Caucasian nobles as tsarist imperial policies changed; and the settlers' willingness to enter into such contractual relations. This irregular, often post-facto-sanctioned settlement reflects the very chaotic nature of Russian imperial expansion in which about-faces of policy were by n o means uncommon. The absence of knowledge about local conditions (in this case about land boundaries) added to an already disorderly process. State peasant sectarians found themselves on the property of indigenous l a n d o w n e r s as a result of the inability (especially lack of time and resources) and i n c o m p e t e n c e of tsarist administrators to delimit properly the territorial boundaries in Transcaucasia. Dissenters coming f r o m central Russia settled on land that tsarist officials had initially labeled state-owned but which later came under disp u t e by local landowners. 9 For example, Molokans settled in 1843 in Aleksandrop o l ' uezd (Armenian oblast') on land that, "because of a misunderstanding," administrators demarcated as treasury property. However, the Georgian Orbeliani family soon challenged the state for ownership of the land, saying they had long b e e n its proprietors, and they officially regained possession in 1853. H o w e v e r , for a variety of reasons, tsarist officials opposed relocating the state p e a s a n t s to neighboring state lands. In 1848, well before the end of the dispute, viceroy M.S. Vorontsov contacted Orbeliani to negotiate conditions under which t h e Russian settlers would remain on his domain. 1 0 Second, sectarians found themselves living on private land because of changing tsarist policy towards local elites. A n t h o n y Rhinelander ( a m o n g other scholars) describes how Russian administration of the South Caucasus in the first half of the nineteenth century vacillated b e t w e e n centralization and regionalism in its approach. 1 1 As part of one of these shifts to standardize and "Russify" the administration in the Caucasus (especially in 1837-41 under Baron RV. H a h n ) , land belonging to Transcaucasian notables was confiscated in 1841—an action that was simultaneously designed to weaken the p o w e r of the elites and provide land for the Russian colonists to live on. In 1842, tsarist policy shifted again after H a h n ' s restructuring proved unworkable, and, a m o n g other results, the property was returned to the original owners, leaving recently settled Russians inhabiting private land. Such was the case with the lands of the Karabakh-bek Begliarovs. 1 2 In 1841, Molokan settlers founded the village of Borisy (Shusha uezd, S h e m a k h a guberniia) on confiscated lands formerly belonging to this A r m e n i a n family. The following year, as imperial policy swung to the other pole, the property, with the Molokans on it, was returned to their possession. 1 3 Both before and after the tsarist legislation, the settlement of peasants on noble land would not have been possible without the sectarians' willingness to d o so. Dealings with landlords included certain obligations and difficulties that the colonists would not have encountered on state-owned lands. Nonetheless, they embraced settlement on noble land in an e f f o r t to enhance their economic opportunities or to escape an environmentally challenging place of habitation (infertile

146 • Nicholas B. Breyfogle soil, difficult climate, and lack of access to water, among other factors). 1 4 For instance, a group of D u k h o b o r s exiled to the South Caucasus (1841-45) found the conditions in the so-called "Wet M o u n t a i n s " locale where they were settled to be so adverse that soon after their arrival they requested relocation to lands of the O r b e l i a n i family (Borchalo uchastok, Tiflis guberniia) where they f o u n d e d f o u r villages. 15 Similarly, in January 1858, M o l o k a n s f r o m the town of A l e k s a n d r o p o l ' r e q u e s t e d permission to relocate to private lands in the hope of ameliorating their economic situation. O n their own initiative, the Molokans entered into an agreem e n t with Nina Ivanova Loris-Melikova (wife of Mikhail Tarielovich Loris-Melikov) to rent and live on part of her land. 1 6 In fact, the sectarians' d e m a n d for settlement on elite-owned lands at times outstripped the state's willingness to allow such settlement and they were denied authorization. In the wake of the 1858 law, Molokans f r o m various parts of the South Caucasus sent in petitions, filled with stories of communal and personal ruin, requesting relocation f r o m their current villages because of economic problems. O n e g r o u p of petitioners applied to live on land owned by the G e o r g i a n O r t h o d o x Church. While the petitioners saw this m o v e m e n t as the solution to all their problems, the Chief A d m i n i s t r a t o r of the C h a m b e r of the Ministry of State Properties b a r r e d such a migration because of the negative impact it would have on the local population already settled there. 1 7

S E T T L E M E N T BY D E S I G N : O R I G I N S OF T H E 1 8 5 8 L A W Four factors came together to generate the legislation that permitted the settlement of Russian state peasants on the lands of South Caucasian elites. First, the active lobbying efforts of Georgian nobles themselves m a d e possible this arrangem e n t , both in pressing the local administration for such settlement laws and also in recruiting settlers. Indeed, Georgian nobles originated the very idea for Russian state-peasant settlement on their lands, and it was not until their intervention t h a t tsarist administrators began to conceive the possibility of a broad-based policy. 18 Second, the development of this project was intricately linked to the b r o a d e r agenda of Russian colonization in the South Caucasus. Tsarist officials settled the incoming sectarians on the properties of local elites in an effort to resolve p r o b l e m s they faced in providing a d e q u a t e land to s u p p o r t all the religious dissenters they wanted to relocate to Transcaucasia. Third, tsarist officialdom's sense of the inviolability of social-status categories—and the rights and responsibilities a t t a c h e d to these groupings, particularly in terms of land usage and ownership—also directly shaped the development of the law. Finally, it is unlikely that the legislation would have come about at all, let alone in the form that it did, without the p e r s o n a l authority and individual initiative of two Caucasian Viceroys, Vorontsov and Prince A.I. Bariatinskii, in driving forward this legal exception.

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C h r o n o l o g i c a l l y , this u n u s u a l a n d u n p r e c e d e n t e d policy d e v e l o p e d in t h r e e s t a g e s — 1 8 4 4 ^ 1 5 , 1 8 5 0 . a n d 1 8 5 7 - 5 8 — a n d b e g a n with an initially u n r e l a t e d p e t i t i o n of t h e n Chief A d m i n i s t r a t o r of t h e Caucasus, A.I. N e i d g a r d t . In it, he r e q u e s t e d a c e s s a t i o n of sectarian s e t t l e m e n t in Transcaucasia b e c a u s e of a d e a r t h of s t a t e l a n d o n which to settle these migrants, a n d t h e n e e d to t a k e s o m e time to d e t e r m i n e e x a c t l y h o w m u c h land t h e r e was available f o r t h e settlers. 1 9 T h e a b s e n c e of land r e s u l t e d f r o m five sources. First, m u c h of t h e land that t h e Russian state claimed as its o w n , a n d o n which it initially p l a n n e d t o settle the R u s s i a n migrants, t u r n e d o u t in f a c t t o b e u n s u i t a b l e f o r h u m a n h a b i t a t i o n b e c a u s e of disease, harsh climate, or a lack of w a t e r . S e c o n d , for all of t h e tsarist a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ' s e f f o r t s to increase t h e size of t h e R u s s i a n p o p u l a t i o n in t h e region, tsarist officials w e r e very c o n c e r n e d in i m p l e m e n t i n g their colonization policy to e n s u r e that t h e s e t t l e m e n t of the sectarian m i g r a n t s would not cause h a r m to t h e local p o p u l a t i o n . A s Bariatinskii asserted in discussing the a b s e n c e of lands f o r R u s s i a n s to settle on, " f a i r n e s s d e m a n d s d e s i g n a t i n g f r e e lands primarily to t h e native peasants, of w h o m a large n u m b e r a r e s u f f e r i n g f r o m an e x t r e m e insufficiency of land." 2 0 T h i r d , t h e r e w e r e p r o b l e m s in d e m a r c a t i n g t h e b o u n d a r i e s of privately o w n e d and s t a t e lands. F o u r t h , tsarist officials f o u n d t h e m s e l v e s c i r c u m s c r i b e d in their choice of lands in Transcaucasia f o r t h e s e c t a r i a n settlers b e c a u s e t h e rules of s e t t l e m e n t were initially d e s i g n e d t o place t h e d i s s e n t e r s as far away as possible f r o m o t h e r Christians, a n d particularly O r t h o d o x Russians. 2 1 Finally, even t h o u g h the g o v e r n m e n t c a m e to realize that t h e r e w e r e lands o w n e d by private n o b l e l a n d o w n e r s c u r r e n t l y lying u n u s e d , t h e t r e a s u r y f o u n d it impossible to b u y t h e s e lands b e c a u s e of the expense. 2 2 In t h e f a c e of this s t a t e d i l e m m a o v e r w h e r e a n d how to settle t h e s e c t a r i a n s in t h e r e g i o n , P r i n c e C h a v c h a v a d z e , 2 3 r e p r e s e n t i n g a g r o u p of G e o r g i a n n o b l e s t h a t i n c l u d e d t h e D a d i a n i and O r b e l i a n i f a m i l i e s a m o n g o t h e r s , p r o p o s e d a s o l u t i o n . H e d e c l a r e d their " w i l l i n g n e s s " to allow t h e s e c t a r i a n c o l o n i s t s to r e l o c a t e o n t o t h e i r lands. Such s e t t l e m e n t w o u l d b e b a s e d on m u t u a l l y d e t e r m i n e d c o n t r a c t s in w h i c h t h e R u s s i a n s w o u l d r e t a i n t h e s t a t u s rights of s t a t e p e a s a n t s b u t w o u l d o w e o b l i g a t i o n s a n d r e m u n e r a t i o n to t h e l a n d o w n e r f o r t h e use of his land. O n a n u m b e r of o c c a s i o n s in t h e following years, t h e n o b l e s p r e s s e d their r e q u e s t f o r this contractual colonization.24 C h a v c h a v a d z e c o u c h e d t h e p r o p o s a l as beneficial for all i n v o l v e d . U s i n g lang u a g e t h a t was s u r e to a p p e a l to t h e tsarist l e a d e r s h i p , he r e a s o n e d t h a t t h e i r p l a n w o u l d satisfy a p l e t h o r a of tsarist policy goals in o n e fell s w o o p . 2 5 It w o u l d solve t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ' s insufficiency of a p p r o p r i a t e s t a t e land a n d also m a k e possible far g r e a t e r s e t t l e m e n t of R u s s i a n s i n t o t h e region. A d d i t i o n a l l y , he i n d i c a t e d t h a t e a c h of t h e n o b l e p e t i t i o n e r s p o s s e s s e d m o r e land t h a n t h e y w e r e able t o cult i v a t e with their c u r r e n t p o p u l a t i o n . F a c e d with a d e a r t h of G e o r g i a n p e a s a n t s , t h e y w e r e h a p p y to b r i n g in n e w l a b o r e r s t o m a k e t h e land p r o f i t a b l e a n d i n c r e a s e t h e r e g i o n ' s productivity. C h a v c h a v a d z e also c o n t e n d e d t h a t t h e m u t u a l t e r m s of s e t t l e m e n t w o u l d be " i n c o m p a r a b l y m o r e p r o f i t a b l e f o r t h e s e t t l e r h e r e t h a n is g e n e r a l l y t h e case in t h e i n t e r n a l p r o v i n c e s . " 2 6

148 • Nicholas B. Breyfogle M o r e notably, Chavchavadze argued that the "coming together" (sblizhenie) of Russian settlers with the native Georgian peasants would have a very positive economic and cultural influence on the latter. "The people resettled f r o m Russia, being hard-working, experienced in agriculture, and acquainted with handicraft work, industrial endeavors, and t h e carting trade could, by their example, arouse the natives to similar enterprise." That said, Chavchavadze assured the tsarist state that cultural transference would only go so far. He guaranteed that the settlement of Russian sectarians so close to O r t h o d o x Georgians would pose no threat of spreading the former's "heretical" religious views—a particular concern of the Russian administration. In his estimation, Georgian peasants were staunch believers in their faith who had d e f e n d e d it against the encroachment and conquest of their "non-Christian" (inovertsy) neighbors for centuries. There was nothing that the sectarians could do that would break the Georgian peasants f r o m Orthodoxy. 2 7 The fact that Georgian nobles were willing to foster the colonization of the region by Russian peasants is indicative of certain features of the Russian imperial system. O n one level it shows that the nobility, whatever anxieties and opposition they might have held about the tsarist presence in the region, were willing to take advantage of imperial rule even though it meant bringing Russians o n t o their lands. 2 8 Indeed, Russian incorporation of the South Caucasus o f f e r e d these elites appealing new options even as it constricted and redefined their powers. In this case, Georgian nobles saw Russian settlement as a welcome opportunity to increase their wealth and m a k e more productive use of their lands. Although they presented their proposal as a selfless proposition designed to help the Russian state, the prospect of enrichment clearly was a primary determining factor. These economic incentives a p p e a r to have overshadowed any fears that the Georgians may have had at the prospect of the Russian state achieving its goals of imperial integration through ethnic Russian settlement. 2 9 In addition, this colonial structure provided a chance to recoup, in small measure, the social power they lost when the tsarist government stripped them of their traditional rights to own clergy and minor nobles. 3 0 Moreover, and more ingeniously, certain Georgian nobles appear to have b e e n using the prospect of Russian colonization as a means to moderate the impact of direct Russian control. For instance, the colonization terms that Prince Dadiani initially proposed indicate his hope to use the settlement of Russians on his lands as a way to reduce the direct power of tsarist institutions over his territories and people. Dadiani was extremely u n h a p p y with tsarist plans to expand its administration into his region, and was concerned that tsarist agents would "lower him in the eyes of his subjects." A s part of his proposition, Dadiani requested that the G e o r g i a n - d o m i n a t e d Mingrelian administration should hold primary administrative authority over the peasant settlers, which would eliminate, he argued any need for the Ministry of State Properties to set up an office on his territory. In this way, it appears that Dadiani m a d e use of the settlement of Russians as a m e a n s to

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prevent tsarist institutionalization on his lands and the threat that it posed to his p o w e r and prestige. 3 1 Despite the nobles' atypical proposal, Russian leaders were willing to fulfill the request, in part, as an element of tsarism's larger imperialist policy of accommodation and cooptation of native elites. As A l f r e d J. Rieber has noted, Russian policy towards indigenous notables generally did not stem from "any official policy of ethnic or racial exclusionism. ...Instead of destroying the indigenous nobilities, the natural leaders of cultural groups that were incorporated into the empire, the Russian state sought to grant them equal standing in the imperial nobility, o f t e n extending special privileges that preserved their local cultural traditions." 3 2 Tsarist rule in Transcaucasia f r o m 1842 o n w a r d included this effort to enlist the support of local elites in Russia's empire-building project by granting them privileges, bringing t h e m into the administration, and putting an end to H a h n ' s heavyh a n d e d policies. As R o n a l d Suny has argued: "The aim and result of Vorontsov's policies was to reduce the opposition to Russian rule in the Caucasus and to forge an alliance between the Russian state and Georgian nobility." 33 G r a n t i n g the nobles the opportunity to increase both their wealth and the productivity of their lands, and treating the Georgian nobles as they would Russian elites in their interactions with Russian peasants, comprised aspects of this larger policy of cooptation. M o r e o v e r , Chavchavadze's proposal did not fall on deaf ears a m o n g the tsarist leaders because it dovetailed nicely with the Russian state's colonization endeavors in the region. Successive viceroys and many layers of the central government (including, at different times and in slightly different ways, the Minister of State Properties, the Caucasian Committee, and the E m p e r o r ) supported the basic outline of Chavchavadze's proposal. They began f r o m the first principles that the relocation of religious dissenters to the South Caucasus was a valuable policy goal f o r t h r e e reasons. First, the sectarians' segregation on the frontier was designed to cleanse the interior provinces of the " h e r e t i c a l " non-conformists. The state h o p e d in this m a n n e r to punish them for their faith, dissuade others f r o m joining, and prevent the spread of the sectarians to the O r t h o d o x population. 3 4 Second, it would increase the n u m b e r of Russian settlers in Transcaucasia as quickly as possible. These Russian colonists would act as the glue of imperial integration by physically linking center and periphery: "in political terms, acting to consolidate Russian dominion (vladychestvo) there and to bring about the merging (sliianie) of the region with the empire." 3 5 Third, they championed the noble option because they believed that an increase in the Russian population in the region would bear untold economic fruit. The Russian colonists would play the role of agents of cultural and economic transformation, bringing with them assumed superior traits and skills. On one level, tsarist officials considered the sectarian settlers to be "industrious people and excellent f a r m e r s " who woiiild act as "positive examples for the nomadic peoples of the region to follow." 36 On another level, the settlers would "spread different, previ-

150 • Nicholas B. Breyfogle ously unknown types of agriculture" and foster industrial development. As Vorontsov wrote to the Minister of State Domains, P.D. Kiselev: "Ever since Russian peasants began to settle here, there have appeared in the region ... types of industry which were formerly unknown. Carters have appeared, transporting fish, caviar and other loads, as have carpenters, brick workers, and other artisans." The appearance of these carters and artisans, as well as of Russian-run gristmills and the cultivation of certain imported crops, was welcome news to the tsarist government. They saw these developments as a foundation for economic growth in the area, and indispensable to the government's larger goal of developing the region as a colony. 37 Moreover, in addition to benefiting the South Caucasian territories, such a settlement relationship would be economically advantageous to both noble and sectarian-settler. "Traveling through Mingrelia, rich with forests, flowing waters, and fertile soil," Vorontsov could not help but express his regret "that this perfect region stands in disregard and does not have sufficient population of hardworking settlers." To remedy this economic under-use, Vorontsov was "gladdened" at the thought of Russian settlement on Caucasian noble land. 38 State authorities lamented that all of these benefits were being lost because of the difficulties in allotting usable state land to the migrating sectarians, and growing sectarian d e m a n d in the mid-1840s voluntarily to move to the South Caucasus was only exacerbating the problem. F u r t h e r m o r e , Russian administrators all agreed with Chavchavadze's estimation that the sectarians would pose no religious threat to the South Caucasian peasants. The non-conformists would be unable to spread their faith to the surrounding " t r i b e s " because of the cultural and linguistic separateness: "the different ways of life, customs, and u n d e r s t a n d ings that exist between the Russians and the Georgian peasants, and also because of the G e o r g i a n peasants' a t t a c h m e n t to O r t h o d o x y that has been d e m o n s t r a t e d over the centuries." 3 9 While these justifications remained more or less in place from 1844 through 1858, and despite generally positive estimations of the plan, certain reservations and legal obstacles appeared in 1845 and 1850 that prevented the project becoming law. In 1 8 4 4 ^ 5 , Kiselev s u p p o r t e d the project but nonetheless felt reluctance and discomfort with the idea of state peasants inhabiting the lands of the nobility. H e realized that Chavchavadze's scheme contravened existing social rules and, if brought to fruition, it would have to be on the foundation of new legislation. For Kiselev, any such statute would need to protect the colonists' status rights as state peasants, ensure payment to the treasury, and involve detailed contracts in o r d e r to delimit properly the privileges and obligations of landowner, settler, and local administration in this type of relationship. 4 0 T h r o u g h o u t the discussions that ensued, both the Minister of State Properties and successive Caucasian viceroys were determined to protect the rights of the state peasants involved in this sort of a r r a n g e m e n t . This resolve reflects, on one hand, the general importance of ascriptive social categories for tsarist officials and, on the other hand, the Ministry of State Properties' efforts to ameliorate the

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lives of the state peasants through the reforms of the first half of the nineteenth century. 4 1 Significantly, their concerns encompassed only the possibility of socioe c o n o m i c exploitation and had nothing to do with anxiety that Georgians or A r m e n i a n s would wield power over Russians. They feared the potential that the c o n t r a c t s would devolve through noble machinations into a form of e n s e r f m e n t in which the state peasants lost their " f r e e " status. As a result, officials worked to a s s u r e that these would be relationships of mutual responsibility, in which the conditions would be carried out in complete exactness and contracts would "be c o m p o s e d with all possible detail, clarity, and definitiveness in order not to provide m e a n s in the f u t u r e for some sort of d i s a g r e e m e n t . " 4 2 Vorontsov paid particular attention to protect the rights of the state peasants. In his response to Dadiani's proposal, he laid out his general principles: "I believe it necessary ... to remove any occasion or thought that the Sovereign [Dadiani] might hold unrestricted right over the peasants, and [to assert] from the very beginning that they are free people forever." 4 3 To safeguard their rights f r o m the potentially willful actions of Georgian landowners, Vorontsov required that the G e o r g i a n - I m e r i t i a n Civilian G o v e r n o r together with the Viceroy carry out the primary surveillance of the settlers, and that the peasants be ensured their own c o m m u n a l administration. 4 4 Additionally, whereas Dadiani initially proposed that legal cases involving the sectarians be handled solely by the Mingrelian administration and police, Vorontsov believed that for "fairness" settler litigants should have the right of appeal directly to the Viceroy and the local C h a m b e r of Civil Court in cases where they were unhappy with the initial resolution. Vorontsov was concerned that "the Mingrelian administration is comprised of people more or less u n d e r the authority of the Prince [Dadiani], and its decisions will of course be biased to the side of the landowner, and not that of the settlers." 4 5 At the same time, Vorontsov was quick to include in the contract the stipulation that Dadiani (or any Georgian landowner) would not restrict their f r e e d o m of m o v e m e n t either short-term travel for carting work or p e r m a n e n t relocation—so long as they properly fulfilled their obligations to the landlord. 4 6 In the end, the discussions of 1844—45 permitted settlement of sectarians on noble land only in the case of Prince Dadiani, who proved particularly quick in compiling information about his region and proposing a series of contractual relations. 47 A t the same time, all other such settlement was put on hold while Vorontsov began the process of collecting data and formulating specific terms. This process was labor intensive and prevented any immediate implementation despite the agreement of officials at each level of government, Georgian nobles, and the settlers to do so. 48 Vorontsov a t t e m p t e d again in 1850 to implement a blanket policy for all state peasant settlers in the South Caucasus. H e r e too, the Viceroy was careful to ensure that the rules laid out in this plan "clearly and absolutely protected the status rights of the peasants" and that they detailed the mutual rights and responsibilities of both settlers and nobles. 49 However, unlike in 1845, the Ministry of

152 • Nicholas

B.

Breyfogle

S t a t e P r o p e r t i e s a n d t h e e m p e r o r n o w o p p o s e d the s t a t e - p e a s a n t - n o b l e settlem e n t plan. T h e r o o t s of this n e w f o u n d r e s i s t a n c e g r e w n o t f r o m s o c i o - e c o n o m i c o r e t h n i c c o n s i d e r a t i o n s , b u t f r o m t h e religious identity of t h e settlers as sectarians a n d t h e s e g r e g a t i o n c o m p o n e n t of tsarist c o l o n i z a t i o n policy in Transcaucasia. O v e r t h o s e five years, t h e M i n i s t e r of S t a t e P r o p e r t i e s h a d b e c o m e convinced t h a t t h e r e s e t t l e m e n t of religious d i s s e n t e r s to t h e S o u t h C a u c a s u s , far f r o m acting as a d e t e r r e n t to t h e g r o w t h of t h e f a i t h , w a s in fact h a v i n g t h e o p p o s i t e e f f e c t . In his o p i n i o n , t h e s e c t a r i a n s e t t l e r s in T r a n s c a u c a s i a " h a d a t t a i n e d a significant d e g r e e of w e a l t h " a n d this o u t c o m e w a s p e r s u a d i n g t h e m to r e m a i n s t e a d f a s t in their relig i o u s dissent. 5 0 M o r e o v e r , in 1850, tsarist officials w e r e n o l o n g e r facing a land s h o r t a g e f o r t h e s e s e t t l e r s b e c a u s e t h e n u m b e r of n o n - c o n f o r m i s t s w h o w a n t e d t o m o v e to t h e S o u t h C a u c a s u s h a d d e c r e a s e d o v e r t h e i n t e r v e n i n g years. V o r o n tsov's plan was shelved. 5 1 In 1857, a y e a r a f t e r he t o o k o v e r t h e position of C a u c a s i a n Viceroy, Prince B a r i a t i n s k i i o n c e again r e n e w e d V o r o n t s o v ' s e f f o r t s to a c c e l e r a t e the s e t t l e m e n t of R u s s i a n s in t h e r e g i o n by l o b b y i n g t h e c e n t r a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n to allow s t a t e p e a s a n t m i g r a n t s t o settle o n t h e lands of G e o r g i a n nobles. Bariatinskii a r g u e d against t h e logic of 1850, a s s e r t i n g t h a t s e c t a r i a n m i g r a t i o n was a sure way t o diminish their faith. H e also n o t e d t h a t in 1856 t h e new E m p e r o r A l e x a n d e r II h a d o n c e again c o n s i d e r e d it u s e f u l to s e n d s e c t a r i a n s to t h e S o u t h Caucasus. 5 2 In a d d i t i o n , l o o k i n g at t h e issue in 1857, B a r i a t i n s k i i a r g u e d that e x p e r i e n c e p r o v i d e d i r r e f u t a b l e e v i d e n c e t h a t such a r r a n g e m e n t s w o r k e d . S e c t a r i a n s had b e e n settled o n p r i v a t e land f r o m t h e early 1840s, and such s e t t l e m e n t h a d led to t h e m u t u a l profit of b o t h n o b l e s a n d migrants. I n d e e d , he w e n t so far as to claim t h a t "in t h e f u t u r e , this e x a m p l e can act as a g o o d influence f o r t h e s p r e a d of m u t u a l a g r e e m e n t s and t r a n s a c t i o n s b e t w e e n p e a s a n t s a n d l a n d o w n e r s , b o t h in this r e g i o n a n d in t h e i n t e r n a l p r o v i n c e s . " In this way, he held u p t h e case of R u s s i a n s e t t l e r s a n d T r a n s c a u c a s i a n n o b l e s as a m o d e l f o r t h e rest of t h e e m p i r e t o f o l l o w as t h e y d e b a t e d t h e f u t u r e p e a s a n t - n o b l e r e l a t i o n s a f t e r t h e l i b e r a t i o n of t h e serfs. 5 3 S w a y e d by B a r i a t i n s k i i ' s a r g u m e n t s , in J u n e of 1858, the tsar a g r e e d t o a r e g i o n - w i d e policy of s e c t a r i a n s t a t e - p e a s a n t s e t t l e m e n t o n n o b l e l a n d s in Transcaucasia.54

COLONIALISM TERMS AND

BY C O N T R A C T

(I):

ARRANGEMENTS

T h e actual a g r e e m e n t s n e g o t i a t e d b e t w e e n settlers a n d n o b l e s varied d r a m a t i c a l ly f r o m o n e case t o a n o t h e r in t e r m s of t h e settlers' d u e s and obligations, w h a t t h e y r e c e i v e d in r e t u r n , t h e t y p e a n d d u r a t i o n of the c o n t r a c t , w h e t h e r and h o w t h e c o n tract might be a m e n d e d or v o i d e d , a n d w h e t h e r t h e settlers w e r e allowed t o m o v e o r travel f r o m t h e l a n d l o r d ' s lands. D e s p i t e their h e t e r o g e n e i t y , t h e n a t u r e of t h e s e a c c o r d s p r o v i d e s an indication of w h a t each side ( a n d particularly t h e n o b l e s ) h o p e d to receive f r o m t h e relationship. T h e n o b l e s a p p e a r most c o n c e r n e d t o

Colonization

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e n s u r e a constant and lucrative flow of rents without incurring any of the costs or f r u s t r a t i o n s of having to manage the settlers' communities directly. The settlers desired the best possible package of land and obligations, the f r e e d o m to move f r o m lands when they wanted, the opportunity to take advantage of other econ o m i c opportunities (especially in the carting trade and milling), and the protection of the state f r o m exploitation. For their part, state officials were required to a p p r o v e these contracts and were not shy to intervene in the process. They c h a n g e d conditions and wording in order to ensure that the deals were detailed, fair t o all involved, and particularly defended the rights of the colonists. 55 T h e Russian state-peasant settlers obtained a variety of benefits from the contracts.. Most importantly, they were allocated land on which to settle and work ( a l t h o u g h the a m o u n t of land per family could vary quite substantially), certain rights to use nearby forests for wood, occasionally the use of any industrial enterprises already on the land (such as mills, taverns, or general stores), and o f t e n the p r o t e c t i o n of the landowner should others try to seize their allotted land. Certain settlers had included in their contracts the promise of relief from payment of dues in the initial years of settlement, and direct aid should a poor harvest befall t h e m at any time. In addition, colonists might receive the option to engage in new types of e c o n o m i c endeavors, from building and operating gristmills, commercial forestry, owning taverns and stores, mining coal or minerals, and fishing (although with each n e w venture, they were required to pay some tithing to the noble). 5 6 In the specific case of the 1845 agreement with Dadiani, settlers received land that could serve a variety of purposes (from viticulture to grain growing, haymaking, and pasturage) but to a limit of ten desiatinas per revision soul. In order to help the settlers in their first years of habitation, Dadiani o f f e r e d to supply each family with a pair of bulls, two cows, two pigs, provisions for the first two years, and an exemption from rents during the first year. 5 7 T h e specific advantages sought by the landowners varied widely in terms of the a m o u n t owed, who specifically owed it, and the combination of money, kind, and service d e m a n d e d , depending on the desires of the landlord and location of settlement. Rents paid in cash diverged in amount, sometimes calculated per household (annually anywhere from one to 24 rubles), sometimes as a lump sum f r o m the community ( f r o m 200 to 330 rubles per year). 5 8 Many nobles also required payment in kind, which might include wheat, barley, wood, beeswax, and honey. For instance, K a r a b a k h - b e k Begliarov d e m a n d e d two silver rubles, two chetverty of wheat and half of barley from each household annually. 5 9 Moreover, certain nobles, like Dadiani, p r e f e r r e d a combination of rents and service: in addition to owing twenty percent of all their produce, one laborer f r o m each family was to work for the Prince for one day each week. 6 0 Similarly, Talyshbek Begliarov insisted on ten percent of the total harvest, as well as two workdays annually per settler at the landowner's discretion. 6 1 Contracts might include any n u m b e r of other service obligations in addition to working the noble's land. O n e agreement required the D u k h o b o r settlers, in addition to rent payments, to main-

154 • Nicholas

B.

Breyfogle

tain t h e local r o a d s a n d t o p r o v i d e " e x c e l l e n t h o u s i n g " for r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s of the O r b e l i a n i f a m i l y s h o u l d they b e t r a v e l i n g t h r o u g h t h e area. 6 2 L o r i s - M e l i k o v a r e q u e s t e d a n n u a l p a y m e n t of eight silver r u b l e s a n d two " f u l l " carts of w o o d p e r h o u s e h o l d , t h e l a t t e r to b e d e l i v e r e d d i r e c t l y t o h e r h o u s e in Tiflis, a n d i n s e r t e d t h e c o n t r a c t u a l right to build herself a s u m m e r h o u s e in t h e M o l o k a n s ' village. 6 3 C o n t r a c t s t h e m s e l v e s could also v a r y in t e r m s of t h e f o r m a n d d u r a t i o n . Most p a c t s w e r e w r i t t e n , lasting a n y w h e r e f r o m s e v e n to thirty years. A t t h e e n d of e a c h c o n t r a c t b o t h sides had t h e o p p o r t u n i t y to r e n e g o t i a t e on t h e s a m e o r d i f f e r e n t t e r m s , or a g r e e to g o t h e i r s e p a r a t e ways. H o w e v e r , p r i o r to 1858, v e r b a l a g r e e m e n t s g o v e r n e d t h e s e c t a r i a n s living o n t h e land of Princess M a r i a O r b e l i a n i a n d P r i n c e s Ivan a n d M a k a r i i O r b e l i a n i . In t h e case of Ivan a n d M a k a r i i , t h e settlers f o u n d t h a t t h e l a n d o w n e r s ' e x a c t i o n s a r b i t r a r i l y c h a n g e d f r o m year to year. A s a result of t h e s e a n d o t h e r u n i l a t e r a l n o b l e a l t e r a t i o n s , Bariatinskii r e q u i r e d all a g r e e m e n t s a f t e r 1858 ( i n c l u d i n g t h e p r e e x i s t i n g v e r b a l o n e s ) to be m a d e in written f o r m a n d be a p p r o v e d by t h e g o v e r n m e n t . 6 4 W h a t e v e r t h e specific t e r m s of t h e c o n t r a c t s b i n d i n g s e c t a r i a n s a n d Transc a u c a s i a n l a n d o w n e r s , m a n y local elites s t r o v e to o b t a i n t h e e c o n o m i c b e n e f i t s of a " s e r f " e c o n o m y w i t h o u t a s s u m i n g t h e responsibilities. G e o r g i a n a n d A r m e n i a n n o b l e s o f t e n r e q u i r e d s t a t e a g e n t s f r o m t h e Ministry of S t a t e P r o p e r t i e s to act as m i d d l e m e n f o r t h e m to avoid the p o t e n t i a l c o m p l i c a t i o n s of direct i n t e r a c t i o n with t h e settlers. T h e g o v e r n m e n t w a s h a p p y to c o m p l y with this wish since t h e y did not w a n t the s t a t e p e a s a n t s to b e t o o c o m p l e t e l y u n d e r t h e c o n t r o l of t h e nobility. For instance, t h e O r b e l i a n i f a m i l y in E r e v a n g u b e r n i i a w o u l d only a g r e e to sign a c o n t r a c t with s e t t l e r s if a local r e p r e s e n t a t i v e f r o m t h e M i n i s t r y of S t a t e P r o p e r t i e s first c o l l e c t e d t h e r e n t m o n e y , d e p o s i t e d it in t h e local uezd treasury, a n d finally t r a n s f e r r e d it to an O r b e l i a n i a g e n t . T h e y f u r t h e r r e q u i r e d t h a t "in e n f o r c i n g t h e c o l l e c t i o n of t h e s e m o n e y s , a n d in all o t h e r situations, t h e P r i n c e s O r b e l i a n i s h o u l d h a v e n o direct r e l a t i o n s with t h e p e a s a n t s . " 6 5 Similarly, w h e n B e k T e i m u r a z M e l i k - B e g l i a r o v r e v i s e d t h e t e r m s of his c o n t r a c t with M o l o k a n s o n his land, h e d e m a n d e d t h a t t h e m o n e y b e p a i d to him via t h e t r e a s u r y , n o t by t h e M o l o k a n s directly, as h a d originally b e e n t h e case. 6 6 In a d d i t i o n , a n o t insignificant n u m b e r of C a u c a s i a n n o b l e s a t t e m p t e d t h r o u g h t h e c o n t r a c t s to restrict t h e m o b i l i t y of t h e settlers, b o t h c o n c e r n i n g t e m p o r a r y leaves a n d also o u t - m i g r a t i o n f r o m t h e l a n d o w n e r s ' lands. T h e s e e f f o r t s w e r e int e n d e d to k e e p t h e p e a s a n t s w o r k i n g t h e l a n d a n d t o p r e v e n t t h e s e t t l e r s f r o m s k i p p i n g o u t w i t h o u t p a y i n g their dues. D a d i a n i , f o r e x a m p l e , was c o n c e r n e d t o c o n t r o l t h e s e t t l e r s ' c o m i n g s and g o i n g s f o r s h o r t - t e r m , w o r k - r e l a t e d t r a v e l . H e initially p r o p o s e d a r e l a t i o n s h i p in which t h e s e t t l e r s w o u l d n o t be a b l e t o l e a v e t h e i r place of r e s i d e n c e for any r e a s o n w i t h o u t receiving p e r s o n a l , w r i t t e n p e r mission f r o m t h e P r i n c e himself. H o w e v e r , V o r o n t s o v and t h e C a u c a s i a n C o m m i t t e e w e r e quick t o a m e n d this p a r t of t h e p r o p o s a l . S e c t a r i a n s p l a y e d an i m p o r t a n t role in t h e r e g i o n a l c a r t i n g t r a d e a n d t h e officials did n o t w a n t r e s t r i c t i o n s on t h e m c a r r y i n g o u t t h e s e e s s e n t i a l e c o n o m i c activities. 6 7

any

Colonization

by Contract • 155

Most contracts broached the issue of Russian settlers leaving the landowners' land before the end of the contract, either through their own volition or by o r d e r of tsarist authorities. In certain cases, nobles f o r b a d e any early termination of the contract and required the colonists to remain on site until the end of the agreem e n t (at which point they could move, but often had to leave behind much of their property, for which they might either be paid or simply have to forfeit). In the case that villagers ran away, contractual clauses held the r e m a i n d e r of the c o m m u n i t y responsible for their rents. 6 8 In contrast, the D u k h o b o r s in the village of Bashkichet in 1867 were given full rights to leave the landowner's territory at their whim, with the only condition that they settle up certain payments b e f o r e they left. In this instance, they were even permitted to take with them whatever buildings and industrial structures they had erected a f t e r settlement. 6 9

COLONIALISM

BY C O N T R A C T

OUTCOMES AND

(II):

INTERACTIONS

Both b e f o r e and especially after the legislation of 1858, the practice of Russian state-peasant settlement on Caucasian nobles' lands created exciting opportunities and painful frustrations for settlers, nobles, and state officials alike. Their triangular interactions provide insight into the lived experience of Russian colonialism in the South Caucasus. Significantly, as far as the documentary sources indicate, their relations were filled with socio-economic tensions characteristic of t e n a n t - l a n d o w n e r relations generally, and were devoid of ethnic or confessional considerations or discourse. 7 0 Moreover, these p e a s a n t - n o b l e contacts provide an example of how the tsarist state managed its multi-ethnic empire. R a t h e r than the unmitigated champion of one side or the other, tsarist officials frequently found themselves cast in the role of referee between the Russian peasants and the Caucasian nobles, charged with arbitrating the terms of the contracts when one side or the o t h e r believed that its rights had been violated. In many cases, both parties followed exactly the arrangements laid out in the contracts. Regarding Molokans settled on lands of the Orbeliani family in Aleksandropol' uezd, one official reported that " a f t e r nine years, no problems have arisen in the fulfillment of the contract and there have been no important grievances on the part of either the settlers or the landowners." 7 1 A s a result, the landowners generally embraced the occasion to have Russian settlers work their lands, and it a p p e a r s f r o m the existing records that in the majority of cases the nobles received what they desired f r o m the settlement arrangement. However, not all sectarians turned out to be the best tenants (nor, as I will discuss later, were nobles always the best landlords). While some settler communities paid their rents and fulfilled obligations meticulously, others did not, both as a result of poor economic conditions and also as a conscious ploy. Such cynical non-payment a p p e a r s to have been the case with the community of Molokans

156 • Nicholas B.

Breyfogle

who settled on lands o f L o r i s - M e l i k o v a . 7 2 In 1860, her husband complained to the local C h a m b e r of the Ministry of State Properties that the Molokans were not meeting their obligations. T h e y were a year late in paying the first year's rent, had not paid the second year's dues, and had not supplied the specified quantity of felled wood. L o r i s - M e l i k o v had attempted to force payment by hiring an independent agent, but with no success. Instead, he e n c o u n t e r e d a series o f Molokan explanations and excuses that he did not find satisfying. He requested the intervention of the local administration e i t h e r to enforce the payment terms of the contract or nullify the agreement and expel them from the land. 7 3 State agents sent to investigate concluded that the M o l o k a n s had chosen not to pay their dues, reporting that they were well off economically and suffered from few disabilities that might prevent payment. 7 4 Despite this conflict, Loris-Melikov later agreed to allow the M o l o k a n s to stay on his wife's lands, but only on the condition that they submit to a revised contract of c o m m u n a l responsibility for the dues of each m e m b e r (krugovaia

poruka).75

F r o m the settlers' perspective, their interactions with their Caucasian landowners were an equally mixed bag. Almost immediately following the passing of the law in 1858, sectarian settlers from various parts of Transcaucasia approached the administration with requests to relocate to either noble- or Church-owned lands with the goal o f bettering their material condition. 7 6 Y e t , what initially appeared a beneficial opportunity often left the sectarians dissatisfied. On one level, the Russian colonists were frustrated by arbitrary actions on the part of G e o r g i a n and A r m e n i a n landowners who unilaterally changed contractual obligations as they attempted to extract what they could from the peasants' economy. In addition to the Orbeliani Princes recurrently modifying the terms o f their verbal agreements, B e k Teimuraz M e l i k - B e g l i a r o v also altered the contract with the M o l o k a n s on his land without first negotiating with them and despite the fact that they had mutually agreed to a written document. 7 7 O n a n o t h e r level, their discontent arose from perceived and real socio-economic e x p l o i t a t i o n — t h e " b u r d e n s o m e " nature of the contracts. 7 8 M o l o k a n s in the villages of N o v o - S a r a t o v k a and V o r o n t s o v k a ( A l e k s a n d r o p o l ' uezd,Tiflis guberniia) " f e a r e d enslavement from the O r b e l i a n i s and began to look for a new place to live that would be on state-owned land." In the late 1840s and early 1850s, many M o l o k a n s from both villages did leave for Elisavetpol' uezd. 7 9 T h e M o l o kans who stayed behind in Vorontsovka remained dissatisfied with their e c o n o m ic situation. A s their contract with the Orbelianis was coming to an end in the late 1860s, they repeatedly voiced their unhappiness with the relationship to tsarist authorities. T h e M o l o k a n s found the payment of rent in cash ( o b r o k ) to be e c o nomically disadvantageous, and were particularly frustrated by the e c o n o m i c "insecurity o f their property situation" that resulted from " d e p e n d e n c e " on a landowner who held the power to change the terms o f their rental a g r e e m e n t . 8 0 Similarly, even the D u k h o b o r s who had themselves requested relocation

to

Orbeliani lands in B o r c h a l o uchastok, Tiflis guberniia, in the early 1840s quickly

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c h a n g e d t h e i r m i n d s . D i s a p p o i n t e d with t h e c o n d i t i o n s of s e t t l e m e n t o n this priv a t e land t h e y r e f u s e d to build h o m e s o r b e g i n f a r m i n g . R a t h e r , t h e y d e m a n d e d to b e m o v e d a g a i n , this t i m e t o t r e a s u r y l a n d , a n d within a few years t h e y also r e l o c a t e d t o E l i s a v e t p o l ' uezd. 8 1 L i k e t h e n o b l e s , s e c t a r i a n s w o u l d call in t h e s t a t e as m e d i a t o r w h e n t h e y felt t h a t t h e i r r i g h t s h a d b e e n c o m p r o m i s e d , t h e c o n t r a c t b r o k e n , or i n s t r u m e n t a l l y t o tip t h e p o w e r a d v a n t a g e in t h e i r d i r e c t i o n generally. T w o years a f t e r t h e initial i n c i d e n t of n o n - p a y m e n t , M o l o k a n s living o n t h e l a n d s of L o r i s - M e l i k o v a r a n i n t o s o m e u n e x p e c t e d difficulties with a n e i g h b o r i n g n o b l e , P r i n c e A r g u t i n s k i i - D o l g o r u k o v , w h o a p p r o p r i a t e d p r o p e r t y a l l o t t e d t o t h e m . A s a r e l a t i v e of L o r i s - M e l i k o v w h o o w n e d n e i g h b o r i n g lands, A r g u t i n s k i i - D o l g o r u k o v h a d a p p a r e n t l y b e l i e v e d t h e l a n d n o t t o be in use. A l t h o u g h t h e c o n t r a c t m a d e specific provision f o r LorisM e l i k o v to p r o t e c t t h e M o l o k a n s ' land r i g h t s in s u c h a case, he p r o v e d of n o s u p p o r t t o t h e colonists. T h e M o l o k a n s t u r n e d to t h e s t a t e f o r official i n t e r v e n t i o n and A r g u t i n s k i i - D o l g o r u k o v u l t i m a t e l y r e t u r n e d t h e land. 8 2 T h i s is n o t to say t h a t s o c i o - e c o n o m i c d i s c o n t e n t w a s t h e only o u t c o m e of this sort of s e t t l e m e n t . Q u i t e t h e o p p o s i t e , m a n y s e t t l e r c o m m u n i t i e s f o u n d their e c o n o m i c s t a t u s rise as a result of t h e o p p o r t u n i t y t o s e t t l e o n n o b l e land. Local officials n o t e d t h a t t h e e c o n o m y of t h e M o l o k a n s s e t t l e d on t h e lands of LorisM e l i k o v a was "in a very s a t i s f a c t o r y c o n d i t i o n , as m u c h as o n e can j u d g e f r o m t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of t h e i r h o m e s a n d their e c o n o m i c a c q u i s i t i o n s , a n d t h e m a j o r i t y live in w e a l t h a n d c o n t e n t m e n t . All of t h e m k n o w this t h e m s e l v e s , a n d n o n e of t h e m ... w a n t to m o v e e l s e w h e r e . " 8 3 S e t t l e m e n t o n l a n d l o r d land also p r o v i d e d t h e s e t t l e r s with c e r t a i n l o n g - t e r m o p p o r t u n i t i e s . In p a r t i c u l a r , t h e R u s s i a n s e t t l e r s n o t i n f r e q u e n t l y w e r e given t h e o p p o r t u n i t y to p u r c h a s e t h e l a n d they h a d b e e n r e n t i n g f r o m t h e nobles. T h e y b e c a m e p r i v a t e l a n d h o l d e r s in their o w n right a n d m a n y of t h e m a t t a i n e d enviable levels of w e a l t h . 8 4 Such was especially t h e c a s e with t h e M o l o k a n s of V o r o n t s o v k a . U n h a p p y with their c o n d i t i o n s o n n o b l e l a n d , t h e s e

colonists

d e c l a r e d t h e i r i n t e n t i o n in 1869 t o m i g r a t e t o t h e N o r t h C a u c a s u s u p o n t h e term i n a t i o n of t h e c o n t r a c t (in 1871) w h e r e t h e y b e l i e v e d t h e y could a c q u i r e t h e i r own land. T h e viceroy, G r a n d D u k e M i c h a e l , m a d e his e x t r e m e d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n with this p r o s p e c t plain in a letter to t h e C a u c a s u s C o m m i t t e e a n d m a d e e f f o r t s to r e t a i n t h e M o l o k a n s in V o r o n t s o v k a . " S u c h a d i s a p p e a r a n c e of so c o n s i d e r a b l e a R u s s i a n p o p u l a t i o n f r o m an a r e a which h a s b o t h political as well as s t r a t e g i c importance would have extremely unfavorable consequences."85 He proposed that t h e s e t t l e r s b u y f r o m O r b e l i a n i t h e land t h a t t h e y h a d b e e n r e n t i n g f o r m o r e than twenty-five years. 8 6 H o w e v e r , an e n o r m o u s c h a s m existed b e t w e e n O r b e liani's a s k i n g p r i c e ( b a s e d o n t h e l a n d v a l u e ) a n d t h e a m o u n t t h a t t h e s e c t a r i a n s could a f f o r d t o pay. In t h e i r e f f o r t s t o k e e p t h e s e t t l e r s in place, tsarist officials n e g o t i a t e d t h e price d o w n f r o m t w e n t y r u b l e s p e r d e s i a t i n a t o s e v e n , b u t e v e n then t h e M o l o k a n s did n o t h a v e t h e 56,000 r u b l e s n e c e s s a r y to p u r c h a s e t h e land. A s a result, local a u t h o r i t i e s a g r e e d t o t h e s e t t l e r s ' r e q u e s t f o r a loan to b r i d g e t h e

158 • Nicholas B. Breyfogle difference. In the final result, Vorontsovka's Molokans received 32,000 rubles in a no-interest loan that they were to pay back over a fifteen-year period, and were also given 8,000 rubles as a one-time grant that they were not required to repay. 87 Thus, with the aid of these loans, they were able to purchase both land and their f r e e d o m f r o m Orbeliani, and attain relatively uncommon levels of wealth. A f t e r their initial acquisition of 7,000 desiatinas in 1870, certain Vorontsovka Molokans continued over the succeeding decades, particularly in 1882 and 1885, to increase the size of their holdings by buying land from Georgian nobles. As one statistician recorded in 1887, "the Vorontsovka Molokans were the first to give the example of obtaining private land and at the present time there are among them not an insignificant n u m b e r of household heads who own between 200 and 350 desiatinas of their own land." 8 8

EMPIRE AND ESTATE:

CONCLUSIONS

The u n p r e c e d e n t e d , hybrid form of colonization found in the 1858 legislation d e m o n s t r a t e s the subtleties and complexities of both the administration and lived experience of tsarist Russia's culturally and socially diverse empire. Russian society was both constructed upon and cleaved by a series of hierarchies of power and identity (officially ascribed and self-defined)—including ethnicity, social status, and religious affiliation, to n a m e those most relevant here. As state authorities (at various levels of government), sectarian settlers, and indigenous elites in Transcaucasia struggled together to sort out acceptable mutual relations, certain of those hierarchies intersected, clashed, and transformed each other, producing the practice of "colonization by contract." In particular, the settlement of Russian colonists as tenant farmers on Caucasian noble land underscores two aspects of Russian imperialist policy at loggerheads. On one hand, Russian officials did what they could to enlist the support of nobles (in part because they needed their backing to manage the empire and in part because the authorities respected their status rights as elites) while simultaneously demonstrating a certain a m o u n t of concern for the health and prosperity of the Caucasian peasants and nomads. O n the other hand, tsarist authorities wanted to increase the presence of ethnic Russians in the region. They did so because they considered Russians, by virtue of their ethnic characteristics, to be the most loyal subjects and wanted to reduce the need to rely on non-Russians in the future. Additionally, such Russian migration would clean up the interior provinces of religious "heretics" and help develop the region's economy. W h e n the drive to increase the n u m b e r of Russians in the region required the state to settle Russian colonists on private land, one aspect of the Russian imperialist agenda overshadowed another. Since tsarist authorities considered the native elites to be of higher social standing than the Russian colonists—and t h e r e f o r e the recipients of certain prerogatives—the settlers entered, at times, into u n e v e n

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relationships with indigenous notables. By settling the sectarians on landowner p r o p e r t y under such contracts, tsarist officials placed the very Russian colonists t h a t they considered the advance guard of "Russification" in the region in an economically subordinate position to Georgian and A r m e n i a n notables, all in the n a m e of expanding their n u m b e r s in the region. The legislative development of the 1858 law also indicates the degree to which Russian imperial policy in the South Caucasus was driven as much by social considerations as ethnic ones, at least when dealing with the region's Christian elites. O n many levels, this case study confirms the model of tsarist Russia as a traditional, p r e - m o d e r n empire that has been c h a m p i o n e d recently by A n d r e a s Kappeler, a m o n g others. In this view, Russia was an e m p i r e of estates rather than ethnicities in which social status frequently proved determinant (at least for the state) in ordering the interrelations of a diverse, multi-cultural society. 89 In this example of contractual colonization, socio-economic power structures (in which nobles d o m i n a t e d ) did overshadow the ethnic hierarchies of colonial power systems, often to the detriment of the Russian peasant colonists. In negotiating this land settlement a r r a n g e m e n t , Russian officials voiced reservations only on social and religious grounds, and described the colonists most often by their estate label as "state peasants." They were reluctant to permit such settlement, not because of the Russian-Georgian power dynamic it would engender, but because it contravened the rules of their social categories, and they were concerned to protect the Russians' rights as state peasants from socio-economic exploitation by nobles. In developing the law, tsarist officials treated Georgian (particularly) and A r m e n i a n elites more or less as they would Russian ones. In their daily routines, Russian peasant colonists and Caucasian nobles a p p e a r to have interacted most commonly on "class" terms, rather than ethnic or religious ones. Yet, notions of ethnic or confessional difference were not absent in this story. Tsarist officials might utilize social status distinctions in their efforts to order and administer the e m p i r e ' s peoples, but in their policies and actions they were consistently c o n f r o n t e d with a h u m a n diversity that defied such social-status ordering. Ethnic and religious factors repeatedly buffeted and refashioned the estate hierarchy. 9 0 Tsarist leaders p r o m o t e d Russian migration to the region based on a desire for religious homogeneity in the center and on assumptions of Russian cultural and economic superiority (even if these Russians were tainted by their religious non-conformity). Georgian nobles echoed these latter ideas in their original proposal for contractual colonization, noting that Russian settlers would act as positive role models for the Georgian peasants, while also underscoring that fundamental ethno-cultural differences would prevent any transference of religious ideas. In related fashion, the Caucasian nobles' characteristics as nonRussians m a d e possible the colonization-by-contract a r r a n g e m e n t . Russian nobles could not have received such opportunities because the state feared the dissenters' religious "infection" of O r t h o d o x Russians—a threat that did not exist for Georgians, in the worldview of officialdom, because of their cultural distinc-

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tions. M o r e o v e r , t h e w h o l e p r o j e c t was p u t on hold in 1850 b e c a u s e of religious c o n c e r n s : t h a t s e c t a r i a n s e t t l e m e n t in t h e S o u t h C a u c a s u s w a s actually s t r e n g t h e n i n g t h e d i s s i d e n t faith, n o t w e a k e n i n g it as t h e y had i n t e n d e d . This story also p r o v i d e s insight into h o w G e o r g i a n elites e x p e r i e n c e d t h e R u s s i a n i m p e r i a l p r e s e n c e . T h e o p p o r t u n i t y to b r i n g R u s s i a n p e a s a n t s o n t o their l a n d s o f f e r e d t h e m access to g r e a t e r w e a l t h a n d productivity. P e r h a p s m o r e i m p o r t a n t l y , t h e fact t h a t G e o r g i a n n o b l e s t h e m s e l v e s o r i g i n a t e d a n d p u s h e d this i d e a f o r w a r d d e m o n s t r a t e s a c e r t a i n c o m f o r t within t h e i m p e r i a l o r d e r , and t h e r e a l i z a t i o n t h a t t h e R u s s i a n p r e s e n c e c o u l d b r i n g new possibilities even as it shut off p r e v i o u s o p p o r t u n i t i e s . In r e l a t e d f a s h i o n , this s e t t l e m e n t p r a c t i c e s h e d s light o n t h e t r e a t m e n t of n o n - R u s s i a n s in t h e m u l t i - c u l t u r a l tsarist e m p i r e . In a p p l y i n g their c o l o n i z a t i o n a g e n d a , tsarist a u t h o r i t i e s w e r e f r e q u e n t l y c o n c e r n e d f o r t h e rights a n d e c o n o m i c success of t h e p o p u l a t i o n native to t h e a r e a . H o w e v e r , t h e r e w e r e significant d i f f e r e n c e s in R u s s i a n c o n d u c t b a s e d u p o n t h e social s t a t u s of t h e C a u c a s i a n s involved. M i r r o r i n g t h e tsarist a p p r o a c h to t h e R u s s i a n p o p u l a t i o n generally, n o b l e s or o t h e r social elites r e c e i v e d m u c h b e t t e r t r e a t m e n t and far m o r e o p p o r t u n i t i e s t h a n t h e i r social " i n f e r i o r s . " T h e s e t t l e m e n t of s t a t e p e a s a n t s on t h e lands of C a u c a s i a n n o b l e s also s h e d s light o n t h e p r o c e s s of policy f o r m a t i o n in i m p e r i a l Russia. It indicates the d e g r e e to which policies in the R u s s i a n s t a t e w e r e not simply i m p l e m e n t e d f r o m a t o p d o w n autocracy, b u t d e v e l o p e d f r o m t h e g r o u n d u p and t h r o u g h the i n v o l v e m e n t of a multiplicity of local p e o p l e s a n d officials. Additionally, t h e 1858 law reflects t h e t e n d e n c y of the tsarist g o v e r n m e n t , given its diversity a n d u n d e r d e v e l o p e d g o v e r n i n g structures, to try to accomplish multiple, at t i m e s c o n t r a d i c t o r y tasks with o n e set of laws. Within t h e confines of t h e practice of settling s t a t e - p e a s a n t s on t h e lands of i n d i g e n o u s nobles, the g o v e r n m e n t a t t e m p t e d s i m u l t a n e o u s l y to rid t h e c e n t r a l p r o v i n c e s of religious diversity, a d v a n c e an a g e n d a of i m p e r i a l integration of Transcaucasia t h r o u g h R u s s i a n c o l o n i z a t i o n , a n d " f o r g e and alliance bet w e e n t h e R u s s i a n state a n d G e o r g i a n nobility," to n a m e only t h e p r i m a r y goals. 9 1 T h i s s t u d y also i n d i c a t e s t h e willingness of t h e g o v e r n m e n t t o a c c e p t e x p e r i m e n t a t i o n a n d r e g i o n a l diversity in t h e d e v e l o p m e n t a n d a p p l i c a t i o n of laws a n d r e g u l a t i o n s . T h r o u g h o u t t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y ( a n d b e y o n d ) , tsarist officials s t r u g g l e d to find a b a l a n c e b e t w e e n diversity a n d u n i f o r m i t y in t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of t h e e m p i r e . H e r e , t h e tsarist g o v e r n m e n t w a s willing t o p e r m i t c e r t a i n r e g i o n a l v a r i a t i o n s in its social laws b e c a u s e t h e y w o u l d a d v a n c e i m p e r i a l , religious, a n d e t h n i c policy goals. Yet, t h e y did so only slowly a n d with r e l u c t a n c e . W h i l e t h e y m i g h t b e willing t o allow t h e e x c e p t i o n of s t a t e - p e a s a n t s e t t l e m e n t o n n o b l e l a n d s in t h e S o u t h C a u c a s u s , t h e y did e v e r y t h i n g in t h e i r p o w e r t o e n s u r e t h a t t h e e x c e p t i o n w o u l d stray as little as possible f r o m t h e n o r m , a n d t h e p e a s a n t s ' r i g h t s would be thoroughly protected. Finally, t h e 1858 law i n d i c a t e s a c o n c e r n f o r p r o p e r t y r i g h t s o n t h e p a r t of t h e tsarist g o v e r n m e n t . Certainly, this was by n o m e a n s a u n i v e r s a l policy in t h e R u s sian E m p i r e . A s D a v i d M o o n has rightly a s s e r t e d : " T h e R u s s i a n s t a t e a s s u m e d

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• 161

that m o s t land in n e w l y c o n q u e r e d frontier regions w a s s t a t e property, and disp o s e d of the land as it s a w fit."92 M o r e o v e r , there w e r e p e r i o d s of Russia's i m p e rial rule in the S o u t h C a u c a s u s (particularly u n d e r H a h n , a n d t o w a r d s M u s l i m s a n d n o m a d s ) in which land rights w e r e summarily i g n o r e d . N o n e t h e l e s s , the treatm e n t of G e o r g i a n and A r m e n i a n n o b l e s surrounding t h e 1858 law s u g g e s t s s o m e n u a n c e s in the q u e s t i o n of land rights. W h e n tsarist a u t h o r i t i e s r e c o g n i z e d the s o c i a l - s t a t u s privileges of c e r t a i n g r o u p s — a s was the c a s e with G e o r g i a n (and to a l e s s e r d e g r e e A r m e n i a n ) e l i t e s after 1 8 4 2 — t h e y w e r e quick a n d d o g g e d in their d e f e n s e of property. T h e y w e r e unwilling simply to s e i z e land f r o m t h e m , e v e n if it m e a n t that they w o u l d s l o w d o w n their progress in p o p u l a t i n g t h e region with R u s s i a n s and c o m p l i c a t e tsarist e m p i r e - b u i l d i n g .

Notes I wish to thank Leslie Alexander, Robin Judd, Lucy Murphy and Judy Wu for their careful reading and stimulating suggestions on an earlier version of this essay, and Victoria Clement for her research assistance. The research and writing of this article were supported by grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency, the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research ( N C E E E R ) under authority of a Title VIII grant from the US Department of State, the Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program, the International Research and Exchanges Board, with funds provided by the US Department of State (Title VIII program), the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies, the Mershon Center, The Ohio State University College of Humanities and Department of History, and the University of Pennsylvania. None of these people and organizations is responsible for the views expressed within this text. 1 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (St. Petersburg) [hereafter RGIA], f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297. 1844-45,11. 60-63, 74-92ob, 132-142ob: Akly sobrannye Kavkazskoiu Arkheograficheskoiu Kommissieiu, 12 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1886-1904) [hereafter AKAK], 10: dok. 97, 119-23; and Sobranie postanovlenii po chasti raskola, sostoiavshikhsia po vedomstvu 5v. Sinoda (St. Petersburg: Tip. Ministerstva vnutrennykh del, 1860) [hereafter SPChR], 2: 417-30. 2 Beginning in 1830, tsarist legislation decreed that Christian religious sectarians [sektanty] classified as "most pernicious" (including Dukhobors, Molokans and Subbotniks, but not Old Believers) were to be relocated to Transcaucasia (either by forcible exile or voluntary resettlement) in a conscious effort to utilize the empire's periphery as a means to segregate sectarian Russians from Orthodox ones. As a result, these non-conformists comprised the majority of non-military ethnic Russians in Transcaucasia until the 1890s. Indeed, they often represented the majority of all Russians there (at times more than three-quarters of the Russian inhabitants, although only a small percent of the region's total population). For a discussion of the formation of this segregation policy and the process of resettlement, see Nicholas B. Breyfogle, "Heretics and Colonizers: Religious Dissent and Russian Colonization of Transcaucasia, 1830-1890" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1998), 25-131. and D.I. Ismail-Zade, Russkoe krest'ianstvo v Zakavkaz'e: 30-e gody XlX-nachalo XX v. (Moscow: Nauka, 1982). 3 The relationship between Russian settlers and Caucasian nobles is only one of a number of different possible points of contact between colonists and Caucasians. Settlers also interacted with "natives" in the latter's role as state officials and with indigenous peas-

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ants and nomads, and each type of colonial encounter had its own unique characteristics and outcomes. For space reasons, this essay focuses only on the history of the relations between settlers and indigenous nobles. I have explored the colonists' interactions with non-elite Caucasians at length elsewhere. See Breyfogle, "Heretics and Colonizers," 208-270. 4 During the nineteenth century, tsarist policy was generally more discriminatory towards the Muslim Azerbaijani and Kurdish elites than towards their Georgian or Armenian counterparts, although prejudiced treatment of Armenians increased as the century progressed. Audrey Altstadt, The Azerbaijani Turks: Power and Identity under Russian Rule (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1992), 15-49; Firouzeh Mostashari, "Tsarist Colonial Policy, Economic Change, and the Making of the Azerbaijani Nation: 1828-1905" (Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1995); and Vartan Gregorian, "The Impact of Russia on the Armenians and Armenia," in Wayne S. Vucinich, ed., Russia in Asia: Essays on the Influence of Russia on the Asian Peoples (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, 1972), 178-186. 5 Unfortunately, while the archives offer up broad patterns, there are no reliable statistics from which to determine exactly how many Russian colonists settled on the lands of Caucasian nobles, or what percentage of the total settler population this constituted. 6 On the incorporation of the South Caucasus and Russian imperial policy writ large, see Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation, 2d ed. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 42-95; Anthony L.H. Rhinelander, "The Incorporation of the Caucasus into the Russian Empire: The Case of Georgia, 1801-1854" (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1972); Mostashari, "Tsarist Colonial Policy"; Altstadt, Azerbaijani Turks, 15-73; George A. Bournoutian, ed. and trans., Russia and the Armenians of Transcaucasia, 1797-1889: A Documentary Record (Costa Mesa, Calif.: Mazda Publishers, 1998); Gregorian, "The Impact of Russia," 178-186; and Kolonial'naia poiitika Rossiiskogo tsarisma v Azerbaidzhane v 20-60-ch gg. XIXv.,2 vols. (Moscow and Leningrad: Izd. Akademii nauk SSSR, 1936-7). 7 This is not to say that tsarist authorities in Transcaucasia did not implement damaging policies of land seizure in other contexts. Quite the opposite, such discriminatory property appropriations are well documented. While the government might respect the property privileges of certain Caucasian elites, they tended to act more prejudicially towards nomadic communities, those of lower social status (especially peasants), and non-Christians. See, for instance, Stephen F. Jones, "Russian Imperial Administration and the Georgian Nobility: The Georgian Conspiracy of 1832," Slavonic and East European Review 65, no. 1 (1987): 65-66; G.A. Orudzhev, "Iz istorii obrazovaniia russkikh poselenii v Azerbaidzhane," Izvestiia Akademii Nauk AzSSR: Istoriia, Filosofiia, Pravo, no. 2 (1969), 21; O.E. Tumanian, Ekonomicheskoe razvitie Arrnenii, 2 vols. (Erevan: Armianskoe gosudarstvennoe izdatel'stvo, 1954), 1: 41-42; and Mostashari, "Tsarist Colonial Policy," 332-339. 8 Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter, Social Identity in Imperial Russia (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1997), 4, passim. On the state peasants, see David Moon, The Russian Peasantry, 1600-1930: The World the Peasants Made (London and New York: Longman, 1999) and N. M. Druzhinin, Gosudarstvennye krest'iane i reforma P.D. Kiseleva. 2 vols. (Moscow: Izd. Akademii nauk SSSR, 1946-58). 9 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 2, d. 533,1847-48,11. 1 - l o b ; R G I A , f. 1268, op. 4, d. 196,1850,11. 3-3ob; R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45,1. 2ob, 8-8ob, 58: and AKAK, 10: dok. 97, 120. 10 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,11. 9-10; R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45,1. 58; and I.E. Petrov, "Seleniia Novo-Saratovka i Novo-Ivanovka Elisavetpol'skogo uezda," Izvestiia Kavkazskogo otdela Imperatorskogo Russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva 19 (1907-1908) (Tiflis, 1909), otd. 1, 226. Most state sources use the Russified version of the family's name, Orbelianov.

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11 F o r a discussion of the shifts of tsarist policy towards local elites m o r e broadly, see L.H. R h i n e l a n d e r . "Russia's Imperial Policy: The A d m i n i s t r a t i o n of the Caucasus in the First Half of the N i n e t e e n t h Century," Canadian Slavonic Papers 17 (1975): 218-35: Tadeusz Swietochowski, Russian Azerbaijan, 1905-1920: The Shaping of National Identity in a Muslim Community ( C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1985). 12-13; G r e g o r i a n , "The Impact of Russia," 180-3; and Mostashari, "Tsarist Colonial Policy," 332-353. 12 T h e family is also n a m e d Begliar-bek Begliarov in some documents. O n the Beglarean clan, see B o u r n o u t i a n . Russia and the Armenians, 17-18, 249-251, 512. 13 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 15, d. 86.1870,1.1. Skoptsy settled in the village of Staraia-Talysha experienced a similar fate to the M o l o k a n s of Borisy when the land they were living on was r e t u r n e d to Talysh-bek Begliarov. A K A K , 10: dok. 293,287. 14 O n the sectarian-settlers' many difficulties adapting to the South Caucasian e n v i r o n m e n t , see Breyfogle, " H e r e t i c s and Colonizers," 131-143. 15 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9. d. 367a, 1857-58. I. B o b ; R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297, 1844-45, 1. 5 8 - 5 8 o b ; S a k ' a r t ' v e l o s s a i s t o r i o c ' e n t r a l u r i s a x e l m c i p ' o a r k ' i v i (Tbilisi) [ h e r e a f t e r S S C ' S A ] , f. 240, op. 1, d. 1709, 1867, 11. 6 - 6 o b ; and S.A. Inikova, " V z a i m n o o t n o s h e n i i a i k h o z i a i s t v e n n o - k u l ' t u r n y e k o n t a k t y kavkazskikh d u k h o b o r t s e v s mestnym naseleniem," in V.I. Kozlov and A.P. Pavlenko, eds., Dukhobortsy i Molokane v Zakavkaz'e (Moscow: I E A R A N , 1992), 45. 16 S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 2, d. 3 1 7 , 1 8 5 8 - 6 3 , II. 1-2. 17 S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 2, d. 1 8 8 , 1 8 5 8 - 5 9 . T h e r e is a certain irony h e r e that the sectarians, many of w h o m had fled the central provinces because of persecution by the Russian O r t h o d o x C h u r c h , were willing to settle on land belonging to the G e o r g i a n C h u r c h . In many respects, this case reflects the m a n n e r in which socio-economic factors o f t e n outweighed in i m p o r t a n c e considerations of e i t h e r ethnic or confessional affiliation in daily life. For a discussion of the sectarians' m a l t r e a t m e n t by O r t h o d o x Russians, see Breyfogle. " H e r e t i c s and Colonizers," 93-99. 18 R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297.1844-45; R G I A . f. 1268, op. 1. d. 8 6 6 , 1 8 4 5 - 4 6 : and A K A K , 10: d o k . 95, 118. 19 R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297, 1844-45,11. l - 1 3 o b . 20 A K A K . 12 (1893):ch. l . d o k . 18,38; R G I A , f. 1263,op. l , d . 7 9 1 , 1 1 . 2 8 7 - 2 9 1 o b ; and S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 2, d. 188, 1858-59. 21 R G I A , f. 381, op. 1. d. 23297, 1844-45,11. 19ob-20; A K A K , 10: dok. 95, 118; and R G I A , f. 384, op. 3, d. 1149,1846-51, II. 9 5 o b - 9 6 . 22 R G I A , f. 381. op. 1, d. 23297, 1844-45,11. 133ob-134. 23 This was likely A l e x a n d e r C h a v c h a v a d z e . U n f o r t u n a t e l y , n o n e of t h e d o c u m e n t s I have b e e n able to r e a d include his first name. 24 R G I A , f. 381.op. 1. d. 23297,1844-45,11.28-29ob, 5 2 o b - 5 3 , 6 0 - 6 3 , 7 4 o b , 134; R G I A , f. 1268, op. 1, d. 866,1845-46,11. 26-27; and A K A K , 10: dok. 95,118. 25 It would be interesting to k n o w the d e g r e e to which C h a v c h a v a d z e and his fellow petitioners believed in the language and c o n t e n t of his proposal. It is u n f o r t u n a t e l y unclear f r o m the sources I have consulted w h e t h e r the G e o r g i a n nobles were cynically engaging with tsarist officials in t e r m s they knew the latter would a p p r e c i a t e and u n d e r s t a n d , or w h e t h e r they s h a r e d (to varying d e g r e e s ) the ideas and discourse of the tsarist administration. Certainly. Austin Jersild, a m o n g others, has recently u n d e r s c o r e d the extent to which G e o r g i a n elites in the first half of the n i n e t e e n t h century s h a r e d a pan-imperial culture with Russians and others. Austin Jersild, Orientalism and Empire: North Caucasus Mountain Peoples and the Georgian Frontier, 1845-1917 ( M o n t r e a l and Kingston: McGillQ u e e n ' s University Press, 2002); idem, "'Russia,' f r o m the Vistula to the Terek to the A m u r , " Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 1 ( S u m m e r 2000): 531-46; and idem and Neli Melkadze, " T h e D i l e m m a s of E n l i g h t e n m e n t in t h e E a s t e r n B o r d e r -

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26 27 28 29 30 31 32

33

34

35 36 37

38 39 40

41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

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lands: The Theater and Library in Tbilisi," Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 3 (Winter 2002): 27-50. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45,11. 28ob-29ob, quotation on 1. 29ob. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45,11. 28ob-29, quotation on 1. 29. On Georgian opposition to Russian rule, see Jones, "Russian Imperial Administration," 53-76. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45, II. 28-29ob, 60-63. Jones, "Russian Imperial Administration," 57. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297, 1844-45, 11. 62ob-63, 79ob-80. On the official terms of Mingrelia's relationship to Russia, see ibid., 11. 63-67,80ob-83, 85-92ob. Alfred J. Rieber, "Persistent Factors in Russian Foreign Policy: An Interpretive Essay," in Hugh Ragsdale, ed.. Imperial Russian Foreign Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 339. Ronald Grigor Suny, "Russian Rule and Caucasian Society in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century: The Georgian Nobility and the Armenian Bourgeoisie, 1801-1856," Nationalities Papers 7, no. 1 (spring 1979): 60: and Anthony L.H. Rhinelander, Prince Michael Vorontsov: Viceroy to the Tsar (Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1990), 146-184. For similar policies regarding Azerbaijani notables, see Mostashari, "Tsarist Colonial Policy," 332-402. For an extended discussion of the religious aspects of Russian colonization policy in Transcaucasia and the development of a policy I describe as "toleration through isolation," see Breyfogle, "Heretics and Colonizers," 25-78. See also R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45,11. 23, 54ob, 62,133; and R G I A , f. 384, op. 3, d. 1149,1846-51, II. 95ob-96. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297, 1844-45,11. 132ob-133. R G I A , f. 381, op. l , d . 23297,1844-45,11.23,52ob; and Gregorian,"The Impact of Russia," 183-84. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45,11.52-53,58ob-59,132ob-133; R G I A , f. 384, op. 3, d. 1149, 1846-51, II. 96, 97ob-98; and Breyfogle, "Heretics and Colonizers," 156-58. A later viceroy, A.I. Bariatinskii, voiced almost identical ideas, see A K A K , 12 (1893): ch. 1, dok. 18, 38. So too did the journalist, N. B., who happily reported in 1861: "Now we have joiners and carpenters, blacksmiths and other skilled craftsmen, drivers of passenger coaches at stations, wagon drivers [izvozchiki] in the towns,... traders of wood and other materials. There are very decent bakers." N.B.,"Ozero Gochka (iz vospominanii o zakavkazskom krae)," Kavkaz 61 (1861): 330. R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,1.4-4ob; and R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45, 1.60. R G I A , f. 384, op. 3, d. 1149,1846-51,1.96; R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45,11.27-27ob, 29,42-42ob, 52ob; and R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,11. 4^1ob. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45,11. 54ob-55. As he searched for a potential model or precedent, Kiselev put forward the anomalous case of a group of Molokan state-peasant families who had been granted the exceptional opportunity to settle on the privately owned land of the Transcaucasian Silkworm Breeding Society in 1842. Ibid., 11. 55-56 and R G I A , f. 1268, op. 1, d. 363,1842. Moon, Russian Peasantry, 107-108; and Druzhinin, Gosudarstvennye krest'iane. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844^5,11. 54-55,136ob-138,140-140ob. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45,1.61ob. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844^5,11. 80-80ob, 135ob, 140ob. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45, II. 60ob-61ob, 140ob-141, quotation on 61ob. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45,11. 61-62. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844-45,11. 60-63, 132-142ob; A K A K , 10: dok. 97, 119-123; and SPChR (1860), 417^430. R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297, 1844^5,11. 134ob-135.

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49 R G I A . f. 384. op. 3, d. 1149, 1846-51.11. 9 4 - 9 5 o b . 50 R G I A , f. 384, op. 3, d. 1149,1846-51,11. 9 7 - 9 7 o b ; and A K A K , 12 (1893): ch. 1. d o k . 18, 39. 51 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9. d. 367a, 1857-58.11. 2 - 2 o b ; and R G I A , f. 384, op. 3, d. 1149, 1846-51, 11. 9 7 o b - 9 9 . Notably, while t h e e m p e r o r o p p o s e d R u s s i a n c o l o n i z a t i o n o n the lands of G e o r g i a n nobles, he was willing to p e r m i t such s e t t l e m e n t in the case of the G e r m a n colonists in the r e g i o n . T h e s e G e r m a n s had b e g u n to a p p e a r in t h e region in t h e 1810s a n d add a n o t h e r i n t e r e s t i n g piece t o t h e m u l t i c u l t u r a l m o s a i c of t h e C a u c a s u s . U n f o r t u n a t e l y , their role in this p r o c e s s is b e y o n d the scope of this p a p e r . O n t h e G e r m a n colonists, see R G I A . f. 384, op. 3, d. 1149,1846-51,11. 80-93, 9 8 o b - 9 9 ; a n d " E k o n o m i c h e s k i i byt n e m e t s kikh k o l o n i s t o v v Z a k a v k a z s k o m krae," in Materialy dlia izucheniia ekonomicheskogo byta gosudarstvennykh krestiian Zakavkazskogo kraia (Tiflis: 1885), 1: 99-160. 52 A K A K , 12 (1893): ch. 1, d o k . 18, 39. 53 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,1. 4 o b ; a n d A K A K , 12 (1893): ch. 1, d o k . 18, 41. 54 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9. d. 367a, 1857-58,1. 28; and A K A K . 12 (1893): ch. 1, d o k . 2 2 , 4 9 . O n t h e r e l a t i o n s h i p of B a r i a t i n s k i i a n d T s a r A l e x a n d e r II, a n d t h e q u e s t i o n of e m a n c i p a t i o n generally, see A l f r e d J. R i e b e r , The Politics of Autocracy: Letters of Alexander II to Prince A.I. Bariatinskii, 1857-1864 ( P a r i s a n d the H a g u e : M o u t o n , 1966). 55 See, for e x a m p l e , S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 1, d. 1709,1867, II. 7 - 7 o b ; S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 2, d. 317, 1858-63,1. 7; R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 2 3 2 9 7 , 1 8 4 4 - 4 5 , 1 1 . 6 1 - 6 2 , 1 3 5 - 1 4 2 o b ; R G I A , f. 1268, op. 15, d. 86.1870,1. l o b ; a n d R G I A , f. 384, op. 3, d. 1149,1846-51,11. 9 4 o b - 9 5 o b . 56 S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 1, d. 1709, 1867,11. 1 - 3 ; S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 2, d. 317, 1858-63, II. 3 - 5 o b ; and R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,11. 9 - 1 5 o b . 57 R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297, 1844-45,11. 60ob, 139-139ob. 58 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58, II. 9 - 1 5 o b ; S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 1, d. 1709, 1867, II. l o t - 2 , 7 - 9 ; S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 2. d. 317, 1858-63, II. 3 - 4 ; and R G I A , f. 1268. op. 15, d. 86, 1870,11. l o b - 2 . 59 A K A K . 10, d o k . 293, 287; S S C ' S A , f. 240. op. 2, d. 317, 1858-63, 11. 3 - 3 o b ; a n d S S C ' S A , f. 24), op. 1, d. 1709, 1867, II. l o b - 2 . 60 A K A K , 10: d o k . 9 7 . 1 2 0 ; a n d R G I A . f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297,1844^15,11. 139ob-140. 61 A K A K , 10: d o k . 2 9 3 , 2 8 7 . 62 S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 1, d. 1709, 1867,1. 2ob. 63 S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 2, d. 317, 1858-63, II. 3 - 5 . It was not u n c o m m o n for n o b l e s a n d a d m i n istrative elites t o e s c a p e t h e s u m m e r h e a t of Tiflis, E r e v a n , a n d B a k u by r e n t i n g h o u s e s in t h e sectarian m o u n t a i n villages. See A.I. M a s a l k i n , "Iz istorii z a k a v k a z s k i k h s e k t a n t o v . C h . 3, Sektanty, kak k o l o n i z a t o r y Z a k a v k a z ' i a , " Kavkaz 333 (16 D e c e m b e r 1893): 3; S. Kolos o v , " R u s s k i e s e k t a n t y v E r i v a n s k o i g u b e r n i i , " Pamiatnaia Knizhka Erivanskoi gubernii na .902 g. ( E r e v a n : G u b e r n s k o g o P r a v l e n i i a , 1902), o t d . 4, 148; and S.I. P o k h i l e v i c h , "Selenie A l t y - A g a c h , " in Sbornik materialov dlia opisaniia mestnostei i piemen Kavkaza, 46 vols. (Tiflis: Tip. G l a v n o g o U p r a v l e n i i a N a m e s t n i k a K a v k a z s k o g o , 1881) 1: 90. 64 S S C S A , f. 240, op. 2, d. 317, 1858-63,11. l o b , 4ob; R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297, 1 8 4 4 ^ 5 , 1 . 1 4 2 ; R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,11. 9 - 1 5 o b ; S S C ' S A , f. 240, op. 1, d. 1709,1. 1 - 6 ; a n d R G I A , f. 1268, op. 15, d. 8 6 . 1 8 7 0 , 1 . l o b . 65 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,1. 11; and R G I A , f. 381, op. l . d . 23297, 1844^15,11. 140-140ob. 66 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 15, d. 86, 1870,1. l o b . Certainly, not all n o b l e s tried s o h a r d t o k e e p t h e sect: at a r m s ' length, a n d t h e r e w e r e cases w h e r e t h e n o b l e s w e r e willing, i n d e e d d e s i r o u s , of interacting directly with t h e s e c t a r i a n s so t h a t they might wield m o r e direct c o n t r o l . A s I noied earlier, Prince D a d i a n i tried to avoid as m u c h as possible a n y official tsarist i n t e r f e r e i c e in his a f f a i r s with R u s s i a n colonists o n his land. A K A K , 10: d o k . 97, 120; and R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297, 1844-45,11. 6 0 - 6 3 . 67 RGIA., f. 381, op. l . d . 23297, 1844-45,11. 6 0 o b - 6 2 , 1 3 8 - 1 3 8 o b , 1 4 1 o b - 1 4 2 .

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B.

Breyfogle

68 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58, 11. 12-12ob, 14ob; R G I A , f. 381, op. 1, d. 23297, 1844-45,1. 142; and SSC'SA, f. 240, op. 2, d. 317, 1858-63,1. 4ob. 69 SSC'SA, f. 240, op. 1, d. 1709, 1867,11. 2-2ob; and R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,11. 12-12ob. 70 That social-status power hierarchies proved prominent in this case contrasts with the "ethnic-religious conflict" that Vartan Gregorian highlights as an important aspect of the relations between Armenian peasants settled on the lands of Azerbaijani landowners. Gregorian, "The Impact of Russia," 183. 71 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,11.12ob-13. 72 SSC'SA, f. 240, op. 2, d. 317,1858-63,11. 3-5ob. 73 SSC'SA, f. 240. op. 2, d. 317,1858-63,11. 16-17ob. 74 SSC'SA, f. 240, op. 2, d. 317,1858-63,11. 21-21ob.The Molokans did face the problem that they had registered in their village more people than actually lived there, since a good many male members of the community worked in cities such as Tiflis or in the carting trade. The Molokans argued that the absence of these villagers was making it m o r e difficult for them to meet the contractual payments to Loris-Melikov. See ibid., 11.16ob-17, 2 lob. 75 SSC'SA, f. 240, op. 2, d. 317,1858-63,1. 38. 76 SSC'SA, f. 240, op. 2, d. 188,1858-59. 77 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 15, d. 86, 1870, 11. l o b - 2 ; and R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,11. 15-15ob. 78 A K A K , 10: dok. 293,287. 79 Petrov, "Seleniia Novo-Saratovka," 226; and R G I A , f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,1.12ob. 80 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 14, d. 77, 1869-70,1. l o b , passim; and I.Ia. Orekhov, "Ocherki iz zhizni zakavkazskikh sektatorov," Kavkaz 136 (1878): 1. 81 R G I A . f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,11. 13ob-14; A K A K , 10: dok. 98, 123; and lnikova, "Vzaimnootnosheniia," 45. 82 However, to the Molokans' chagrin, the state rejected their demands to be relieved of payment of dues, arguing that their economy had not suffered sufficient disruption for state aid. SSC'SA. f. 240, op. 2, d. 317,1858-63,11. 5, 61-63,67-67ob. 83 SSC'SA, f. 240, op. 2, d. 317,1858-63,11. 21-21ob; R G I A , f. 1268, op. 15, d. 86,1870,1. l o b ; and R G I A . f. 1268, op. 9, d. 367a, 1857-58,1. 4ob. 84 A.D. Eritsov, "Ekonomicheskii byt gosudarstvennykh krest'ian Borchalinskogo uezda Tiflisskoi gubernii" in Materialy dlia izucheniia ekonomicheskogo byta gosudarstvennykh krest'ian Zakavkazskogo kraia (Tiflis: 1887), 7: 473. 85 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 14, d. 77,1869-70,11. l o b - 2 . 86 This land totaled eight thousand desiatiny (seven thousand desiatiny of arable and pastureland and one thousand desiatiny of forest). 87 R G I A , f. 1268, op. 14, d. 77,1869-70,11. l - 2 1 o b ; R G I A , f. 1284, op. 221-1885, d. 22,11. l - 5 o b ; and Orekhov, "Ocherki iz zhizni," 136: 1. 88 Eritsov, "Ekonomicheskii byt," 473. Following the Molokans' lead, neighboring A r m e n i ans and G e r m a n colonists also began to purchase land from different m e m b e r s of the Orbeliani family. On Vorontsovka's conspicuous wealth, see A.I. Klibanov, History of Religious Sectarianism in Russia (1860s-1917), trans. Ethel Dunn (New York: Pergamon Press, 1982), 196-199. 89 Andreas Kappeler, Rossiia-Mnogonatsional'naia imperiia: vozniknovenie, istoriia, raspad, trans. Svetlana Chervonnaia (Moscow: Progress-Traditsiia, 1997). 90 Jones, "Russian Imperial Administration," 57-61, and Suny, Making of the Georgian Nation, 113-143. 91 Suny, "Russian Rule," 60. 92 David Moon, "Peasant Migration and the Settlement of Russia's Frontiers, 1550-1897," The Historical Journal 40, no. 4 (1997): 882.

Russian Colonization of Caucasian Azerbaijan, 1 8 3 0 - 1 9 0 5 FIROUZEH

MOSTASHARI

Someone (if I am not mistaken, Shchapov) very successfully defined the history of the Russian people, as the history of colonization of unsettled territories. I.A. GURVICH,

1889'

The history of the Russian Empire was significantly intertwined with the process of pereseleniia (settlement). Within its nineteenth-century context, pereseleniia, similar to the Prussian innere ¡Colonisation, referred to the movement of a peasant population within the confines of state borders, in order to settle sparsely populated frontier areas. 2 Whether it was spontaneous (samovol'noe pereselenie) or officially sponsored, colonization nevertheless transformed the ethnic landscape of the empire, as the primary direction of movement was away from European Russia and towards the Siberian, Central Asian and Caucasian borderlands. 3 This study centers on the state-sponsored movement of the Russian peasants to Azerbaijan, which can be conceptualized as the Russian demographic conquest of Eastern Transcaucasia. 4 It also analyzes the impact of this conquest on the native Azerbaijani population. 5 In the course of the nineteenth century the Russian state took an avid interest in settling its newly acquired Transcaucasian territories with "Russians." 6 The motives varied through time and included a concern for strengthening the security of frontier regions, a desire to alleviate land shortage in the central regions of Russia, and a means to punish and exile religious and political dissidents. The first sporadic attempts to settle non-natives in Transcaucasia were made under Alexander I, and involved Christian groups and religious sectarians from outside of the empire. 7 Beginning in the 1830s, however, the government also promoted the settling of Russians into the region. The Russian religious "heretics," members of the various Old Believer sects, were exiled to the region and thereafter many petitioned to immigrate to Transcaucasia where they believed they could live freely. Only after 1881 did the central government initiate policies that would assist landless Russian Orthodox peasants to settle in Transcaucasia.

168 • Firouzeh

Mostcishari CONTIGUOUS

COLONIZATION

A N D STATE

SECURITY

T h e fact t h a t R u s s i a ' s i n t e r n a l c o l o n i e s w e r e c o n t i g u o u s with t h e m e t r o p o l i s a l t e r e d t h e n a t u r e of t h e colonial e n c o u n t e r , c l o u d i n g t h e clear e t h n i c a n d a d m i n istrative distinctions usually p r e s e n t in o v e r s e a s colonial situations. Partly as a c o n s e q u e n c e of g e o g r a p h i c contiguity, t h e imperial p e r c e p t i o n of n o n - R u s s i a n f r o n t i e r s was t h a t t h e s e a r e a s w e r e a n a t u r a l e x t e n s i o n of t h e R u s s i a n state. F u r t h e r m o r e , in t h e R u s s i a n E m p i r e , t h e r e existed g r e a t e r possibilities for t h e i n t e g r a t i o n of t h e n o n - R u s s i a n s i n t o t h e imperial system, an a v e n u e usually c l o s e d to t r a d i t i o n a l c o l o n i z e d g r o u p s . W h i l e studying t h e e x p e r i e n c e s of o t h e r c o l o n i a l p o w e r s of t h e i r time, R u s s i a n policy m a k e r s f o r m u l a t e d their o w n colon i z a t i o n policy, which t h e y c o n s i d e r e d t o be b e t t e r s u i t e d to the p e c u l i a r i t i e s of t h e i r e m p i r e . This policy was b a s e d o n t h e p r e s u m p t i o n t h a t t h e p r e s e n c e of e t h nic R u s s i a n s w o u l d s e c u r e the i n t e r e s t s of t h e s t a t e in the f r o n t i e r regions. Since t h e a r e a s of m i g r a t i o n w e r e c o n t i g u o u s with the G r e a t R u s s i a n c o r e a r e a , t h e p a t t e r n of s e t t l e m e n t d e p a r t e d f r o m that of t h e s e a - b o u n d A t l a n t i c p o w ers, a n d m o r e closely r e s e m b l e d t h e c o l o n i z a t i o n of the A m e r i c a n West. H e r e sett l e m e n t c o n t r i b u t e d to t h e i n t e g r a t i o n of t h e newly c o n q u e r e d a r e a s into t h e c e n tral s t a t e system. A l o n g t h e f r o n t i e r s , s e t t l e m e n t was p a r t of t h e p r o c e s s of n a t i o n building. H o w e v e r in b o t h t h e R u s s i a n a n d A m e r i c a n cases, s e t t l e m e n t r e s u l t e d in t h e u p r o o t i n g of local village c o m m u n i t i e s , t h e d i s r u p t i o n of t r a d i t i o n a l local e c o n o m i e s a n d n o m a d i c way of life, a n d s t a t e s u p p o r t e d violence against n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n s . Finally, d e m o g r a p h i c c o n q u e s t m e t with p e r s i s t e n t local r e s i s t a n c e . A s early as 1879, Kavkazskii

Kalendar,

t h e a n n u a l p u b l i c a t i o n of t h e Chief

A d m i n i s t r a t i o n of t h e V i c e r o y of t h e C a u c a s u s , f e a t u r e d an article c o m p a r i n g British i n v o l v e m e n t in India with t h e R u s s i a n p r e s e n c e in t h e C a u c a s u s . T h e article criticized the British f o r r u n n i n g t o o costly an e m p i r e a n d q u e s t i o n e d t h e "wisd o m a n d f a r s i g h t e d n e s s of t h e British a d m i n i s t r a t i o n . "

8

British p o w e r in I n d i a is f o u n d e d n o t u p o n t h e settling of t h e E n g l i s h in t h e r e g i o n , b u t on t h e w e a k n e s s a n d i n t e r n a l d i s c o r d a m o n g t h e n a t i v e p o p u l a tion; on an e x a g g e r a t e d n o t i o n of British w e a l t h a n d might. . . . N o t h i n g similar t o this is t a k i n g place in t h e C a u c a s u s . This land is being g r a d u a l l y a n d n a t u r a l l y c o l o n i z e d by t h e R u s s i a n p o p u l a t i o n , which at p r e s e n t c o m p r i s e s 24 p e r c e n t of t h e t o t a l p o p u l a t i o n of t h e C a u c a s u s ; while in I n d i a , 100,000 British or a p p r o x i m a t e l y .004 p e r c e n t of t h e total p o p u l a t i o n is ruling o v e r 240 million natives. 9 By the early t w e n t i e t h century, n a t i o n a l i s t t h e o r i s t s of R u s s i a n

colonization

a d v a n c e d t h e o r i e s d e f i n i n g their ideal of c r e a t i n g an a l l - e m p i r e R u s s i f i e d p e o p l e . Ideally, R u s s i a w o u l d n e u t r a l i z e o p p o s i t i o n by c h a n g i n g t h e very n a t u r e of t h e s u b j u g a t e d societies by t u r n i n g t h e m i n t o e t h n i c Russians. T h e i r u l t i m a t e a i m w a s

Colonization

of Caucasian Azerbaijan

• 169

to be implemented by settling Russians into the colonized regions, where they would subsequently intermarry with the local population and produce a hybrid people. In the words of one theorist, "From the merging of the Great Russian and Little Russian elements with an inevitable dash of native blood, there will a p p e a r a type of Transcaucasian Russian. . . . " 1 0 T h e p r o p o n e n t s of creating Transcaucasian Russians faulted the previous settlement policies of the government, which had initially settled peoples of " o t h e r tribes" in the region, instead of Russians. 1 1 The Russian government had f r o m the first days of its conquest of Transcaucasia shown a desire to settle Russians in the region. Yet this had not been feasible on a mass scale until Nicholas I decided to exile the Old Believers f r o m central Russia. Initially, the central government had attempted to settle m e m b e r s of the army stationed in the Caucasus, by encouraging the wives of the soldiers and officers to move to the region. However, this attempt did not suffice in securing a significant n u m b e r of Russians, as the n u m b e r s of military personnel were small and they usually returned to Russia u p o n the completion of their duties. 1 2 Nicholas had in October of 1837 passed legislation for establishing military colonies in Transcaucasia in order to increase the n u m b e r of Russians, secure the f r o n tiers and stimulate the development of agriculture, trade and industry in the region. Yet, the failure of these military colonies had been conceded by 1857. 13

EASTERN

TRANSCAUCASIA

AS " W A R M

SIBERIA"

Tiie first Russian settlers in Transcaucasia, if we discount the discharged military men of the Caucasian wars who may have opted to remain, were the exiled Russian sectarians. Initially, in the 1830s the sectarians were exiled to the region, for purely punitive reasons, in order to reduce their influence in central Russia. By the 1840s a dramatic shift took place in official views on the settlers, and their presence was seen as advantageous for promoting Russian imperial policy in the borderlands. The sectarians who were exiled to the region beginning in the 1830s included primarily the Molokans, the Dukhobors, Subbotniks, and Old Believers. 1 4 Accordingly, General Ermolov, C o m m a n d e r of the Caucasian Corps, had concocted the nickname of "warm Siberia" for Transcaucasia. 1 5 The bulk of religious sectarian exiles came from the Tambov, Voronezh, Kharkov, Samara, Penza and Riazan provinces. 16 In Eastern Transcaucasia, they were concentrated in S h e m a k h a (later Bakinskii), Lenkoran and Shusha uezds where they were primarily occupied in farming, transportation and handicrafts. 1 7 Under Nicholas I, state policy t o w a r d s religious dissidents reversed half a century of toleration u n d e r C a t h e r i n e II and A l e x a n d e r I. O n 20 O c t o b e r 1830, t h e State Council a p p r o v e d t h e criteria f o r the settling of the sectarians in Transcaucasia:

170 • Firouzeh

Mostashari

All sectarians, r e c o g n i z e d by t h e c o u r t s as guilty of s p r e a d i n g their heresy, c o r r u p t i n g o t h e r s , a n d d i s r e s p e c t f u l b e h a v i o r against the C h u r c h a n d t h e O r t h o d o x clergy, will be p l a c e d in t h e service of the C a u c a s i a n Corps, a n d in t h e e v e n t that they a r e unfit f o r service, [they] along with t h e w o m e n , will b e d i s p a t c h e d to t h e T r a n s c a u c a s i a n p r o v i n c e to be settled. . . . S e c t a r i a n s a r e t o be s e t t l e d only in t h o s e a r e a s of T r a n s c a u c a s i a w h e r e O r t h o d o x p e a s a n t s are not present.18 Exile to t h e C a u c a s u s w a s especially r u i n o u s f o r the R u s s i a n p e a s a n t s w h o w e r e u n a c c u s t o m e d to t h e n e w climatic c o n d i t i o n s . A t t r i t i o n r a t e s w e r e high as a result of t h e i n h o s p i t a b l e e n v i r o n m e n t a n d r a m p a n t epidemics. D e s c r i b i n g t h e s e condit i o n s in t h e m i d - n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y , a n o u t s p o k e n critic of N i c h o l a s I, Ivan Golovin wrote: Hell is on t h e s h o r e s of t h e Black Sea, t h a n k s to the e p i d e m i c s t h a t reign t h e r e ; t h a n k s also to Nicholas, w h o h a s c h o s e n it for a place of exile. T h e u n f o r t u n a t e beings w h o h a v e b e e n b a n i s h e d t h e r e a r e c o n t i n u a l l y saying t h a t t h e y would p r e f e r Siberia to t h e e n c h a n t i n g regions of Colchis; in fact, m e n a r e n o t killed by t h e cold, as t h e y a r e by an a t m o s p h e r e filled with pestilential m i a s m a . So N i c h o l a s k n o w s well what he is a b o u t w h e n he b a n ishes his e n e m i e s to a p a r t w h e r e n o o n e dies a n a t u r a l d e a t h . 1 9 Initially, t h e settling of s e c t a r i a n p e a s a n t s in T r a n s c a u c a s i a was n o t m o t i v a t e d by i m p e r i a l aims, n o r was it e v e n m o t i v a t e d by t h e desire to c o n v e r t t h e s e c t a r i a n s t o O r t h o d o x y . A s s t a t e d by the C a u c a s i a n C o m m i t t e e : " . . . w h e n t h e s e c t a r i a n s w e r e a l l o w e d to e m i g r a t e to t h e C a u c a s u s , t h e aim was n o t t o c o n v e r t t h e m t o O r t h o doxy." 2 0 T h e settling of an u n r e l i a b l e p e o p l e in a f r o n t i e r a r e a w a s an i n t e r e s t i n g policy, b u t o n e which w a s g e n e r a l l y p r a c t i c e d in t h e e m p i r e , p a r t i c u l a r l y in t h e case of t h e C o s s a c k s a n d convicts in Siberia. 2 1 In t h e 1830s t h e C o m m i t t e e of M i n i s t e r s s e e m e d a m b i v a l e n t a b o u t t h e b e n e f i t s of exiling t h e s e c t a r i a n s to T r a n s c a u c a s i a . F e a r i n g that a large c o n c e n t r a t i o n of sectarians would

influence t h e l o w e r a r m y officials a n d c o r r u p t t h e m ,

the

C o m m i t t e e d e c i d e d t o settle t h e s e c t a r i a n s in v a r i o u s localities a n d in small n u m bers. In a d d i t i o n , t h e C o m m i t t e e of M i n i s t e r s was c o n c e r n e d t h a t t h e s e c t a r i a n s m a y d i s r u p t t h e life of t h e C a u c a s i a n n o m a d s by c o n s t r a i n i n g t h e i r s e a s o n a l m o v e m e n t s t h r o u g h p a s t u r e l a n d s . B a r o n G.V. R o s e n , t h e a d m i n i s t r a t o r in chief of t h e G e o r g i a n provinces, h a d also o b j e c t e d t o t h e s e n d i n g of s e c t a r i a n s t o t h e r e g i o n . H e h a d a s k e d f o r this p r o c e s s t o b e h a l t e d , as he saw n o b e n e f i t s e i t h e r f o r t h e s t a t e o r t h e r e g i o n a n d e x p r e s s e d c o n c e r n t h a t the s e c t a r i a n s w o u l d " f r i g h t e n t h e n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n f o r t h e i r c a t t l e a n d t h e i r p a s t u r e lands." 2 2 T h e g r e a t e s t f e a r , h o w e v e r , was t h a t t h e s e c t a r i a n s w o u l d incite t h e n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n t o resist s t a t e a u t h o r i t y . T h u s t h e C o m m i t t e e of M i n i s t e r s c o n c l u d e d t h a t t h e n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n which " h a s j u s t b e g u n t o b e c o m e a c c u s t o m e d to o r d e r will

Colonization

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171

n o w not be allowed to develop loyalty towards the state." 2 3 In order to diminish t h e influence of the sectarians on both the O r t h o d o x Russians and the native population, those sectarians who had emigrated of their own volition were prohibite d f r o m settling in the cities, and were allowed to settle only in areas specified by t h e Caucasian administration. 2 4 Eventually the state realized that the settling of sectarians in Transcaucasia could be used to promote the imperial agenda. In November of 1845, the Caucasian Committee expressed its satisfaction with the presence of the Old Believers in Transcaucasia, which n u m b e r e d over ten thousand, and considered their p r e s e n c e "beneficial and necessary": T h e settling of Russian peasants in the Transcaucasian region is extremely beneficial. Politically, it assists in the consolidation of the Russian dominion there and in the merger of the region with the empire. ...In addition, the settling of the sectarians with h a r m f u l heresies in Transcaucasia, in the C o m m i t t e e ' s opinion also represents a n o t h e r advantage. It deprives them of the means to propagate the schism between the O r t h o d o x population of the inner guberniias. 2 5 T h e local administration also began to perceive the presence of the sectarians as beneficial to Russian policy aims in the area. In the view of the Tiflis governor, the D u k h o b o r sectarians "made all the local population respect them and on the distant b o r d e r it seemed they raised the Russian banner high. Spreading out over three guberniias among the miserable native population, their flourishing villages were pleasing oases, and on the political side, were staging points for the Russian cause and influence in the region." 2 6 Ironically, the sectarians who were a source of concern in the inner guberniias, where they destabilized and h a r m e d state interests, were considered allies of the state in the Transcaucasian borderlands, at least until the last decade of the nineteenth century. Acknowledging the positive impact of the sectarian settlers in Transcaucasia, the government began to encourage their voluntary resettling into the region by offering them special privileges and incentives. The edict of 9 D e c e m b e r 1848, entitled " O n privileges to the Old Believers migrating to Transcaucasia," was directed towards all sects and o f f e r e d exemption from paying dues and taxes for an eight-year period for those voluntarily settling in the region. 2 7 Official reports mention that the Russian sectarians were distinguished by their stamina and n e e d e d little monetary aid from the government. 2 8 T h e exiling of the Russian sectarian peasants to Transcaucasia served multiple purposes. It not only " p u n i s h e d " these peasants, but it also contributed to establishing the Russian presence in this region after the withdrawal of troops. The authorities made use of elements that were considered subversive in core areas, and turned them into agents of Russian political aims in the borderlands. By 1869 there were nearly 60,000 sectarians living in the Caucasus, half of them in the

172 • Firouzeh

Mostashari

North Caucasus and the remainder in Transcaucasia (mostly concentrated in B a k u guberniia). 2 9 A l t h o u g h it benefited f r o m the presence of the sectarians in Transcaucasia, the Caucasian viceroyalty was not resigned to tolerating their religious preference and periodically drew plans to convert t h e m to Orthodoxy. These proselytizing activities were particularly prevalent during the viceroyalty of Prince A.I. Bariatinskii (1856—1862).30 The viceroy did not see the sectarians as a tool for Russian imperial policy and wanted to return them to the fold of the O r t h o d o x Church. Bariatinskii took a personal interest in this question and openly stated that "it would be desirable to spread O r t h o d o x y among the sectarians." 31 In March 1858 Bariatinskii informed Prince Orlov, chairman of the Caucasian Committee, that sectarians converting to O r t h o d o x y were to be awarded permission to return to Russia as well as a three-year exemption from taxes. Yet, he lamented, "these benefits cannot assist us in appealing to them." 3 2 These privileges were ineffective as the sectarians, who had long a b a n d o n e d the Russian heartland and were well established in Transcaucasia, had adapted to their new surroundings. They did not care to return to Russia, where their children would still be obliged to pay duties from which they were liberated in the Caucasus. Living on the edge of the empire, the sectarians were in a privileged p o s i t i o n . T h e r e they enjoyed greater cultural and religious f r e e d o m s and were not enticed by offers to return to Russia. Bariatinskii therefore suggested that the g o v e r n m e n t provide additional incentives to the Old Believers. According to his proposal, converts to O r t h o d o x y would be exempt from paying monetary duties for 25 years, labor duties for two years and land tax for six years. 33 Yet Bariatinskii's thinking on the conversion of the Old Believers was fundamentally flawed, as it underestimated the tenacity of their religious beliefs. The Caucasian C o m m i t t e e rejected Bariatinskii's proposal. G o v e r n m e n t policy towards the sectarians in Transcaucasia u n d e r w e n t dramatic changes through the nineteenth century. It evolved from regarding them as seditious convicts, to allies of the state and finally to individuals capable of rejoining Russia, if only they converted to Orthodoxy. A f t e r the 1880s official policy took yet another turn and u n d e r the influence of Alexander Ill's Russification policies, the government led a campaign to limit emigration to the region to the "purely Russian" and O r t h o d o x peasantry.

COLONIZATION

AS A S O C I O - E C O N O M I C

REMEDY

The government could resolve the tension between imperial and religious concerns, once there was a pool of "pure O r t h o d o x " peasants able to migrate. The emancipation of the peasantry provided this opportunity and inaugurated a new era in the history of peasant colonization. Thereafter, voluntary migration was officially possible for the Russian O r t h o d o x peasantry. A f t e r 1866, when the

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Ministry of State Domains was no longer in charge of state peasants, they were f r e e to submit petitions to resettle. 3 4 The government however did little to aid the p e a s a n t s who had ventured to risk the move. In one critic's opinion, "in the twenty years following the emancipation of the peasantry, the government did not d e p a r t f r o m its passive and even negative attitude to peasant colonization." 3 5 Peasant unrest forced the government to reevaluate its position. The increasing land hunger in the central provinces of Russia after emancipation and the expectations of a "Black Repartition" agitated the peasants. This was clearly one of the factors contributing to the change in the government's settlement policy. By 1881 general rules were promulgated defining and organizing the migration of peasants to Transcaucasia. Although there had been some opportunity after 19 February 1861, for landless peasants to emigrate, the regulations touched a very small percentage of the population. Whereas in the 1860s and 1870s the government only permitted the migration of landless peasants, by the 1880s it started to p r o m o t e the large-scale migration of peasants suffering from land shortage. Not only the g o v e r n m e n t , but also the zemstvos showed an increasing concern over land shortage in central Russia. Beginning in 1880, the zemstvos in Russia's central agricultural region began to petition the central government asking for the loosening of restrictions concerning the resettling of peasants from the inner Russian provinces to the state lands in Transcaucasia. The zemstvo authorities feared that the peasants' increasing land-hunger would exacerbate social tensions between landlords and peasants. 3 6 Yet in spite of these developments, state policy towards peasant settlement remained inconsistent and vacillated through the years. The new settlement laws had their limitations. On 10 July 1881, the "Temporary Regulations" on the migration of the peasantry had been confirmed by the C o m m i t t e e of Ministers. However, these regulations only concerned those peasants "owning plots which were insufficient for feeding their families." 3 7 Peasants were granted permission to migrate if both the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of State Domains recognized the urgency of their economic predicament and approved their petition. O n c e they had resettled, the peasants were leased lands on a short-term basis ranging f r o m 6 to 12 years and the land plots were limited to 8 desiatinas per person. In 1884 the Minister of Internal Affairs, D.A. Tolstoy, limited the regions to which the peasants could migrate, justifying this restriction by the alleged shortage of suitable state lands. 38 Contradictory state policies resulted f r o m bureaucratic clashes b e t w e e n the Ministry of Interior, the Ministry of State Domains, and the Caucasian administration. While the Ministry of Interior favored colonization as a means of alleviating social and economic problems in Russia proper, most of the Caucasian administrators tended to oppose the settlement of questionable elements, which would complicate their duties. The Ministry of State D o m a i n s opposed colonization in cases which obviously e n d a n g e r e d the local economy. Bureaucratic struggle between the center and periphery heightened under Prince A.M. Dondukov-Korsakov's administration of the Caucasus (1882-1890).

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Identifying with local interests, Dondukov-Korsakov was uneasy with the overlapping powers of his administration and those of the central ministries. H e lobbied to forestall the full-fledged colonization of Transcaucasia, and succeeded in holding the plans of the Ministry of Interior at bay. Defiantly, Dondukov-Korsakov refused to provide the Ministry of Internal Affairs with an account of the available lands in Transcaucasia. Reluctant to accept more colonists, he reported that "there are no free treasury lands in the Caucasus on which colonizers might be settled." 3 9 H e added that those "insignificant amounts" of treasury lands that were unoccupied were necessary for the use of the local state peasants. Thus, due to the "negative relationship of the high commissioner to the possibility of widely colonizing Transcaucasia," the Ministry of Internal Affairs temporarily abandoned plans for the extension of new colonization legislation to the region. Dondukov-Korsakov had temporarily succeeded in forestalling colonization in Transcaucasia. However, in the a f t e r m a t h of the famine of 1891-1892, those elements within the government that favored settlement were strengthened, since this was seen as the solution to the agricultural crisis in Russia. Pressed by the peasantry as well as the public's awakened interest in the plight of the settlers, the government after 1892 became more active in its support for colonization. In D e c e m b e r of 1896, the government created the Settlement Administration (Pereselencheskoe Upravlenie), under the aegis of the Ministry of Interior, in order to organize and regulate peasant colonization. Its functions were to issue permits for colonization, organize the orderly movement of the settlers, take charge of the initial needs of the settlers in their new villages, and distribute credits. 4 0 In the same year, the Minister of Interior, I.L. Goremykin, drew attention to the colonization of the Caucasus, pointing to the shortage of lands in Siberia. H e stressed that the settling of "the Russian e l e m e n t " in the Caucasus would be "indisputably desirable f r o m the point of view of the general interests of the state." 4 1 Once again elements deemed unreliable in the center of the empire (in this case dissatisfied and potentially rebellious peasants) were used to p r o m o t e state interests in the borderlands of the empire. By May of 1897 the Ministry of Interior had m a d e a c o m m i t m e n t to peasant colonization and G o r e m y k i n asked Prince G.S. Golitsyn, the high commissioner of the Caucasus (1897-1904), to prepare a list of state lands which, in spite of being under use by the native population, could be labeled as "surplus" and were suitable for settlement by Russian peasants. By 1898 Golitsyn, a staunch Russifier and a zealous supporter of colonization, set aside over 100,000 desiatinas of land for settlement in Baku guberniia. In addition, native villagers were o r d e r e d to relinquish 252,000 desiatinas of state lands, which they were using. 42 In spite of his generally favorable view of colonization, Golitsyn cautioned the Ministry of Interior against too enthusiastically pursuing its settlement policy. Golitsyn wrote: "The conditions in the Caucasus for colonization are generally less favorable than in Siberia. . . . H e r e no expanses of available lands are found ...and the local p o p ulation harbors antipathy towards the new Russian people, and this was not the

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case in Siberia." 4 3 Golitsyn was concerned about the possibility of a backlash from t h e local population. In addition, the g o v e r n m e n t itself had d o u b t s a b o u t the suitability of Transcaucasia for peasant settlement, as was indicated by the internal m e m o s of t h e Ministry of Agriculture and State Domains. While pointing to land shortage in t h e five Transcaucasian provinces, the Ministry noted that "the government has p r o v i d e d the native population almost no alternatives to surplus lands to e n s u r e t h e i r existence." 4 4 T h e S e t t l e m e n t A d m i n i s t r a t i o n also admitted that "the Caucasian provinces do not offer the conditions that would allow for the largescale development of Russian colonization." 4 5 The real aim, according to the A d m i n i s t r a t i o n , should be the introduction of the Russian element within possible limits, rather than the opening of Transcaucasia to massive colonization. Regardless of the concerns of the local administration, the settlement authorities viewed colonization as essential. They described its rationale: "Russia is in possession of such borderlands, in which the increasing of the Russian population not only answers the needs of the agricultural economy, but also constitutes an object of state necessity." 46 Only the Russians were seen as "capable of p r o m o t ing the development of this borderland in the direction of cultural r a p p r o c h e m e n t with the other parts of the empire." 4 7 A s a result of a new settlement law promulgated in 1899, within eighteen months, 12,835 heads of families received permission for colonization. 4 8 Those choosing to migrate were exempt from paying rent for two years in E u r o p e a n Russia and up to three and a half years in n o n - E u r o p e a n Russia. Military service was also reduced by 2 and 3 years respectively. In addition, the d e p a r t u r e of the colonists from their village communities was facilitated by writing off arrears owed by prospective settlers. Finally, railroad tariffs were significantly lowered for the colonists. 4 9 These privileges were granted only to persons "of Russian origin and the O r t h o d o x faith." Golitsyn took stringent measures to m a k e sure that the new settlers were " p e o ple of exclusively Russian and O r t h o d o x origins." H e required "that peasants f r o m the inner guberniias who desired to rent lands in the Caucasus be provided by their local officials with certificates that they are people of purely Russian origin and do not belong to any sect." 5 0 Disregarding the interests of the local population, Golitsyn instructed his governors to d e t e r m i n e the availability of lands for colonization "entirely independent of considerations of the landed organization of the natives of Transcaucasia." 51 All of the available state lands were to be set aside for Russian settlement. In addition, Golitsyn took a step f u r t h e r and urged the Ministry of Interior to rescind the law of 1844, which f o r b a d e allotting pasturelands to colonists. H e argued: "True, at present these lands are being used by the native population for the grazing of herds, but this use ...not only does not have to have a p e r m a n e n t character, but on the contrary must constantly change in accordance with the demands of the times." 52 This request m e t with opposition f r o m the Ministry of

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A g r i c u l t u r e and S t a t e D o m a i n s , which w a s c o n c e r n e d less with t h e p r o m o t i o n of R u s s i a n i z a t i o n a n d m o r e with an efficient use of s t a t e land. 5 3 T h e r e g u l a t i o n s of A p r i l 1899 u n a m b i g u o u s l y p l a c e d t h e i n t e r e s t s of t h e settlers b e f o r e t h o s e of t h e n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n as well as t h o s e of t h e s e c t a r i a n peasants. So-called " s u r p l u s " l a n d s w e r e t a k e n a w a y f r o m t h e n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n , a n d t h e right t o r e n t s t a t e land w a s given exclusively t o t h e R u s s i a n p e a s a n t s of t h e O r t h o d o x faith. 5 4 This was d o n e r e g a r d l e s s of t h e land s h o r t a g e s a f f e c t i n g t h e local p o p u l a t i o n . T h e r e m o v a l of land f r o m n a t i v e h a n d s was n o t u n i q u e t o Russia a n d w a s also p r a c t i c e d by o t h e r s e d e n t a r y civilizations e n c r o a c h i n g o n n o m a d i c f r o n t i e r s , i n h a b i t e d by p e o p l e s p e r c e i v e d as b e i n g uncivilized. A s s c h o l a r s of A m e r i c a n history h a v e o b s e r v e d : " T h e ' f r e e l a n d ' of t h e f r o n t i e r was n o t h i n g of the sort."55 RUSSIAN

S E T T L E M E N T FROM T H E

OF THE S E T T L E R S A N D THE

PERSPECTIVE NATIVES

By p r o m o t i n g p e a s a n t colonization, the s t a t e was t r a n s f e r r i n g its p r o b l e m s to t h e b o r d e r l a n d s . A s the p r e s s u r e of land s h o r t a g e was alleviated in t h e central R u s s i a n provinces, the situation w o r s e n e d in t h e Muslim b o r d e r l a n d s , w h e r e an a l r e a d y l a n d - d e p r i v e d p e a s a n t r y f o u n d m o r e c l a i m a n t s to its ancestral d o m a i n s . To m a k e m a t t e r s worse, what the tsarist officials n o n c h a l a n t l y r e f e r r e d to as " s u r p l u s " or " f r e e " t r e a s u r y lands w e r e t h o s e not o w n e d by local large l a n d o w n e r s , influential p e r s o n a g e s or g o v e r n m e n t officials. L a n d s i n h a b i t e d by local Muslim villagers, f o r e x a m p l e , w e r e c o n s i d e r e d to be "surplus." We k n o w f r o m d o c u m e n t s t h a t w h o l e villages w e r e abolished, exiled a n d resettled in o r d e r to a c c o m m o d a t e R u s s i a n settlers. A description of w h a t h a p p e n e d , o n c e a village had b e e n d e s i g n a t e d as "surplus," is p r o v i d e d by t h e p e t i t i o n of R u s s i a n villagers in Kuba uezd t o t h e high c o m m i s s i o n e r of t h e C a u c a s u s : " W h e n a l r e a d y in 1899 the higher a u t h o r i t i e s in t h e region w e r e a c k n o w l e d g i n g t h e necessity of settling Russians in Tatar villages which h a d b e e n a b o l i s h e d , their i n h a b i t a n t s e i t h e r exiled or resettled a m o n g d i f f e r e n t villages of K u b a uezd, we previously living in A l g y - A g a c h expressed o u r d e s i r e as p a r t of 26 families to settle in K u b a uezd o n t h e abolished Tatar village of ' K i u s n e t . ' " 5 6 O n c e t h e y h a d s e t t l e d in A l g y - A g a c h a n d r e n a m e d it " V l a d i m i r o v s k i i " t h e R u s s i a n p e a s a n t s f o u n d t h e m s e l v e s in a m o s t u n c o m f o r t a b l e p o s i t i o n . T h e y w e r e s u r r o u n d e d by " T a t a r " villagers w h o t h e y c l a i m e d e n c r o a c h e d u p o n their l a n d s a n d s t o l e t h e i r cattle. 5 7 I g n o r i n g t h e r e a s o n s f o r " T a t a r " hostility t o w a r d s t h e m , t h e R u s s i a n villagers w r o t e to t h e a u t h o r i t i e s : " W e h a v e n e v e r t h o u g h t of o f f e n d ing o u r T a t a r n e i g h b o r s a n d d o n o t w a n t t h e m to b e o f f e n d e d f o r o u r b e n e f i t s e i t h e r , b u t t h e y t h e m s e l v e s o f f e n d us." 5 8 T h e s e p e a s a n t s f e a r i n g " T a t a r " a t t e m p t s t o r e c l a i m t h e i r l a n d s with a r m e d f o r c e a s k e d t h e a u t h o r i t i e s t o p r o v i d e t h e m with military p r o t e c t i o n . S i m i l a r c i r c u m s t a n c e s p r e v a i l e d in o t h e r u e z d s of B a k u p r o v i n c e . In D j e v a d u e z d , R u s s i a n colonists of t h e N o v o - N i k o l a e v s k i i village s u b m i t t e d a p e t i t i o n t o

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Prince Golitsyn in 1901, requesting protection f r o m the "Tatars." A f t e r r e p e a t e d ly asking the local administrators to provide t h e m with weapons, they appealed to t h e high commissioner: "We beg your highness not to deny us weapons for the d e f e n s e of our lives and our property, which has been obtained by hard labor." 5 9 T h e governor of Baku province reported that the initial mistrust with which t h e colonists treated the native population led to the latter's hostility.This hostility was mainly expressed in acts of theft and trespassing, and culprits were rarely a p p r e h e n d e d as their communities protected them and hid them from the a u t h o r ities. The governor therefore suggested that the colonists be armed with rifles. H e concluded that "this last measure will on the o n e hand reassure the colonists, who feel intimidated in the midst of an armed native population, and on the o t h e r h a n d it will restrain the animosity of the natives." 6 0 Throughout the 1890s and in the early years of the twentieth century, both the Russian settlers and the Caucasian administration suggested the use of force to deter the native population from attempts to reclaim their lands. These requests were taken seriously and the Local Committees for the Needs of the Agricultural Economy meeting in the Caucasus in 1902 demanded the active involvement of the police in cases where the rights of ownership of the Russian peasants were "violated." 6 1 The petitions of the Russian settlers in Eastern Transcaucasia to the authorities illustrate how the settlement policies of tsarism were harmful to the native population. By "abolishing" entire villages, and replacing their inhabitants with Russians, the government was sowing ethnic enmity between the Russians and the local Azerbaijani peasants. The settling of the "pure Russian elements" entailed much violence and suffering for the native populations. A petition by the trustees of the Khodzha Bala village in Lenkoran uezd to the Baku provincial governor, dated 30 October 1897, reveals the nature of government policy in this predominantly Muslim region: " O n 30 October 1893 we were evicted from Kuba uezd to Lenkoran uezd. All of the evicted amounted to 76 families of which one-half have already died from a pernicious fever. We ask your excellency to have mercy upon us and resettle us on state lands in the Kuba uezd or divide us among the villages of that uezd, so that we can uphold our families' health and put an end to the acute mortality among us." 62 In cases where the Azerbaijani peasants were not evicted from their villages, those using state lands were forced to sign documents renouncing their rights to part of their lands, so as to make way for the Russian settlers. Furthermore, the natives were unabashedly informed that Russians were entitled to twice the a m o u n t of land that they were. This process is well described in the letter of the trustees of five villages in Dzhevad uezd of Baku guberniia to the viceroy of the Caucasus: In view of the land shortage and constant increase in the n u m b e r of h o m e owners, ...lands in our use from the time the Persian Shakhsevans held the Mughan (Steppe) were taken away by the administration. ... A while ago the director of the Colonization Administration of Baku guberniia, G. Lich-

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kus, was in our society and in the presence of the village elders announced that inhabitants of these five villages were allotted only 3 desiatinas per soul and the Russian settlers 6 or more desiatinas per soul. All of the villagers were obliged to sign a document stating that they do not have the right to plow lands exceeding this a m o u n t which belonged to the treasury and were to be allotted to the Russian settlers. 6 3 The ethnic tensions that such an openly discriminating policy created are self-evident. In addition, f r o m the above d o c u m e n t s it is clear that the native Azerbaijani peasantry and their representatives had correctly recognized the agent of their misery not in the person of the settlers (although there was no great affection for them either) but in the settlement bureaucrats of the tsarist state. As the petition by the trustees of the peasants in Dzhevad uezd indicates, these peasants were well i n f o r m e d of the various laws and their consequences. The petition by the trustees of the Khodzha Bala village also shows that the native peasantry was aware that their growing mortality rate was due to the government's disastrous policies and hence it was to the authorities, which they appealed for mercy. In some cases those dissatisfied with the response of local authorities tried to appeal to the central administration in St. Petersburg. In May of 1903, the peasants of the village of Khodzhavend of Shusha uezd petitioned the Minister of Justice. The local administration had accused them of seizing the lands allotted for settlement. The petitioners justified their action: H o w could we have allowed that the land for which we have continuously paid taxes, which is our only source of food, on which our gardens have existed for over one hundred years, and without which our existence is unthinkable, should be arbitrarily and contrary to all laws ... allotted anew to the arriving settlers. We are its true masters and we have worked this land with our blood, yet we are to be driven out of it by force, ... we have remained without the smallest plot of land suitable for cultivation. 6 4 Eventually the Muslim villagers managed to involve in their case not only Golitsyn, but also the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Justice. Golitsyn claimed that the villagers had, "constantly and systematically" taken possession of over 4,000 desiatinas of land. The Ministry of Justice, mostly concerned a b o u t legality, f o u n d this position extreme and contradictory to the information it had received. D e f e n d i n g the needs of the native population, the Minister of Justice wrote: "In conclusion in my opinion, one must k e e p in mind that the natives, whose chief and almost sole possessions consist of cattle, cannot manage without their special migratory way of life, established centuries a g o . . . . " 6 5 Hence the ministry o p p o s e d closing the access of the villagers to their s u m m e r pasture lands, and d e f e n d e d the traditional economy. The tragedy of tsarist settlement policy in Eastern Transcaucasia was that

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w h i l e it o b v i o u s l y h a r m e d t h e n a t i v e M u s l i m p e a s a n t s , it did n o t b e n e f i t t h e R u s sian O r t h o d o x p e a s a n t s e i t h e r . In c o n t r a s t to t h e sectarians, the O r t h o d o x p e a s a n t s l a c k e d s t a m i n a a n d c o u l d n o t a d a p t t o t h e living c o n d i t i o n s of E a s t e r n T r a n s c a u c a s i a . I n s t e a d t h e R u s s i a n O r t h o d o x p e a s a n t s d e g e n e r a t e d into idleness, living off t h e p r i v i l e g e s given to t h e m at t h e e x p e n s e of t h e local p o p u l a t i o n . T h e d e g e n e r a t i o n of t h e s e p e a s a n t s is d e s c r i b e d by t h e O r t h o d o x priest of A l t y A c h a g village of S h e m a k h a g u b e r n i i a , writing to t h e g o v e r n o r : O u r c o l o n i s t s as e v i d e n t a r e s c r o u n g e r s , wishing to live easy. It has a l r e a d y b e e n a y e a r since t h e y h a v e m i g r a t e d to A l t y A c h a g a n d they h a v e n o t y e t t h o u g h t of building, a l t h o u g h t h e y a r e s u r r o u n d e d by f o r e s t . T h e y r e n t o u t all of t h e l a n d s in small p l o t s to t h e local M o l o k a n s a n d use t h e m o n e y w i t h o u t p a y i n g any taxes. T h e y also b u r n d o w n t h e f o r e s t a n d sell it. . . . M a n y s p e a k of leaving. T h e i r land is suitable, t h e c l i m a t e is g o o d , b u t they d o n ' t w a n t t o build. W h y ? It is c l e a r t h a t t h e y w a n t t o use an excuse a n d l e a v e f o r a place f u r t h e r off. ,.. 6 6 A s t h e priest of A l t y A c h a g l a m e n t e d , t h e R u s s i a n O r t h o d o x p e a s a n t s , as o p p o s e d to t h e s e c t a r i a n s , h a d little d e t e r m i n a t i o n o r d e s i r e t o a d a p t t o life in T r a n s caucasia. M a n y i n d e e d did r e t u r n to Russia. T h e local a d m i n i s t r a t i o n ' s r e s p o n s e t o this crisis h o w e v e r was simply t o o f f e r m o r e of t h e s a m e ; t h e S e t t l e m e n t A d m i n i s t r a t i o n ' s l e t t e r s to t h e C a u c a s i a n g o v e r n o r s in 1905 a r e r e p l e t e with r e q u e s t s to i n c r e a s e t h e n o r m s of t h e lands u n d e r use by t h e R u s s i a n settlers. 6 7 T h e sacrificing of local i n t e r e s t s in o r d e r to e n c o u r a g e t h e influx of t h e R u s s i a n O r t h o d o x s e t t l e r s was a m a j o r f a c t o r in instigating d i s t u r b a n c e s in

Eastern

T r a n s c a u c a s i a n c o u n t r y s i d e . By i n t r o d u c i n g e t h n i c d i s c r i m i n a t i o n to t h e r u r a l c o m m u n i t y , t s a r i s m a i d e d t h e local p e a s a n t r y ' s identity f o r m a t i o n a n d t h e i r selfdefinition as a M u s l i m p e o p l e , in a d d i t i o n t o s i m p l e i d e n t i f i c a t i o n with village interests. T h u s t h e A z e r b a i j a n i p e a s a n t s ' i d e n t i t y h a d s h i f t e d f r o m a local a n d e c o n o m i c o n e t o a r e l i g i o u s a n d e t h n i c identity. R u s s i a n s e t t l e m e n t policy h a d clearly e v o l v e d b e t w e e n t h e 1820s a n d t h e 1890s. This e v o l u t i o n w a s t h e result of c h a n g i n g c o n d i t i o n s in c e n t r a l R u s s i a as well as t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of t h i n k i n g a b o u t m e t h o d s of i n t e g r a t i n g b o r d e r l a n d s into t h e e m p i r e . W h i l e at first R u s s i a n s e t t l e m e n t policy was an i n a d v e r t e n t r e s u l t of p e n a l policy t o w a r d s religious d e v i a n t s in c e n t r a l R u s s i a , it e v e n t u a l l y b e c a m e a d e l i b e r a t e l y p l a n n e d policy. In its m a t u r e f o r m this policy tried t o r e s o l v e b o t h e c o n o m i c a n d social t e n s i o n s within c o r e a r e a s of t h e e m p i r e , by p r o m o t i n g t h e i n t e g r a t i o n of t h e b o r d e r l a n d s . T h e p r e s e n c e of t h e R u s s i a n e t h n i c e l e m e n t in t h e b o r d e r l a n d s w a s increasingly s e e n as a n e c e s s a r y c o n d i t i o n of such i n t e g r a t i o n . T h e s e t t l e m e n t polices of tsarism t r a n s f o r m e d t h e social a n d e t h n i c l a n d s c a p e of E a s t e r n T r a n s c a u c a s i a . By t h e b e g i n n i n g of t h e t w e n t i e t h century, s t a t e - s p o n s o r e d and v o l u n t a r y m i g r a t i o n h a d u s h e r e d in social a n d n a t i o n a l

tensions.

C o u p l e d with r a p i d i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n , t h e s t a g e w a s set f o r a tragic h i s t o r y in 1905.

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Notes This article is a s u b s t a n t i a l l y revised v e r s i o n of an article that a p p e a r e d in Journal Asian

Studies

of

Central

(1996), a n d a p p e a r s h e r e with p e r m i s s i o n .

1 I.A. G u r v i c h , Pereselenie

Krest'ian

v Sibir' ( M o s c o w . 1889), i.

Slovar', 23 vols. (St. P e t e r s b u r g , 1898). 2 F.A. B r o k h a u s and I.A. E f r o n , Entsiklopedicheskii 265. This study c o n c e n t r a t e s on m i g r a t i o n to f r o n t i e r a r e a s and not to industrial centers. For a d e t a i l e d discussion of i n t e r n a l m i g r a t i o n in the Russian E m p i r e , see B a r b a r a A n d e r s o n ' s Internal Migration During Modernization in Late Nineteenth-Century Russia ( P r i n c e t o n : P r i n c e t o n U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1980). 3 For figures o n m i g r a t o r y flows a w a y f r o m c e n t r a l Russia, see B.V. T i k h o n o v ' s Pereseleniia v Rossii vo vtoroi polovinie xix v. ( M o s c o w : N a u k a , 1978). 38-39. 4 In this article A z e r b a i j a n r e f e r s to C a u c a s i a n A z e r b a i j a n , which a f t e r the R u s s i a n conq u e s t a n d e s t a b l i s h m e n t of civil a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , was k n o w n as B a k u and E l i z a v e t p o l ' provinces. T h e s e t w o p r o v i n c e s f o r m e d E a s t e r n Transcaucasia a n d the p r e s e n t - d a y R e p u b l i c of A z e r b a i j a n o c c u p i e s the r e g i o n s c o r r e s p o n d i n g with t h e two provinces. 5 T h e A z e r b a i j a n i s are s p e a k e r s of t h e A z e r i dialect of Turkish and are natives of E a s t e r n T r a n s c a u c a s i a . U n l i k e o t h e r M u s l i m s of the Russian E m p i r e , the A z e r b a i j a n i s w e r e pred o m i n a t e l y Shi'ite Muslims. T h e i m p e r i a l c e n s u s r e p o r t s classified the A z e r b a i j a n i s as "Tatars." 6 This b r o a d c a t e g o r y also i n c l u d e d U k r a i n i a n s . 7 T h e s e g r o u p s included the A r m e n i a n s of t h e Q a j a r and O t t o m a n states as well as G e r m a n religious sectarians. 8 N. Shavrov, " O b z o r p r o i z v o d i t e l ' n y k h sil' K a v k a z s k a g o n a m e s t n i c h e s t v a , " in Kavkazskii Kalendar' na 1880 god (Tiflis, 1879), 7. 9 Ibid.J. 10 N. Shavrov, " R u s s k a i a k o l o n i z a t s i i a na K a v k a z e , " in G.F. Chirkin and N.A. Gavrilov, eds.. Voprosy Kolonizatsii 8 (St. P e t e r s b u r g , 1911), 176. 11 Ibid., 133,143. 12 D.I. I s m a i l - Z a d e . Russkoe krest'ianstvo v Zakavkaz cow: I z d a t e l ' s t v o N a u k a , 1982), 3 4 - 3 5 .

e:30-e gody XIX-nachalo

35. 13 D. I. I s m a i l - Z a d e , Russkoe krest'ianstvo, 14 Akty sobrannye Kavkazskoiu Arkheograficheskoiu vols. (Tiflis, 1866-1904), 12: d o k . 483, 552. 15 D.I. I s m a i l - Z a d e , Russkoe krest'ianstvo, 50.

Kommissieiu

XXv.

(Mos-

[ h e r e a f t e r A K A K ] , 12

16 D.I. I s m a i l - Z a d e , Russkoe krest'ianstvo, 35. 17 Rossiiskii g o s u d a r s t v e n n y i istoricheskii a r k h i v [ h e r e a f t e r R G I A ] , f. 1268, op. 10, d. 127, 275. T h e t e r r i t o r i e s of S h e m a k h a , L e n k o r a n a n d S h u s h a uezds all fall within t h e p r e s e n t d a y R e p u b l i c of A z e r b a i j a n . 18 R G I A , f. 1263, op. l , d . 7 8 9 , 4 7 7 . 19 Ivan G o l o v i n , The Caucasus ( L o n d o n , 1854), 121. 20 A K A K , 12: d o k . 489,561. 21 F r a n ç o i s - X a v i e r C o q u i n , La Siberie: Peuplement (Paris: Institut d ' é t u d e s slaves, 1969), 12.

et Immigration

Paysanne

Au XIX

Siècle

22 D.I. I s m a i l - Z a d e , Russkoe krest'ianstvo, 36. 23 R G I A , f. 1263, op. 1, d. 7 8 9 , 4 7 8 B - 4 7 9 B . 24 R G I A , f. 1263, op. 1, d. 7 8 9 , 4 8 2 . 25 A K A K , 10: d o k . 97,119-120. 26 A.I. Klibanov, History Press, 1982), 122.

of Religious

Sectarianism

in Russia,

1860-1917

(Oxford: Pergamon

Notes 27 D. I. I s m a i l - Z a d e . Russkoe

krest'ianstvo,

-181

44.

28 R G I A , f. 391. op. 2. d. 1065,4. 29 Sbornik statisticheskikh svedenii o Kavkaze, vol. 1, (Tiflis: Kavkazkii O t d e l . I m p e r a t o r s k a g o R u s s k o g o G e o g r a f i c h e s k o g o O b s h c h e s t v a , 1869), A-14. 30 F o r m o r e i n f o r m a t i o n o n Bariatinskii see A.J. R i e b e r , The Politics of Autocracy: Letters of Alexander II to Prince A.I. Bariatinskii, 1857-1864 (Paris a n d the H a g u e : M o u t o n . 1966). 31 A K A K . 12: d o k . 4 8 3 , 5 5 3 . 32 Ibid.. 33 Ibid.,

553. 553-554.

34 A . A . K a u f m a n , Pereselenie 16-17. 35 Ibid.,

i kolonizatsiia

(St. P e t e r s b u r g : O b s h c h e s t v e n n o i Pol'za, 1905),

21.

36 E . M . B r u s n i k i n , " P e r e s e l e n c h e s k a i a politika T s a r i s m a v k o n t s e X I X veka," Voprosy 1 ( J a n u a r y 1965): 2 8 - 2 9 . 37 A . A . K a u f m a n , Pereselenie i kolonizatsiia, 24. 38 39 40 41

istorii

E . M . Brusnikin. "Pereselencheskaia politika," 29-31. R G I A , f. 391, op. 2, d. 195, 224ob. D.I. I s m a i l - Z a d e , Russkoe krest'ianstvo, 96, 113. R G I A , f. 391. op. 2, d. 195, 3ob.

42 R G I A . f . 391. op. 2, d. 195,225. 43 R G I A . f . 391, op. 2, d. 195, p. 192ob. 44 R G I A , f. 391, op. 2. d. 195,2. 45 46 47 48 49 50

R G I A , f. 391, op. 1, d. 3 3 8 . 6 5 - 6 5 o b . R G I A , f. 391, op. 2. d. 195,224. R G I A . f. 391. op. 1, d. 338, 65ob. R G I A . f. 391, op. 2. d. 1065,2. A . A . K a u f m a n , Pereselenie i kolonizatsiia, R G I A . f. 391, op. 2, d. 195, 157ob.

51 52 53 54

RGIA, RGIA, RGIA, RGIA,

f. 391, f. 391. f. 391, f. 391,

op. op. op. op.

2, 2, 2, 2,

d. d. d. d.

195, 195, 195. 195,

29, 37.

161ob. 164ob. 193. 157.

55 William C r o n o n , G e o r g e Miles, and Jay Gitlin, Under an Open Sky: Rethinking America's Western Past ( N e w York: W.W. N o r t o n , 1992), 4. 56 N a u c h n y i A r k h i v Institut Istorii A z e r b a i d z h a n a , inv. no. 1687, vol. 7 (Kopii m a t e r i a l o v p o t e m e 'Istoriia A z e r b a i d z h a n a X I X v,' v T s G I A [ T s e n t r a l ' n y i g o s u d a r s t v e n n y i istoricheskii a r k h i v ] G r u z i n s k o i S S R ) , 816. 57 T a t a r in this c o n t e x t r e f e r s t o A z e r b a i j a n i s . 58 Ibid., 817. 59 R G I A , f. 391, op. 2, d. 908, 147-147ob. 60 R G I A , f. 1263, op. 2, d. 5257, 648-649. 61 Kavkazskii krai, vol. 12 of Trudy mestnykh komitetov promyshlennosti (St. P e t e r s b u r g , 1903), 58.

o nuzhdakh

sel'skokhoziaistvennoi

62 T s e n t r a l ' n y i g o s u d a r s t v e n n y i istoricheskii a r k h i v A z e r b a i d z h a n a [ h e r e a f t e r T s G I A Az], f. 44, op. 2, d. 572, 2. 63 T s G I A A z , f . 14, op. l , d . 21, 12-13. 64 R G I A . f. 391, op. 2, d. 1042, 2 4 - 2 4 o b . 65 R G I A , f. 391, op. 2, d. 1042, 2 9 o b and 36ob. 66 T s G I A Az, f. 14, op. l , d . 11.11.7-8. 67 T s G I A Az, f. 14, op. 1. d. 13,1. 8. s

Diamond in the Rough: The State, Entrepreneurs and Turkestan's Hidden Resources in Late Imperial Russia MURIEL

JOFFE

In 1890, following a visit to Russia's C e n t r a l A s i a n b o r d e r l a n d , Minister of Fin a n c e V y s h n e g r a d s k i i characterized the region as " t h e precious d i a m o n d in the c r o w n of the Russian Empire." 1 His r e p e a t e d praise d u r i n g that j o u r n e y for the " p i o n e e r i n g " a n d " e n e r g e t i c " e f f o r t s of the first Russian settlers to exploit T u r k e s t a n ' s " b o u n t i f u l natural gifts" and his s u b s e q u e n t call for a b r o a d p r o g r a m of irrigation a n d colonization m a k e clear that T u r k e s t a n ' s value c o n s t i t u t e d an e c o n o m i c vision of the f u t u r e based on the application of Russian enterprise. 2 Witte, w h o a c c o m p a n i e d V y s h n e g r a d s k i i on that journey, recalled in his m e m o i r s that he t o o was equally i m p r e s s e d by the r e g i o n ' s vast " u n t a p p e d " resources. H o w e v e r , he n o t e d that in the a p p r o x i m a t e l y twenty-five years since that visit, these resources, with the exception of c o t t o n p r o d u c t i o n , were still largely u n d e v e l o p e d . " 3 In o t h e r words, the precious jewel in the R u s s i a n crown r e m a i n e d a " d i a m o n d in the r o u g h . " This essay s e e k s to explain s o m e of the r e a s o n s b e h i n d the u n e v e n d e v e l o p m e n t of T u r k e s t a n n o t e d by Witte t o w a r d the e n d of Russian imperial rule. 4 It will f o c u s primarily on the c o m p l e x r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n law, administration, and econ o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t . T h e essay begins with a brief overview of the s u p p o r t for the e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t of T u r k e s t a n f o u n d a m o n g g o v e r n m e n t officials, military a d m i n i s t r a t o r s a n d Russian e n t r e p r e n e u r s a n d p r e s e n t s a general assessment of the e c o n o m i c a c h i e v e m e n t s during the first d e c a d e s of tsarist rule. It will then a d d r e s s the f a i l u r e of the state a n d private s e c t o r s to d e v e l o p T u r k e s t a n ' s m i n e r al resources. T h e latter, t o g e t h e r with the r e g i o n ' s fertile agricultural soil, r e p r e s e n t e d the m a i n t r e a s u r e s that a t t r a c t e d the a t t e n t i o n of the state and private capital to C e n t r a l Asia. I n d e e d , legends a b o u t sandy deposits of gold h a d led P e t e r the G r e a t to o r d e r the c o n q u e s t of the C e n t r a l A s i a n city of I a r k e n d in Sinkiang (western T u r k e s t a n ) . 5 With the e s t a b l i s h m e n t of Russian rule o v e r T u r k e s t a n , oil a n d coal r e p l a c e d gold as the p r i m a r y m i n e r a l a t t r a c t i o n . This essay builds u p o n my previous r e s e a r c h on the failed e f f o r t s of g o v e r n ment officials, mainly A l e x a n d e r Krivoshein a n d the Chief A d m i n i s t r a t i o n of L a n d S e t t l e m e n t a n d A g r i c u l t u r e , to enlist the firm s u p p o r t of the private sector f o r

184 • Muriel

Joffe

t h e i r g r a n d i o s e s c h e m e to t r a n s f o r m t h e r e g i o n t h r o u g h irrigation. A s I a r g u e d , o n e of t h e m a j o r o b s t a c l e s to t h e a p p l i c a t i o n of p r i v a t e capital in irrigation lay in t h e legal a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e c o n t r o l t h e g o v e r n m e n t p l a c e d on c o r p o r a t i o n s wishing to d o b u s i n e s s in C e n t r a l A s i a . 6 This essay e x p l o r e s f u r t h e r t h e p r o b l e m of e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t in a m u l t i - e t h n i c s t a t e e n c o m p a s s i n g t e r r i t o r i e s with diff e r e n t s o c i o - e c o n o m i c a n d cultural p a t t e r n s . W i t h r e s p e c t to T u r k e s t a n ' s m i n i n g industry, t h e logic of d e v e l o p m e n t u l t i m a t e l y r e q u i r e d a r e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of p r o p e r t y r e l a t i o n s in t h e r e g i o n , f o r b o t h T u r k e s t a n ' s s e t t l e d a n d n o m a d i c p o p u l a t i o n s , and

regulation

of access by R u s s i a n e n t r e p r e n e u r s

t o the r e g i o n ' s

natural

r e s o u r c e s , i n c l u d i n g l a n d a n d u n d e r g r o u n d minerals. F a c e d with t h e s e n e w i m p e r atives, tsarist b u r e a u c r a t s , military a d m i n i s t r a t o r s a n d R u s s i a n

entrepreneurs

w e r e n o l o n g e r u n i t e d b e h i n d t h e c o m m o n goal of e c o n o m i c

development.

I n s t e a d , t h e a r t i c u l a t i o n of policies f o r t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of T u r k e s t a n b e c a m e an integral p a r t of t h e d e b a t e s o v e r t h e c h a r a c t e r a n d q u a l i t y of R u s s i a n i m p e r i a l r u l e in t h e r e g i o n . T h i s essay c o n t r i b u t e s t o o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of two m a j o r p r o b l e m s in t h e hist o r y of late i m p e r i a l Russia. First, it p r o v i d e s f u r t h e r e v i d e n c e of t h e f u n d a m e n tal t e n s i o n b e t w e e n capitalist d e v e l o p m e n t a n d t h e a u t o c r a t i c system. 7 S e c o n d , it c o n t r i b u t e s t o o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of t h e p r o c e s s of e m p i r e building in R u s s i a a n d t o t h e s t u d y of ruling R u s s i a ' s b o r d e r l a n d s . 8 ^

^

R u s s i a ' s pacification of the K a z a k h s t e p p e in t h e 1850s a n d initial military victories a g a i n s t the i n d e p e n d e n t k h a n a t e s of K o k a n d a n d B u k h a r a in t h e early 1860s set t h e s t a g e f o r t h e possible r e a l i z a t i o n of R u s s i a n e c o n o m i c goals in C e n t r a l A s i a : at t h e m o s t , R u s s i a n e c o n o m i c d o m i n a n c e , at t h e very least, i m p r o v e d c o m m e r c i a l relations. T h e d e v e l o p m e n t of R u s s i a n textile, especially c o t t o n , m a n u f a c t u r i n g in t h e first half of t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y s t r e n g t h e n e d e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l d r e a m s of t r a n s f o r m i n g C e n t r a l A s i a into a vast m a r k e t f o r R u s s i a n g o o d s a n d s o u r c e of r a w m a t e r i a l s f o r R u s s i a n industry. T h e s e h o p e s r e f l e c t e d n o t only a s o b e r a s s e s s m e n t of R u s s i a ' s w e a k d o m e s t i c m a r k e t a n d inability to c o m p e t e o n E u r o p e a n m a r k e t s , b u t also t h e e n t r e p r e n e u r s ' belief t h a t R u s s i a ' s e c o n o m i c relat i o n s with A s i a w e r e essential t o a n d p r o o f of R u s s i a ' s identity as a g r e a t p o w e r . T h i s c o m b i n a t i o n of e c o n o m i c i n t e r e s t , R u s s i a n n a t i o n a l i s m and i m p e r i a l d r e a m s led l e a d e r s in t h e M o s c o w m e r c h a n t c o m m u n i t y , in a s s o c i a t i o n with t h e Slavophile e n t r e p r e n e u r s , A l e x a n d e r P. S h i p o v a n d F e d o r V. Chizhov, to s u p p o r t t h e a d v o c a t e s of a f o r w a r d policy in Asia in R u s s i a n b u r e a u c r a t i c circles. 9 T h e c o t t o n f a m i n e in R u s s i a c a u s e d by t h e U S Civil W a r f u r t h e r s t r e n g t h e n e d m e r c h a n t s u p p o r t f o r military a c t i o n . T h e military a d m i n i s t r a t o r s of t h e e m p i r e ' s newly a c q u i r e d t e r r i t o r y s u p p o r t ed t h e initiatives of R u s s i a n e n t r e p r e n e u r s a n d c o n s i d e r e d t h e m as u n e q u a l p a r t n e r s in R u s s i a ' s i m p e r i a l v e n t u r e . 1 0 S t r o n g e r e c o n o m i c ties b e t w e e n R u s s i a a n d its n e w b o r d e r l a n d w o u l d n o t only b i n d t h e r e g i o n m o r e closely t o t h e r e s t of t h e

Diamond in the Rough • 185 Russian Empire, especially in light of the absence of direct and rapid communications, but were also proof of Russia's successful imperial mission. The benefits of economic d e v e l o p m e n t , as explained in the reports of Turkestan's governorgenerals, were both financial and moral. In addition to repaying the Russian state for its financial sacrifices associated with the conquest of the region and the export of capital to purchase foreign cotton, economic development would improve the material and spiritual lives of Turkestan's native populations. 1 1 In this respect, development joined peace, security and civil order (grazhdanstvennost') as a symbol and achievement of Russian imperial rule. Soon a f t e r the creation of the Turkestan governor-generalship in 1867, Turkestan's military administrators took a n u m b e r of measures to develop trade and industry there. 1 2 They p r o m o t e d the scientific investigation of Russia's newly acquired territories, developed experimental plantations to grow cotton and improve silk cultivation, and established agricultural schools for the native populations. 1 3 Turkestan's military rulers also c o o p e r a t e d with Russian scientific and e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l organizations interested in strengthening Russian economic relations in Central Asia. 1 4 The generals also lent their support to or even took the initiative in establishing Russian companies to do business in Central Asia, but most of these ended in failure. 1 5 Although the government blamed these failures on the m e r c h a n t s ' lack of enterprise, Russian e n t r e p r e n e u r s faced a n u m b e r of serious obstacles to conducting business in the region: the absence of direct means of communication, unstable political relations with the i n d e p e n d e n t khanates, and threats to personal safety. By the end of the 1880s Russia had completed its military pacification of the region. T h e i n d e p e n d e n t k h a n a t e of Kokand had been incorporated into the Turkestan governor-generalship and Khiva and B u k h a r a had been reduced to vassal states. The Central Asian railroad, built in the 1880s, b e c a m e an important artery for Russian commerce in Central Asia. Finally, in 1895, with the inclusion of B u k h a r a in the Russian customs zone, Russian merchants were granted a monopoly in Central Asian m a r k e t s and the territory was sealed off f r o m imports of foreign, especially British goods. 1 6 Railroad construction, peace and customs protection strengthened Russia's economic influence in Central Asia. By 1900 Turkestan, B u k h a r a and Khiva supplied 36 percent of the cotton consumed in Russia, most of it grown f r o m A m e r i c a n varieties of cotton. 1 7 The trade of Russian m a n u f a c t u r e s in Central Asia also increased dramatically. In a reversal of the historical p a t t e r n of trade between Russia and Central Asia that existed as late as the 1850s, Russia now supplied the latter with cotton goods. 1 8 Some of this i m p r o v e m e n t can be attributed to the Russian cotton m a n u f a c t u r e r s in the Central Industrial Region and Tsarist Poland w h o established companies in the 1880s and 1890s to deliver A m e r i c a n cotton seed to native growers, buy and process cotton, and trade Russian m a n u factures in the regipn. 1 9 In essence, by the late nineteenth century a combination of government policy

186 • Muriel

Joffe

a n d e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l initiative h a d s u c c e e d e d in t r a n s f o r m i n g T u r k e s t a n ( a n d indirectly B u k h a r a a n d K h i v a ) into w h a t R u s s i a n s t h e m s e l v e s r e f e r r e d to as their "colony," a t e r r i t o r y t h a t s u p p l i e d the m e t r o p o l e with r a w m a t e r i a l s a n d cons u m e d its m a n u f a c t u r e s . 2 0 H o w e v e r , m u c h r e m a i n e d to be d o n e b e f o r e Russia c o m p l e t e d its civilizing mission in t h e r e g i o n . I n d e e d , V y s h n e g r a d s k i i ' s visit to C e n t r a l Asia in 1890 r e p r e s e n t e d a significant c h a n g e in St. P e t e r s b u r g ' s a t t i t u d e to its d i s t a n t b o r d e r l a n d . T h e M i n i s t e r of F i n a n c e was t h e first p r o m i n e n t official in St. P e t e r s b u r g t o s u p p o r t s t r o n g e r g o v e r n m e n t policies d i r e c t e d t o t h e econ o m i c and c u l t u r a l d e v e l o p m e n t of t h e b o r d e r l a n d a n d its i n t e g r a t i o n into t h e Russian Empire. T h e d e g r e e t o which R u s s i a n e n t r e p r e n e u r s w o u l d p a r t i c i p a t e in this r e n e w e d e f f o r t at e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t u l t i m a t e l y d e p e n d e d o n t h e g o v e r n m e n t ' s willingness to e r e c t t h e final pillar in t h e i n f r a s t r u c t u r e f o r e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t , n a m e l y t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t of a firm legal f o u n d a t i o n f o r e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l activity. M y analysis of e f f o r t s t o d e v e l o p T u r k e s t a n ' s m i n i n g i n d u s t r y will d e m o n s t r a t e h o w t h e g o v e r n m e n t ' s f a i l u r e to r e s o l v e t h e legal basis f o r p r o p e r t y o w n e r s h i p in R u s s i a n T u r k e s t a n b e f o r e W o r l d W a r I s e v e r e l y i m p e d e d its ability t o t r a n s f o r m the region through economic development.

O n t h e eve of R u s s i a ' s c o n q u e s t s in C e n t r a l A s i a , t h e r e g i o n ' s m i n e r a l r e s o u r c e s h a d b e e n b a r e l y e x p l o i t e d . W i t h t h e e x c e p t i o n of T r a n s c a s p i a w h e r e T u r k m e n e x t r a c t e d oil f o r f u e l a n d o t h e r needs, T u r k e s t a n ' s native p o p u l a t i o n s used w o o d f r o m t h e saksciul b u s h as t h e i r p r i m a r y f u e l a n d relied on i m p o r t s of finished iron p r o d u c t s f r o m R u s s i a f o r t h e i r d o m e s t i c needs. Small a m o u n t s of c o p p e r a n d lead w e r e m i n e d p r i m a r i l y f o r military p u r p o s e s . 2 1 G o v e r n m e n t a n d p r i v a t e e f f o r t s to d e v e l o p t h e r e g i o n ' s m i n e r a l r e s o u r c e s follow t h e s a m e p a t t e r n t h a t c h a r a c t e r i z e d t h e g e n e r a l e c o n o m i c history of t h e r e g i o n . In t h e i m m e d i a t e a f t e r m a t h of R u s s i a ' s initial victories, a n u m b e r of e n t e r prising m e r c h a n t s , I.I. P e r v u s h i n , A . E . G r o m o v a n d N . I . Ivanov, s e a r c h e d f o r gold, iron, c o p p e r , lead, coal a n d oil. T h e s e " p i o n e e r s " w e r e involved in a n u m b e r of e c o n o m i c c o n c e r n s : v i n i c u l t u r e a n d t o b a c c o f a r m i n g , t h e p r o d u c t i o n of a l c o h o l , textiles, sugar, p a p i r o s y a n d e v e n b a n k i n g . S o m e of their e n t e r p r i s e s c o n s u m e d coal f r o m t h e i r m i n e s as a s o u r c e of fuel. 2 2 T h e b o l d n e s s with which t h e s e e n t r e p r e n e u r s c h a r t e d o u t n e w e c o n o m i c territ o r i e s also e x p l a i n s t h e i r m u l t i p l e failures. In c o n t r a s t to t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of t h o s e b r a n c h e s of p r o d u c t i o n , e.g. alcohol a n d t o b a c c o , t h e p r o d u c t s of which w e r e i m m e d i a t e l y c o n s u m e d by R u s s i a n s living n e a r b y , t h e e x p l o i t a t i o n of T u r k e s t a n ' s m i n e r a l r e s o u r c e s r e q u i r e d a g r e a t e r d e g r e e of t e c h n i c a l as well as g e o l o g i c k n o w l e d g e , which t h e e n t r e p r e n e u r s l a c k e d , a n d m e a n s of c o m m u n i c a t i o n t o c o n nect mines, f a c t o r i e s a n d m a r k e t s . T h e s e s a m e p r o b l e m s c o n f r o n t e d t h e g o v e r n m e n t in its e f f o r t s . E v e n b e f o r e t h e c o n q u e s t of T a s h k e n t , t h e military b e g a n its s e a r c h f o r h e a t i n g m a t e r i a l s a n d f u e l f o r t h e t r o o p s . T h e first m i n e in C e n t r a l A s i a ,

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n a m e d a f t e r t h e m i n i n g e n g i n e e r Tatarinov. w a s f o u n d e d in 1868 in C h i m k e n t u e z d by t h e T r e a s u r y t o s u p p l y coal to t h e A r a l fleet a n d f u e l f o r T a s h k e n t a n d C h i m k e n t . D u r i n g t h e six y e a r s the m i n e o p e r a t e d , it p r o d u c e d 300,000 p u d s of c o a l b u t as a result of t h e e x h a u s t i o n of its coal d e p o s i t s a n d its d i s t a n c e f r o m m a r k e t s , t h e m i n e s h u t d o w n . D u r i n g this p e r i o d , t h e T u r k e s t a n a d m i n i s t r a t i o n e n c o u r a g e d t h e geological e x p l o r a t i o n of t h e r e g i o n . T h e s u r v e y s carried o u t by t h e m i n i n g e n g i n e e r s M u s h k e t o v a n d R o m a n o v s k i i in 1874 of p a r t s of S y r - D a r ' i a a n d F e r g a n a oblasts a n d S e m i r e c h i e r e m a i n e d t h e p r i m a r y a n d limited s o u r c e of g e o l o g i c i n f o r m a t i o n as late as 1909. 2 3 T h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t of a m o d e r n m i n i n g i n d u s t r y in T u r k e s t a n b e g a n in t h e late 1870s a n d 1880s a n d w a s assisted by t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of t h e C e n t r a l A s i a n railr o a d . T h e latter i n c r e a s e d d e m a n d f o r t h e r e g i o n ' s coal a n d oil, facilitated t h e s h i p m e n t of m i n e r a l s to f a c t o r i e s a n d m a r k e t , a n d itself u n d e r t o o k the e x p l o i t a t i o n of t h e s e minerals. A l t h o u g h initial f a i l u r e s s o m e t i m e s d i s c o u r a g e d n e w inv e s t m e n t , t h e a p p e a r a n c e of a g u s h e r , f o r e x a m p l e , w o u l d in c o n t r a s t lead to a n e w w a v e of s p e c u l a t i o n . I n v e s t m e n t p a r t i c u l a r l y i n c r e a s e d in t h e first d e c a d e of the

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O r e n b u r g - T a s h k e n t r a i l r o a d a n d t h e e x p a n s i o n of T u r k e s t a n ' s f a c t o r y i n d u s t r y in c o m b i n a t i o n with d i m i n i s h e d s u p p l i e s of local f u e l a n d t h e high cost of f u e l imports.24 T h e p o t e n t i a l l y oil-rich t e r r i t o r y of C h e l e k e n Island in T r a n s c a s p i a a n d t h e k n o w n r e s e r v e s of oil a n d coal in F e r g a n a o b l a s t a t t r a c t e d e n t r e p r e n e u r s f r o m o u t s i d e t h e b o r d e r l a n d . T h e s e i n v e s t o r s c a m e f r o m n e i g h b o r i n g regions, such as O r e n b u r g a n d t h e C a u c a s u s , or r e g i o n s with i m m e d i a t e e c o n o m i c i n t e r e s t s in C e n t r a l A s i a , p r i m a r i l y M o s c o w . For e x a m p l e , t h e first successful oil v e n t u r e s o n C h e l e k e n Island w e r e e s t a b l i s h e d in t h e 1880s by t h e R u s s i a n e n g i n e e r S.E. P a l a s h k o v s k i i a n d t h e w e l l - k n o w n N o b e l family, w h o w e r e a l r e a d y active in t h e C a u c a s u s a n d Persia. S o o n a f t e r , a g r o u p of i n v e s t o r s f r o m Moscow, including r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s of old m e r c h a n t f a m i l i e s such as t h e B o s t a n z h o g l y a n d R o z h d e s t v e n skii, e x p l o r e d this s a m e territory. In a p a t t e r n f o u n d e l s e w h e r e in t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of R u s s i a n industry, T u r k e s t a n a t t r a c t e d a small n u m b e r of f o r e i g n investors, w e a l t h y n o b l e s such as t h e P r i n c e s T r u b e t s k o i a n d L o b a n o v - R o s t o v s k i i , a n d engin e e r s . In 1900 t h e r a i l r o a d e n g i n e e r A.N. Kovalevskii, w h o later w o u l d b e c o m e involved in g r a n d i o s e irrigation p r o j e c t s in T u r k e s t a n , e s t a b l i s h e d t h e j o i n t - s t o c k c o m p a n y , C h i m i o n . B e f o r e financial m i s m a n a g e m e n t e v e n t u a l l y led to its sale to t h e N o b e l family, C h i m i o n b e c a m e t h e largest m i n i n g e n t e r p r i s e in F e r g a n a o b l a s t . In 1908 it p r o d u c e d a p p r o x i m a t e l y 99 p e r c e n t of t h e oil e x t r a c t e d in F e r g a n a oblast. 2 5 D e s p i t e p e r s i s t e n t r e p o r t s a b o u t t h e r e g i o n ' s rich m i n e r a l w e a l t h , t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of T u r k e s t a n ' s m i n e r a l r e s o u r c e s n e v e r m a t c h e d e x p e c t a t i o n s . 2 6 O n t h e e v e of World W a r I, t h e t o t a l o u t p u t of T u r k e s t a n ' s m i n i n g i n d u s t r y r e p r e s e n t e d b u t a f r a c t i o n of i m p e r i a l p r o d u c t i o n . W h e r e a s t h e q u a n t i t y of coal m i n e d in T u r k e s t a n rose f r o m 100,000 p u d s in 1870 to 8.4 million p u d s in 1914, coal p r o d u c t i o n in

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T u r k e s t a n e q u a l e d less t h a n 1 p e r c e n t of t h e total o u t p u t of coal in Russia. T h e m a x i m u m a m o u n t of oil e x t r a c t e d , 15.3 million p u d s in 1911, e q u a l e d 2.7 p e r c e n t of t o t a l i m p e r i a l p r o d u c t i o n . 2 7 T h e slow d e v e l o p m e n t of t h e r e g i o n ' s m i n e r a l r e s o u r c e s can be e x p l a i n e d by a n u m b e r of factors. P e r s i s t e n t e c o n o m i c a n d technical difficulties, m o s t n o t a b l y t h e c o n t i n u e d p r o b l e m of c o m m u n i c a t i o n s , d i s c o u r a g e d R u s s i a n e n t r e p r e n e u r s f r o m investing in T u r k e s t a n ' s m i n i n g industry, as did o p p o r t u n i t i e s f o r p r o f i t a b l e i n v e s t m e n t e l s e w h e r e in t h e e m p i r e . H o w e v e r , a m a j o r o b s t a c l e was t h e a m b i g u ous legal s i t u a t i o n g o v e r n i n g p r i v a t e m i n i n g activities. I n d e e d , o n t h e basis of his i n v e s t i g a t i o n of T u r k e s t a n in 1908-1909, C o u n t P a l e n identified two critical imped i m e n t s to t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of T u r k e s t a n ' s m i n e r a l wealth: t h e a b s e n c e of capital a n d t h e lack of clarity with r e s p e c t to land t e n u r e in T u r k e s t a n . 2 8 In essence, t h e s e t w o i m p e d i m e n t s w e r e r e l a t e d : u n c e r t a i n t y a b o u t t h e right of access to l a n d e d p r o p e r t y d e t e r r e d t h e flow of c a p i t a l t o t h e r e g i o n . T h e s a m e g o v e r n m e n t policies t h a t i m p e d e d the i n v e s t m e n t of p r i v a t e capital in irrigation in T u r k e s t a n also r e s t r i c t e d capital i n v e s t m e n t in mining. T h e tsarist g o v e r n m e n t ' s g e n e r a l distrust of p r i v a t e e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l initiative a n d its conc e r n , t o g e t h e r with t h a t of t h e T u r k e s t a n a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , to s a f e g u a r d t h e security of t h e b o r d e r l a n d s led t o s e v e r e r e s t r i c t i o n s o n e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l activity in Turk e s t a n . N o n - C h r i s t i a n R u s s i a n s u b j e c t s f r o m o u t s i d e of T u r k e s t a n a n d f o r e i g n e r s w e r e f o r b i d d e n t o a c q u i r e land in t h e r e g i o n a n d t h e s e s a m e g r o u p s w e r e b a n n e d f r o m m i n i n g activities. C o r p o r a t e access t o land w a s equally r e s t r i c t e d within t h e c o n t e x t of t h e c o n c e s s i o n a r y system t h a t r e q u i r e d each new c o m p a n y t o r e c e i v e a c h a r t e r f r o m t h e s t a t e a n d in t h e case of T u r k e s t a n t h e a p p r o v a l of t h e T u r k e s t a n g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l in c o n s u l t a t i o n with t h e M i n i s t r i e s of War a n d Finance. 2 9 W h i l e t h e s e laws c e r t a i n l y r e s t r i c t e d t h e p o o l of p o t e n t i a l i n v e s t o r s in T u r k e s t a n , t h e total c o n f u s i o n s u r r o u n d i n g existing p r o p e r t y r e l a t i o n s in the r e g i o n s e r v e d as t h e m a i n o b s t a c l e to t h e m i n i n g i n d u s t r y ' s d e v e l o p m e n t . In t h e a b s e n c e of a g e n e r a l m i n i n g s t a t u t e f o r T u r k e s t a n , t h e i n d u s t r y was r e g u l a t e d t h r o u g h t h e a p p l i c a t i o n of c e r t a i n s e c t i o n s of t h e I m p e r i a l M i n i n g C o d e to t h e b o r d e r l a n d . T h i s c o d e r e p r e s e n t e d an e n o r m o u s collection of articles, e n a c t e d o v e r c e n t u r i e s , with specific r e g u l a t i o n s f o r v a r i o u s c a t e g o r i e s of m i n i n g activities. T h e r e w e r e d i f f e r e n t r e g u l a t i o n s f o r distinct minerals, f o r s e p a r a t e social c a t e g o r i e s of e n t r e p r e n e u r s a n d f o r i n d i v i d u a l regions. M o r e o v e r , t h e c o d e disting u i s h e d b e t w e e n m i n i n g activities c a r r i e d o u t on e m p t y s t a t e lands, on lands in t h e p o s s e s s i o n of specific g r o u p s , e.g. s t a t e p e a s a n t s , n o m a d i c g r o u p s a n d o n privately o w n e d p r o p e r t i e s . L i k e o t h e r f o r e i g n codes, R u s s i a n m i n i n g law d i s t i n g u i s h e d b e t w e e n t h e r i g h t s of l a n d o w n e r s to m i n e r a l s f o u n d o n t h e s u r f a c e of their lands a n d t h o s e f o u n d u n d e r g r o u n d . By t h e e n d of t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y t h e I m p e r i a l M i n i n g C o d e c o n t a i n e d a m u l t i - v a r i a n t b u t essentially d u a l s y s t e m of rights. U n d e r g r o u n d r i g h t s b e l o n g e d t o t h e p u b l i c r e a l m o n e m p t y s t a t e lands, o n lands in t h e p o s s e s sion of v a r i o u s n o m a d i c g r o u p s , s t a t e p e a s a n t s , a n d o n t h e n o n - a l l o t m e n t l a n d s of

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t h e p e a s a n t r y . T h e only g r o u p g r a n t e d u n d e r g r o u n d r i g h t s o n its land w e r e p r i v a t e l a n d o w n e r s . 3 0 H o w e v e r , a m a j o r e x c e p t i o n t o this r u l e w a s Tsarist P o l a n d . T h e r e , in an o b v i o u s a t t e m p t to restrict t h e w e a l t h a n d p o w e r of t h e politically s u s p e c t Polish nobility, t h e s t a t e r e t a i n e d c o n t r o l o v e r u n d e r g r o u n d d e p o s i t s f o u n d o n privately o w n e d lands. 3 1 T h e first s e r i o u s a t t e m p t t o r e g u l a t e m i n i n g in T u r k e s t a n o c c u r r e d in 1893 w h e n t h e g o v e r n m e n t e x t e n d e d t o t h o s e l a n d s t h a t w e r e p a r t of t h e original t e r ritory of t h e T u r k e s t a n g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l s h i p , t h e 1887 s t a t u t e g o v e r n i n g m i n i n g o n f r e e s t a t e lands. 3 2 A c c o r d i n g to this s t a t u t e , p r i v a t e e n t r e p r e n e u r s could carry o u t e x p l o r a t i o n s a n d o p e n m i n e s o n l a n d s d e s i g n a t e d as f r e e s t a t e p r o p e r t i e s . A t first, t h e T u r k e s t a n a d m i n i s t r a t i o n w a s r e s p o n s i b l e f o r g r a n t i n g licenses t o c a r r y o u t e x p l o r a t i o n s ; a f t e r 1901 this r e s p o n s i b i l i t y w a s t r a n s f e r r e d t o t h e M i n i s t r y of A g r i c u l t u r e a n d S t a t e D o m a i n s . Local m i n i n g a u t h o r i t i e s u n d e r t h e j u r i s d i c t i o n of t h e g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l h a d r e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r a p p r o v i n g t h e a l l o t m e n t of s t a t e l a n d s to p r i v a t e e n t r e p r e n e u r s f o r m i n i n g p u r p o s e s . 3 3 P r i v a t e m i n i n g w a s also p e r m i t t e d in T r a n s c a s p i a , w h e r e all land was d e c l a r e d to b e s t a t e p r o p e r t y . R e s p o n s i bility f o r g r a n t i n g p r o s p e c t i n g licenses w a s e n t r u s t e d t o t h e g o v e r n o r ' s c h a n cellery, while local m i n i n g officials r e t a i n e d r e s p o n s i b i l i t y f o r a l l o c a t i n g s t a t e lands. If m i n i n g activities i n v o l v e d lands c o n f i r m e d f o r t h e limitless use of T r a n s caspia's n o m a d i c p o p u l a t i o n s . A r t i c l e 203 of t h e I m p e r i a l M i n i n g C o d e r e q u i r e d m i n e r s to s e e k t h e n o m a d s ' p r e l i m i n a r y a g r e e m e n t if m i n e s or e x p l o r a t i o n s w e r e to be c a r r i e d o u t on lands t h e y u s e d f o r w i n t e r p a s t u r e o r o t h e r e c o n o m i c necessities. 3 4 H o w e v e r , e x c l u d e d f r o m this p r o v i s i o n w e r e t h e oil-rich lands of C h e l e k e n Island t h a t b o t h local a d m i n i s t r a t o r s a n d St. P e t e r s b u r g c o n f i r m e d , b a s e d on their i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of c u s t o m a n d Islamic law, as historically b e l o n g i n g to t h e T u r k m e n s . In t h e 1870s i n t e r e s t by t h e B a k u oil industrialists, especially N o b e l , f o r c e d t h e p r o v i n c i a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n t e m p o r a r i l y to allow p r i v a t e e n t r e p r e n e u r s t o lease l a n d s f r o m t h e T u r k m e n until final clarification of t h e T u r k m e n ' s p r o p e r ty rights. 3 5 T h e o n e a r e a in T u r k e s t a n e f f e c t i v e l y closed t o p r i v a t e m i n i n g was t h e l a n d settled by t h e n a t i v e a g r i c u l t u r a l p o p u l a t i o n s . T h e T u r k e s t a n S t a t u t e of 1886, t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i v e law f o r t h e g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l s h i p , c o n t a i n e d n o p r o v i s i o n d e f i n i n g u n d e r g r o u n d rights in t h e b o r d e r l a n d . R e c o g n i z i n g t h e n e e d to r e s o l v e this issue, t h e State C o u n c i l i n s t r u c t e d t h e Ministry of A g r i c u l t u r e a n d S t a t e D o m a i n s in 1889 to p r e p a r e legislation o n this m a t t e r . T h e final p r o j e c t , c o m p l e t e d in 1894, d e c l a r e d all u n d e r g r o u n d d e p o s i t s o n p r i v a t e l y h e l d l a n d s in T u r k e s t a n t o b e s t a t e property. A c c o r d i n g to C o u n t P a l e n , t h e m i n i s t e r i a l p r o j e c t relied heavily o n t h e views of A d j u n c t G e n e r a l N.O. R o s e n b a c h , g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l of T u r k e s t a n f r o m 1884-1889. B a s e d o n analysis of Islamic law a n d p r a c t i c e s d u r i n g t h e p e r i o d of k h a n rule in C e n t r a l A s i a , R o s e n b a c h a r g u e d t h a t b e f o r e R u s s i a ' s m i l i t a r y c o n quest of t h e r e g i o n , a n y individual could s e a r c h f o r m i n e r a l deposits. H o w e v e r , t h e k h a n s d e t e r m i n e d w h o could exploit t h e s e r e s o u r c e s . R o s e n b a c h t h e r e f o r e r e a s o n e d t h a t , as t h e s u c c e s s o r to t h e k h a n s , t h e R u s s i a n s t a t e p o s s e s s e d c o n t r o l

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o v e r u n d e r g r o u n d m i n e r a l w e a l t h a n d he a d v o c a t e d t h a t e x p l o r a t i o n s be allowed on p r i v a t e l y held l a n d s o n c o n d i t i o n that m i n e r s r e c o m p e n s e t h e o w n e r s of these lands. 3 6 B e c a u s e of t h e o b j e c t i o n s by t h e M i n i s t r y of Justice, h o w e v e r , t h e p r o p o s e d law was n e v e r e n a c t e d . T h e r o o t c a u s e of t h e difficulty in d e t e r m i n i n g m i n i n g rights on t h e lands of t h e s e t t l e d a g r i c u l t u r a l p o p u l a t i o n s a n d t h e s o u r c e of t h e Ministry of Justice's o b j e c t i o n s to t h e R o s e n b a c h p r o p o s a l w a s t h e i m p r e c i s e legal definition of t h e n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n s ' rights t o t h e i r l a n d in g e n e r a l . A r t i c l e 255 of the T u r k e s t a n S t a t u t e p r e c l u d e d any d e f i n i t i o n of u n d e r g r o u n d rights. T h i s article c o n f i r m e d f o r t h e n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n s , t h e l a n d in t h e i r c o n s t a n t , h e r e d i t a r y , use, a n d possession in a c c o r d a n c e with local c u s t o m . 3 7 A l t h o u g h originally i n t e n d e d to s a n c t i o n existing p r a c t i c e s of land t e n u r e in the r e g i o n , this article p r o v i d e d n o legal g u i d e l i n e s f o r d e t e r m i n i n g c u s t o m a r y rights. T h e T u r k e s t a n S t a t u t e of 1886 was the result of 20 years of discussions a n d p r o jects to c r e a t e a system of a d m i n i s t r a t i o n to g o v e r n t h e b o r d e r l a n d . T h e R u s s i a n c o n q u e s t s in C e n t r a l A s i a h a d c r e a t e d a u n i q u e c h a l l e n g e f o r Russia: how to gove r n a sizeable t e r r i t o r y with a large M u s l i m p o p u l a t i o n and s u r r o u n d e d by M u s l i m states. W h e r e a s Russia h a d e n a c t e d p r e v i o u s laws t o g o v e r n n o m a d i c p o p u l a t i o n s in t h e e m p i r e , a n d t h e r e f o r e h a d s o m e e x p e r i e n c e on which to a d m i n i s t e r t h e n o m a d i c p o p u l a t i o n s in t h e g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l s h i p , it h a d little familiarity with t h e c o m p l e x system of irrigation a g r i c u l t u r e a n d land t e n u r e f o u n d in T u r k e s t a n . T h e decision by t h e S t a t e C o u n c i l to affix p r o p e r t y rights on t h e basis of cust o m r e p r e s e n t e d a r e j e c t i o n of t h e two d o m i n a n t views on t h e s y s t e m of land t e n u r e existing in T u r k e s t a n a r t i c u l a t e d d u r i n g t h e l e n g t h y d e l i b e r a t i o n s l e a d i n g to t h e 1886 s t a t u t e . T h e first i n t e r p r e t a t i o n , initially a d v a n c e d by G e n e r a l v o n K a u f m a n and b a s e d in p a r t o n a t h o r o u g h e x a m i n a t i o n of t h e f u n d a m e n t a l principles of Islamic law a n d Islamic s t a t e practices, h e l d t h a t land in t h e p o s s e s s i o n of t h e n a t i v e a g r i c u l t u r i s t s b e l o n g e d to t h e s t a t e w h i c h in t u r n g r a n t e d c o n d i t i o n al rights of u s a g e t o t h e m in e x c h a n g e f o r taxes. T h e o p p o s i n g p o i n t of view, m o s t f o r c e f u l l y a d v o c a t e d by Privy C o u n c i l o r F.A. G i e r s , w h o w a s sent t o T u r k e s t a n t o i n v e s t i g a t e a l l e g e d m i s c o n d u c t in t h e military a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of von K a u f m a n , a s s e r t e d that t h e p o p u l a t i o n h e l d their lands as p r i v a t e p r o p e r t y . 3 8 A s D a n i e l B r o w e r c o r r e c t l y n o t e d , t h e d i f f e r e n c e s in o p i n i o n b e t w e e n t h e t w o m e n r e f l e c t e d d i f f e r i n g s t r a t e g i e s of e m p i r e b u i l d i n g in T u r k e s t a n : o n e which a c k n o w l e d g e d t h e d e g r e e to which t h e u n i q u e c h a r a c t e r of t h e b o r d e r l a n d p r e c l u d e d its easy integ r a t i o n into t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i v e a n d legal f r a m e w o r k of t h e R u s s i a n E m p i r e a n d t h e o t h e r a d v o c a t i n g t h e c o n c e p t of a unified i m p e r i a l t e r r i t o r y in which all s u b j e c t s s h o u l d s h a r e as q u i c k l y as p o s s i b l e in a p r o g r e s s i v e civil o r d e r . 3 9 D e s p i t e t h e i r d i f f e r i n g c o n c l u s i o n s , h o w e v e r , b o t h p o i n t s of view t r a n s l a t e d t h e s y s t e m of l a n d t e n u r e in t h e b o r d e r l a n d i n t o R u s s i a n legal c a t e g o r i e s . T h e S t a t e C o u n c i l , h o w e v e r , at least with r e s p e c t t o l a n d e d p r o p e r t y , d e t e r m i n e d t h a t R u s s i a n legal p r i n c i p l e s w e r e in fact i n c o m p a t i b l e with t h e r e a l i t y in t h e b o r d e r l a n d . In a c u r i o u s a r g u m e n t t h a t specifically r e j e c t e d v o n K a u f m a n ' s

Diamond

in the Rough • 191

r e l i a n c e o n i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s of Islam a n d a c c e p t e d in p r i n c i p l e G i e r s ' views o n t h e n e c e s s i t y of e s t a b l i s h i n g laws f o r t h e b o r d e r l a n d t h a t a g r e e d with t h e f u n d a m e n tal laws of t h e R u s s i a n E m p i r e , t h e C o u n c i l t h e n p r o c e e d e d to a c k n o w l e d g e v o n K a u f m a n ' s e m p h a s i s o n t h e special c h a r a c t e r of land t e n u r e in t h e b o r d e r l a n d . I n d e e d , in d e t e r m i n i n g t h a t p r o p e r t y rights in T u r k e s t a n r e s t e d o n c u s t o m , t h e S t a t e C o u n c i l explicitly a c k n o w l e d g e d its inability t o d e t e r m i n e fully w h a t existing l a n d p r a c t i c e s w e r e . P o i n t i n g t o t h e c o e x i s t e n c e of p r i v a t e a n d c o m m u n a l f o r m s of l a n d h o l d i n g a n d e v e n m o r e i m p o r t a n t l y , t h e c o m p l e x s y s t e m of obligat i o n s p l a c e d on l a n d h o l d e r s to s u p p o r t the r e g i o n ' s irrigation s y s t e m , t h e S t a t e C o u n c i l c o n c l u d e d t h a t t h e l a n d s y s t e m o p e r a t i n g in t h e b o r d e r l a n d could n o t easily be t r a n s l a t e d i n t o R u s s i a n legal terms. 4 0 W i t h r e s p e c t to t h e m i n i n g industry, t h e a b s e n c e of any precise legal d e f i n i t i o n of t h e a g r i c u l t u r a l p o p u l a t i o n ' s right to their l a n d left u n r e s o l v e d t h e q u e s t i o n of u n d e r g r o u n d rights in t h e b o r d e r l a n d . It w o u l d also i m p e d e all s u b s e q u e n t e f f o r t s by t h e R u s s i a n s t a t e to e n c o u r a g e t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of m i n i n g a n d o t h e r i n d u s t r i e s in T u r k e s t a n . I n d e e d , 24 y e a r s later in 1910, C o u n t P a l e n a s s e r t e d t h a t t h e lack of clarification on o w n e r s h i p of i m m o v a b l e p r o p e r t y in t h e b o r d e r l a n d " s t r a n g l e s e c o n o m i c e n t e r p r i s e a n d to a significant d e g r e e p r e v e n t s t h e influx of capital a n d t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of i n d u s t r y in t h e region." 4 1 I n d u s t r y ' s d i s s a t i s f a c t i o n with t h e c o n f u s e d set of legal p r i n c i p l e s a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e c o n t r o l s g o v e r n i n g p r i v a t e m i n i n g initiatives in T u r k e s t a n r e s u l t e d in t h e e s t a b l i s h m e n t of a c o m m i s s i o n in 1907 to p r e p a r e a f o r m a l c o m p l a i n t to t h e T u r k e s t a n g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l a n d t h e M i n i n g D e p a r t m e n t . T h i s c o m m i s s i o n include d s o m e of t h e l e a d i n g e n t r e p r e n e u r s in t h e m i n i n g i n d u s t r y : A . N . Kovalevskii; N . M . T s u k h a n o v , f o u n d e r of t h e C e n t r a l A s i a n Oil C o m p a n y ; S.I. K r a u z e , w h o s e f a m i l y ' s activity in oil d a t e d b a c k t o t h e late 1860s; a n d P.S. N a z a r o v , son of o n e of t h e f o u n d e r s of t h e C e n t r a l A s i a n B a n k , a n d n o w r e p r e s e n t i n g a B e l g i a n firm involved in b o t h coal a n d oil p r o d u c t i o n . 4 2 T h e i n d u s t r i a l i s t s ' c o m p l a i n t s f o c u s e d o n t w o i n t e r r e l a t e d issues: t h e i r right t o carry o u t e x p l o r a t i o n s o n t h e t e r r i t o r y of T u r k e s t a n a n d t h e i r right t o m i n e u n d e r g r o u n d m i n e r a l deposits. 4 3 W i t h respect t o e x p l o r a t i o n s , t h e industrialists p r e s e n t e d a n u m b e r of e x a m p l e s , mostly on C h e l e k e n Island a n d in F e r g a n a o b l a s t , in which lands, previously d e c l a r e d as o p e n t o mining, w e r e t h e n c l o s e d . T h e agency r e s p o n s i b l e f o r this r e v e r sal was t h e l a n d - t a x c o m m i s s i o n . T h e origin a n d f u n c t i o n of this institution d a t e s back to v o n K a u f m a n ' s a d m i n i s t r a t i o n . T h e s e c o m m i s s i o n s w e r e c r e a t e d in 1880 t o u n d e r t a k e " o r g a n i z a t i o n a l w o r k " in F e r g a n a o b l a s t , i.e., to investigate n a t i v e land t e n u r e a r r a n g e m e n t s in p r e p a r a t i o n f o r t h e final r e f o r m of t h e tax s t r u c t u r e on l a n d e d p r o p e r t y . A f t e r 1886 t h e c o m m i s s i o n s h a d responsibility to d e t e r m i n e which lands, according t o A r t i c l e 255, w e r e c o n f i r m e d f o r t h e n a t i v e settled p o p u l a t i o n s and to a p p o r t i o n t a x e s b a s e d on t h e profit d e r i v e d f r o m t h e s e lands. 4 4 D u r i n g t h e 14 y e a r s a f t e r m i n i n g o n f r e e s t a t e l a n d s b e c a m e legally r e c o g n i z e d in T u r k e s t a n , t h e l a n d - t a x c o m m i s s i o n s c o n t i n u e d t h e i r surveys. A similar investig a t i o n of T u r k m e n - h e l d p r o p e r t i e s also t o o k p l a c e o n C h e l e k e n Island. A s a result

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of t h e i r w o r k , t h e l a n d - t a x c o m m i s s i o n s in e f f e c t t o o k back lands p r e v i o u s l y alloc a t e d t o p r i v a t e e n t r e p r e n e u r s a n d d e s i g n a t e d t h e m as b e l o n g i n g t o t h e local p o p u l a t i o n . U n d e r s t a n d a b l y , t h e e n t r e p r e n e u r s o b j e c t e d to this p r a c t i c e which cost them time and money.45 In p a r t , this c o n f u s e d s t a t e of a f f a i r s r e s u l t e d f r o m t h e i n d e p e n d e n t a n d f r e q u e n t l y c o n t r a d i c t o r y e f f o r t s of d i f f e r e n t g r o u p s of officials, p u r s u i n g d i f f e r e n t o b j e c t i v e s a n d o p e r a t i n g o n i m p r e c i s e legal principles. Local officials in t h e agric u l t u r a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n d e c l a r e d c e r t a i n l a n d s o p e n t o m i n i n g activity; t h e i r o p i n ions w e r e t h e n r e p u d i a t e d by t h e l a n d - t a x c o m m i s s i o n s . Indirectly s u p p o r t i n g t h e i n d u s t r i a l i s t s ' claim t h a t t h e l a n d - t a x c o m m i s s i o n s h a d insufficient e v i d e n c e on which to b a s e t h e i r decisions, C o u n t P a l e n n o t e d in his investigation t h a t , in t h e a b s e n c e of any clear i n s t r u c t i o n s g o v e r n i n g t h e i r w o r k , t h e decisions r e a c h e d by t h e l a n d - t a x c o m m i s s i o n s w e r e n o t h i n g m o r e t h a n individual i n t e r p r e t a t i o n s of t h e law by local officials. S t r u g g l i n g t o d e f i n e l a n d t e n u r e a r r a n g e m e n t s b a s e d on c u s t o m , t h e s e officials, acting with c a u t i o n , s o u g h t t o p r o t e c t t h e i n t e r e s t s of the local p o p u l a t i o n a n d t h e r e f o r e g e n e r a l l y a c c e p t e d n a t i v e claims of h e r e d i t a r y l a n d o w n e r s h i p r e g a r d l e s s of legal p r o o f t h e r e o f . T h e a c t u a l p r o c e s s of l a n d s e t t l e m e n t t a k i n g place in t h e b o r d e r l a n d f u r t h e r c o m p l i c a t e d t h e e f f o r t s of local officials a n d p r i v a t e e n t r e p r e n e u r s . T h e a m o u n t of land a v a i l a b l e to m i n i n g in T u r k e s t a n w a s r e d u c e d as n o m a d s a d o p t e d a g r i c u l t u r e as t h e i r p r i m a r y o c c u p a t i o n a n d t h e l a n d - t a x c o m m i s s i o n s c o n f i r m e d lands f o r t h e m on t h e basis of A r t i c l e 255. Finally, d u r i n g this s a m e p e r i o d , t h e T u r k e s t a n a d m i n i s t r a t i o n g r a d u a l l y e x t e n d e d t h e t y p e s of l a n d t h a t could t h e o r e t i c a l l y be assigned t o n a t i v e agriculturists. W h e r e a s initially only l a n d s irrigated by artificial m e a n s w e r e d e s i g n a t e d f o r t h e h e r e d i t a r y use of T u r k e s t a n ' s s e t t l e d n a t i v e p o p u lations, a f t e r 1900 l a n d s i r r i g a t e d n a t u r a l l y b e l o n g e d to this category. This c o n s t a n t r e d e f i n i t i o n of which lands b e l o n g e d to t h e agriculturists f u r t h e r r e s t r i c t e d t h e a m o u n t of land o p e n to m i n i n g a n d at t h e s a m e t i m e c o n d i t i o n e d n e w revisions of p r e v i o u s land s e t t l e m e n t s . 4 6 In r e s p o n s e to this c o n f u s i n g w e b of legal d e c i s i o n s a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e practices, the i n d u s t r i a l i s t s p e t i t i o n e d t h e T u r k e s t a n g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l t o r e q u i r e , in e f f e c t , t h a t t h e l a n d - t a x c o m m i s s i o n s c o n s u l t with a n d u l t i m a t e l y a c c e p t t h e decisions of local r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s of t h e a g r i c u l t u r a l a d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d local m i n i n g a u t h o r i t i e s t h a t d e s i g n a t e d c e r t a i n l a n d s as f r e e f o r mining. T h e y also a s k e d t h a t n o a d d i t i o n a l l a n d s be t r a n s f e r r e d t o f o r m e r l y n o m a d i c p o p u l a t i o n s until legislative a p p r o v a l of a s t a t u t e g o v e r n i n g m i n i n g o n l a n d s of p r i v a t e l a n d h o l d e r s in T u r k e s t a n . In e f f e c t , t h e m i n e r s w a n t e d t o limit t h e rights of T u r k e s t a n ' s p o p u l a tion t o any a d d i t i o n a l t e r r i t o r y n o t fully in its p o s s e s s i o n , t h e r e b y p r e s e r v i n g as m u c h l a n d as p o s s i b l e f o r p r i v a t e e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l initiative. T h i s s a m e o b j e c t i v e c h a r a c t e r i z e d i n d u s t r y ' s p o s i t i o n with r e s p e c t t o u n d e r g r o u n d r i g h t s in T u r k e s t a n . T h e i n d u s t r i a l i s t s a d v o c a t e d t h e p a s s a g e of a law t h a t w o u l d d e c l a r e all subsoil in T u r k e s t a n to be t h e p r o p e r t y of t h e s t a t e , in o t h e r w o r d s t h e original s o l u t i o n p r o p o s e d by t h e M i n i s t r y of A g r i c u l t u r e in 1894. 47

Diamond

in the Rough

• 193

T h e C o u n c i l of t h e T u r k e s t a n g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l c o n s i d e r e d t h e i n d u s t r i a l i s t s ' c o m p l a i n t s in N o v e m b e r 1907. A l t h o u g h d e n y i n g t h a t t h e l a n d - t a x c o m m i s s i o n s h a d a c t e d i m p r o p e r l y and i n s t e a d b l a m i n g t h e i n d u s t r i a l i s t s f o r t h e i r f a i l u r e t o m a r k their claims accurately, t h e C o u n c i l r e c o g n i z e d t h e n e e d t o p r e v e n t t h e s e d i s p u t e s in t h e f u t u r e . T h e C o u n c i l ' s discussion f o c u s e d o n two q u e s t i o n s :

first,

s h o u l d t h e T u r k e s t a n a d m i n i s t r a t i o n c o n t i n u e t h e p r e v i o u s policies of t h e g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l s which p e r m i t t e d p r i v a t e m i n e r s to c a r r y o u t e x p l o r a t i o n s o n l a n d s t h e o w n e r s h i p of which r e m a i n e d u n k n o w n p e n d i n g t h e w o r k of t h e l a n d - t a x c o m m i s s i o n s ; a n d s e c o n d , if t h e s e l a n d s w e r e s u b s e q u e n t l y c o n f i r m e d f o r t h e n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n s , did t h e claims of t h e m i n e r s t a k e p r e c e d e n t ? O n b o t h issues t h e C o u n c i l split. G o v e r n o r - G e n e r a l G r o d e k o v a n d a m i n o r i t y of t h e C o u n c i l a r g u e d t h a t p r o s p e c t i n g licenses s h o u l d only b e given o u t o n l a n d s clearly identified as f r e e s t a t e p r o p e r t y , in o t h e r w o r d s , land o n which t h e l a n d - t a x s u r v e y s h a d b e e n c o m p l e t e d . T h e m a j o r i t y , h o w e v e r , r e j e c t e d this idea a n d i n s t e a d p r o p o s e d to c o n t i n u e t h e p r a c t i c e of a l l o w i n g m i n e r s to e n t e r into a g r e e m e n t s with p r i v a t e " o w n e r s " until g e n e r a l r u l e s c o u l d be w o r k e d o u t which r e g u l a t e d m i n i n g on p r i v a t e l y held l a n d s in T u r k e s t a n . D e s p i t e t h e i r d i f f e r e n c e s , b o t h g r o u p s w e r e trying to r e c o n c i l e t h e n e e d t o e n c o u r a g e t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of m i n i n g in T u r k e s t a n with p r o t e c t i o n f o r t h e rights of t h e n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n . H o w e v e r , r e f l e c t i n g p e r h a p s t h e r e a l i z a t i o n t h a t the s o l u t i o n p r o p o s e d by t h e m a j o r i t y w o u l d in e f f e c t c o n t i n u e t h e c h a o t i c s t a t e of a f f a i r s which existed in t h e b o r d e r l a n d , t h e M i n i n g D e p a r t m e n t r e j e c t e d this s o l u t i o n in 1909 on t h e g r o u n d s t h a t any lease a g r e e m e n t s w o u l d not be legal in t h e a b s e n c e of a law o n u n d e r g r o u n d rights. 4 8 In an e f f o r t to u n t i e t h e G o r d i a n k n o t t h a t b o u n d l a n d t e n u r e a n d m i n i n g , t h e M i n i n g D e p a r t m e n t b e g a n w o r k o n legislation t o g o v e r n m i n i n g o n p r i v a t e l y h e l d lands in T u r k e s t a n a n d T r a n s c a s p i a . In F e b r u a r y 1908 t h e D i r e c t o r of t h e M i n i n g D e p a r t m e n t , D.P. K o n o v a l o v , o r g a n i z e d a c o n f e r e n c e , a t t e n d e d by officials f r o m the a g r i c u l t u r a l

administration

in T u r k e s t a n

and

representatives

from

the

C h a n c e l l e r y of t h e T u r k e s t a n g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l , t o b e g i n p r e l i m i n a r y c o n s i d e r a tion of t h e m a t t e r . 4 9 Discussion f o c u s e d i m m e d i a t e l y o n t h e e s s e n t i a l p r o b l e m t h a t h a d t h w a r t e d earlier e f f o r t s t o r e g u l a t e m i n i n g o n p r i v a t e l y h e l d lands: namely, t h e a m b i g u o u s n a t u r e of A r t i c l e 255. A m a j o r i t y of t h e p a r t i c i p a n t s s u p p o r t e d t h e view t h a t t h e settled native p o p u l a t i o n s only h e l d c o n d i t i o n a l r i g h t s to t h e land in t h e i r p o s s e s sion. C e n t r a l t o t h e i r d e c i s i o n w a s n o t only t h e p r e v i o u s l y m e n t i o n e d t e n e t s of Islamic law b u t t h e fact t h a t in c o n t r a s t t o A r t i c l e 255, A r t i c l e s 260 a n d 269 of t h e T u r k e s t a n s t a t u t e g r a n t e d full rights of p r i v a t e p r o p e r t y t o u r b a n citizens with respect to their l a n d s a n d buildings. In o t h e r words, t h e a b s e n c e of such l a n g u a g e in Article 255 signified t h e a b s e n c e of t h e s e rights. 5 0 O p p o s i n g this p o i n t of view was the h e a d of t h e T u r k e s t a n g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l ' s c h a n c e l l e r y , C o l o n e l M u s t a f i n , w h s s u g g e s t e d t h a t t h e S t a t e C o u n c i l ' s c o n f i r m a t i o n of l a n d o w n e r s h i p b a s e d o n custom may h a v e r e f e r r e d n o t t o juridical rights of o w n e r s h i p d e r i v e d f r o m Islamic law but in fact t h e d i s t r i b u t i o n of p r o p e r t y a m o n g t h e p o p u l a t i o n . M o r e o v e r , h e

194 • Muriel

Joffe

r e m i n d e d t h e c o n f e r e n c e t h a t t h e p r i n c i p l e s of Islamic law w e r e n o t sufficiently " d e f i n i t e " o r " c l e a r " t o serve as t h e basis o n which to decide such a f u n d a m e n t a l ly i m p o r t a n t q u e s t i o n as t h e "civil p r o p e r t y r i g h t s " of t h e large p o p u l a t i o n of an "enormous borderland."51 R e s o l v i n g t h a t only t h e S e n a t e c o u l d d e t e r m i n e o n c e a n d f o r all t h e m e a n i n g of A r t i c l e 255, t h e c o n f e r e n c e r e q u e s t e d t h a t t h e Minister of T r a d e a n d I n d u s t r y b r i n g this m a t t e r to t h e S e n a t e ' s a t t e n t i o n . 5 2 A t t h e s a m e time, t h e M i n i s t r y c o m p l e t e d its d r a f t p r o j e c t o n t h e p r i n c i p l e t h a t u n d e r g r o u n d rights b e l o n g e d to t h e p u b l i c r e a l m . 5 3 A l t h o u g h this decision signified an a p p a r e n t victory f o r t h e rights of p r i v a t e e n t r e p r e n e u r s in r e l a t i o n to T u r k e s t a n ' s native p o p u l a t i o n s , t h e p r o p o s e d legislation also p l a c e d c e r t a i n limits o n p r i v a t e industry. A r t i c l e 10 stipul a t e d t h a t t h e s t a t e h a d an e q u a l right to c a r r y o u t m i n i n g activities b u t w i t h o u t o b s e r v a n c e of any of t h e

financial

or temporal obligations placed on private

industry. 5 4 In o t h e r words, t h e d r a f t legislation p l a c e d p r i v a t e m i n i n g e n t e r p r i s e s at a c o m p e t i t i v e d i s a d v a n t a g e in r e l a t i o n to t h e s t a t e ' s o w n m i n i n g e f f o r t s . M o r e o v e r , t h e legislative p r o j e c t c o n t a i n e d a d e t a i l e d p r o p o s a l to r e m o v e s u p e r v i s i o n o v e r m i n i n g f r o m t h e local a d m i n i s t r a t i o n a n d s u b o r d i n a t e it to t h e

Mining

D e p a r t m e n t of t h e M i n i s t r y of T r a d e a n d Industry. 5 5 If i m p l e m e n t e d , this p r o p o s al w o u l d h a v e s t r e n g t h e n e d t h e ability of t h e g o v e r n m e n t to r e g u l a t e t h e activities of p r i v a t e industry. In essence, t h e p r o p o s e d mining bill r e p r e s e n t e d an e f f o r t by the Ministry of T r a d e and I n d u s t r y to assert its control o v e r what it perceived as a rapidly develo p i n g and e x t r e m e l y i m p o r t a n t b r a n c h of industry. By t r a n s f e r r i n g a u t h o r i t y o v e r mining to t h e St. P e t e r s b u r g b u r e a u c r a c y a n d s u b o r d i n a t i n g t h e lands o c c u p i e d by t h e settled agricultural p o p u l a t i o n to sections of the Imperial M i n i n g C o d e , t h e Ministry in e f f e c t s o u g h t to e l i m i n a t e t h e last r e m a i n i n g legal a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e s a f e g u a r d s g o v e r n i n g m i n i n g activities in T u r k e s t a n c o n s t r u c t e d o n t h e basis of t h e special c h a r a c t e r of e c o n o m i c r e l a t i o n s in t h e b o r d e r l a n d . For this r e a s o n t h e Ministry's p r o p o s a l s b e c a m e p a r t of t h e larger discussions t a k i n g place d u r i n g this s a m e p e r i o d t o e n a c t a n e w s t a t u t e f o r T u r k e s t a n and p r e p a r e for t h e t r a n s f e r of t h e b o r d e r l a n d f r o m the jurisdiction of t h e Ministry of War to that of I n t e r n a l A f f a i r s . A l t h o u g h p a r t of t h e g e n e r a l r e f o r m of t h e s t a t e s t r u c t u r e t a k i n g p l a c e a f t e r 1905, t h e specific decision t o revise t h e T u r k e s t a n s t a t u t e r e f l e c t e d a h e i g h t e n e d a w a r e n e s s , b o t h in St. P e t e r s b u r g a n d T a s h k e n t , t h a t t h e task of a d m i n i s t r a t i o n in t h e b o r d e r l a n d h a d f u n d a m e n t a l l y c h a n g e d d u r i n g t h e fifty-year p e r i o d of R u s sian rule. A s e x p r e s s e d by M i n i s t e r of W a r S u k h o m l i n o v in a l e t t e r to P r i m e M i nister K o k o v t s e v in 1912, a d m i n i s t r a t i o n h a d e v o l v e d f r o m t h e s i m p l e task of p r e serving o r d e r a n d calm in a " d i s t a n t b o r d e r l a n d " or "colony," i n h a b i t e d by p e o p l e l e a d i n g " p r i m i t i v e " lives, t o t h e c o m p l e x task of g o v e r n i n g an " i n d i v i s i b l e " p a r t of t h e e m p i r e . T h e d e v e l o p m e n t of t h e r e g i o n t h r o u g h r a i l r o a d c o n s t r u c t i o n , c o t t o n c u l t i v a t i o n a n d c o l o n i z a t i o n h a d t r a n s f o r m e d t h e task of a d m i n i s t r a t i o n f r o m p e a c e k e e p i n g t o m a n a g e m e n t of b r o a d a r e a s of civil a n d e c o n o m i c life. 5 6 E q u a l l y i m p o r t a n t , revision of t h e s t a t u t e w a s essential to t h e n e w d i r e c t i o n of

Diamond in the Rough • 195 R u s s i a n state policy in Turkestan after 1905: to p r o m o t e the "economic and cultural development of the borderland." 5 7 Initially advanced by Minister of War R e d i g e r in 1906, this new agenda, which in fact had been advocated by Vyshnegradskii in 1890, received its clearest elaboration in the policies of A.I. Krivoshein a n d the Chief Administration of Land Settlement and Agriculture ( G U Z Z ) . T h e s e policies called for a sweeping p r o g r a m of g o v e r n m e n t and private initiatives dedicated to the creation of a new Turkestan through cotton-growing, irrigation, and colonization. In his m e m o r a n d u m to the tsar based on his visit to T u r k e s t a n in 1912, Krivoshein asserted that the "immediate, e n o r m o u s task of Russian rule" lay in "the development of [Turkestan's] productive forces," the i m p r o v e m e n t of which would "enrich" the entire state. 5 8 In contrast to tsarist policy during the first half-century of Russian rule, which had subordinated economic objectives to the complicated tasks of peace and security, and for that same reason restricted Russian settlement in Turkestan to Semirechie oblast, Krivoshein m a d e economic progress and colonization the foundation of Russian rule and security in Turkestan. Within this context, the proposed bill on mining was part of a larger state effort a f t e r 1905 to create a new legal and administrative structure for Turkestan conditioned by the past and f u t u r e development of the region under Russian rule. 59 A l t h o u g h deliberations on this statute revisited the same arguments that were advanced in the period leading up to the 1886 statute about the degree to which conditions of life in the borderland required "special" laws, state policy, especially a f t e r 1905, gradually restricted the sphere of civil and economic life afforded special protection. As the Council of Ministers explained, it was time to bring the principles of administration in the borderland into conformity with the general laws of the Russian E m p i r e thereby strengthening the principle of Russian gosudarstvennost' (state consciousness). 6 0 In other words, the objective was to include Turkestan within the unified imperial state system. At the very least, that system required the transfer of overall authority over Turkestan to the Ministry of Internal Affairs. With respect to economic life, it signified the transfer of responsibility to the civil bureaucracies in St. Petersburg responsible for the national economy. Although the o u t b r e a k of World War I prevented completion of a new administrative statute for Turkestan, as well as passage of the mining bill, the proposals contained therein represented a mixed blessing for the private sector. In its reco m m e n d a t i o n s to the tsar in N o v e m b e r 1912 for a new Turkestan statute, the Council of Ministers, supporting the view of governor-general Samsonov, as well as the general spirit of land reform initiated by Stolypin, finally advocated granting full property rights to the native population. 6 1 Although this may be interpreted as protection for the native agriculturists, both Tashkent and St. Petersburg understood that this measure also established a legal basis to facilitate the transfer of these lands to Russian e n t r e p r e n e u r s and, perhaps even m o r e importantly, to Russian colonists. Indeed, in championing the native populations' right of pri-

196 • Muriel

Joffe

v a t e p r o p e r t y , K r i v o s h e i n a r g u e d t h a t this m e a s u r e would e n c o u r a g e the "civil t u r n o v e r " of p r o p e r t y . 6 2 Final d e m a r c a t i o n of p r o p e r t y rights w o u l d also serve to restrict t h e " l a n d - g r a b b i n g " activities of t h e agriculturists n o t e d by the T u r k e s t a n g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l s , e.g. V r e v s k i i in 1895, P a l e n a n d K r i v o s h e i n , m u c h t h e s a m e as p r e v i o u s g o v e r n m e n t l a n d s e t t l e m e n t s f o r t h e K a z a k h s a n d T u r k m e n had p l a c e d limits on their claims t o p r o p e r t y . 6 3 T h e C o u n c i l ' s r e c o m m e n d a t i o n to apply t h e r u l e s g o v e r n i n g m i n i n g in Tsarist P o l a n d t o T u r k e s t a n also p r o t e c t e d the m i n i n g i n d u s t r y f r o m t h e t h r e a t p o s e d b y t h e small p r i v a t e l a n d o w n e r s , w h o m P a l e n , in t h e colonial d i s c o u r s e of t h e e r a , d e s c r i b e d as "a relatively u n c u l t u r e d p o p u l a t i o n " " f a n a t i c a l l y d e v o t e d to its clergy." 6 4 A t the s a m e t i m e , t h e g o v e r n m e n t ' s p r o p o s a l s also placed s e r i o u s restrictions o n t h e activity of t h e p r i v a t e s e c t o r , similar t o t h o s e f o u n d in t h e legislative p r o j e c t s of t h e G U Z Z o n w a t e r r i g h t s a n d p r i v a t e irrigation c o m p a n i e s in T u r k e s t a n . S u b o r d i n a t i o n of t h e i n d u s t r y t o t h e I m p e r i a l M i n i n g C o d e , especially t h e rules g o v e r n i n g m i n i n g in T s a r i s t P o l a n d , m e a n t i n c r e a s e d i n t e r f e r e n c e by t h e m i n i n g d e p a r t m e n t in g r a n t i n g m i n i n g c o n c e s s i o n s a n d in t h e c o n t r a c t u a l

relations

between private landowners and entrepreneurs. W i t h respect to T u r k e s t a n ' s n a t i v e p o p u l a t i o n s , t h e p r o p o s e d laws implied f u r t h e r c h a n g e s in t h e i r way of life t h r o u g h i n c r e a s e d , n o w legal, access by R u s s i a n c a p i t a l a n d R u s s i a n s e t t l e r s to t h e i r n a t u r a l resources. It also implied g r e a t e r i n t e r f e r e n c e by t h e tsarist g o v e r n m e n t in a r e a s of civil a n d e c o n o m i c life previously c o n t r o l l e d by n a t i v e a u t h o r i t i e s a n d t h e e x t e n s i o n of R u s s i a n civil laws t o a r e a s o n c e d e f i n e d by " c u s t o m . " In e f f e c t , o n t h e e v e of World W a r I t h e tsarist g o v e r n m e n t p r o p o s e d a n e w set of e c o n o m i c rights in T u r k e s t a n t o s u p p o r t t h e b r o a d e c o n o m i c t r a n s f o r m a t i o n of t h e r e g i o n . T h e d e c i s i o n f o l l o w e d 50 y e a r s of d e b a t e s a m o n g tsarist officials a n d t h e m i l i t a r y - a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of T u r k e s t a n a b o u t h o w to g o v e r n t h e R u s s i a n b o r d e r l a n d . In these d e b a t e s , i m p e r i a l d r e a m s of e x p l o i t i n g T u r k e s t a n ' s rich n a t u r a l r e s o u r c e s w e r e s u b o r d i n a t e d t o t h e b r o a d e r political o b j e c t i v e s of s t r e n g t h e n i n g R u s s i a n rule in t h e b o r d e r l a n d . To this e n d , a n d c o n s i s t e n t with tsarist policy in o t h e r p a r t s of t h e e m p i r e , R u s s i a n a u t h o r i t i e s s o u g h t t o c o n t r o l t h e e c o n o m i c life in t h e b o r d e r l a n d t h r o u g h legal a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e m e a n s . This task, h o w e v e r , w a s c o m p l i c a t e d by t h e u n f a m i l i a r set of s o c i o - e c o n o m i c a n d c u l t u r a l p a t t e r n s t h a t R u s s i a n a u t h o r i t i e s e n c o u n t e r e d in T u r k e s t a n , especially t h e large M u s l i m , s e t t l e d p o p u l a t i o n a n d t h e c o m p l e x s y s t e m of irrigation agriculture. In r e s p o n s e , tsarist officials a n d m i l i t a r y - a d m i n i s t r a t o r s c o m m i s s i o n e d s e r i o u s i n v e s t i g a t i o n s i n t o t h e laws a n d c u s t o m s g o v e r n i n g e c o n o m i c life in t h e b o r d e r l a n d : e.g. Islamic law, e c o n o m i c rights u n d e r t h e k h a n s , a n d n o m a d i c c u s t o m s t o d e t e r m i n e t h e a p p r o p r i a t e policies t o s u p p o r t R u s s i a n rule. H o w e v e r , as this s t u d y h a s s h o w n , t h e i r c o n c l u sions a n d R u s s i a n policy in g e n e r a l w e r e strongly i n f l u e n c e d by R u s s i a n legal p r e c e d e n t s a n d R u s s i a n c o n c e p t s of e c o n o m i c , civil a n d political o r d e r . T h e a r t i c u l a t i o n of i m p e r i a l e c o n o m i c policies ( t h e laws a n d a d m i n i s t r a t i v e r e g u l a t i o n s c o n t r o l l i n g e c o n o m i c life) t o w a r d R u s s i a ' s b o r d e r l a n d s r e v e a l s t h e

Diamond

in the Rough

• 197

complexity of the process of empire building in Russia. As evident in the discussion of property rights and mining laws, the debates over policy choices involved multiple authorities and reflected more than just the traditional division between the central bureaucracies in St. Petersburg and the military administration in Tashkent. For the most part, Russian entrepreneurs were minor players in these debates and the native populations had no voice. However, the implementation of these policies, e.g., the role of the "land-tax commissions" and mining authorities in Turkestan, suggests an additional level in the administration of the borderlands and an area where the "colonizers" and the "colonized" interacted. The subordination of economic policy to broader political objectives contributed to the uneven development of Turkestan observed by Witte at the end of the tsarist era. With respect to economic rights, the proposed assimilation of Turkestan into the Russian Empire extended to Russia's Central Asian borderland the restrictions governing economic life elsewhere in the empire. These included a circumscribed set of property rights, discriminatory laws that apportioned economic rights on the basis of nationality and ethnicity, and government restrictions on private entrepreneurship. In other words, the assimilation of Turkestan into the Russian Empire deepened the internal contradictions between economic development and autocratic rule. The absence of private property in land continues to restrict economic development in Russia today. Notes k otchetu po revizii Turkestanskogo kraia, proizvedennoi po 1 K.K. Palen, Prilozhenie Vysochaishemu poveleniiu Senatorom Gofmeislerom Grafom K.K. Palenom. Materialy k kharakteristike narodnogo khoziaistva v Turkestane (St. Petersburg, 1911), pt. 1: 582. 2 "Prebyvanie vTashkent Ministra finansov," Turkestanskie vedemosti (18 September 1890). 3 S.Iu. Witte, Izbrannye vospominaniia 1849-1911 gg. (Moscow: Mysl', 1991), 150. 4 The use of the term Turkestan in this article refers specifically to the governor-generalship of Turkestan created in 1867. This administrative unit underwent a number of changes in the prewar period and eventually consisted of five oblasts: Transcaspia, Syr-Daria, Semirechie, Fergana and Samarkand. Today parts of this territory are found in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. 5 Glavnoe upravlenie zemleustroistva i zemledeliia [hereafter G U Z Z ] , P e r e s e l e n c h e s k o e upravlenie, Aziatskaia Rossiia, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg. 1914), 1: 27. 6 Muriel Joffe, "Autocracy, Capitalism and Empire: The Politics of Irrigation." Russian Review 54, no. 3 (July 1995): 3 6 5 - 3 8 8 . 7 Autocratic system refers here to the political and legal institutions with c o n s e q u e n c e s for economic development. According to the e c o n o m i c historian Douglass C. North, institutions such as laws, constitutions, contracts, and property rights are the rules of the g a m e that determine e c o n o m i c performance. Douglass C. North, Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990). For an excellent analysis of how political and legal institutions, as well as cultural values, limited Russian e c o n o m i c d e v e l o p m e n t , see Thomas C. O w e n , The Corporation under Russian Law, 1800-1917: A Study in Tsarist Economic Policy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991) and Thomas C. O w e n , Russian Corporate Capitalism from Peter the Great to Perestroika ( N e w York: Oxford University Press, 1995).

1 9 8 • Muriel J o f f e 8 R e c e n t s t u d i e s of R u s s i a ' s b o r d e r l a n d s have s h i f t e d historical a t t e n t i o n a w a y f r o m t h e c e n t e r s of a u t o c r a t i c p o w e r t o p e o p l e s or t e r r i t o r i e s on the p e r i p h e r i e s or m a r g i n s of t h e e m p i r e . This n e w field of " b o r d e r l a n d s r e s e a r c h " increases o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of the evol u t i o n of Russian imperial rule. S o m e of t h e s e studies apply n e w m e t h o d o l o g i e s in cultural a n t h r o p o l o g y a n d e t h n o g r a p h y o r t h e l i t e r a t u r e on colonialism to e x p l o r e t h e relations h i p s b e t w e e n distinct p e o p l e s , c o n c e p t s of identity, or r e a c t i o n s to colonial rule. This essay s e e k s t o i n c r e a s e o u r u n d e r s t a n d i n g of t h e c h o i c e and significance of imperial policies t o w a r d t h e b o r d e r l a n d . O n e of t h e best c o l l e c t i o n s of t h e n e w r e s e a r c h is D a n i e l R . B r o w e r and E d w a r d J. Lazzerini, eds., Russia's Orient: Imperial Borderlands and Peoples, 1700-1917 ( B l o o m i n g t o n : I n d i a n a University Press, 1997). 9 S h i p o v ' s t w o - v o l u m e w o r k o n t h e c o t t o n i n d u s t r y and his " M e m o r a n d u m o n t h e M e a n s t o D e v e l o p O u r T r a d e with C e n t r a l A s i a " (1862) explicitly link R u s s i a n i n d u s t r i a l i z a t i o n , R u s s i a n e c o n o m i c a s c e n d a n c y in Asia, a n d R u s s i a ' s u n i q u e f u t u r e as a g r e a t p o w e r . A l e k s a n d r Shipov, Khlopchato-bumazhnaia promyshlennost' i vazhnost' eia znacheniia v Rossii, 2 vols. ( M o s c o w , 1858), 2: 20-22; m e m o r a n d u m q u o t e d in M a r i a K. R o z h k o v a , Ekonomicheskie sviazi Rossii so Srednei Aziei 40-60-e gody XIX veka ( M o s c o w : A N S S S R , 1963), 148-149. A l f r e d J. R i e b e r c h a r a c t e r i z e s this S l a v o p h i l e - m e r c h a n t association as a regional interest g r o u p , t h e M o s c o w e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l g r o u p . T h e e m e r g e n c e of this g r o u p is e x p l a i n e d in A l f r e d J. R i e b e r , Merchants and Entrepreneurs in Imperial Russia ( C h a p e l Hill: U n i v e r s i t y of N o r t h C a r o l i n a Press, 1982), chaps. 4 - 5 . 10 A few d a r i n g individuals, such as t h e textile m a n u f a c t u r e r M . A . Khludov, t o o k a d v a n t a g e of R u s s i a ' s initial military victories t o travel b e t w e e n 1863 a n d 1865, at g r e a t e c o n o m i c a n d p e r s o n a l risk, to e x p l o r e business o p p o r t u n i t i e s in B u k h a r a and K o k a n d . K h l u d o v ' s initiative, as well as a c t u a l h e r o i s m at the b a t t l e s of U r a T u b e a n d D z h i z a k , e a r n e d him t h e r e s p e c t and f r i e n d s h i p of C h e r n a i e v w h o a d m i r e d his " h o n e s t R u s s i a n c h a r a c t e r , " r e a d y f o r any "self-sacrifice." F.I. L o b y s e v i c h , Postupatel'noe dvizhenie v Srednoiu Aziiu v torgovom i diplomatichesko-voennom otnoshenii. Dopolnitel'nyi material dlia istorii pokhoda 1873g. (St. P e t e r s b u r g : Tip. O b s h c h e s t v e n n a i a p o l ' z a , 1900), Khivinskago 127-128. 11 K.P. von K a u f m a n , Proekt vsepoddaneishago otcheta gen.-adiutanta K.P. fon-Kaufmana 1 po grazhdanskomu upravleniiu i ustroistvu v oblastiakh Turkestanskago general-gubernatostva, 7 noiabria 1867-25 marta 1881g. (St. P e t e r s b u r g , 1885), 306-308; s e e also r e p o r t of G o v e r n o r - G e n e r a l Vrevskii (1898) in Rossiiskii g o s u d a r s t v e n n y i istoricheskii a r k h i v [ h e r e a f t e r R G I A ] , f. 560, op. 26, ed. khr. 87,11. 5 - 5 o b , 2 0 - 2 0 o b . 12 N o t all g o v e r n m e n t e f f o r t s s u c c e e d e d . In 1868 G e n e r a l von K a u f m a n tried to m a k e T a s h k e n t the c o m m e r c i a l c e n t e r of C e n t r a l A s i a n c o m m e r c e by o p e n i n g t w o n e w fairs in t h e R u s s i a n p a r t of t h e city. H o w e v e r , this a t t e m p t to r e d u c e t h e historical a n d religious p r e s tige of B u k h a r a and s u b s t i t u t e for it a n e w c o m m e r c i a l s y m b o l of R u s s i a n rule f a i l e d . C e n t r a l A s i a n m e r c h a n t s r e f u s e d t o t r a d e at t h e s e fairs a n d t h e y closed in 1879. E d w a r d A l l w o r t h , ed., Central Asia: 130 Years of Russian Dominance, A Historical Overview, 3 r d e d . ( D u r h a m : D u k e U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1994), 138; von K a u f m a n , Proekt, 361-363; A . I . D o b r o s myslov, Tashkent v proshlom i nastoiashchem ( T a s h k e n t , 1912), 365-368. 13 Local o r g a n s of t h e Ministry of A g r i c u l t u r e a n d State D o m a i n s were only c r e a t e d in Turk e s t a n in 1897. V.I. M a s a l ' s k i i , Turkestanskii krai, vol. 19 of Rossiia. Polnoe geograficheskoe opisanie nashego otechestva, e d . V.P. S e m e n o v - T i a n Shanskii (St. P e t e r s b u r g , 1913), 7 - 8 , 5 1 0 - 5 1 1 . 14 For e x a m p l e von K a u f m a n was an h o n o r a r y m e m b e r of t h e Russian Industrial S o c i e t y which d e v o t e d several m e e t i n g s to p r o m o t i n g Russian c o m m e r c e in C e n t r a l Asia. N.A. Khalfin, " O b s h c h e s t v o dlia sodeistviia russkoi p r o m y s h l e n n o s t i i torgovli i S r e d n i a i a Aziia," Voprosy istorii 8 (1975): 52-53, 55; T h o m a s C. O w e n , " T h e R u s s i a n I n d u s t r i a l Society a n d Tsarist E c o n o m i c Policy, 1867-1905," Journal of Economic History 45, no. 3 (1985): 589-594.

Notes • 199 15 T h e M o s c o w - T a s h k e n t C o m p a n y is o n e e x a m p l e of t h e s e business failures. See R i e b e r , Merchants and Entrepreneurs, 208-209. 1 6 S u p p o r t for c u s t o m s unification c a m e f r o m Witte. w h o a d v o c a t e d t h e d e v e l o p m e n t of R u s s i a n c o m m e r c e in Asia as a m e a n s of s t r e n g t h e n i n g R u s s i a n political i n f l u e n c e t h e r e a n d t h e Ministry of W a r in an a t t e m p t to r e d u c e f u r t h e r t h e i n d e p e n d e n c e of t h e B u k h a r a n e m i r , a policy which t h e M i n i s t r y of Foreign A f f a i r s s t r e n u o u s l y but u n s u c c e s s f u l l y o p p o s e d . B.V. A n a n ' i c h , Rossiiskoe samoderzhavie i vyvoz kapiialov 1895-19I4gg. (Po materialam Uchetno-ssudnogo banka Persii) ( L e n i n g r a d : N a u k a , 1975), 15-16; O n R u s s i a ' s r e l a t i o n s with B u k h a r a and K h i v a , see S e y m o u r B e c k e r , Russia's Protectorates in Central Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865-1924 ( C a m b r i d g e : H a r v a r d University Press, 1968). 17 M i n i s t e r s t v o finansov, Materialy dlia statistiki khlopchato-bumazhnago proizvodstva Rossii (St. P e t e r s b u r g . 1901), 2; V.N. O g l o b l i n , Khlopchatobumazhnaia promyshlennost' russkikh sredneaziatskikh vladeniiakh. Putevye zametki (St. P e t e r s b u r g , 1901), 20.

v v

18 S h i f t i n g f r o n t i e r s a n d c u s t o m s z o n e s , as well as v a r i a t i o n s in t h e m e t h o d of c o l l e c t i n g statistics p r e c l u d e any exact c o m p a r i s o n of R u s s i a n - C e n t r a l A s i a n t r a d e b e f o r e a n d a f t e r R u s s i a ' s pacification of the r e g i o n . O g l o b l i n e s t i m a t e s t h a t t h e v o l u m e of R u s s i a n e x p o r t s of finished g o o d s to C e n t r a l A s i a m o r e t h a n d o u b l e d in t h e p e r i o d b e t w e e n 1887 a n d 1897. O g l o b l i n , Khlopchatobumazhnaia promyshlennost', 44. 19 For an o v e r v i e w of t h e i r activity, see V.Ia. Laverychev, Moskovskie fabrikanty i sredneaziatskii khlopok, Vestnik M o s k o v s k o g o u n i v e r s i t e t a , Istoriia, ser. 9, no. 1 (1970): 5 6 - 6 0 . 20 M.I. B r o d o v s k i i , Kolonial'noe znachenie nashikh sredneaziatskikh vladenii dlia vnutrennikh gubernii ( M o s c o w : Tip. D.I. I n o z e m t s e v a , 1891), 4. B r o d o v s k i i was t h e a d m i n i s t r a t o r of t h e c h a n c e l l e r y of t h e T u r k e s t a n g o v e r n o r - g e n e r a l f r o m 1899 to 1901 a n d s e c r e t a r y of the T u r k e s t a n B r a n c h of the Society for A m a t e u r s of N a t u r a l Science. A n t h r o p o l o g y a n d Ethnography. 21 Masal'skii, Turkestanskii krai, 5 3 9 - 5 4 0 : K.K. P a l e n , Otchet po revizii Turkestanskago proizvedennoi po Vyshochaishemu poveleniiu Senatorom Gofmeisterom Grafom Palenom. Gornoe delo (St. P e t e r s b u r g : S e n a t o r s k a i a tipografiia, 1910), intro., 1 - 2 , 3 1 . i n t r o d u c t i o n t o this v o l u m e is p a g i n a t e d s e p a r a t e l y ; t h e c h a p t e r s [ h e n c e f o r t h text] a r e inated in c o n s e c u t i v e o r d e r . )

kraia, K.K. (The pag-

22 P e r v u s h i n a n d the c o t t o n m a n u f a c t u r e r K h l u d o v w e r e business associates. For a p a n e g y r i c t o t h e s e pioneers, see E . L . M a r k o v , " N a O k s u s e i I a k s a r t e ( P u t e v y e o c h e r k i T u r k e s t a n a ) , " Russkoe obozrenie ( D e c e m b e r 1893): 6 2 3 - 6 2 5 ; o n t h e i r e c o n o m i c v e n t u r e s , s e e D o b r o s m y s l o v , Tashkent, 371-372, 3 7 6 - 3 8 9 , 394-395, 514-515; E . L . M a r k o v , " F e r g a n a ( P u t e v y e o c h e r k i T u r k e s t a n a ) , " Russkii vestnik ( J u n e 1893): 102. 2 3 B r o d o v s k i i , Kolonial'noe znachenie 57-58; Masal'skii, Turkestanskii krai, Gornoe delo, intro., 1 - 2 ; text, 173, 244. 24 Masal'skii, Turkestanskii krai, 542; P a l e n , Gornoe delo, intro., 3 1 , 1 4 6 .

541-542; Palen,

25 P a l a s h k o v s k i i a t t e m p t e d to build a p i p e l i n e f r o m t h e C a s p i a n Sea to Persia in 1885. See A n a n ' i c h , Rossiiskoe samoderzhavie i vyvoz kapitalov, 34; Masal'skii, Turkestanskii krai, 540-541; P a l e n , Gornoe delo, intro. 2 - 3 , 90; text, 31, 62-65, 71, 74, 2 0 4 - 2 1 7 , 2 2 4 - 2 3 5 . O n Kovalevskii and i r r i g a t i o n , see J o f f e , "Autocracy, C a p i t a l i s m and E m p i r e , " 3 7 9 - 3 8 0 . 26 See for e x a m p l e the r e p o r t of M a j o r - G e n e r a l Vasil'ev c o m p o s e d for t h e M i n i s t e r of W a r in 1906. R G I A , f. 1276, op. 2, ed. k h r . 36,11. 3 - 3 o b . 27 G o r n y i d e p a r t a m e n t , Obshchii obzor glavnykh lennosti ( P e t r o g r a d , 1915), 2 3 1 - 2 3 2 , 279.

otraslei gornoi

i gornozavodskoi

promysh-

28 K.K. P a l e n , Prilozhenie k otchetu po revizii Turkestanskago kraia, 480. In 1908, C o u n t K.K. Palen ( s o m e t i m e s spelled P a h l e n ) was a p p o i n t e d t o h e a d a s e n a t o r i a l i n v e s t i g a t i o n into t h e a d m i n i s t r a t i o n of T u r k e s t a n a n d in p a r t i c u l a r , c h a r g e s of c o r r u p t i o n . F r o m J u n e 1908— J u n e 1909 Palen t o u r e d t h e b o r d e r l a n d a n d c o n d u c t e d a m u l t i - f a c e t e d e x a m i n a t i o n of gove r n m e n t a l , social a n d e c o n o m i c affairs. His m u l t i - v o l u m e r e p o r t of t h e r e s u l t s of this

200 • Muriel J o f f e

29

30

31 32

33 34 35 36

37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44

45 46

47

investigation, published between 1909-1910, remains one of the best sources on Turkestan in the imperial period. Joffe, "Autocracy, Capitalism and Empire," 376-377; Owen, The Corporation under Russian Law, 128: Palen, Prilozhenie k otchetu po revizii Turkestanskago kraia, 492-495; Ustav gornyi, vol. 7 of Svod zakonov Rossiiskoi Imperii (St. Petersburg: Izd. Kodifikatsionnogo otd. pri Gos. Soviete, 1893), art. 267. Susan P. McCaffray, The Politics of Industrialization in Tsarist Russia: The Association of Southern Coal and Steel Producers, 1874-1917) (DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996), 10. For the evolution of these laws, see Semen Abamalek-Lazarev, Vopros o nedrakh i razvitie gornoi promyshlennosti v xix stoletie (St. Petersburg: 1902), pt. 1. Abamalek-Lazarev, Vopros o nedrakh, 38-39. The territorial and administrative structures of Turkestan were revised several times after the initial creation of the governor-generalship in 1867. The last revision occurred in 1898 when Transcaspia and Semirechie oblasts were included in the governor-generalship. The 1887 mining law applied to those lands included in the Syr-Daria, Fergana and Samarkand oblasts in 1898. Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii, ser. 3 (1887), no. 4521; Ustav gornyi, art. 255. Ustav gornyi, art. 271; Palen, Cornoe delo, text, 31-32, 172-180. Ustav gornyi, art. 203, 271 ; Palen, Gornoe delo, text, 31, 200, 246. Palen, Gornoe delo, text, 260-263. The opinions of General Rosenbach are found in Palen, Gornoe delo, text, 12-14. A reexamination of the 1894 decision by the Mining Department in St. Petersburg in 1907-08 provides additional insight into the basis of Islamic law used in the 1894 project. See R G I A , f. 37, op. 68, ed. khr. 549,11. 7-8. Palen, Gornoe delo, text, 14. In their analysis of the system of land tenure or other legal issues, such as mining rights in Turkestan, von Kaufman and other military-administrators enlisted the support of Russian orientalists, consulted the works of foreign experts on Islamic law and stale practices and even consulted local qadi, judges who adjudicate disputes on the basis of Islamic law or the Shar'ia. Von Kaufman also dispatched the future Minister of War and Governor-General of Turkestan, A.N. Kuropatkin to Algeria to study its system of land tenure. Privy Councilor Giers and other tsarist officials in St. Petersburg working on the administrative projects for Turkestan also consulted scholarly works on Islamic law. For a history of these debates, see A.P. Savitskii, Pozemel'nyi vopros v Turkestane (v proektakh i zakone 1867-1886 gg.) (Tashkent: CamGU, 1903). For a critical analysis of von K a u f m a n ' s support for scientific study of Turkestan see Daniel R. Brower, "Islam and Ethnicity: Russian Colonial Policy in Turkestan" in Brower and Lazzerini, eds., Russia's Orient, 123-125. Daniel Brower, "The Russian Imperial Project in Turkestan: Divergent Visions, Convergent Failure" (paper presented at the A A A S S convention, Boston, 14 November 1996), 2. Pechatnaia zapiska zasedaniia Gosudarstvennago Soveta, no. 268 (1886): 11-15. R G I A , f. 1276, op. 2, ed. khr. 36,1. 128ob. R G I A , f. 1396, op. 1, ed. khr. 201,1. 2; Palen, Gornoe delo, text, 3. R G I A , f. 1396, op. 1, ed. khr. 201,1. 2ob. K.K. Palen, Otchet po revizii Turkestanskago kraia, proizvedennoi po Vyshochaishemu poveleniiu Senatorom Gofmeisterom Grafom K.K. Palenom. Pozemel'no-podatnoe delo (St. Petersburg: Tip. Glav. Upr. Udelov, 1910), 3-4. For examples, see R G I A , f. 1396, op. 1, ed. khr. 201,11. 3-5ob. Palen, Pozemel'no-podatnoe delo, 6 - 7 , 1 3 - 1 7 . The small number of personnel involved, as well as breach of administrative practices and official corruption, also contributed to oscillating decisions. Palen, Gornoe delo, chap. 3. R G I A , f. 1396, op.l, ed. khr. 201, II. 6-6ob. 1 0 o b - l l .

Notes • 201 4 8 R G I A . f. 37, op. 68, ed. khr. 695, II. 5 7 - 5 7 o b ; P a l e n , Gornoe

delo, text, 1 2 , 1 9 - 2 0 .

4 9 R G I A . f. 37, op. 68. ed. khr. 549,1. 6ob. 50 Ibid.. 11. 6 o b - l l . In a d d i t i o n , the c o n f e r e n c e p o i n t e d o u t t h a t , a c c o r d i n g t o Article 261 of t h e s t a t u t e , p u r c h a s e r s of n a t i v e land a c q u i r e d only t h o s e rights which t h e seller h a d at t h e time. This stipulation would n o t h a v e b e e n n e c e s s a r y if t h e seller had full p r o p e r t y rights t o his land. 51 R G I A , f. 37, op. 68, ed. k h r . 549, II. 1 1 - l l o b . 52 Ibid., 1. 1 l o b . 53 R G I A , f. 37, op. 68, e d . khr. 549,1.3. 54 T h e d r a f t p r o j e c t is f o u n d in R G I A , f. 37, op. 65, e d . khr. 1479,11.232-246; see also f. 37, op. 77, e d . k h r . 5 0 1 , 5 3 . 55 C o u n t P a l e n also r e c o m m e n d e d this a c t i o n , insisting t h a t the local m i n i n g a u t h o r i t i e s in T u r k e s t a n w e r e o v e r w o r k e d , u n d e r s t a f f e d , u n d e r p a i d , and t h e r e f o r e , u n a b l e to c a r r y o u t their activities. H e also r e c o m m e n d e d that t h e M i n i n g D e p a r t m e n t t a k e o v e r r e s p o n s i b i l ity for g r a n t i n g p r o s p e c t i n g licenses. P a l e n , Gornoe delo, text, 241-244. 56 R G I A . f. 1276, op. 2, ed. k h r . 36,11. 2 3 7 o b - 2 3 8 o b . 57 Q u o t e d f r o m a 4 A p r i l 1906 m e m o r a n d u m of t h e C o u n c i l of Ministers, r e f e r e n c e t o t h e s e e c o n o m i c and cultural tasks can also b e f o u n d in v a r i o u s s t a t e m e n t s m a d e by the M i n i s t r y of War a n d others. See R G I A , f. 1276, op. 2, e d . k h r . 36,1. 23; f. 821, op. 133, ed. k h r . 613,1. 89ob; f. 1276, op. 2, ed. khr. 36,11. 1 - 2 . 58 G U Z Z , Zapiska Glavnoupravliaiushchago zemleustroistvom i zemledeliem o poezdke v Turkestanskii kraia v 1912 godu. Prilozhenie k vsepoddanneishemu dokladu (St. P e t e r s burg, 1912), 77, 75. 59 Work o n the n e w s t a t u t e t o o k place i n t e r m i t t e n t l y a f t e r 1906. P r i m a r y responsibility f o r d e t e r m i n i n g its u n d e r l y i n g principles fell to t h e e x t r a - d e p a r t m e n t a l c o m m i s s i o n e s t a b lished in 1911 u n d e r the c h a i r m a n s h i p of t h e S t a t e C o n t r o l l e r , T.S. K h a r i t o n o v . B o t h t h e c o m m i s s i o n and s u b s e q u e n t l y t h e C o u n c i l of M i n i s t e r s m a d e e x t e n s i v e use of t h e m a t e r i als g a t h e r e d by C o u n t P a l e n . 60 R G I A , f. 1276, op. 2, ed. k h r . 36,1.24; f. 821, op. 133, ed. k h r . 613,11. 8 9 - 9 0 , 1 0 3 o b . U n d e r Stolypin, t h e t e r m gosudarstvennost' in c o n t r a s t to obshchestvennost' signified a n a t i o n a l c o n s c i o u s n e s s based on t h e a u t o c r a t i c state. F o r discussion of this t e r m , see F r a n c i s William Wcislo, Reforming Rural Russia ( P r i n c e t o n : P r i n c e t o n U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1990), 311. 61 R G I A , f. 1276, op. 2, ed. k h r . 36,1. 92ob. 62 G U Z Z , Zapiska, 58. 63 G U Z Z , Zapiska, 48-49; P a l e n , Gornoe delo, text, 1 5 - 1 6 , 2 6 5 - 2 7 0 ; R G I A , f. 560, op. 26, e d . k h r 87,1.79. In D e c e m b e r 1910, t h e g o v e r n m e n t p a s s e d a law a m e n d i n g A r t i c l e 270 of t h e T u r k e s t a n s t a t u t e that r e s t r i c t e d t h e a m o u n t of land allotted for t h e use of T u r k e s t a n ' s nomadic populations. 64 Palen, Gornoe

delo, text, 28; R G I A , f. 821, op. 133, ed. khr. 613,11. 100ob-101.

ILL T H E REVOLUTIONARY DECADE

Worry about Workers: Concerns of the Russian Intelligentsia from the 1870s to W H A T IS TO B E D O N E ? REGINALD E .

ZELNIK

In a brilliant chapter of his monograph on Soviet ideology in the 1920s, Eric Naiman draws our attention to the deeply felt anxiety of many Communist thinkers over the political reliability of the Soviet working class.1 Naiman finds some antecedents to this anxiety in the writings of Karl Marx, who feared (to cite Marx's well-known phrase) that the "tradition of all the dead generations" continued to "weigh as a nightmare on the brain of the living." Of course for Marx that "nightmare" was not defined as the proletariat, at least not explicitly. Nevertheless, the very foundations of his theory of capitalist society were weakened by a deep contradiction in its portrayal of the proletariat, a contradiction of which Marx could not have been unaware and which comes to the surface even in as optimistic a revolutionary document as the Communist Manifesto.2 For in the very pages in which they call upon the proletariat to play the role of revolutionary class par excellence, Marx and Engels also find themselves describing workers in what would normally be considered highly unflattering terms, stressing the degree to which their humanity is diminished by the capitalist system of production, forcing them into a degraded condition, deprived of any tools of their own, reduced to selling their labor power, actually to selling themselves, "piecemeal," like a "commodity" (Ware), to survive. Thanks to modern machinery and the division of labor, the worker had lost his skills, has become a mere "appendage" ( Z u behör) to the machine. Overworked during an ever-lengthening work day, workers were "slaves" or "bondsmen" (Knechte) of their employers. And if this was not enough, even the already degraded and enserfed (male) worker was destined to disappear from the very factory that had at least provided him with strength in numbers, for he was displaced, as his work required less and less skill, by women and children. Hence while more and more people "sink into the proletariat," the proletariat itself, meaning its adult males, seem destined to disappear from the industrial economy altogether. Of course the Manifesto failed to follow these projections to their logical conclusion: that the proletariat would either be too exhausted and demoralized to carry out its historical task, or would no longer be a working class but a former working class, part of "that passively rotting mass

206 • Reginald E. Zelnik thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society." Somehow, the authors of the Manifesto expected workers to avoid this fate, but just how it could be avoided as crisis after crisis threw workers into the reserve army of the unemployed was never m a d e clear. Lacking leisure and f r e e d o m , and eventually stripped of even the vestiges of bourgeois morality, workers were nonetheless expected to lead humanity into the realm of f r e e d o m . Little wonder, given these contradictions, that Marx and Engels already recognized the workers' need for guidance from people like themselves, the small "sections of the ruling class" that chose to identify with its cause. Just why such privileged people would make this choice is never really explained, but whatever the reason, there were "bourgeois ideologists" who "raised themselves" to the level of " c o m p r e h e n d i n g theoretically the historical m o v e m e n t as a whole" (words later borrowed almost wholesale by Lenin). Clearly Marx and Engels were not prepared to make the claim that the debased and degraded proletarian masses could be the source of sophisticated historical wisdom and political insight. Despite their confidence in the ability of workers to organize for the coming struggle—and in the Manifesto they seem more confident than the Lenin of What is to be Done?—the clear implication was that workers, though their emancipation was s o m e h o w to be accomplished "by the working classes themselves," could not be relied upon to orient themselves correctly in the absence of theoretical guidance f r o m bourgeois intellectuals. In this respect the a u t h o r of What is to be Done? would have justification enough to think of his own views of the worker as "Marxist." But he also had another heritage, a Russian one, with which to combine his reading of Marx. In this p a p e r I will argue that Marxism's own perplexities about the character and reliability of the industrial working class, when combined with a three-decade tradition of ambivalence about workers among the late-nineteenth-century Russian Left, m a d e it only too understandable, p e r h a p s even inevitable, that Lenin would eventually share such anxieties. W h a t e v e r other approaches o n e might use to explain his emphasis on the need for a tightly organized, politically conscious, elite Marxist leadership, Lenin, by 1902, when he published What is to be Done? ( h e r e a f t e r WTBD), like the future Mensheviks who sat with him on the Iskra editorial board at the time, was deeply concerned about the political reliability of Russia's real, living working class. Scholars have explained Lenin's "elitist" orientation in a n u m b e r of different ways—his personal character, the context of an oppressive tsarist regime, and the conspiratorial legacy of Narodnaia volia. There is certainly some validity to all these explanations, and it is not my purpose here to r e f u t e them. Instead, what I would like to do is suggest the extent to which Lenin's own doubts about workers, as expressed in WTBD, were grounded in several decades of worried thinking on the Russian and the E u r o p e a n L e f t , and to point to one of the ways in which he e n d e a v o r e d to relieve his anxiety— by cautiously placing his hopes not in the working class as a whole, but in its intellectual elite, a small but influential group that could insert itself between the unreliable worker masses and the non-working-class intelligentsia.

Worry aboul Workers • 207 If one such stream of anxiety about workers began with Marx and Engels themselves, the other, the Russian stream, began with those m e m b e r s of the Populist intelligentsia of the 1870s who first began to interact with workers in Russia's m a j o r cities. The two streams converged, as it were, in the person of Georgii Plekhanov. who was the direct heir of both traditions, having had intense relations with Petersburg workers in the mid-1870s, and having become Russia's first i m p o r t a n t Marxist thinker in the 1880s and 1890s. In the late spring of 1901, when Lenin began to conceptualize his famous pamphlet of 1902, Plekhanov was still Lenin's most admired Russian Marxist. It should t h e r e f o r e come as no surprise that their views of Russian workers would partially converge, though Lenin added i m p o r t a n t nuances to Plekhanov's position and expressed his worries with greater clarity and intensity.

POPULISM, PLEKHANOV, AND WORKER

THE

INTELLIGENTSIA

From the earliest contacts between the revolutionary intelligentsia and industrial workers, which began in St. Petersburg midway through the reign of A l e x a n d e r II, intelligenty had e n o r m o u s difficulty deciding just who these workers were, what if any their special role should be in the revolutionary movement or in the socialist society of the future, and how they, the peasant-oriented, narod-loving, Populist intelligentsia, should relate to such workers. The intelligentsia's initial uncertainty was c o m p o u n d e d by the mixed social identities of their worker comrades. Most of these workers were peasants in some significant sense, and not simply by virtue of their statutory adherence to a soslovie. In most cases they were born in the 1840s or 1850s to enserfed village families, maintained their m e m b e r s h i p in and contacts with their c o m m u n e s of origin, and h a r b o r e d memories, either bitter or sweet, of village childhoods. Yet many were also, and very visibly so, urban industrial workers, citified and literate, skilled, and themselves passionately engaged in an internal struggle to define their own identities even as their intelligentsia acquaintances tried to do the j o b for them. Complicating the matter even f u r t h e r was the availability to the workers of a third possible identity, one that derived from neither their peasant nor their worker lives, but f r o m the model presented to them by the example of the intelligenty themselves. That was the model of a worker-intelligent, or p e r h a p s simply an intelligent unmodified, into which they could now begin to grow while attempting to leave both peasant and worker identities behind t h e m . 3 This, after all, paralleled what the intelligentsia itself had done by consciously forsaking a gentry background or backgrounds f r o m other, more diverse groups (summarized for convenience as the raznochintsy), and assuming the acquired persona of intelligent as the locus of their social singularity. When Nikolai Mikhailovskii and others began to speak of the raznochinnaia intelligentsiia, this was another way of saying that intelligenty could c o m e f r o m

208 • Reginald E. Zelnik any and every social background, with their way of thinking about the world now serving as the universal solvent through which their previous social status was absorbed and dissolved (one might even say aufgehoben). There was no inherent reason why the proletarian, semi-proletarian, or peasant background of an intelligent should have m a d e him any less raznochinnyi than, say, an intelligent who came f r o m the clerical soslovie. (The peasant-student-terrorist A n d r e i Zheliabov is a case in point.) In the case of politically educated workers, however, the adjective rabochii/rabochaia tended to persist over time, having become especially attractive with the rise of Russian Marxism. Thus by the turn of the century one would hear the expressions rabochii intelligent and rabochaia intelligentsiia very often, krest'ianskaia intelligentsiia more rarely, and, though there were certainly radical intelligenty from merchant families, the strange sounding kupecheskaia intelligentsiia almost never. In the 1870s and early 1880s these complications of definition became even more problematic when, now deeply involved with growing n u m b e r s of urban workers, radical intelligenty (or studenty, as workers liked to call them) endeavored to create definitions of those workers' identities that would conform both with their own ideological predispositions and with their personal experiences of the workers in a variety of settings. As narodniki who placed their hopes for Russia's f u t u r e in the peasant c o m m u n e and artel', intelligenty feared that the workers with whom they were now so entangled would lose their peasant qualities, would identify instead with a new urban working class, a proletarianized mass whose a p p e a r a n c e in Russia it was the Populists' sacred duty to prevent. A s A n d r z e j Walicki has stressed, the Populists were well acquainted with Marx's writings, and the Marxist image they projected of the pauperized, dehumanized proletarian led them to the "undialectical" conclusion that it was the intelligentsia's duty to prevent the degeneration of the narod into so deplorable a state. 4 But, while there were indeed some workers who strove to retain their peasant self-identifications even as they became increasingly politicized and citified— Stepan Mitrofanov is a good example—most were likely to pursue one of two other options. O n e was to think of oneself as belonging to a distinct category of workers, identifying with workers in the factories of other countries. Apposite examples are Viktor Obnorskii, who traveled abroad to meet E u r o p e a n workers, and Ignatii Bachin, who sharply rejected his peasant antecedents. 5 The other choice, exemplified by Stepan Khalturin, was to begin to think of oneself and to act as part of the radical intelligentsia, turning the exhilarating intelligentsia world of dangerous political ideas, literary activity, and social action into o n e ' s own new world. 6 To a great extent, after all, such had been the inclinations of the first generation of politicized French workers (mainly artisans, to be sure) who, under the influence of Saint-Simonian and o t h e r French socialist intellectuals, reacted paradoxically to their m e n t o r s ' desire to define them as workers by aspiring to lead the r e m a r k a b l e lives of their m e n t o r s themselves. 7 When c o n f r o n t e d with such workers in Russia, Populist intelligenty could be very favorably impressed, but

Worry about Workers • 209 their positive impressions were often accompanied by surprise, sometimes even by disappointment and dismay. 8 A leading participant in the early Populist e n c o u n t e r with workers was the " s t u d e n t " Georgii Plekhanov. Although he declared himself a Marxist in G e n e v a in the early 1880s, Plekhanov was still heir to the Populists' confusion when confronting the liminal presence of politicized workers, though his confusion as a Marxist now took different forms. On the one hand, the workers' close peasant backgrounds were now a source of apprehension rather than gratification; on the o t h e r hand, their partial intelligentsia morphologies, which at times made them barely distinguishable from people like himself, gave rise to fears that they would leave their fellow workers and their "class" behind. To these apparent contradictions, which, despite his new air of scientific certainty, continued to leave Plekhanov awash in doubt, were added the paradoxes of his Marxist theoretical vision, which, as we have seen, simultaneously attributed to the worker the qualities of human degradation and human perfectibility. Plekhanov's strangely neglected autobiographical essay, The Russian Worker in the Revolutionary Movement, is the locus classicus of his confusion, in relation to both the Populist period he portrays and his state of mind at the time of writing, circa 1890-1892. In his decade-old Marxist, anti-Populist, incarnation, Plekhanov is now no longer in doubt about his desire to valorize retrospectively the worker identities of his acquaintances of the 1870s. In his mind, peasant characteristics are now coded negative, worker characteristics positive. Thus Plekhanov now chides workers like Mitrofanov for having shown devotion to the village, and exalts the emerging proletariat of the 1870s (Mitrofanov among them!) as Russia's most powerful and real "new social force." 9 But just what were these valorized worker characteristics meant to be? Despite his growing knowledge of Marxist theory, Plekhanov was certainly not looking for degeneration, decadence, or dehumanization, the traits that capitalist exploitation were supposed to produce in the m o d e r n worker. Indeed, it is hard to find any sign of such immiserated, suffering workers in Plekhanov's opus (or in the reminiscences of his intelligentsia contemporaries). Instead, the negative pole on his worker spectrum, the antipode of the worker he now admired, was the still inadequately proletarianized peasant-worker, whom he equated with the workers of St. Petersburg's textile factories—in other words, with the same supposedly still unformed, unproletarianized workers in whom the Populist "students" of the 1870s, not excluding young Plekhanov, had placed their hopes. 1 0 By the 1890s, then, one of the main attributes of Plekhanov's p r e f e r r e d workers was to not be peasant-like, that is, boorish, provincial, and " g r e e n " (actually "gray," seryi). The positi\e side of this coin was to be sophisticated, u r b a n (urbane?), clean, neatly dressed (but not a dandy) when away from work, and highly literate, hardly the characteristics of the insulted and injured of Engels' (or Dickens') Manchester, or of Th( Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital, works in which Plekhanov, ironically, now was steeped. 1 1 U n d e r the influence of studenty, the most politicized

210 • Reginald E. Zelnik (or "conscious," to use the term of choice by the 1890s) of these workers invariably began to resemble their student mentors—to look like them, read like them, talk like them, and belong to similar "circles." even taking on their own less " d e v e l o p e d " (razvityi, a predecessor of soznatel'nyi) pupils and disciples. This is not to say that either workers or intelligenty were fully comfortable when workers assumed or were invested with this mimetic role; from the 1870s on into the twentieth century even the most cooperative relations between them were rarely free of conflict. But the important point for our purposes is the comp o u n d e d discomfiture of Marxist intelligenty like Plekhanov, who could not but welcome the specific signs of a worker's intellectual transformation into a rabochii intelligent, but at the same time were forced to face the danger that this very development augured a f u n d a m e n t a l estrangement of that worker from his presumably dehumanized proletarian brothers, "the masses." Was it possible that as capitalism was driving more and more of its immiserated proletarian victims downward into the bowels of society, it was pushing a small segment of very special workers—one of Alfred R i e b e r ' s newer "sediments"? 1 2 —upward to the exalted heights of the educated élite? A n d if so, what were the mechanisms that would prevent a gap from developing between these two segments of what was meant to be a single great "class"? How would, say, a few hundred or even a few thousand politicized, exquisitely conscious workers pull the mass of hundreds of thousands more " b a c k w a r d " workers up into their special orbit, enabling them to grasp, let alone to act upon, such complex notions as the bourgeoisie's simultaneous existence as both the workers' most bitter class enemy and their potentially closest ally against autocracy? As both their exploiter and a class they should ally with? Plekhanov and his comrades had no clear answer, other than to struggle mightily with sociological categories that p u r p o r t e d to describe a semi-mythical ladder of political ascent, from peasant to textile worker to metalworker, and thence into the conscious worker vanguard, precariously poised at the cusp of intelligentsia identity, but without being absorbed by it. 13

MARXISTS AND WORKERS INSIDE

RUSSIA

As historians have d e m o n s t r a t e d , in the mid- to late 1880s, even before the great famine of 1891-92, a Marxist or Social-Democratic disposition was developing in revolutionary circles inside Russia that paralleled but was i n d e p e n d e n t of the shift to Marxism among the exiles gathered round Plekhanov. 1 4 In contrast to the Marxists in exile, these people, mainly studenty, were generally in touch with actual workers, with whom they regularly met in discussion circles (kruzhki). The workers, mainly politicized and fairly well educated men (a small female presence b e c a m e visible only in the 1890s), the type Plekhanov cut his teeth on a d e c a d e earlier, were welcomed into these circles for further consciousness-raising. The mid-to-late eighties and early nineties provided this Marxist intelligentsia with

Worry about Workers

-211

a m p l e r e a s o n to f o r m a positive view of such w o r k e r s , w h o s e p r e s e n c e n o u r i s h e d t h e i r g r o w i n g o p t i m i s m in t h e c o n f l u e n c e of Marxist t h e o r y and R u s s i a n practice. A f t e r a brief p e r i o d of r e c e s s i o n in the early 1880s, t h e industrial e c o n o m y had b e g u n t o t a k e off, the size of t h e w o r k force to e x p a n d . M a j o r militant textile s t r i k e s t o o k p l a c e in V l a d i m i r ( t h e " M o r o z o v s t r i k e " ) a n d T v e r p r o v i n c e s in early 1885, f o l l o w e d by a succession of strikes in t h e 1890s. F u r t h e r , t h e r e was e v i d e n c e t h a t " a d v a n c e d , " politicized w o r k e r s , including v e t e r a n s of t h e 1870s such as P e t r M o i s e e n k o , w e r e s t a r t i n g t o link u p with a b r o a d e r w o r k e r s ' m o v e m e n t , e v e n p l a y e d a l e a d e r s h i p role in t h e M o r o z o v strike. A t t h e s a m e time, t h e g o v e r n m e n t a c k n o w l e d g e d t h e p o t e n c y of t h e w o r k e r s by r e l u c t a n t l y i n t r o d u c i n g labor legisl a t i o n ( m o s t i m p o r t a n t l y in 1886). All t h e s e t e n d e n c i e s , c o m b i n e d with t h e s h o c k ing (to Populists) a b s e n c e of large-scale p e a s a n t revolt in t h e w a k e of the f a m i n e , h e l p e d o p e n t h e d o o r t o intelligentsia c o n v e r s i o n s to M a r x i s m . A l t h o u g h the p r o cess of a b a n d o n i n g p o p u l i s t a s s u m p t i o n s was p a i n f u l a n d i n c o m p l e t e , all t h e s e d e v e l o p m e n t s lent i n c r e a s i n g credibility to t h o s e intelligenty leging w o r k e r s o v e r p e a s a n t s .

15

w h o o p t e d for privi-

T h e y usually called t h e m s e l v e s M a r x i s t s or social-

d e m o c r a t s , a n d t h e y r e a c h e d a c r o s s t h e c o n t i n e n t t o p r o c l a i m their affinity to P l e k h a n o v a n d his fellow exiles, while rarely s h o w i n g signs of t h e m a s t e r ' s n e r v o u s c o n f u s i o n a b o u t w o r k e r identities. By t h e mid-1890s, h o w e v e r , t h e p r o b l e m of w o r k e r identity b e g a n to r e a p p e a r . T h e c r a v i n g of m a n y M a r x i s t s f o r c o n t a c t with a b r o a d e r w o r k e r s ' milieu, f o r a b r e a k f r o m t h e r e s t r a i n t s of circle w o r k and f o r m o r e direct c o n t a c t with t h e w o r l d of m a s s l a b o r p r o t e s t , w a s fed by a r e s u r g e n c e of strike activity in the textile industry, first in c e n t r a l R u s s i a (1895), t h e n in St. P e t e r s b u r g ( 1 8 9 6 - 9 7 ) . W h e n a c t e d u p o n in t h e spirit of t h e f a m o u s p a m p h l e t Ob agitatsii,

this c r a v i n g o f t e n led

to a b i t t e r r u p t u r e b e t w e e n intelligentsia p r o p a g a n d i s t s a n d their w o r k e r p r o tégés, as t h e " d i u r n a l " lure of t h e f a c t o r y b e c a m e m o r e exciting to intelligenty t h e " n o c t u r n a l " lure of t h e kruzhok

than

(to b o r r o w f r o m J a c q u e s R a n c i è r e ' s special

imagery). This story, which h a s a l r e a d y b e e n told by W i l d m a n a n d G e y e r , n e e d n o t d e t a i n us h e r e , e x c e p t to p o i n t o u t t h a t t h e h u g e citywide s t r i k e s of M a y - J u n e 1896, to which M a r x i s t intelligenty

r e n d e r e d significant i n t e l l e c t u a l a n d tactical

s u p p o r t , 1 6 r e p r e s e n t e d t h e high p o i n t of t h e M a r x i s t intelligentsia's (including young Lenin's) optimism regarding the confluence between themselves and the b r o a d m a s s of w o r k e r s . S o o n t h e r e a f t e r , this s h o r t - l i v e d m a r r i a g e b e g a n to dissolve, and t h e intelligentsia a g a i n f o u n d itself d e e p l y t r o u b l e d by t h e p r o b l e m of w h e r e it stood in r e l a t i o n to r e a l , live w o r k e r s , b o t h t h e r a n k - a n d - f i l e of t h e factories and t h e politicized, " c o n s c i o u s " w o r k e r s of t h e kruzhki,

though the prob-

lems that b e s e t t h e two sets of r e l a t i o n s w e r e n o t identical. B e c a u s e t h e s t o r m o v e r " E c o n o m i s m " was t h e c e n t e r of c o n t r o v e r s y , b o t h at t h e time and in t h e s u b s e q u e n t h i s t o r i o g r a p h y , 1 7 it is easy t o a s s u m e , especially w h e n r e a d i n g b a c k w a r d s f r o m WTBD,

t h a t t h e revival of intelligentsia c o n c e r n

a b o u t the reliability of w o r k e r s w a s e n t i r e l y b a s e d o n t h e f e a r t h a t , if a l l o w e d t o act " s p o n t a n e o u s l y " ( s t i k h i i n o ) , t h e y w o u l d s u c c u m b t o g r a d u a l i s m , t r a d e - u n i o n -

212 • Reginald

E.

Zelnik

ism, a n d liberalism. W i t h o u t d e n y i n g t h e c e n t r a l i t y of t h a t f e a r o n t h e p a r t of L e n i n a n d o t h e r s ( i n c l u d i n g f u t u r e M e n s h e v i k s ) . it should be n o t e d t h a t Marxist intelligenty

also f e a r e d t h e ill e f f e c t s of s p o n t a n e o u s violence,

of allegedly peas-

ant-like, primitive, d r u n k e n , l u d d i t e , " b a c k w a r d , " i n c e n d i a r y b e h a v i o r , including m a c h i n e - b r e a k i n g , p e r s o n a l assaults, a n d f a c t o r y t e r r o r . In c o n t r a s t to t h e m o r e self-disciplined b e h a v i o r of s t r i k e r s in 1896, t h e strikes of 1885, t o t a k e an early e x a m p l e , h a d p r e s e n t e d a m i x e d p i c t u r e : t h o u g h m o s t of t h e s t r i k e r s w e r e o r d e r ly, t h o s e s t r i k e s w e r e a c c o m p a n i e d by t h e wild kind of v i o l e n c e that R u s s i a n Marxists, while n e v e r c o m p l e t e l y u n s y m p a t h e t i c to t h e p e r p e t r a t o r s , w e r e reluct a n t to c o n d o n e . A s t h e y e a r s w e n t by, intelligentsia f e a r of this k i n d of s p o n t a n e ity r e m a i n e d intact. In 1895, in t h e w a k e of violent textile s t r i k e s in t h e C e n t r a l I n d u s t r i a l R e g i o n , such f e a r s w e r e s t r o n g e n o u g h to m o v e t h e W o r k e r s ' U n i o n (Rabochii

soiuz),

a M o s c o w - b a s e d o r g a n i z a t i o n with n a t i o n w i d e a m b i t i o n s — i t s

l e a d e r s i n c l u d e d L e n i n ' s sister, A n n a E l i z a r o v a — t o issue a special b r o c h u r e , Stachki,

ikh znachenie

dlia rabochikh,

in which it sternly c a u t i o n e d against m a r -

ring t h e e f f e c t i v e n e s s of s t r i k e s by such u n p r o d u c t i v e actions. 1 8 T h e a u t h o r s w e r e h a r s h l y critical of u n d i s c i p l i n e d p r o t e s t , a s y m p t o m of w o r k e r s ' deficient u n d e r s t a n d i n g of c a p i t a l i s m ' s systemic individual

failings a n d m i s d i r e c t e d h a t r e d of m a c h i n e s a n d

e m p l o y e r s . T h e y d e s c r i b e d v i o l e n c e against individual o v e r s e e r s and

t h e d e s t r u c t i o n of " i n n o c e n t " m a c h i n e s as bunty,

a t e r m n o r m a l l y a p p l i e d t o rio-

t o u s p e a s a n t u n r e s t , at o n e p o i n t e v e n g o i n g so far as to label t h e s e a c t i o n s pogromy.™ To b e s u r e , t h e a u t h o r s w e r e o p t i m i s t i c in t h a t t h e y d e p i c t e d such u n r e s t r a i n e d b e h a v i o r as a s t a g e t h a t w o r k e r s w o u l d j e t t i s o n as t h e y b e g a n

to

u n d e r s t a n d t h e g r e a t e r e f f e c t i v e n e s s of " p e a c e f u l " ( m i r n y i ) , disciplined, o r g a nized strikes, f o l l o w i n g t h e e x a m p l e of " o t h e r c o u n t r i e s " : "[I]f t h e age of bunty

in

R u s s i a h a s n o t yet p a s s e d , at least t h e t i m e has c o m e w h e n s t r i k e s h a v e a p p e a r e d on an e q u a l f o o t i n g with bunty."20

T h e a u t h o r s w e r e less t h a n c l e a r , h o w e v e r , as

to h o w this t r a n s i t i o n was t o c o m e a b o u t . For w e find within t h e s a m e f e w p a g e s e l e m e n t s of b o t h a classical M a r x i s t i m m i s e r a t i o n t h e o r y — r e s e r v e a r m i e s of d e humanized, impoverished, unemployed men (often unemployed proletarianized peasants,

a R u s s i a n t w i s t ) — a n d p r o j e c t i o n s of w e l l - o r g a n i z e d , legalized u n i o n s

a n d t h e i r disciplined, n o n - v i o l e n t s t r i k e actions, a t t r a c t i n g w o r k e r s t h r o u g h their a c h i e v e m e n t of g e n u i n e i m p r o v e m e n t s . A s n o t e d a b o v e , t h e s t r i k e s of 1896 h a d t h e p r e d i c t a b l e e f f e c t of i n c r e a s i n g t h e o p t i m i s m a n d e n t h u s i a s m of M a r x i s t intelligenty.

Clearly t h e s e m i l i t a n t yet self-

disciplined m u l t i - f a c t o r y w o r k s t o p p a g e s , c a r r i e d out with t h e s u b s t a n t i a l assist a n c e of intelligenty

f r o m t h e r e c e n t l y f o r m e d U n i o n of S t r u g g l e f o r t h e E m a n c i -

p a t i o n of t h e W o r k i n g Class ( S o i u z bor'by

za osvobozhdenie

rabochego

klassa),

g a v e weight to t h e belief t h a t t h e " r i o t o u s " s t a g e of t h e l a b o r m o v e m e n t c o u l d b e t r a n s c e n d e d , r e d u c i n g t h e f e a r t h a t t h e s e n s e l e s s R u s s i a n bunt ( o n c e e v o k e d with e x q u i s i t e h o r r o r by P u s h k i n ) w o u l d b e t h e m o v e m e n t ' s d o m i n a n t m o d e of e x p r e s sion. T h e h o p e of f u t u r e c o o p e r a t i o n a n d u l t i m a t e alliance b e t w e e n t h e " m a s s e s " a n d t h e M a r x i s t intelligentsia w a s r e k i n d l e d . T h e intelligenty

had

apparently

Worry about Workers • 213 f o u n d a way out of the dead-end frustration of circle work; agitation had proven itself as a tactic, and, t h o u g h marred by a wave of arrests, the future of intelligentsia-worker relations must have looked brighter than ever. Learning of the P e t e r s b u r g strikes while in exile in Ekaterinoslav in 1897, the highly "conscious" w o r k e r Ivan Babushkin, worker-comrade of intelligenty and perennial favorite of Lenin's, rejoiced in the news, interpreting it as a harbinger of the end of the bunt as a defining characteristic of Russian labor unrest: "[I]t was only then that I came to believe that beginning [factory] agitation had not been in vain"; and only then was he confident that rank-and-file workers were starting to grasp the advantages of the strike over the bunt, "a giant (ogromnyi) step forward." 2 1 Nevertheless, this very success contained seeds of future conflict. A labor m o v e m e n t that could succeed in flexing its muscles while the intelligentsia played only an auxiliary role would not necessarily proceed in a "consciously" socialist direction. Marxist agitators, while effective in the dissemination of leaflets that elucidated the strikers' grievances, thereby adding to their sense of unity and solidarity, were still c o m m i t t e d to a contradictory notion: that whereas the movement's goal at this stage should be the overthrow of autocracy and its replacement with the kind of liberal-democratic political order that Marxists associated with a capitalist economy, workers should also be waging a class war against the entire capitalist system, thereby challenging the very heart of that system, private ownership. Since Marxism anticipated that capitalism would advance robustly, expanding to its maximum capacities, thereby extending the size and experience of the working class u n d e r a bourgeois-democratic political and legal order, one logical corollary of that position was for Russia's workers to restrain themselves for the m o m e n t from acting in a sweepingly anti-capitalist fashion, confining their actions, however militant, to limited economic goals while others led the struggle against autocracy. Still a n o t h e r possible logic (later adopted by Trotsky and later still by Lenin) was for w o r k e r s to discount the notion of "stages" and push their assault on the capitalist class enemy to its extreme limits, striving to overthrow capitalist relations (private ownership) as well as political autocracy. Though creative new combinations and permutations would soon evolve, these were indeed the polar extremes between which Russian Marxists would oscillate in the years ahead, with no clear consensus on these matters ever emerging a m o n g intelligenty, let alone between intelligenty and workers. But h e a r t e n e d by the successes of 1896-97, including government concessions to the strike movement on the length of the workday, in late 1897 many activist workers and some "worker-phile" intelligenty, though without a b a n d o n i n g their principled opposition to the autocracy, opted for the first of these approaches, and for worker-led strike activity in particular, a position that was soon embodied in a new and controversial workerfounded journal, Rabochaia mysl\22 For the many Marxist intelligenty (including f u t u r e Mensheviks as well as Lenin) this was an unacceptable solution. The c o m p o r t m e n t of the Petersburg workers had been admirable, but it now threatened to take new and unpredictable

214 • Reginald E. Zelnik directions. A n d the conduct of workers in the more "backward" provinces was still less reliable. What, then, was to be done? A f t e r the experience of 1896-97, a return to kruzhkovshchina, to late-night and Sunday propaganda work at secret meetings with small n u m b e r s of "conscious" workers, though never a b a n d o n e d , was no longer thinkable as a master strategy, an adequate substitute for the attractions of mass agitation. To be sure, the cultivation of new cadres of advanced workers was still i m p o r t a n t — t h e s e were the very years when Semen Kanatchikov and others like him were acquiring their "consciousness." 2 3 But some of these workers had been itching to u n d e r t a k e the field work that was normally the province of intelligentsia agitators, and, while actually endeavoring to complement the intelligenty by acting as intermediaries between them and the "masses," they sometimes came into conflict with intelligenty in the course of these activities. 24 But most disturbing of all to Lenin and many other intelligenty were the workers, like those attached to Rabochaia mysl', who, taking literally the Marxist slogan that the liberation of the working class was the task of the workers themselves, endeavored to displace the intelligentsia altogether. 2 5 As a result of these circumstances, with the issues of worker a u t o n o m y f r o m the intelligentsia now merging with many militant workers' (and worker-phile intelligenty'%) emphasis on strikes and self-organization, the years 1898-1901 could be characterized as a period of maximum tension between independence-minded workers and those intelligenty who were most concerned with retaining their leadership role in the movement. If we add to this mix the deeper issue of contradictory views of the leadership capacities of the working class in Marxism itself, the appearance of such strains was all but unavoidable, and one need not delve very deeply into Lenin's personality to understand their emergence. Until 1902 and in some cases beyond, what troubled Lenin seemed to be troubling Iulii Martov, Plekhanov and other f u t u r e Menshevik leaders, some of whom later became the staunchest critics of Lenin's "elitism."

AN

A N T I C I P A T I O N OF

What is to be Done'?

If we use as a base line 1895, when young Lenin was a leader of the g r o u p of Marxist intelligenty that later became the Union of Struggle, we can safely say that at the time he enthusiastically espoused the recent tactic of economic agitation and expressed no notable anxiety about it possibly leading to a rejection of socialist politics on the part of workers. 2 6 To be sure, there were conflicts with workers over finances, and Lenin's group was loath to admit workers into its own ranks. 2 7 But neither Lenin nor his comrades wished to articulate such problems as matters of any theoretical import. They did not seem terribly worried. The first major piece of writing in which Lenin began to a d u m b r a t e the ideas that would be more fully developed in WTBD) dates to 1900, when he published "The U r g e n t Tasks of O u r Movement," the unsigned lead editorial of t h e first

Worry about Workers • 215 issue of ¡skra.2S A f t e r defining "social-democracy" as "the unification of the worke r s ' m o v e m e n t with socialism," Lenin began to address social-democracy's prim a r y task by stating what it was not. Its task was "not [to provide] passive services to the workers' m o v e m e n t at each of its separate stages," but to act as "representative of the interests of the [workers'] movement as a whole, as the indicator (iukazanie) to this m o v e m e n t of its final goal, its political task, [as] the preserver of its political and ideological independence." In effect, this was a still imprecise anticipation of Lenin's later formulation about the danger of leaving workers to their own devices, a point he clarified somewhat in a subsequent passage: "Isolated f r o m social-democracy, the workers' movement turns into something petty (melchaet) and inevitably degenerates into bourgeois-ness [burzhuaznost']". The working class thereby "loses its political i n d e p e n d e n c e " and, he continues, planting the seeds of his polemic against tailism, "becomes the tail of other parties," betraying the principle that "the emancipation of the workers must be the task of the workers themselves." By "social-democracy," in this context, Lenin of course meant the social-democratic intelligentsia, or, more to the point, the editors of Iskra. Exactly whom he meant by the "workers" was less clear, but his choice of words here is suggestive. History has shown, he lamented, that Russia has suffered particularly f r o m "the separation of socialist thought from the advanced representatives of the working classes" (emphasis added), a situation that "condemned the Russian revolutionary movement to impotence." So the specific linkage he had in mind (or was groping for) may not have been between socialist thinkers and the mass of workers, but between the former and the workers' most "advanced" or "conscious" representatives. But this thought is not fully developed here, as Lenin quickly shifts his focus to the "proletarian masses," those workers yet to acquire "socialist ideas and political self-consciousness," those into whom the social democrats must "instill" {vnedrit') that consciousness by forming a party that was "indissolubly linked with the spontaneous labor movement." Was Lenin confident at this point about the prospects of such an e n d e a v o r ? His words might be described as cautiously optimistic. The process had just recently begun, and its was bound to be accompanied by "waverings and doubts," he warned. The key to success was organization, without which the proletariat would be unable to rise to the level of "conscious class struggle." With only mutual aid and strike funds, with only study circles ( k r u z h k i ) , the working class would never succeed in fulfilling its great historical task: "to free itself and all the Russian people from their political and economic slavery." A n d the marker of that success, he continued, briefly returning to the theme of a special, "advanced" worker leadership, would be the working class's ability to generate its own leaders: " N o class in history has ever gained dominion unless it brought forth its own political leaders, its own advanced representatives." Russia now was moving in that direction, he averred, ending this part of his editorial on an optimistic note while again underscoring the requirement that the leaders be molded into a conspiratorial "party": "We must prepare [podgotovliat']29 people who are

216 • Reginald E. Zelnik devoted to revolution not only during their free evenings but all their life." Clearly this could not have meant the great mass of production-line workers. Broadly speaking, Lenin's Iskra

editorial represented the views at the time of

Martov and the paper's other editors, as reflected, for example, in an article by Martov in the very same issue. Like Lenin, Martov too was now worried about Russian workers, and he was no less prepared to leave them to their own devices; like Lenin, he linked these concerns to a vigorous call for a tightly disciplined party organization, with a central committee that could act both quickly and decisively. 30 The full extent of Lenin's special worries, however, the points that caused him to stand out among his Iskra comrades, would not be visible until the appearance of WTBD, a work in which he spoke entirely for himself.

W H A T IS TO B E

DONE?

Let us begin with a brief look at the context in which Lenin was working and living in late 1901-early 1902, the months when he was conceptualizing and writing WTBD. His was a life in European apartments and cafés (colorfully evoked by Trotsky in "Lenin and the Old Iskra"),31 with trips between London and Stuttgart, Paris and Geneva, a life almost entirely devoid of any ongoing contact with real Russian workers, such as he had experienced in the 1890s. He was focused intensely on three related activities: collaborating with his co-editors, all intelligent'y, on the publication and dissemination of their underground paper; corresponding with secret "agents" in Russia (Lenin seemed to love the Russian word agent), most of them (like his brother Dmitrii) also intelligenty who referred to workers with the third person pronoun (on/); 3 2 and polemicizing with intelligenty from rival publications ( R a b o c h e e delo, Svoboda, etc.). In 1902 his contact with workers was largely limited to such activities as visiting working-class meetings in one of London's socialist churches, where his fear that workers could be corrupted by the allures of trade-unionism was reinforced. "Among the English proletariat there are many revolutionary and socialist elements," he once told Trotsky as they left the church, "but it is all so intertwined with conservatism, religion, and prejudices that it cannot reach the surface and become the property of all." 3 3 Lenin would remain quite remote from direct contact with the mass of Russian workers for much of his life in exile. Here we might pause to take note of such facts as the near absence of workers at the R S D R P ' s fateful Second Party Congress (1903), 3 4 and Lenin's seeming indifference to the activities of St. Petersburg's worker-dominated Rabochaia Organizatsiia in 1901-02. 3 5 Little wonder, then, that like most of the SDs who lived abroad, Lenin was caught completely by surprise by the successes of the Gapon movement in 1904 and the outbreak of Revolution in 1905. Little wonder too that in 1902 his mind had lots of room for anxious play about the Russian workers' future path. Let us turn now to the actual text of W7"BD. 3 6 The traditional view in the liter-

Worry about Workers • 217 ature, one that I largely accept, is that the pamphlet expressed Lenin's f u n d a mental lack of confidence in the labor m o v e m e n t ' s ability to evolve spontaneously into a mass movement that adhered to the political program, the "consciousness," that he wished it to have. Of course this does not mean he had no confidence in his cause's ultimate victory—on that score he could be very cocky— but rather that he doubted the victory could be achieved simply by coaxing the pre-conscious labor m o v e m e n t along its " n a t u r a l " path. Lenin did indeed believe in his own revolutionary abilities and in those of people like him, people whose knowledge and will were n e e d e d in order to alter the labor movement's natural course, which he saw as a clear and present danger. This attitude was hardly hete r o d o x among Russian Marxists, let alone unique to Lenin, though I d o read WTBD as demonstrating that he had become its most tenacious representative. Nor would I argue that this was always his view. Taking into account the editorial in Iskra, it would seem that he reached these conclusions shortly before he turned 30. 37 And he held them for reasons that by now should not strike us as terribly surprising. To be sure, in underlining Lenin's pessimism about workers, I do not m e a n to ignore the passages in WTBD that indicate his belief that some workers could become "conscious," by which he basically meant that they could develop a political world view and consequent strategy that were similar to his. Nevertheless, he feared that most of them would not, and saw as the only guarantee against that danger the creation of a vanguard party, consisting of people who already were conscious (otherwise, why let them in?) and could preserve a correct outlook whatever the volatile twists and turns of the broader, more labile, mass movement. That movement, though it could be very militant and determined, had a built-in tendency to yield to the temptation to accommodate to "trade-unionist" approaches that were ultimately compatible with liberal politics. H e n c e those social-democrats who failed to support the creation of a vanguard party were encouraging workers to wallow in the mud of trade-unionism and liberalism. Since he clearly perceived this danger as grave, it of course makes little sense to speak of Lenin's confidence in the working class. But at the same time, if those intelligenty who understood the need for a vanguard organization could teach a significant number of advanced workers to follow their lead, to adopt their consciousness, a favorable o u t c o m e was still within reach, in which case it makes equally little sense to speak of Lenin's pessimism. His pessimism applied only to the proposition that the " m a s s " of workers, the "crowd" (tolpa) as he called them, could find the right trajectory on their own. This view was not inconsistent with the inner logic of Marxism, according to which the mass of workers would be entering a downward spiral as capitalism took a greater and greater toll on their humanity, turning them into mere appendages to their machines or, worse still, into defenseless, unemployed armies of reserve labor. In a sense, when Lenin wrote about alternative paths, he was thinking less of the choices open to Russia's workers than of the choices open to intelligenty. It is

218 • Reginald

E. Zelnik

t h e r e f o r e m i s l e a d i n g (a p o i n t that is o f t e n lost) to describe him as calling f o r a vang u a r d p a r t y consisting of the intelligentsia. W h a t he was calling for was a f r a c t i o n of t h e intelligentsia, a l e a d e r s h i p g r o u p of politically e d u c a t e d p e o p l e w h o s h a r e d his views. U p to a point, their social a n d e t h n i c origins were of little c o n s e q u e n c e t o him. Since t h e 1860s, as we know, intelligenty

h a d c o m e f r o m all d i f f e r e n t social

b a c k g r o u n d s . W h e t h e r their p a r e n t s w e r e nobles, bourgeois, or even, like t h o s e of Z h e l i a b o v ( w h o m L e n i n m e n t i o n s a d m i r i n g l y [106.171]), p e a s a n t serfs, o r w h e t h e r they w e r e Russians, Jews. Poles, Finns, or G e o r g i a n s , they became

intelligent)).

c o u r s e w o r k e r s would be m o r e t h a n w e l c o m e into this special fold; intelligenty

Of had

b e e n w e l c o m i n g t h e m as u n i q u e individuals with the capacity to attain consciousness since t h e first " a d v a n c e d " w o r k e r s m e t with t h e m in the 1870s. But in e n t e r ing t h a t magic circle, t h e w o r k e r s w o u l d become

" w o r k e r intelligenty"

L e n i n uses several times), a special s u b - g r o u p , as already suggested, of nye intelligenty,

(a t e r m raznochin-

b u t with t h e " w o r k e r " part serving as a special m a r k e r of t h e i r con-

t i n u e d link, w h e t h e r real or i m a g i n e d , to t h e w o r k e r masses. It is n o t e w o r t h y t h a t in WTBD,

t h e m o s t shining e x a m p l e s of such ( e x ) w o r -

king-class leaders, P r o u d h o n , Weitling, A u g u s t B e b e l , Ignaz A u e r [39n, 133, 171], w e r e t a k e n f r o m t h e past or c u r r e n t h i s t o r y of c o u n t r i e s o t h e r t h a n R u s s i a . 3 8 All w e r e c r a f t s m e n of high intellectual f o r m a t i o n , m e n w h o had rarely if e v e r t r e a d on a f a c t o r y floor a n d w h o s e p r o d u c t i v e lives w e r e spent a m o n g political intellectuals, n o t at physical labor. To be sure, L e n i n was h o p i n g to find " R u s s i a n B e b e l s " [171]. and we k n o w t h a t he s u c c e e d e d , in the p e r s o n s of such skilled a n d l i t e r a t e w o r k e r s as B a b u s h k i n , K a n a t c h i k o v , a n d M a t v e i Fisher ( t h o u g h n o living R u s s i a n w o r k e r is m e n t i o n e d in WTBD).

In t h e a b s e n c e of a s t r o n g E u r o p e a n -

t y p e a r t i s a n a l or c o r p o r a t e e s t a t e t r a d i t i o n in Russia, 3 9 L e n i n ' s B e b e l s w e r e likely t o c o m e f r o m real factories, n o t small a r t i s a n a l w o r k s h o p s . But t h e s e m e n still e n t e r e d t h e p a r t y l e a d e r s h i p as individuals, p e r f o r m e d m a n y of t h e i r political f u n c t i o n s o u t s i d e of t h e factory, a n d e v e n t h e n almost

never rose to l e a d i n g posi-

t i o n s in t h e party, which was always a n d e v e r d o m i n a t e d by " b o u r g e o i s " genty

intelli-

with e x c e l l e n t e d u c a t i o n s . N e v e r t h e l e s s , L e n i n obviously did b e l i e v e t h a t

s o m e w o r k e r s c o u l d , albeit with difficulty, a t t a i n full political c o n s c i o u s n e s s . T h e o n e s t h a t did w e r e t r u e h e r o e s , R u s s i a n Bebels, but w i t h o u t t h e real B e b e l ' s stat u s as a high p a r t y l e a d e r a n d t h e o r e t i c i a n . Such w o r k e r s w e r e so r a r e , a c c o r d i n g t o L e n i n , t h a t it w a s i m p o r t a n t t h a t t h e i r t a l e n t s n o t be s q u a n d e r e d f o r e l e v e n h o u r s a day on t h e f a c t o r y floor! [133] H o w e v e r central to L e n i n ' s project w e r e these Russian Bebels, he was u n a b a s h ed in e x p r e s s i n g his c o n v i c t i o n t h a t in t h e i r p r e s e n t c o n d i t i o n m o s t R u s s i a n w o r k ers, t h o u g h m i l i t a n t a n d c o m b a t i v e , w e r e u n a b l e to g r a s p t h e historical signific a n c e of t h e i r o w n militancy. T h e r e w a s a s e r i o u s d a n g e r t h a t they w o u l d t a k e t h e w r o n g p a t h , m o s t likely a n o n - r e v o l u t i o n a r y one. 4 0 This o u t c o m e c o u l d b e a v e r t ed only t h r o u g h a s u c c e s s f u l struggle against t h e false p r o p h e t s a m o n g t h e (selfp r o c l a i m e d ) M a r x i s t intelligentsia, w a g e d by t h e intelligentsia's t r u e w i n g — h i m s e l f , his c o - e d i t o r s , a n d Iskra's

Marxist

f r i e n d s in Russia. If " w e " c o u l d c o m e t o

Worry about Workers -219 d o m i n a t e the movement, he postulated, the broad masses would follow. Here an examination of WTBD's m e t a p h o r s can be quite revealing. Viewed in spatial terms, most of the d e b a t e in WTBD can be exemplified by the image of the tail (khvost, khvostizm)-, it is about positioning oneself and one's comrades not at the rear but at the front. Hence Rabochee delo is wrong to follow the tail of the workers, whereas Iskra is right to be ahead of them. But if Lenin usually counterposes the rear- to the vanguard, at times his spatial metaphors are based on height [52], with conscious social democrats described as a "spirit" ( d u k h ) "hovering above [vitaiushchii nad] the spontaneous m o v e m e n t " in order to "raise" (podnimat Lenin's emphasis) that movement to a higher level. O r elsewhere [131]:" [I]t is not at all our task to lower ourselves [opuskat'sia, Lenin's emphasis] to the level of the 'working masses.'" If Rabochee delo is lagging too far behind the workers, now the m e t a p h o r gets mixed, switching from distance measured on the ground to altitude. In either case, "we" always occupy a special position vis-à-vis the workers, whether ahead of or above them. If " w e " are to succeed, however, there must be more of us! So Lenin asks those intelligent)' (at times he says studenty) w h o m he hopes to persuade, and the small if growing n u m b e r of (relatively) well educated, well read workers who will listen, to join with him as a group of full-time, fully dedicated revolutionary activists, much in the spirit of Narodnaia volia, but without the terrorism. These learned and devoted revolutionaries would clearly and almost tautologically be intelligenty, of sorts, though of course they would not comprise the intelligentsia. (That there is of course no the in the Russian language may well be a source of the confusion in some discussion of this issue). WTBD is literally studded with statements that express the author's worry that workers may easily be seduced by false p r o p h e t s and his belief in the necessity for outside (i.e., non-worker) intervention if that outcome is to be averted. The following is but three samples of his critical view of the Russian masses, workers included, though often accompanied, nonetheless, by extraordinary claims as to what these same debased people would some day, some way, accomplish. First, he alludes derisively to the Russian masses' "slave" or "serf" mentality. In Russia 99.9 percent of the population is "corrupted ... by political subservience [or "servility," kholopstvo] and completely lack the conception of party h o n o r and party ties" [21n]. Yet this same " c o r r u p t e d " population now faced a task that was "the most revolutionary of all the immediate tasks confronting the proletariat of any country," the destruction of the most powerful bulwark of E u r o p e a n and Asiatic reaction [28], This very challenge, Lenin claimed, now ignoring their corruption, m a d e Russian workers "the vanguard of the international revolutionary proletariat." So the servile workers of Russia were somehow to stand things on their head and become the international vanguard! Of course something special would have to be added to this paradoxical formula to bring it about. Second, not only were the Russian masses servile, if left unattended they were so open to the temptations of bourgeois-liberal politics that it was urgent for socialist intelligenty to "reveal" (raskryvat') to them that their interests were

220 • Reginald E. Zelnik opposed to those of the bourgeoisie. A b s e n t this "revealing," liberals and pseudoMarxist demagogues would be able to attract workers by appealing to their "base instincts." Lenin frequently uses terms like raskryvat' and oblichenie (exposure), as when he stresses the need for "oblichenie" to be carried out by "conscious" socialists [69] as part of their educational work. Since the worker masses were unable to respond to tsarism in a revolutionary way, were unable to distinguish friend f r o m foe, they will " n e v e r " conduct the necessary political struggle until we educate (vospitat') leaders both f r o m among the worker intelligentsia and from the "intelligent)!" (iz intelligentnykh rabochikh i iz intelligentov) [sect. Vb]. Note that the unmodified use here of "intelligenty" seems to refer to what would elsewhere be called bourgeois intelligentsia, now identified as distinct from workerintellectuals, though at another point Lenin does advance the idea that some time in the f u t u r e distinctions between workers and intelligenty will, be "completely e f f a c e d " [112]. Third, although Lenin was p r e p a r e d to recognize and welcome signs of growing worker militancy, he refused to greet even that development as evidence of the dawning of a proper consciousness. True [sect. Ila], he did see a "rudimentary" (zachatochnaia) consciousness in the strikes of 1896, or, as he put it somewhat confusedly, their "spontaneous e l e m e n t " actually represented consciousness, but only in a "rudimentary form," as "flashes" (probleski). But he cannot quite get himself to define that rudimentary form lest it weaken his broader case for intelligentsia mentoring. Thus, in one of WTBD's most famous passages, one that would be clear in its import even if Lenin had not taken pains to underscore the italicized words, ne moglo byt'\ "[T\here could not have been" socialist consciousness among the workers "had it not been brought to them from without" [30]. To put it differently, Lenin does not hesitate to reveal his fear that there were indeed two possible futures for the workers and their movement: "either bourgeois or socialist ideology" [39]. This was a way of saying that bourgeois ideology was a real historical alternative in Russia, one that might indeed succeed if the right people failed to do all they could to push and pull the "masses." H e says as much a few lines later [40]: "The spontaneous development of the working class movement leads to its subordination to bourgeois ideology." Elsewhere [174-5] he writes of the danger that the "crowd might ( m o z h e t ) crush and push back (smiat' i otteret') the regular, conscious a r m y " (he really means the officer corps) in the absence of strong organization. A n d finally: " [ 0 ] u r task ... is the struggle with spontaneity, in order to divert [or "lead away," sovlech'] the working-class movement from the spontaneous striving of trade-unionism to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie." Certainly these words are sufficient to convey Lenin's d e e p conviction that there was no easy, natural confluence between the spontaneity of workers and the consciousness of people like himself. Lenin's clear warning against spontaneity is accompanied by an interesting footnote [39], f r a m e d almost as an a f t e r t h o u g h t , and perhaps conceived a f t e r s o m e o n e pointed out to him that the central argument in the main text could r u b

Worry about Workers • 221 p e o p l e the wrong way. H e r e Lenin takes a step or two back from his leitmotiv by s u d d e n l y assuring the reader that "of course" his words do not mean that worke r s have no part in creating socialist ideology. But his elaboration of this t h e m e simply gets him into deeper trouble, and supports my point about his assumption, not always articulated, that conscious workers would be limited to a small circle of w o r k e r intelligenty: Workers participate in creating social-democratic ideology " n o t in the capacity of workers but in the capacity of theoreticians (teoretiki) of socialism, as P r o u d h o n s and Weitlings," that is, only as men who have been able to " m a s t e r [and advance] the knowledge (znanie) of their age." Again, in the same spirit as his call for "Russian Bebels," his examples are chosen not f r o m production-line factory workers but f r o m already well educated E u r o p e a n artisanintellectuals, men who have entered the ranks of their national intelligentsias and assumed the primary identities of political intellectuals. So once again Lenin's a b r u p t concession that workers can evolve into conscious revolutionaries turns out to have a limited scope, simply a way of affirming that the thin ranks of the socialist intelligentsia were not closed to select(ed) individuals of working-class background. Having shared his worries about the worker masses, Lenin at least had the courage to pose the question, why? Why does the spontaneous workers' movem e n t , "the movement along the line of least resistance, lead to the domination [gospodstvo] of bourgeois ideology?" [41] His answer: "For the simple reason that bourgeois ideology is far older in origin than socialist ideology, ... more fully developed," and "has at its disposal ... more means of dissemination." This is followed by a n o t h e r qualifying f o o t n o t e [41 n]. All of a sudden the same s p o n t a n e o u s m o v e m e n t that, without external intervention, has bourgeois ideology as its potential end point, now turns out to have socialism as its end point, "if only (esli tol'ko) it [i.e., socialist theory] subordinates spontaneity to itself." All I can m a k e of this is the near tautology that a s p o n t a n e o u s movement of the workers will become bourgeois unless it does not, which is only possible if conscious socialists work rigorously to guard it f r o m that outcome. Or, as Lenin puts it later in the same note: "The working class is spontaneously drawn to [or "attracted by," vlechetsia] socialism, but the much more widely disseminated ... bourgeois ideology no less spontaneously thrusts itself upon the workers even m o r e " (vsego bolee). P e r h a p s it will suffice to call this a "tension" in Lenin's thinking. *

*

*

In D e c e m b e r 1910 Lenin wrote a belated obituary for his most cherished workerintelligent, Ivan Babushkin, who had perished at the hands of a tsarist punitive expedition in the wake of the 1905 Revolution. 4 1 Acutely aware by then of r e p e a t ed "liberal" accusations that the R S D R P had been mainly an "intelligentsia party" (partiia intelligentskaia, in Lenin's words), isolated f r o m workers, Lenin was quick to r e f u t e the accuracy of that claim by invoking Babushkin's exemplary life. The biography of this fallen "Iskrovite w o r k e r " (rabochii-iskrovets), he

2 2 2 • Reginald

E.

Zelrtik

asserted, completely gave the lie to such an outrageous slur. Babushkin was an "advanced w o r k e r " (rabochit-peredovik) who devoted his life to the emancipation of his class and the creation of a workers' party. Without the tireless, heroic work of such rabochie-peredoviki among the masses, Lenin proclaimed, the R S D R P could not have survived ten months, let alone ten years. Workers like Babushkin did not waste their energy on useless acts of individual terror, but worked "doggedly, steadfastly ( u p o r n o , neuklonno) among the proletarian masses, helping to develop their consciousness, their organization, their revolutionary self-activity. ...Everything that was won f r o m the tsarist autocracy [in 1905] was won exclusively by the struggle of the masses, led by people such as B a b u s h k i n " (Lenin's emphasis). Although it is fair to say that in principle the Bolshevik wing of the R S D R P was still run on the basis of "democratic centralism" at the time, that is, as a centralized, selective, disciplined, top-down organization, Lenin was justified (and would be m o r e so in the years ahead) in suggesting that the party had become more of a mass workers' party than it had been in earlier years. 42 By this time, his fears about the spontaneous urges of Russia's workers had no doubt dissipated, at least to a degree. But the language he chose to deploy in his praise for Babushkin is an important m a r k e r of the extent to which Lenin could now recognize that in his earlier thinking, the central role of bearer and disseminator of "consciousness" among the workers themselves had belonged not to the proletariat as such, but to a much smaller group of elite workers, an elect or chosen few. In many respects, including their own tense relations with the intelligentsia's nonworker majority, these Russian Bebels, whether named Babushkin, Shapovalov, or Kanatchikov, still resembled the " d e v e l o p e d " workers of the 1870s.43 E v e n when highly motivated and activated, the workers as a whole were still not fully reliable in Lenin's eyes. And if it was no longer "intelligentsia" as such, with its connotation of burzhuaznost', who had to lead them, it was now, more explicitly than in 1902, an important contingent of worker intelligenty. "Without such people," Lenin averred, returning to his 1902 evocation of slavery, "the Russian narod would have forever remained a nation of slaves" (narod rabov, narod kholopov). But with such leaders, the Babushkins, the Russian people will win their "complete emancipation f r o m all exploitation." By placing his confidence in Russian Bebels, Lenin seemed to have squared the circle of one of Marx's greatest dilemmas—how to imagine a movement for the emancipation of humanity led by those who were the most dehumanized.

Notes 1 Eric Naiman, Sex in Public: The Incarnation

of Early Soviet Ideology

(Princeton: Princeton

University Press, 1997). chap. 4. 2 In citing the Manifesto, Communist

Manifesto,

I have used both a readily available English edition,

The

with an introduction by Martin Malia ( N e w York: Signet Classics,

Notes

• 223

1998), and the German edition published as Das Kommunistische Manifest, 2d ed. (Vienna, 1921). My translations are a slight modification of the authorized Signet version. The pages cited are (English) 58-59,62-64, and (German) 20,22. 3 The Russian singular noun intelligent is italicized in my essay to avoid confusion with the English adjective with the same spelling. 4 Andrzej Walicki, The Controversy over Capitalism: Studies in the Social Philosophy of the Russian Populists (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969). An early example of Populist writing in this vein is V. Bervi-Flerovskii, Polozhenie rabochego klassa v Rossii. See also N.K. Mikhailovskii, Sochineniia, 4"> ed. (St. Petersburg, 1906), 1: 686-722. 5 V. Levitskii, Viktor Obnorskii: Osnovatel' "Severnogo Soiuza Russkikh Rabochikh" (Moscow: Izd. Vsesoiuznogo obshchestva politkatorzhan i ss.-polentsev, 1929); L. Deich, "Russkie rabochie revoliutsionery. V. Obnorskii," Rabochii mir 10-12 (1919). Bachin defied his Populist mentors by deploring the backwardness of peasants and denouncing his background ("I'll never go back to the village, not for anything. ...The peasants are sheep."); quoted in G.V. Plekhanov, Russkii rabochii v revoliutsionnom dvizhenii (po lichnym vospominaniiam) (Moscow: Politizdat, 1940), 19; see also G. Golosov, "K biografii odnogo iz osnovatelei 'Severo-Russkogo Rabochego Soiuza' (I.A. Bachin i ego drama)," Katorga i ssylka, no. 6/13 (1924). 6 See Reginald E. Zelnik, "On the Eve: An Inquiry into the Life Histories and SelfAwareness of Some Worker-Revolutionaries," in Lewis H. Siegelbaum and Ronald Grigor Suny, eds., Making Workers Soviet (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994), 56-61; idem, "Workers and Intelligentsia in the 1870s: The Politics of Sociability," in idem, ed., Workers and Intelligentsia in Late Imperial Russia, International and Area Studies, University of California Research, ser. no. 1 (Berkeley, 1999), esp. 42-45. 7 This theme is a leitmotiv of Jacques Rancière, La Nuit des prolétaires: Archives du rêve ouvrier (Paris: Fayard, 1981). 8 See Nikolai Morozov, Povesti moei zhizni: Memuary, 2 vols. (Moscow: Akademia nauk SSSR, 1961), 1:221-23. For more on Populist interactions with factory workers see Zelnik, "Workers and Intelligentsia"; Pamela Sears McKinsey,"The Kazan Square Demonstration and the Conflict Between Russian Workers and Intelligenty" Slavic Review 44 (1985): 83-103. For further evidence of tensions between workers and the intelligentsia leaders of Zemlia i Volia, see Stanovlenie revoliutsionnykh traditsii piterskogo proletariata. Poreformennyi period, 1861-1883 gg. (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1987), 262-63. 9 Plekhanov, Russkii rabochii, 11-12,18, 59. My page citations are from the reprint edition cited in note 5. The original appeared in the Geneva émigré journal Sotsial-Demokrat, nos. 3 and 4 (1890-92); see also Plekhanov, Sochineniia, 25 vols. (Moscow, 1923), vol. 3. 10 For a statement of the Populist preference for what they held to be the less proletarianized, purer textile workers and their suspicion of allegedly more urbanized, spoiled metalworkers, see Petr Kropotkin, Memoirs of a Revolutionist, ed. James A. Rogers (Garden City: Doubleday, 1962), 218,325. 11 In 1882 Plekhanov had overseen the translation of the Manifesto into Russian (Samuel H. Baron, Plekhanov: The Father of Russian Marxism [Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1963], 67); he was apparently unhappy with the 1869 translation by Mikhail Bakunin and Sergei Nechaev. 12 Alfred J. Rieber, "The Sedimentary Society," in Edith W. Clowes, et al., eds., Between Tsar and People: Educated Society and the Quest for Public Identity in Late Imperial Russia (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991). 13 For a more detailed critical analysis of Plekhanov's complicated scheme, see Zelnik, " O n the Eve," 29-34. 14 Norman M. Naimark, Terrorists and Social Democrats: The Russian Revolutionary Movement Under Alexander III (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), esp. chap. 3;

2 2 4 • Reginald

E.

Zelnik

see also D e r e k O f f o r d , The Russian Revolutionary Movement in the 1880s ( C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1986). A n i n d i s p e n s a b l e s o u r c e is Ot gruppy Blagoeva k "Soiuzu Bor'by" (¡886-1894 gg.) ( R o s t o v - o n - D o n : G o s i z d a t , 1921). Essential for t h e period f r o m the early 1890s t o circa 1903 a r e : D i e t r i c h G e y e r , Lenin in der russischen Sozialdemokratie: Die Arbeiterbewegung im Zarenreich als Organizatsionsproblem der revolutionären Intelligentz, 1890-1903 ( C o l o g n e : B o e l a n , 1962); Allan K. W i l d m a n , The Making of a Workers' Revolution: Russian Social Democracy, 1891-1903 (Chicago: U n i versity of C h i c a g o Press, 1967); a n d . for t h e intellectual history seen f r o m a psycho-biog r a p h i c a l perspective, L e o p o l d H. H a i m s o n , The Russian Marxists and the Origins of Bolshevism ( C a m b r i d g e : H a r v a r d U n i v e r s i t y Press, 1955). 15 O n t h e impact of t h e f a m i n e on the a s s u m p t i o n s of intelligentsia y o u t h , see W i l d m a n , Making of a Workers' Revolution, esp. 26. O n M o i s e e n k o , see Z e l n i k , " O n t h e Eve," 43-46. 16 O n t h e c o n t r i b u t i o n of intelligenty to the strikes, see W i l d m a n , Making of a Workers' Revolution, esp. 27. For a contrasting view see R i c h a r d Pipes, Social Democracy and the St. Petersburg Labor Movement, 1885-1897 ( C a m b r i d g e : H a r v a r d University Press, 1963), chap. 6. For an incisive analysis of the strikes themselves, see G e r a l d D. Surh, 1905 in St. Petersburg: Labor, Society, and Revolution ( S t a n f o r d : S t a n f o r d University Press, 1989), 53-65. 17 A n i n d i s p e n s a b l e s t u d y r e m a i n s t h e long i n t r o d u c t i o n to J o n a t h a n F r a n k e l , ed., Vladimir Akimov on the Dilemmas of Russian Marxism, 1895-1903 ( C a m b r i d g e : C a m b r i d g e University Press, 1969); t h e b o o k includes t r a n s l a t i o n s of i m p o r t a n t s t a t e m e n t s by A k i m o v , o n e of L e n i n ' s principal " E c o n o m i s t " a d v e r s a r i e s . 18 Stachki is r e p r i n t e d in L.M. Ivanov, ed., Rabochee dvizhenie v Rossii v XIX veke: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov, vol. 4, pt. 1: 1895-1897 ( M o s c o w : Sotsekgiz, 1961), 72-89. T h e b r o c h u r e d e s c r i b e d five r e c e n t strikes, all of t h e m d e e m e d " f a i l u r e s " (89) in part d u e t o w o r k e r s ' violence a n d lack of s e l f - r e s t r a i n t . 19 Ibid., 75, 77 (pogromy). In o n e f o o t n o t e (75n) the a u t h o r s r e f e r to G e r h a r t H a u p t m a n n ' s play Die Weber (Tkachi, which had recently b e e n translated into Russian by A n n a Elizarova) as depicting a primitive bunt carried out by w o r k e r s w h o have not yet attained a sufficient level of u n d e r s t a n d i n g of " t h e c o n d i t i o n s of life and labor"; see Zelnik, " Weber into Tkachi: O n a Russian R e a d i n g of G e r h a r t H a u p t m a n n ' s Play The Weavers," in L a u r a Engelstein and S t e p h a n i e Sadler, eds., Self and Story in Russian History (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2000). A t a r o u n d the s a m e time as the a p p e a r a n c e of Stachki, leaflets of t h e P e t e r s b u r g g r o u p of stariki, closely associated with Lenin, w e r e also a d v o c a t i n g disciplined strikes and w a r n i n g of the h a r m f u l n e s s of violent disorders; W i l d m a n , Making of a Workers' Revolution, 59-60. 20 Stachki, 79. O n e of t h e five i n c i d e n t s the a u t h o r s discussed was the 1895 strike at a large c o t t o n mill in Teikovo, n e a r I v a n o v o - V o z n e s e n s k (81-82). T h i s strike is e x p l o r e d in rich detail in D a v e Pretty, " N e i t h e r P e a s a n t n o r P r o l e t a r i a n : T h e W o r k e r s of t h e I v a n o v o V o z n e s e n s k R e g i o n , 1 8 8 5 - 1 9 0 5 " ( P h . D . diss.. B r o w n University, 1997), c h a p . 3. In c o n t r a s t to t h e a u t h o r s of Stachki, Pretty sees the violence of the T e i k o v o w o r k e r s as having a rational basis. See also D a n i e l R. B r o w e r , " L a b o r Violence in Russia in t h e L a t e N i n e t e e n t h C e n t u r y , " Slavic Review 41 (Fall, 1982), and C h a r t e r s W y n n . Workers, Strikes, and Pogroms: The Donbass-Dnepr Bend in Late Imperial Russia 1870-1905 ( P r i n c e t o n : Princ e t o n University Press, 1992). 21 Vospominaniia Ivana Vasil'evicha Babushkina, 74 ( w r i t t e n 1902, first p u b l i s h e d 1925).

1893-1900

( M o s c o w : G o s p o l i t i z d a t , 1955),

22 O n Rabochaia mysl' see W i l d m a n , Making of a Workers' Revolution, chap. 5.1 borrow the t e r m " w o r k e r - p h i l e , " a r o u g h e q u i v a l e n t to t h e F r e n c h ouvriériste, f r o m W i l d m a n ; w o r k e r phile intelligenty w e r e t h e t y p e s t h a t L e n i n w o u l d later accuse of "tailism."

Notes • 225 23 See Reginald E. Zelnik, ed. and trans.. A Radical Worker in Tsarist Russia: The Autobiography of Semen Ivanovich Kanatchikov (Stanford: Stanford University Press. 1986). 24 Babushkin is an cxccllcnt example of a worker who began his radical career in "propaganda" circles, but. admiring his intelligentsia mentors, subsequently adopted the intelligentsia model of social-democratic agitator among the rank-and-file; after his 1896 arrest, while in exile in Ekaterinoslav in 1897-98, even Babushkin found himself in conflict with Marxist intelligenty. Wildman. Making of a Workers' Revolution, 103-07; see also Vospominaniia Babushkina. 25 On this phase and the earlier background of worker-intelligentsia tensions in the 1890s, see Wildman. Making of a Workers' Revolution, chaps. 4-5. 26 On this point, at least, the views of Wildman, Making of a Workers' Revolution, 68-70 and Pipes, Social Democracy, 91-92 are very close. 27 At one time, of the group's seventeen members, not one was a worker. For the occupations of the seventeen intelligenty see Geyer, Lenin in der russischen Sozialdemokratie, 63. 28 [Lenin], "Nasushchnyia zadachi nashego dvizheniia," Iskra 1 (1 December 1900), front page. Here and below, all citations from lskra are from the facsimile edition published by Balgarska Kniga (Sofia, 1970): see also Lenin. Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5 lh ed., 55 vols. (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izd. Politicheskoi Literatury, 1958), 4: 371-77. 2 9 In English versions of WTBD, the verb podgotovliat'/podgotovit' is often translated as "train."This practice was cogently criticized by Lars Lih at an AAASS panel on WTBD in November 2001. To a great extent the part of this essay in which I specifically address Lenin's WTBD was provoked by stimulating ideas set forth by Lih at that panel. Our disagreements are significant, but I am all the more grateful to him for having invited me into that discussion. 30 "Novye druz'ia russkogo proletariata," lskra 1 (1 December 1900), unnumbered pages 3-4, unsigned, but by Martov. In partial contrast to Lenin, however, whose main worry was that workers would follow the siren call of the bourgeoisie. Martov focused on the latest danger, that they were being "diverted" (otvlech', a verb soon to be associated primarily with Lenin) from the path of political struggle by the false promises of Sergei Zubatov, who tempted them to accommodate to tsarist autocracy. Martov was even worried that conscious workers might opt for Zubatov (an oxymoron, since in the language of the movement such a choice would have revealed their lack of consciousness, consciousness itself being essentially performative). 31 In Leon Trotsky. Lenin (New York: Capricorn, 1962; reprint, New York: Minton Balch, 1925), 3-63. Trotsky describes a period only slightly later than the time when Lenin was composing WTBD. 32 lskra's correspondence with these agenty takes up some 1,500 pages: Perepiska V.I. Lenina i redaktsii gazety "Iskra" s sotsial-demokraticheskimi organizatsiiami v Rossii, 1900-1903 gg., M.S. Volin, et al., eds., 3 vols. (Moscow: Mysl', 1969-70). 33 Trotsky, Lenin, 31. 34 There was only one worker, Samuel Katz of the Jewish Bund, at the RSDRP's First Congress, in Minsk in 1898; apparently upset that some delegates were reluctant to include the word Rabochaia in the Party's title, Katz expressed the hope that at the next congress he would no longer be the only worker. See Henry J.Tobias, The Jewish Bund in Russia, From Its Origins to 1905 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1972), 77,76-77n; Geyer, Lenin in der russischen Sozialdemokratie, 107, 107n. 35 See Gerald D. Surh, "The Petersburg Workers' Organization and the Politics of 'Economism.' 1900-1903," in Zelnik, Workers and Intelligentsia. Surh calls the Workers' Organization (WO) "the most important Social Democratic association of workers and intelligenty in the capital before 1905" (116); while Lenin was abroad composing WTBD, the

226 • Reginald

36

37 38

39 40 41

42

43

E.

Zelnik

W O was helping to organize the spectacular 1901 action of metalworkers that came to be known as the "Obukhov Defense." All subsequent page and section references to WTBD. in square brackets, are from Chto delat'? Nabolevshie voprosy nashego dvizheniia. in Lenin, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, 5 ,h ed., 55 vols. (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Politicheskoi Literatury, 1958), vol. 6. I use the Russian original because small nuances of language are essential to this kind of analysis; but not wishing to add to the proliferation of translations, I have tried to keep my own reasonably close to an accessible English version: What is to be Done?, trans. Joe Fineberg and George Hanna, with revisions to trans. Robert Service (London: Penguin Books, 1988). He would also change these views considerably in later years, specifically in response to 1905. Anna Krylova is preparing an important investigation of this change. Lenin had used the same examples in 1899: "Every viable working-class movement has brought to the fore such working-class leaders, its own Proudhons, Vaillants, Weitlings, and Bebels. ...This 'working-class intelligentsia' already exists in Russia"; Lenin, Collected Works, 4'h ed., vol.4 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1964), 280-81. See Rieber, "The Sedimentary Society," 347. But note that Lenin also foresaw the possibility that workers would take a revolutionary yet no less incorrect path [96n]. "Ivan Vasil'evich Babushkin (Nekrolog)"', in Vospominaniia Babushkina, 9-12 (first published in Rabochaia Gazeta 2 [18/31 Dec. 1910]); all quotes are from pages 11-12. Babushkin was shot in 1906 after his arrest for transporting arms. See Henry Reichman, "On Kanatchikov's Bolshevism: Workers and Intelligentsia in Lenin's What is to be done?," in Russian History/Histoire Russe 23 (1996): 27-28. For data on worker membership in the party, see David Lane, The Roots of Russian Communism: A Social and Historical Study of the Roots of Social Democracy, ¡898-1907 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1968). See also Leopold Haimson, "The Problem of Social Stability in Urban Russia. 1905-1917," Slavic Review 23, no. 4 (1964): 619-642; 24, no. 1 (1965): 1-22. On the point that workers recruited by intelligenty in the 1870s were "elect" or "chosen" (izbrannye), see Zelnik, "Workers and Intelligentsia," esp. 19.

The Political Evolution of Moscow's Kupechestvo in Early Twentieth-Century Russia: Observations and Reflections LEOPOLD H .

HAIMSON

The political evolution of the Moscow kupechestvo in the early twentieth century played a significant role in the politics of pre-revolutionary Russia. This significance lies not only in the dramatic changes that it reflected in this group's political attitudes and behavior, culminating in the emergence of the Moscow Progressisty as a political organization and the central role that it came to play in Russia's prerevolutionary development, but also in the relationship that these dramatic changes bore to other aspects of the politics of pre-revolutionary Russia, including the political role that the landowning nobility assumed during this period. In A l f r e d Rieber's longer-term perspective on the Moscow kupechestvo's evolution f r o m the mid-nineteenth century onward, however, these dramatic changes took place within the framework of several important continuities, which found their most interesting reflection in the political attitudes displayed by those who came to be identified as its "younger generation," as most of them reached adult age at the turn of the century. The first of these continuities was the central role that the Moscow kupechestvo, through this "younger generation," continued to exercise throughout this period in the cultural, social, as well as economic life of Russia's second capital. A m o n g the many possible demonstrations of this role it is only necessary, perhaps, to mention the role played by members of the kupechestvo in the financial support of the Bolshoi Theatre and in the flowering of Moscow's Art Theatre (whose founder Stanislavsky originated from a family of kuptsy), as well as the importance of Nikolai P. Riabushinskii's sponsorship in the development of modern painting and architecture in Russia. A second continuity was the sharpness of the sense of rivalry and antagonism that members of Moscow's kupechestvo consistently displayed toward the landed nobility during these years. The character and sources of this antagonism were dramatically illustrated in a statement by the organizers of the Nizhnyi Novgorod trade fair at the opening of the century, which emphasized the dramatic contrasts between the parasitic role displayed by the nobility in its conspicuous consump-

228 • Leopold H. Haimson tion of Russia's material wealth and the kupechestvo's major contribution to the d e v e l o p m e n t of the country's material resources. It was high time, the statement argued in words that resounded well beyond the Central Industrial Region, that the kupechestvo be recognized as the first estate of the Russian land. Thus, and h e r e is an additional continuity, the antagonism that members of the kupechestvo e n t e r t a i n e d towards the landed nobility was not translated at this time into hostility toward the tsarist regime, notwithstanding the regime's strengthening of the nobility's privileged position especially during the period of counter-reforms in the 1880s and early 1890s. In part, the sense of grievance and antagonism expressed in the Nizhnyi Novgorod statement was a response to the contempt that members of the nobility continued to entertain about the kupechestvo, which they viewed as a social group animated solely by its pursuit of material gains, achieved largely through speculation, rather than the " g e n u i n e " creation of material wealth, and at the expense of other groups in Russian society. From the nobility's perspective, it was the kupechestvo that was parasitic and whose social role was in sharp contrast to the honor, devotion and duty that distinguished the nobility's own service to society a n d the state. This mutual antagonism, shaded with contempt, between Moscow's nobility and its kupechestvo was generally characteristic of the relations between these two social groups throughout the empire in this period. But in the life of Russia's second capital, it was exacerbated by a particular rivalry centering on the competition between these two social groups for control of the city's institutions of selfadministration, most notably Moscow's City D u m a . At the political center of this rivalry was the fact that Moscow's kupechestvo was successful during this period in its challenge for control of Moscow's City D u m a , as Walter H a n c h e t t d e m o n s t r a t e d many years ago in his conclusive analysis of t h e D u m a ' s elections. 1 Indeed, they were so successful that the m e m b e r s of M o s c o w ' s landed nobility effectively withdrew f r o m seeking to play any significant role in the city's institutional life, and in particular, in the functioning of the organs of self-administration. T h e Revolution of 1905, which witnessed for the first time the political emergence of Moscow's kupechestvo's "younger generation," and of its sharp differences on political platform and tactics with the older generation, did not attenuate t h e sharpness of the conflict b e t w e e n A.I. Konovalov, Pavel R Riabushinskii and the self-appointed leadership of this new, more militant generation, and of the equally militant representatives of the landed nobility. When Konovalov and Riabushinskii sought to take part in the proceedings of the zemstvo congress held in Moscow in the spring of 1905, they were r e b u f f e d by the congress leadership on the g r o u n d s that participation in its proceedings was restricted to representatives of the gentry-dominated zemstvo assemblies. In the wake of this rebuff, these spokesmen for the "younger g e n e r a t i o n " of Moscow's kupechestvo felt compelled, a f t e r the ukaz in the s u m m e r of 1905 calling for the elections to the so-

Political Evolution of Moscow's Kupechestvo • 229 called Bulygin D u m a , to form a party of their own, to formulate a new electoral p l a t f o r m and to participate in the elections This platform differed sharply f r o m the one espoused by the older kupechestvo g e n e r a t i o n . It called for the adoption of a new electoral system, resting on the principles of universal, equal and secret s u f f r a g e — t h r e e of the "four tails" called for in N o v e m b e r 1904 by the Union of Liberation. Notably, however, it did not include the fourth tail d e m a n d e d by the Union of Liberation, calling for direct suffrage. In this regard, the representatives of the younger, no less than the older, generation of the Moscow kupechestvo were intent on ensuring that their own economic interest be represented and d e f e n d e d in the country's new national representative institution. It should be noted nonetheless that the approach adopted by the molodye Muscovites presented a r e m a r k a b l e contrast to the one adopted by the m e m b e r s of the St. Petersburg Society of M a n u f a c t u r e r s and Mill Owners, who also felt compelled to create a party to participate in the elections. In comparison with the wide-ranging and militant political posture of Moscow's "younger generation," the platform adopted by the St. Petersburg manufacturers was focused exclusively on self-advocacy, which could only appeal to those members of the electorate who also completely identified their interests with those in the St. Petersburg Society. In any event, none of the newly created parties, including the party created by the representatives of the "younger g e n e r a t i o n " of Moscow's kupechestvo, survived the subsequent political developments of the Revolution of 1905, culminating in the issuance of the October Manifesto. Subsequently, in the elections to the First and Second State Dumas, Konovalov, Riabushinskii, and their followers threw their support to the leadership of the Mirnoobnovlentsy (the Party of Peaceful Renewal), and they took part under the flag of this party, after Stolypin's coup d'état of June 1907, in the Third D u m a . The fate of the Mirnoobnovlentsy, which played a leading role in the organization of the Union of 17 October and in its political leadership during the early sessions of the Third D u m a until it was eclipsed by m o r e conservative political currents, was marked by a decisive turn in the political evolution of Konovalov and Riabushinskii themselves, as well as of their followers among the Moscow kupechestvo's "younger generation."This evolution culminated after the elections to the Fourth D u m a in the organization of the Progressisty as an independent political group, and the adoption at its inaugural meeting in O c t o b e r 1912 of a platform of militant opposition to the tsarist regime. This was a decisive turn in the political sympathies of Konovalov, Riabushinskii and their youthful followers. It can be deciphered only in the b r o a d e r context of the political evolution that the Third D u m a itself had undergone under the impact of the new electoral system governing D u m a elections adopted after Stolypin's coup d'état of June 1907. In the explanations offered by the spokesmen of the Progressisty themselves for their break with the Union of 17 October, considerable emphasis was laid on the rejection by the majority of the Third D u m a ,

230 • Leopold H. Haimson including most of the Octobrist deputies, of the demand by the spokesmen for the Old Believers (or more precisely, for the officially recognized variant of their faith) for the right to proselytize their religious beliefs. A n d indeed, this proved to be the catalyst not only in the break between Konovalov, Riabushinskii, and their followers with the Octobrists but, m o r e importantly, for their subsequent adoption of a posture of militant opposition to the tsarist regime itself. W h e n this change is viewed in a b r o a d e r political perspective, however, it is important to emphasize that it occurred within the setting of a national representative institution which, as a result of the electoral system introduced by Stolypin's coup d'état of June 1907, had b e c o m e completely dominated by representatives of the landowning nobility. In essence, the new electoral system placed the State D u m a u n d e r the full control of representatives of this group, as was already the case with respect to the State Council, whose interests on a wide variety of issues ran directly counter to those of the kupechestvo of Moscow and the rest of the Central Industrial Region. A f t e r Stolypin's assassination removed the remaining restraints on their ability to d o m i n a t e Russia's political scene, these representatives of the pomeshchiki capitalized on their now unrestrained control of the State D u m a and the State Council to promote their own economic interests on a variety of issues—including taxation and tariff policy—at the expense of the linked interests of the peasantry and the commercial industrial class. Most importantly, given that the peasants were the chief customers of the textile products m a n u f a c t u r e d by Moscow's kupechestvo (the demand of Russia's urban m a r k e t s being largely satisfied by the finer textile products produced in the Kingdom of Poland), the renewed exploitation of the peasantry through various forms of taxa t i o n — a n d particularly the reduction in the peasants' purchasing power that it involved—contributed to the contraction of the chief market for the products of the manufaktury of the Moscow kupechestvo and of other textile enterprises of the Central Industrial Region. This was the basic factor that pushed the politically m o r e active m e m b e r s of the Moscow kupechestvo into a posture of o p e n political opposition, one that assumed a particularly militant character a m o n g the representatives of its "younger generation." It was in this context, at an organizational meeting on the eve of the opening of the Fourth D u m a which marked the emergence of the Progressisty as an indep e n d e n t political group, that its s p o k e s m e n approved a militant p l a t f o r m designed to compel the tsarist regime to give in to the party's demands. These d e m a n d s now included a democratic r e f o r m of the electoral system governing d u m a elections, as well as the expansion of the power vis-à-vis the state, of the new, m o r e democratic d u m a that the electoral reforms would create. Toward this end, the platform adopted by the Progressisty advocated the use of the d u m a ' s budgetary powers to reject the g o v e r n m e n t ' s requests for new appropriations as a stratagem to force the tsarist regime to give in to their demands, tactics eventually espoused by other liberal opposition groups as well before the First World

Political Evolution

of Moscow's Kupechestvo • 231

War. In pursuing these tactics, the Progressisty eventually came to threaten the o v e r t h r o w of the tsarist regime, if it did not give in to their political demands. While it is dubious to what degree the rank and file of Moscow's kupechestvo s u p p o r t e d this increasing militancy, archival d o c u m e n t s show that even the memb e r s of the Stock Exchange Society experienced a genuine process of liberalization comparable to the political evolution of the "younger generation" of M o s c o w ' s kupechestvo, most notably in the platform that they espoused on labor relations. For example, my reading of archival fond on the St. Petersburg Society of M a n u f a c t u r e r s and Mill Owners 2 indicates that on the eve of the war, as the conflict intensified between the m e m b e r firms of the St. Petersburg Society and their w o r k e r s over the recognition of May D a y as a paid holiday, the m e m b e r firms of the Moscow Stock Exchange Society issued an insistent appeal to the St. P e t e r s b u r g Society to give up its militant opposition to their workers' d e m a n d s over this issue. Their argument was that the origin of the celebration of May Day, r a t h e r than reflecting political demands, dated back to an ancient Russian ritual c o m m e m o r a t i n g the beginning of the agricultural season. There is no better example of the differences in attitudes toward labor policy, as well as in political acumen, that distinguished by this time Moscow's Stock Exchange Society and its m e m b e r firms from the St. Petersburg Society of Manufacturers and Mill Owners. Needless to say, the m e m b e r firms of the St. Petersburg Society were not converted by this argument. By the summer of 1915, moreover, in the context of Russia's increasingly perilous military situation, the m e m b e r s of Moscow's Stock Exchange Society had also begun to distance themselves from the tactics advocated by the Progressisty. Let me conclude these brief remarks by suggesting, however, that the dramatic changes that occurred in the attitudes of the Progressisty and the b r o a d e r process of liberalization, reflected in the evolution of Moscow's "younger generation" toward a militant position in opposition to the tsarist regime are f u r t h e r testimony to the inability of the regime to accommodate the pressure for constructive reform, even f r o m those who were traditionally most loyal to it, and helped create a climate which, in the absence of war, encouraged militant c o n f r o n t a t i o n well beyond that exhibited by Russian labor alone. Indeed, it is here, perhaps, that we can most clearly see the social and political foundations on which Russia's radical efforts at r e f o r m were ultimately structured in 1917.

Notes 1 Walter Sidney Hanchett, "Moscow in the Late N i n e t e e n t h Century: A Study in Municipal Self-Government," (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1964). 2 Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv (St. Petersburg), f. 150, passim.

A Testament of the All-Russian Idea: Foreign Ministry Memoranda to the Imperial, Provisional and Bolshevik Governments ALEXEI

MILLER

In researching Russian attitudes to the "Ukrainian question" in the second half of the nineteenth century, one of my key tasks was to analyze the "internal" bureaucratic discourse. O t h e r than very few private letters, diaries and memoirs, the main sources for studying how the problem was described and understood within the imperial bureaucracy were official documents that were not supposed to become public. During the research I came across a set of interesting papers from a later period. This article analyzes these papers for insight into the evolution of the perception of "Ukrainian and Belorussian questions" within the Russian bureaucracy during the dramatic years of the First World War and October Revolution. The a t t e m p t to analyze this "internal" discourse is important because both in the nineteenth century and during World War I the imperial bureaucracy was unable to agree on questions concerning the Western borderlands ( Z a p a d n y i Krai). Therefore, not only were all decisions perceived as provisional but there was also n o agreement about the very nature of the problem and its challenges. In the nineteenth century, particularly after the emergence of Ukrainian nationalism, the questions of what is "Russianness" and where are the territorial, ethnic and/or cultural borders of the Russian nation or nation-in-the-making become central both for emerging Russian nationalist public opinion and for the imperial bureaucracy. 1 There were two interpretations of Russian ethnic borders. Those who believed that Russian equaled Great Russian (velikorusskii) were a minority. The majority interpreted Russian as a common name for Great Russians (velikorussy), White Russians (belorussy) and Little Russians (malorussy), the latter being the most widespread name for those who are now called Ukrainians. The differences between these "branches of the Russian p e o p l e " were interpreted not as national, but as regional, developed as a result of the regrettable partition of the Russians after the collapse of Kievan Rus'. For this majority the Russian nation had to embrace all the Eastern Slavs, and the "national territory" had to include also the lands of contemporary Ukraine and Belorussia.

234 • Alexei

Miller

A s a m e a n s of legitimizing R u s s i a n claims t o t h e e a s t e r n t e r r i t o r i e s of t h e p a r t i t i o n e d Polish C o m m o n w e a l t h , t h e c o n c e p t of t h e A l l - R u s s i a n n a t i o n g a i n e d a d d i t i o n a l political i m p o r t a n c e at the e n d of t h e e i g h t e e n t h century. F r o m t h a t t i m e o n t h e conflict b e t w e e n A l l - R u s s i a n a n d Polish v e r s i o n s of t h e " i d e a l M o t h e r l a n d , " 2 t h e l a t t e r a l w a y s c l a i m i n g t h e " b o r d e r s of 1772," r e m a i n e d a key issue in R u s s i a n political life a n d t h o u g h t . In t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y the t e r r i t o r y of c o n t e m p o r a r y U k r a i n e b e c a m e an o b j e c t of a t e r m i n o l o g i c a l war. Poles called t h e right b a n k of D n i e p e r kresy

wschodnie

( e a s t e r n b o r d e r l a n d s ) or ziemie

zabrane

( o c c u p i e d lands). In St. P e t e r s b u r g a n d M o s c o w t h e s e t e r r i t o r i e s w e r e called zapadnyi

krai ( s o u t h w e s t e r n lands) or vozvrashchennyie

zemli

iugo-

(restored lands).

Poles called t h e O r t h o d o x a n d U n i a t e ( G r e e k - C a t h o l i c ) p o p u l a t i o n of c o n t e m p o r a r y U k r a i n e rusiny,

while G r e a t R u s s i a n s w e r e called moskali,

stressing t h e

e t h n i c d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n t h e m , a n d s o m e t i m e s , p a r t i c u l a r l y in Galicia, insisting o n t h e i n t e r p r e t a t i o n of rusiny as a b r a n c h of t h e Polish p e o p l e . In R u s s i a t h e t e r m russiny

w a s always used with d o u b l e " s " t o stress t h a t t h e y b e l o n g e d to t h e A l l -

R u s s i a n unity. M o r e c o m m o n was t h e t e r m malorossy

(Little Russians). From the

1840s U k r a i n i a n n a t i o n a l i s t s also j o i n e d this t e r m i n o l o g i c a l battle, i n t r o d u c i n g t h e t e r m s U k r a i n e a n d U k r a i n i a n s in their c o n t e m p o r a r y m e a n i n g . In t h e n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u r y t h e m e a n i n g of t h e w o r d Russkii

(Russian) differed

f r o m c o n t e m p o r a r y usage. It e m b r a c e d all t h e E a s t e r n Slavs a n d d e s i g n a t e d t h e n a t i o n , which was s u p p o s e d to include Little R u s s i a n s , G r e a t Russians, a n d W h i t e R u s s i a n s , just as t h e G e r m a n n a t i o n w a s s u p p o s e d t o i n c l u d e all G e r m a n s in s o m e c o n c e p t s of G e r m a n unification. S o m e p r o p o n e n t s of t h e A l l - R u s s i a n p r o j e c t insisted on t h e a n a l o g y b e t w e e n " t h e L i t t l e - R u s s i a n v e r n a c u l a r " a n d P r o v e n ç a l , C e l t i c a n d o t h e r v e r n a c u l a r s s u p p r e s s e d by t h e F r e n c h , S p a n i s h a n d E n g l i s h . R u s s i a n n e s s was an e t h n i c c o n c e p t , stressing t h e d i f f e r e n c e b e t w e e n t h e E a s t e r n Slavic p o p u l a t i o n a n d t h e rest, b u t Little a n d W h i t e R u s s i a n s w e r e i n c l u d e d within this unity. E v e n at t h e b e g i n n i n g of t h e t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y in t h e m o s t x e n o p h o b i c v e r s i o n s of R u s s i a n n a t i o n a l i s m , only Little R u s s i a n s a n d W h i t e R u s s i a n s w e r e n e v e r d e s i g n a t e d as inorodtsy

(ethnically alien). 3 O n a p e r s o n a l level t h e y

w e r e n e v e r d i s c r i m i n a t e d against o n e t h n i c g r o u n d s . 4 B u t at t h e s a m e t i m e all claims f o r a collective i d e n t i t y s e p a r a t e f r o m t h e R u s s i a n w e r e r e j e c t e d a n d s u p p r e s s e d as a t t e m p t s t o split t h e R u s s i a n n a t i o n . T h e s i t u a t i o n of o t h e r e t h n i c g r o u p s was exactly t h e o p p o s i t e ; Poles, Jews, etc. w e r e a l w a y s easily r e c o g n i z e d in t h e i r s e p a r a t e n e s s as e t h n i c g r o u p s a n d w e r e d i s c r i m i n a t e d against o n t h e p e r s o n al level. T h u s t h e U k r a i n i a n a n d B e l o r u s s i a n n a t i o n a l m o v e m e n t s w e r e p e r c e i v e d d i f f e r e n t l y f r o m o t h e r n a t i o n a l m o v e m e n t s in t h e R u s s i a n E m p i r e . T h e l a t t e r w e r e c h a l l e n g i n g ( o p e n l y o r p o t e n t i a l l y ) t h e unity of t h e e m p i r e , while t h e f o r m e r t h e unity of t h e n a t i o n as well. In a d d i t i o n , t h e politics of R u s s i f i c a t i o n t o w a r d s o t h e r e t h n i c g r o u p s , p a r t i c u l a r l y Poles, w e r e o f t e n p e r c e i v e d in St. P e t e r s b u r g a n d M o s c o w as a kind of p u n i s h m e n t f o r disloyalty a n d a s u b j e c t f o r b a r g a i n i n g , w h i l e t h e R u s s i f i c a t i o n of L i t t l e a n d W h i t e R u s s i a n s w a s n o t . T h e f r o n t l i n e in this d e b a t e did n o t r u n a l o n g e t h n i c lines. S o m e of t h e G r e a t

A Testament of the All-Russian

Idea • 235

Russians were ready to recognize claims for Ukrainian separateness. But the majority, together with numerous Little-Russian intellectuals, strongly opposed the Ukrainian project, insisting on a combination of All-Russian and LittleRussian identities. There were significant differences in visions of the ideal proportions in this combination, as well as in views of how All-Russian unity should be achieved. Some in both the public and bureaucracy envisaged a "French" scenario, with a potentially radical elimination of any traces of local cultural and linguistic particularities of Little and White Russians. O t h e r s considered the "British" solution of preserving regional identities and cultural particularities under the common roof of an All-Russian identity to be more realistic. These differences resulted also in different approaches to the means of achieving the desired goal. Some laid their hopes exclusively on repressive measures against Ukrainian nationalists and "cleansing the Russian soul of the Western borderlands from alien Polish influences," thinking that it would be enough to uncover the pure Russian nature of these population. Others insisted on some "positive" pressure for assimilation in the " F r e n c h " style, while yet another group believed that some concession and compromise with m o d e r a t e Ukrainian claims was inevitable. The discourse, which considered Little and White Russians to be branches of the Russian nation, and local tongues to be just the dialects (narechie) of the Russian language, remained official and also dominant in public discourse throughout the nineteenth century. A f t e r the Revolution of 1905 and some liberalization of censorship these views were challenged in the press both by Ukrainian activists and by Russian centrist and leftist journalists and politicians. However, among the bureaucracy these views were changing much more slowly. The dramatic shift comes during World War I and the October Revolution, which brings us to the collection of documents mentioned at the beginning of the article. The d o c u m e n t s are part of the Special Political D e p a r t m e n t (SPD) of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 5 The Special Political D e p a r t m e n t ( O s o b y i Politicheskii Otdel) was f o r m e d in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1916. The f o r m e r General Consul in Budapest M.G. Priklonskii was appointed Director and accepted his a p p o i n t m e n t by a telegram dated 9 March 1916. 6 However, the process of organizing the D e p a r t m e n t lasted until August, when Nicholas II approved the Minister's report about the D e p a r t m e n t and its tasks. 7 The personnel consisted mainly of experienced diplomats, who had to return to Russia after the outbreak of World War I, including V.G. Zukovskii, f o r m e r consul in Prague; B.V. Miller, former vice-consul in Colombo; N.N. Kratirov, official for special tasks of the minister; specialist in Polish affairs Shishkovskii. 8 The initial n a m e of the d e p a r t m e n t was "Vatican-Slavic" (Vatikansko-slavianskii) and its task was to analyze the political m o v e m e n t s of the Slavs of the H a b s b u r g E m p i r e and the relations with Vatican. By the time the D e p a r t m e n t started full-scale operation its tasks had significantly b r o a d e n e d to include three areas: Vatican, Polish and CarpathoRussian affairs, Czechoslovak affairs (including political influence on Czech and Slovak prisoners of war in Russia), and South Slav and H u n g a r i a n affairs.

236 • Alexei Miller But by t h e end of 1916 t h e d e p a r t m e n t a l activities focused m o r e and more on the problems concerning Ukrainians and to some extent Belorussians. In 1915-1916 the main attention was paid to the problem of East Slavic populations of Austria-Hungary. T h e S P D commissioned several experts to write on the issue and collected many materials that were prepared on personal initiative. Most of the papers—by B.A. Budilovich, son of a well-known Slavist and enemy of Ukrainofiles, A n t o n Budilovich; by D.N. Vergun, publicist, f o r m e r representative of St. Petersburg Telegraph Agency (and, most probably of Russian intelligence) in the Austro-Hungarian Empire; and by A. Sobolevskii, President of Slavic Benevolent Society in St. Petersburg—were devoted exclusively to defining the ethnic border of Russians in Galicia, Bukovina and Ugorskaia Rus' (Transcarpathia in contemporary Ukraine). 9 The common belief of the authors was that one of the main goals of the war was the unification of Russian people where, according to the All-Russian concept, the Eastern Slavic population of these Habsburg provinces belonged. Thus, all were preoccupied with the question of post-war border regulations and possible annexations after the success of the Entente, and the main criteria for f u t u r e a r r a n g e m e n t s in these m e m o r a n d u m s were ethnic and nationalist. The SPD M e m o r a n d u m entitled "Survey of sources and materials for the demarcation of the border of Russian nationality (narodnost') 1 0 in Galicia, Ugorskaia Rus' and B u k o v i n a " clearly formulates the political directive: "The task is to draw the b o r d e r primarily to separate the Russian population and the western neighbors of the Russian tribe ( R u s s k o e plemia) in Austria." 1 1 Needless to say, the authors argued for including all territories where Eastern Slavs were mixed with other ethnic groups into the Russian Empire. Budilovich, for example, insisted that the southwestern border of Ugorskaia Rus' should run along the river Seret, not the Pruth and of course not the Dniestr. 1 2 For the majority of the commissioned experts the Russianness of the Eastern Slavic population of these territories was non-problematic. But some authors did see problems with the identity of these Eastern Slavic populations and addressed the issue of what politics Russia should pursue toward the inhabitants of the eastern borderlands of the Habsburg Empire already during the course of war. The urgency of the matter in late 1915 and early 1916 was determined by the plans for new offensive operations to restore Russian control over Galicia. The Russian experience of the first occupation of Galicia in 1914-1915 had been annoying. In dealing with the local Eastern Slavic population, military and civil authorities, as well as representatives of the O r t h o d o x hierarchy, demonstrated not only lack of any coordination, but even the willingness to undermine the policies of other branches of administration. To a large extent that behavior was caused by the lack of any clear political instructions from the center. In general, authorities tended to treat the local population as Russian, perceiving the Uniate church and Ukrainian identity as something superficial, imposed by Vienna, Vatican, Poles, lacking support among masses of local inhabitants, and easy to eradicate when Eastern Galicia would come under Russian rule. These beliefs led to an

A Testament of the All-Russian

Idea • 237

openly repressive attitude to the Ukrainian language and the Uniate church and provoked the rise of anti-Russian sentiments a m o n g local Ukrainians. The most developed concept for the politics of any new occupation of Galicia by the Russian a r m y was p r e s e n t e d in A.J. Gierowskii's m e m o r a n d u m . 1 3 " U k r a i n i a n separatism leads to weakening and f r a g m e n t a t i o n of Russia and is one of the most serious questions of Russian internal politics. O n e of the main results of the present war should be the termination of Ukrainian irredentism. The successful liquidation of Ukrainian question in Galicia will partly also neutralize the U k r a i n i a n s within Russia, who see Galicia as a sort of Piedmont," wrote Gierowskii in July 1916. 14 Later Gierowskii used the same argument in a special m e m o r a n d u m on the f u t u r e R u s s i a n - R o m a n i a n border, warning against leaving the right bank of the Pruth River in the hands of Romanians, because "Bukovina beyond the Pruth will play the same role in the Mazepist movement 1 5 as the Republic of K r a k o w played after the partitions of Poland." 1 6 Gierowskii's interpretation of the Ukrainian p r o b l e m follows the tradition of the All-Russian discourse, putting the very n a m e " U k r a i n i a n s " into quotation marks. H e also speaks a b o u t the local "Russian vernacular." A t the same time he suggested tactics aimed at avoiding "creating new martyrs to the Ukrainian idea." H e r e Gierowskii again was following the tradition of those officials of the previous century, which advocated the combination of some limited restrictions and what they used to call "positive" measures. These positive measures did not mean any concessions to U k r a i n i a n demands, but r a t h e r the development of Russian schooling and o t h e r institutions that were to "process" Eastern Slavic peasants into Russians. Gierowskii also advised against prohibiting the U k r a i n i a n press, as had been done in 1915. Instead he suggested cutting off its external sources of financial support because he was sure that without Austrian and G e r m a n money U k r a i n i a n newspapers would die a "natural death." H e even suggested allowing publication of U k r a i n i a n papers if the publisher were able to prove that the finances were his own. 1 7 Gierowskii was correct to notice that U k r a i n i a n p r o p a g a n d a had been very much connected to the social, namely agrarian, issue. T h e main point of his memo r a n d u m was that the government should introduce radical agrarian reform in Galicia as soon as possible in order to block the possibility that Ukrainian activists might use social discontent for nationalist aims. In his opinion that was easier to do in Galicia because there was no possible way of gaining the loyalty of the Polish landlords, and t h e r e was also no need of protecting the Jews, whom Gierowskii particularly and deeply hated. 1 8 H e r e again he was tackling a very sensitive issue of the conflict, on the one hand, b e t w e e n the social identity of the imperial bureaucracy as a protector of rights of the nobility and the legality of dealing with property rights as such, and, on the o t h e r hand, the nationalist idea of sacrificing these principles in the Western b o r d e r l a n d s and now Galicia in o r d e r to destroy /the Polish influence and p r o m o t e Russification. A f t e r the Polish uprising of 1863 the Milutin brothers and M.N. Muraviev were a m o n g those on

238 • Alexei

Miller

the very top of the bureaucratic pyramid who opted for at least partial implementation of the second approach. O n the religious question Gierowskii's recipe was "to support the belief of the Uniates that Unia and Orthodoxy is practically the same." In o t h e r words he advocated not to d e m a n d the formal transition from the U n i a t e church to O r t h o d o x , to avoid asking people to which denomination they belong when they come to church, and to supply Galicia with educated O r t h o d o x priests who could match their U n i a t e counterparts, all with higher education. 1 9 Probably the most sensitive and intellectually responsive to changing realities was V.P. Svatkovskii, officially a journalist, unofficially a resident of Russian intelligence in Berne. Svatkovskii closely followed the tactics of Vienna and Berlin on the Ukrainian question, maintained contacts with many Ukrainian emigrants of different political orientations and tried to use them for political purposes. H e was involved in practical politics and at the same time was supplying St. Petersburg with information and m e m o r a n d a with recommendations that must have looked radical to those who read them in the Russian capital. Svatkovskii obviously understood that his ideas were crossing some conventional lines. So he begins his first m e m o r a n d u m , "Ukrainian question on the eve of the spring campaign" dated 30 N o v e m b e r 1915 (old style), with a declaration to protect him f r o m possible suspicions about his political reliability: "The author of this overview has a totally negative attitude toward the political and national-separatist ideals of Ukrainianism, considering them a great sin against Russia. He also believes that the Ukrainian programs' d e m a n d s for a national culture are exaggerated and harmful." 2 0 But he continues with a "totally negative evaluation of the sad fact of total lack of any tactic or even simple tact, which are necessary for arranging the Ukrainian question for our profit." His extensive analysis of the p e r f o r m a n c e of military and particularly civil administrations during the Russian occupation of Galicia is devastating. 2 1 Svatkovskii's main point is that the Ukrainian question b e c o m e s a subject of competition among many international actors, including Hungarians, Austrians, and Germans. Russia, in his view, was in a position to give U k r a i n i a n s what Hungary 2 2 could never give, and G e r m a n y was able to give only in case Russia was totally d e f e a t e d , which seemed improbable at that time. Svatkovskii m e a n t "immediate unification of all the Ukraine, of all 35 million of the Little Russian or Ukrainian population." 2 3 Svatkovskii was probably among the first in Russia who u n d e r s t o o d that with the beginning of war the nature of all the ethnic problems was changing dramatically. Now Russia had to compete with o t h e r powerful actors for the sympathy and loyalty of the Ukrainians. H e also recognized that this situation, combined with the considerable potential of the Ukrainian national movement, 2 4 m a d e it necessary for Russia " t o give something," in other words to accept some of the d e m a n d s of the Ukrainian movement. Svatkovskii believed that these concessions could be rather limited, most of them even symbolic, because Ukrainian leaders would perceive that t h e unification of all the Ukrainians in o n e state was so

A Testament of the All-Russian

Idea • 239

i m p o r t a n t that many of t h e m would be ready for far-reaching compromises with t h e Russian government. 2 5 It would not be correct to say that such an approach was completely new. A l r e a d y in the 1870s the G e n e r a l G o v e r n o r in Kiev, Dondukov-Korsakov, had tried to establish some kind of modus vivendi with the leaders of the Ukrainian m o v e m e n t , offering them some modest opportunities for legal activities. But his g a m e was soon interrupted by the Ems decree of 1876, which imposed restrictions o n t h e use of Ukrainian language. The important difference is that D o n d u k o v Korsakov had been playing his game at his own risk, without any attempt to conceptualize his tactics in official documents and without any hope of getting the tsar's approval, while Svatkovskii was the first to suggest a concept of such tactics in a m e m o r a n d u m with the aim to convince the decision-makers. By the time Svatkovski was writing his first m e m o r a n d u m on the Ukrainian issue he however had some signs that people on the very top of imperial hierarchy were to some extent p r e p a r e d to listen to his arguments. In the summer of 1915 a landowner from Kiev guberniia, Count M. Tyszkiewicz, who positioned himself as a Ukrainian, conservative in his social views and loyal to the empire a n d e m p e r o r , sent the tsar a telegram expressing loyalty in the n a m e of Ukrainians. The tsar, most probably under the influence of those who thought similarly to Svatkovskii, answered on August 24,1915 with t h e following telegram, signed by his Minister of Court, Count Frederiks: "Sa Majesté m ' a donné l'ordre de vous remercier ainsi que le g r o u p e d'Ukrainiens réunis en Suisse pour les sentiments exprimés dans votre télégramme." 2 6 The revolutionary significance of this telegram for Russian official discourse on Ukraine was the presence of the word " U k r a i n i a n s " instead of "Little Russians" in a public d o c u m e n t that at least could be interpreted as a quotation of the words of the tsar himself. Most probably following this exchange of telegrams Svatkovskii was instructed to contact Tyszkiewicz, who was then in Switzerland. By N o v e m b e r he was ready to inform St. Petersburg about Tyszkiewicz's suggestions. The point of d e p a r t u r e for a big landowner like Tsyzkiewicz was quite opposite to that of Gierowskii. Tyszkiewicz suggested that the main danger f r o m the Ukrainian movement was its social program, and he advised concessions in the national sphere to neutralize the influence of the socialists, who, according to Tyszkiewicz, were using national sentiment in order to p r o m o t e their revolutionary social ideas. 27 Tyszkiewicz suggested several possible steps of a symbolic nature, which to some extent copied the moves already taken by the Habsburgs, but some going farther. Tyszkiewicz advised that the heir to the Russian t h r o n e be proclaimed the H e t m a n of Little Russia and portraits be published of Tsarevich Alexei in Ukrainian dress. H e also suggested publishing in Kiev an official newspaper in Ukrainian. 2 8 Later Tyszkiewicz also suggested that Alexei should visit Lvov and address the local population in Ukrainian, of which—Tyszkiewicz h o p e d — h e might have known several words t h a n k s to his favorite Ukrainian servant, Derevenko. 2 9 It is not clear whether it was Tyszkiewicz or Svatkovskii (most probably the latter)

240 • Alexei Miller who also advised that contacts be established with the political leadership of the Ukrainian movement both in Russia and in Austria (with the exception of a few holding deeply anti-Russian views) in order to discuss a possible compromise. Svatkovskii's two m o r e m e m o r a n d a are dated 17 August and 7 November 1916, but he begins the first one by mentioning several of his papers, which had been sent to St. Petersburg after his first m e m o r a n d u m of November 1915. Svatkovskii continued to inform the government about politics of Vienna and Berlin on the Ukrainian question, stressing that both were making serious efforts to win the Ukrainians to their side, including the creation of special privileged camps for Russian prisoners of war of Ukrainian origin. 3 0 He strongly argued for establishing contacts with Ukrainian politicians, even of socialist orientation, in Russia and abroad. 3 1 Svatkovskii and Gierowskii were united in criticizing the harsh repressive behavior of the authorities during the first occupation of Galicia. But the crucial difference was that Gierowskii believed more efficient politics could lead to the elimination of the U k r a i n i a n movement altogether while Svatkovskii was more realistically recommending some compromise with the Ukrainian movement and some, however limited, concessions to Ukrainians. Gierowskii followed the "French" pattern, while Svatkovskii was obviously thinking in terms of the "English-Scottish" solution. The February Revolution of 1917 influenced the rhetoric and argumentation of the documents that the SPD was sending to the government. On 18 May 1917, the SPD reported to the Minister-President of the Provisional Government, Prince G.J. Lvov, about "the meeting of Russian refugees from Galicia, Bukovina and Ugorskaia R u s ' " in Petrograd on 14 May. Most probably the meeting was organized or at least influenced by the SPD, and its resolution was to be used for diplomatic purposes and propaganda. This resolution, which expressed "the will for selfidentification in the form of unification of Galicia, Bukovina and Ugorskaia R u s ' with the G r e a t Russian democratic republic," particularly stressed that such unification should be treated not as annexation, but as a result of self-identification: "The meeting is deeply convinced that unification of these regions with Russia will be an act of reinstitution of justice by the Russian revolutionary nation and fulfillment of its obligation to the Little Russian nationality ( n a r o d n o s t ' ) , which contributed over several centuries to the creation and strengthening of AllRussian culture and, similarly to the Polish people, which remained divided as a result of the absurd will of autocratic tsars and kaisers." 32 Concepts of self-identification and democracy were replacing the concept of religious unity and loyalty to the tsar, now united with G e r m a n and Austrian kaisers in a category of those responsible for the evils of the past. The All-Russian motive survives, but is combined with the will for unification not of All-Russian, but of Little Russian people. It is not quite clear how SPD's situation changed after Bolsheviks came to power. Its activities certainly declined, and very few documents f r o m the later period survived in the archive. But one is of particular interest, the lengthy text of m o r e

A Testament of the All-Russian

Idea • 241

than 40 pages entitled " M e m o r a n d u m of SPD on the Historical Paths of Belorussia and Ukraine." It is anonymous and undated. But it is likely that the unknown author was a specialist in dialectology, and he completed this text not earlier than 1919, because he mentions Freitag's map of Ukraine, which was published that year. Later the text was edited by somebody in the SPD. Initially the author wrote two reports—one dealing with the border between Great Russians, Ukrainians and Belorussians, the other with the Russian-Polish border giving detailed description of ethnic and linguistic composition of all the borderlands. The reference to the second report as a separate paper survived in the first part of the Memorandum, 3 3 but the text preserved in the archive includes both. Most probably, it was the editor who added the political conclusion, because the first author limited himself to scientific linguistic data. The first author openly stated that he was not in a position to judge where people who spoke transitional dialects belonged, because "this problem has to be solved on the basis of some other considerations." 3 4 So, it would be more accurate to speak of authors, in so far as we are not able to trace all the insertions and additions to the initial text. In any case the m e m o r a n d u m definitely reflects the position of those officials who for some strange reasons continued to work in the SPD almost two years after the Bolsheviks came to power. The authors a d h e r e to the concept of the All-Russian nation. They speak about "all three representatives of Russians—Great, White and Little Russians," living in G r o d n o guberniia, 3 5 about areas where the "Belorussian tongue (narechie) comes in contact with other Russian tongues." 3 6 On the o t h e r hand, they acknowledge that both in Belorussia and Ukraine "Russian rule did not change the ethnographic characteristics of the mass of population." 3 7 Their interpretation of this fact reflects the changes in the political situation and their sometimes awkward attempts to adjust to these changes. At the beginning of the text the Belorussian tongue is classified among " o t h e r vestiges of the Belorussian past" in full accordance with the traditional AllRussian discourse. 3 8 However, in the Conclusion of the M e m o r a n d u m the picture becomes more complicated. The authors praise the abolition of serfdom, the development of education and the Russian revolutionary m o v e m e n t for their role "in the revival of Belorussian f r e e d o m and the development of a national consciousness among Belorussians." They acknowledge as a positive fact that "local intelligentsia, instead of becoming part of the Polish or G r e a t Russian intelligentsia, started to perceive itself as an inseparable part of its own people and to strive for the a u t o n o m y of their land ( k r a i ) within the federal Russian republic." 3 9 The authors were quick to declare, however, that "many Belorussians do not separate themselves f r o m the rest of Russia and do not want to isolate themselves as a separate nation (narodnost'), preferring to remain simply Russians." 4 0 This statement brought the authors to the main message of the m e m o r a n d u m , which they addressed to the Bolshevik leadership:

242 • Alexei Miller The overwhelming majority of Belorussians perceive themselves as a branch of the Russian nation and would be very upset by an artificial partition of their Motherland and annexation of parts of it by Poland and Lithuania. Such a partition is also against the principle of self-determination of nations, which was declared and is being implemented by Soviet Russia. Having agreed on secession from Russia of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, inhabited by non-Russians, Soviet Russia cannot agree to give these new republics those parts of Russian people who are against belonging to the alien (inorodcheskie) republics. Soviet Russia also cannot agree to give up parts of the Belorussian territory under Polish rule, with the exception of those areas that are populated by an overwhelming majority of Polish laboring masses. 41 The delimitation of borders with these countries was on the agenda. The reputation of the Bolsheviks as an anti-Russian force, or at least a force that does not care about the ethnic factor, was fairly strong. Praising the revolutionary movement, speaking about rights of national self-determination and the rights of workers and peasants, those still remaining in the SPD were trying to motivate their new and deeply alien masters to accept at least something from the concept of the All-Russian nation and to provide t h e m with necessary information if they wished to accept some of this logic. ( O n e can imagine the psychological state of these f o r m e r imperial officials while writing this text.) Ukraine is not mentioned in the conclusion exactly because the situation there, with its strong nationalist movement and with an obvious lack of military potential to claim all the Ukrainian territories, does not fit the message of the M e m o r a n d u m . The papers of the Special Political D e p a r t m e n t were produced either by officials or by "reliable experts" commissioned by them. These materials show how this group was responding to the dramatic events of World War I and the Revolution. The circumstances forced the D e p a r t m e n t to change the focus of its activities: instead of cutting pieces f r o m Austria-Hungary they became preoccupied with preventing f u r t h e r partition of their own empire. While accommodating arguments and social rhetoric to the changing regimes, some of them were ready to modify significantly their views on possible concessions to Ukrainian and Belorussian national movements. However, the concept of All-Russian unity, which had to include all Eastern Slavs, proved to be such a core element that it was able to survive all these rhetorical, tactical and even ideological changes. A n d the M e m o r a n d u m of 1919 a p p e a r s as a testament of the All-Russian concept that the people f r o m the imperial S P D were trying to pass to the new rulers of Russia.

Notes 1 Here I summarize the argument of my b o o k Ukrainskii obschestvennom

mnenii.

Vtoraia polovina

vopros

v politike

vlastei i

russkom

19 v. (Moscow: Aleteia, 2000).

2 By "Motherland" is meant the concept of what a national territory should be and w h o

Notes

• 243

s h o u l d i n h a b i t it "by rights." Such "ideal M o t h e r l a n d s " usually o v e r l a p e i t h e r partially, as did t h e Polish a n d R u s s i a n , or totally as the R u s s i a n version of " i d e a l M o t h e r l a n d " includ e d all of the U k r a i n i a n one. T h e E v o l u t i o n of the C a t e g o r y 3 S e e J o h n W. S l o c u m , " W h o a n d W h e n . W e r e the Inorodtsyl of ' A l i e n s ' in I m p e r i a l R u s s i a , " The Russian Review 57 (1998): 173-190. 4 A n d r e a s K a p p e l e r , " M a z e p i n t s y , malorossy, k h o k h l y : u k r a i n t s y v e t n i c h e s k o i ierarkhii R o ssiiskoi imperii," in A l e x e i Miller, ed.. Rossiia-Ukraina: istoriia vzaimootnoshenii (Moscow: Iazyki russkoi kultury, 1997): 134-135. 5 A r k h i v V n e s h n e i Politiki Rossiiskoi Imperii [ h e r e a f t e r A V P R I ] , f. 135, op. 474. 6 A V P R I . f. 135, op. 474, d. 1,1.1. 7 A V P R I , f. 135. op. 474, d. 1,1.7. 8 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 1.1. 30. 30ob. 9 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 201; F. 35, op. 474. d. 418; F. 135, op. 474, d. 29/101,11. 55-59. 10 In cases w h e n the exact R u s s i a n w o r d is i m p o r t a n t ( f o r e x a m p l e , o n e can n e v e r guess w h a t s t o o d in t h e R u s s i a n original text for " n a t i o n " or " n a t i o n a l i t y " in English t r a n s l a t i o n — n a rodnost', plemia, narod, natsiia) I will give the original R u s s i a n t e r m in p a r e n t h e s e s . 11 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 200,1. 1. 12 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 201,1. l o b . 13 T h e m e m o r a n d u m was r e g i s t e r e d in the S P D on August 4, 1916. 14 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 403,1. 2. 15 T h e d e r i v a t i v e n a m e for t h e U k r a i n i a n n a t i o n a l m o v e m e n t in Russia, which c o n n e c t e d it to "the traitor," H e t m a n Mazepa. 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 419.1. 28ob. A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 403.1. 2ob. A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 403, II. 4 - 5 . A V P R I , f. 135. op. 474, d. 403, II. 6, 6ob. A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 27,1. 4. A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 27.11. 4 - 6 . S v a t k o v s k i i a r g u e d that the H u n g a r i a n a p p r o a c h to the p r o b l e m d i f f e r e d f r o m t h e Austria n . H e b e l i e v e d H u n g a r y was r e a d y t o collect all U k r a i n i a n t e r r i t o r i e s of the dual M o n a r c h y u n d e r their rule, giving t h e m rights similar t o t h e C r o a t i a n t e r r i t o r i e s in o r d e r to c r e a t e a s t r o n g a n t i - R u s s i a n b u l w a r k on its e a s t e r n b o r d e r . A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 27,1.8.

23 24 25 26 27

AVPRI, AVPRI, AVPRI, AVPRI, AVPRI,

f. f. f. f. f.

135, 135, 135, 135, 135,

op. op. op. op. op.

474, 474, 474, 474, 474,

d. d. d. d. d.

27,1. 27.1. 32,1. 27,1. 27,1.

8. 8. 3. 12. 15.

28 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 27,1. 16. 29 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 27,1. 28. 30 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 27,11. 4 4 - 4 7 , II. 48-61. 31 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474. d. 2 7 , 1 . 4 6 , 5 6 , 6 1 . 32 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474. d. 42,1. 2. 33 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 42.1. 9. 34 A V P R I , f. 135. op. 474, d. 42,1. 10. 35 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 42,1 33. 36 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 42,1. 11. 37 A V P R I , f. 135. op. 474, d. 42,1. 5 , 8 . 38 A V P R I . f. 135, op. 474, d. 42,1. 5. 39 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 42,1. 40. 40 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 42,1. 40. 41 A V P R I , f. 135, op. 474, d. 42,1. 4 1 , 4 1 o b .

The Day before the Downfall of the Old Regime: 26 February igiy in Petrograd RAFAIL SH.

GANELIN

In Soviet times, Nevskii Prospekt was renamed the Prospekt of 25 O c t o b e r (and regained its original name in 1943). Z n a m e n s k a i a Square was r e n a m e d Ploshchad Vosstaniia (the Uprising Square). Most likely the names were determined by a p r e f e r e n c e for revolutionary events occurring in October. Nonetheless, both the Prospekt and the Square were sites of revolutionary events in February, not O c t o b e r of 1917. What happened there? This question is of crucial importance because on the following day, 27 February, soldiers of the Volynskii Regiment's training unit who had participated in the 26 February skirmish refused to obey their commanders and refused to fire on the crowd. This day is also known as the downfall of the old regime. However, already on 26 February, a company of the Pavlovskii Regiment had also refused to advance against the crowd. This article recounts the crucial events of that day. *

*

*

From 23 February crowds of people began flooding the Nevskii Prospekt daily. A m o n g them were workers coming to the center from the Vyborg quarter. They were coming despite attempts of the police to close the Alexander II (now Liteinyi) Bridge and the paths across the ice-covered river. Events on 25 February made it clear that the authorities were unable to suppress the popular movement. When Chief of the Vyborg Police D e p a r t m e n t , Colonel M.P. Shalfeev, who was in charge of cavalry and infantry on the Vyborg side of the Alexander II Bridge, ordered the crowd that was heading downtown to disperse, he was severely beaten and wounded. The Staronevskii district police officer, Colonel A.E. Krylov, was killed during a mass gathering at the Alexander II m o n u m e n t on Znamenskaia Square. Police were losing control of the labor districts. In the Vyborg quarter, some police stations were destroyed and the central command of government forces, located in the building of the City Council (gradonachal'stvo) at G o r o k h o vaia Street no. 2, lost its telephone connection with the Vyborg police. Around 9 p.m., the chief of the Petrograd military district, S.S. Khabalov, received a cable from Nicholas II who was at the General H e a d q u a r t e r s in Mogilev. The cable stated: "I order you to suppress the disorders in the capital at once, tomorrow, since they are absolutely impermissible in the times of our war

246 • Rafail Sh. Ganelin with G e r m a n y and Austria." 1 "This cable... how shall I put it, honestly speaking, took me aback," Khabalov testified later to the Extraordinary Investigation Committee of the Provisional G o v e r n m e n t . How could we suppress it immediately? But the Tsar said immediately. The Tsar ordered it to be suppressed at any cost. When we were o r d e r e d to give bread, we gave bread and that was the end of it. But no bread can help when the banners read: " D o w n with the monarchy!" What could we do? The Tsar had issued an order: we had to shoot. I was stunned, really stunned. I did not believe that this action would achieve the desired result. Every evening all the g e n d a r m e chiefs would convene and report on the events of the day. Then they would m a k e plans for the next day. Later, by 10 p.m. district commanders and c o m m a n d e r s of reserve battalions would be summoned for the next day's instructions. On that day they were to gather right after I had received the cable. W h e n they arrived I read the text to m a k e it public and showed it to o t h e r members of the meeting. Then I announced: " G e n t l e m e n , the Tsar gave an o r d e r to stop the disorders at once, tomorrow. It is our last resort; we must use it. ...Therefore, if the crowd is small, not aggressive and without flags, disperse it with cavalry. If the crowd is aggressive and carrying banners, act according to the Field Manual, I mean, warn them three times and then shoot." 2 During the early morning hours of 26 February, more than 100 people were arrested. A m o n g them were many leaders of the labor m o v e m e n t , as well as participants in the Congress of the War Industries Committee. A t 4 a.m. the Minister of Internal Affairs A.D. P r o t o p o p o v wrote to Tsarina A l e x a n d r a Fodorovna at Tsarskoe Selo that several rightist m e m b e r s of the State D u m a had been seeking his advice on "the application of strict measures, and all of them hoped it would bring calm for the following day." The hope for calm was based on the fact that 26 February was a Sunday and the factories were closed. However, many people went into the streets. Khabalov arrived at the city council in the morning and took control of military actions. He ordered the troops to k e e p the crowds away f r o m the Nevskii Prospekt on both the southern and n o r t h e r n ends. Since the Vyborg q u a r t e r was considered to be already in the hands of the "revolting masses," the central c o m m a n d o r d e r e d troops to use w e a p o n s if the rebels tried to break through to the A l e x a n d e r II Bridge. According to N.F. Akaemov, a journalist the demonstrations nonetheless continued Nevskii. Attacks against the gendarmes and being pushed f u r t h e r westward. 3 A r o u n d 10

who knew the G o v e r n o r personally, and caused a clash to the n o r t h of cavalry usually resulted in the rebels a.m., the City G o v e r n o r of P e t r o g r a d

The Day before the Downfall of the Old Regime • 247 (gradonachal'nik), General A.P. Balk, received reports f r o m the outskirts that s h o o t i n g had begun. At noon he was informed that the training unit of the Volynskii G u a r d s Regiment " o p e n e d fire along New Nevskii, Goncharnaia and Ligovskaia." 4 Balk wrote about this incident in his diary. In addition to General Balk's diary, the following description of the 26 February events on the Square and adjacent parts of Nevskii, Old Nevskii, and Ligovskii Prospekts and Goncharnaia Street relies on several sources. These include two versions of memoirs by T.I. Kirpichnikov, a noncommissioned officer w h o h e a d e d the uprising of the Volynskii Regiment on 27 February. 5 A wellk n o w n publicist of that time, I.S. Lukash also refers to Kirpichnikov. Despite the subtitle, "A Story of Timofei Kirpichnikov, the First H e r o of the Insurrection," that Lukash gave his pamphlet on "The Uprising by the Volynskii Regiment," he says that M.G. Markov, Ivan Drenchuk (in real life Drenichev), Kozlov, Y.K. Orlov and I.V. Il'in also took part in the discussions. 6 In 1924, an Estonian journalist, Y. Selyamaa, published Kirpichnikov's memoirs and those of other members of the Volynskii Regiment. 7 There is also a testimony of a well-known publicist and political journalist, V.L. Burtsev, who observed events from the H o t e l Balabinskaia. 8 According to Kirpichnikov's memoirs in Byloe and Lukash's notes, shortly b e f o r e the February events a training unit of 400 soldiers was divided into two companies, 32 rows each. (Some of the soldiers who m a d e up the first platoon were later sent to guard the prison and the treasury.) The First Company was u n d e r the c o m m a n d of Captain I.S. Lashkevich. 9 Lukash's interlocutors characterized him as "a cruel, acid and coarse person who could reduce to tears even experienced soldiers." In charge of the soldiers in the first squadron were: Sergeant Major Lukin; platoon commanders, Senior non-commissioned officers Vasiliy Kozlov, Fyodor Konnikov; Junior officer Mikhail Markov and Mikhail Brodnikov; Brigade C o m m a n d e r s Karasev, Orlov, Gubarev, Il'in, Borisov, Valuk, Kirin, Kireev, and Kochergin alias "the kid." The Second C o m p a n y was under the c o m m a n d of Second Captain Mashkin II. In charge of the soldiers were Sergeant M a j o r T.I. Kirpichnikov and Platoon C o m m a n d e r Junior non-commissioned officer Miron Kirpichnikov (Timofei's brother) and Senior non-commissioned officers Ivan Zaitsev, T.I. Plis, and E.T. Seroglazov. Already on 24 February the First Platoon and on 25 February the Second Company of the training unit of the Volkonskii Regiment had been brought to Z n a m enskaia Square. Officers were shouting at the crowd, threatening to open fire, but withholding the order. Somebody f r o m the crowd cried out: "Soldiers, don't shoot!" On 25 February, the Second C o m p a n y was brought to the Square. Captain Mashkin II was the c o m m a n d e r and T. Kirpichnikov, who had played a similar role for Second Captain Tsurikov on 24 February, was his second in command. Ensign Vorontsov-Veliaminov and Kochura were also there (in Byloe and Leningrad Kochura was mistakenly referred to as Tkachura). Mashkin, following the practice of the previous days, ordered the soldiers to deploy at Ligovka no. 37

2 4 8 • Rafnil

Sh.

Ganelin

(a house where a priest from Z n a m e n s k a i a Church lived) in the caretaker's premises and in the basement occupied by a group of Chinese craftsmen. At 11 a.m. the Second C o m p a n y lined up opposite the right corner of Bol'shaia Severnaia Hotel. A crowd with a red banner was heading from Nevskii to the m o n u m e n t of Alexander III. Speeches began. Vorontsov-Veliaminov decided to tear down the banner, but slipped and fell. They pelted his back with pieces of wood (according to Penchkovskii's notes a worker struck him on the back), but he managed to pull down the banner. His and Kochura's threats to open fire had no effect. The crowd could feel the unwillingness of soldiers to shoot and began to taunt them. Officers went to the hotel and got drunk. Soldiers spent the evening from 6 p.m. to 11 p.m. in the basement. During the night Kirpichnikov and Sergeant Major Lukin of the First Company debated whether to shoot or not to shoot the next day. Earlier that evening, Lashkevich had d e m a n d e d that they shoot. In this detail Lukash's notes coincide with Penchkovskii's account of this part of Kirpichnikov's story: Lashkevich s u m m o n e d the soldiers of the First Company, cursed us out and concluded with the words: "I hope that tomorrow you will wipe out this disgrace and prove that you are not cowards but soldiers." The soldiers were silent. "Aha, it means I was mistaken about you," said Lashkevich, who abruptly turned round and left. When the soldiers went back to the barracks Lashkevich sent for the Platoon C o m m a n d e r s and was questioning t h e m about the mood of the people. The Platoon C o m m a n d e r s could not guarantee anything. Kirpichnikov suggested that they refrain from shooting. Lukin, who was o r d e r e d to bring up the machine guns the next morning, said his wound hurt badly and went to the hospital instead. Then Lashkevich appointed Kirpichnikov Sergeant M a j o r of the First C o m p a n y and Ivan Zaitsev the Sergeant M a j o r of the Second. Vorontsov-Veliaminov and Kochura were now in the First Company. Such is the prehistory of the 26 February events on Z n a m e n s k a i a Square and the adjacent area. Lukash's and Pechkovkii's accounts of Kirpichnikov's story are identical in describing Lashkevich's behavior before the advance. He would "stroll along the line-up rapidly saying that ... soldiers are the d e f e n d e r s of the Tsar. He instructed t h e m to shoot mercilessly, and if necessary, to club and bayonet." There is disagreement on the important point about the machine guns. Lukash spoke of two machine guns that were placed in front of the soldiers. The two machine guns assigned to the soldiers of the Volynskii R e g i m e n t were also mentioned by Selyamaa and by a soldier, S.T. Lebedev, in his m e m o i r s written in 1967. 10 "The machine guns were set up on the first floor of Z n a m e n s k a i a Hotel," Lebedev wrote. "We set the safety catches on the machine guns so that they could fire only once. The c o m m a n d e r of the machine-gun d e t a c h m e n t C o r p o r a l Liakh

The Day before the Downfall of the Old Regime • 249 could not immediately detect the trick. But a f t e r long efforts and some help the m a c h i n e guns were repaired and we began to shoot at the workers." On the other h a n d . Kirpichnikov's version recorded in Penchkovskii's notes states: " O u r m a c h i n e guns were set up on Nevskii. C o m m a n d e r of the machine-gun detachm e n t C o r p o r a l Liakh was shouting all the time: 'Cut them down, shoot without mercy!' O u r machine-gunners put wooden blocks under the machine guns so that the bullets flew up even though the gun sight was accurate." When Seliamaa wrote a b o u t the guns rattling "over people's heads," he meant the notorious police machine guns that allegedly had been set on the roofs, not those of the Volynskii R e g i m e n t that were firing in the air. At this time the First Company was in the basement of Znamenskaia Square. T h e Second Company took up positions on Nikolaevskaia Street. The patrol on Z n a m e n s k a i a Square was ordered to block the street to Nevskii and to chase away those who were beginning to gather on the Square. In Byloe Kirpichnikov maintains that it h a p p e n e d at 2 p.m., but Lukash claims that already at midday " f a r away on G o n c h a r n a y a Street a crowd of demonstrators came into sight." F u r t h e r , he states that "this crowd was more menacing than yesterday's. The d r o n e of voices, dissonant singing of 'La Marseillaise,' and passionate cries m e r g e d into a continous roar. The crowd poured forth and roared, like a dark boiling s t r e a m . " As m e n t i o n e d earlier, G e n e r a l Balk r e p o r t e d that he was inf o r m e d about the shooting in the Square shortly after 12 a.m. This fact makes the discrepancies between Kirpichnikov's account in Byloe and Lukash's notes about the outset of the bloody events quite significant. V.L. Burtsev does not specify the time when the crowd appeared. Unlike Lukash, he maintains that "those who came specifically for the political demonstration were few and dispersed soon." It is clear from the first lines of his article that Burtsev assumed the shooting broke out in the morning: " O n the morning of 26 February on all the walls of Petrograd we read Khabalov's order threatening to suppress the popular movement 'at any cost.' We [Burtsev and N.N. Rozhkov, a D u m a deputy], lodgers of Balabinskaya Hotel on Znamenskaia Square, f r o m early morning ... could witness how G e n e r a l Khlebnikov's order was taking shape." Burtsev, like Kirpichnikov, did not see the crowd as a threatening mob, but as harmless passers-by, each of whom was "going about his business." The central c o m m a n d in all probability feared that they were demonstrators. In the morning, armed soldiers were lined up in two rows where Old Nevskii and G o n c h a r n a i a adjoin the Square. Next to them another unit was positioned in a horseshoe shape. Inside the horseshoe were the local inspector (pristav) and police, both mounted and on foot. Beside them were Lieutenant Colonels Lebedev and Tolubeev, Colonel Pletnev and G e n e r a l Fursa, whom Burtsev considered a general of the gendarmes. Sources describing the atmosphere in the Volynskii Regiment agree that even b e f o r e the shooting began, a m e m b e r of the Second Platoon, Corporal Ivan Il'in was suspended from his post for refusing to disperse the crowd in the Square. In

250 • Rafail Sh. Ganelin both his versions Kirpichnikov and Lukash link this episode to the time when the crowds began to fill the Square. Lukash writes that in the morning Il'in declared that "he would not disperse anyone and it was not a soldier's business at all." Lukash then called him a mutineer, put him under arrest and was about to tear off his stripes when Il'in did it himself, relieved that he would not have to "go into the streets, face the anxious crowd and look into thousands of pleading wide-open eyes again." Kirpichnikov, who was ordered to take Il'in to the caretaker's premises, shook his hand and said: "You were great, my friend. D o n ' t be afraid, everything is alright." Kirpichnikov mentioned that Lashkevich called Il'in a coward. (In Byloe, according to the account in Leningrad magazine, Lashkevich cursed Il'in "terribly": " W h o are you—a d e f e n d e r of the e m p e r o r and the motherland, or a son of a bitch?" "I am a d e f e n d e r of my motherland!" replied Il'in.) Lashkevich ordered his replacement and put Kirpichnikov in charge of the patrol. When Kirpichnikov asked the people in the Square to disperse, he said the workers replied: "We are not disturbing you, so don't ask us to leave." The shooting was preceded by the officers' attempts to drive out the people. "They came back and h e a d e d to Nevskii," says Kirpichnikov in Byloe. He goes on: "I slowed down, lingered behind the crowd, came up to the patrol and said: 'A storm is approaching, big trouble. What shall we do?' The soldiers said: 'It's real trouble, no way we can survive.' I instructed them, ' R e m e m b e r , if they m a k e you fire—shoot in the air. A failure to carry out the order may result in our death. G o d willing, if we return to our barracks, we shall decide on our fate there.'" Having asked the bugler to give the signal, Lashkevich ordered the soldiers to club, bayonet and shoot. Vorontsov-Veliaminov and 12 soldiers moved to G o n c h a r n a i a . flooded with people ( r e m e m b e r that Lukash mentioned a crowd of d e m o n s t r a t e r s moving down Goncharnaia Street). The bugler repeated the signal three times but was not understood, people did not move. Vorontsov-Veliaminov shouted: "Aim at the crowd, open fire by ranks. Ranks 1,2,3,4,5...fire!" But it was not t h e crowd that the soldiers fired at. As a result of the volley, plaster fell from the u p p e r floor of a building in Poltavskaia Street (Kirpichnikov says it was clay). The lieutenant ordered: "Fire at their legs, fire into the running crowd." Still, a second volley yielded neither dead nor wounded. The shooting scared away most but not all of the marchers. Vorontsov Veliaminov, shouting "run," started hunting down people who pressed closer to the front gates. He o r d e r e d Corporal Sleskaukhov (Il'in in Penchkovskii's records) to shoot an old man who approached from the right side of G o n c h a r n a i a . Sleskaukhov discharged three times. T h e third shot hit a lantern. T h e old m a n meanwhile disappeared into a courtyard. Then Vorontsov-Veliaminov tore the rifle out of corporal's hands and began shooting at the people clinging to the doors. H e wounded a woman in the knee. A general unfamiliar to Kirpichnikov (possibly Fursa) ordered two soldiers to drive her to the hospital. According to Kirpichnikov, Vorontsov sat down on a pedestal a n d started

The Day before the Downfall

of the Old Regime • 251

" s h o o t i n g to kill." H e was accurate. " H e killed t h r e e , w o u n d e d a w o m a n a n d a m a n , w h o w r i t h e d in pain on the sidewalk. A n a m b u l a n c e was sent for a n d t h e s e p e o p l e w e r e r e m o v e d f r o m the Square. A soldier r e t u r n i n g f r o m leave was s h o t d e a d too." T h e n V o r o n t s o v - V e l i a m i n o v s t a r t e d s h o o t i n g at the p e o p l e in the passageway for the s t e a m tram. H e walked Ligovka, m o v e d to a n o t h e r p e d e s t a l a n d c o n t i n u e d shooting, killing a n o t h e r f o u r p e o p l e . T h e t r u t h f u l n e s s of K i r p i c h n i k o v ' s story can be c o m p a r e d to B u r t s e v ' s statem e n t . T h e only d i s c r e p a n c y is that B u r t s e v did not c o n s i d e r the soldiers' s h o o t i n g totally ineffective. M o s t likely, " t h e y o u n g l i e u t e n a n t " in Burtsev's n o t e s is Vorontsov-Veliaminov

from Kirpichnikov's memoirs. Lukash characterized

the

b e h a v i o r of the c o m m a n d e r of the First C o m p a n y , C a p t a i n Lashkevich, the s a m e way. His a c c o u n t is w o r t h q u o t i n g in full: A n officer a n d then soldiers called several times on the crowd to disperse. A f t e r the first ear-piercing s o u n d of the bugle we k n e w that t h e r e would be n o s h o o t i n g immediately, that e v e r y t h i n g would be d o n e according to regulations. We k n e w that only a f t e r the third signal soldiers would e x e c u t e the officers' o r d e r . I n d e e d , in a few s e c o n d s t h e r e was a n o t h e r signal, t h e n a third. T h e officer o r d e r e d calmly: "Fire." I h e a r d the cocks click, the rifles r e s p o n d , a n d t h e n the volley. A few m o m e n t s later I could h e a r cries. . . . A wall was s e p a r a t i n g m e f r o m the t a r g e t s but I could h e a r the c r o w d fleeing and the w o u n d e d groaning. S o o n two soldiers passed me carrying off a badly w o u n d e d old w o m a n . . . . T h e n o t h e r soldiers passed carrying a dying m a n . ... T h e officer gave a n o t h e r o r d e r . . . . A n o t h e r volley, m o r e moans, s o m e w h e r e a h e a d . A y o u n g l i e u t e n a n t stood in f r o n t of me. H e was p e a c e f u l l y smoking a cigarette, cracking j o k e s with his soldiers and superiors. His posture d e m o n s t r a t e d t h a t this was r o u t i n e for him. A p p a r e n t l y , f r o m the beginning the officer was displeased with his soldiers. Their " p r e c i s i o n " was not as great as he wished. S o m e t i m e s the soldiers would shoot in the air, s o m e t i m e s to the side, but they w e r e very reluctant to shoot at live targets as o r d e r e d . T h e n the officer w a n t e d t h e m to shoot not a l t o g e t h e r but o n e at a time. N o w he could be sure to trace e v e r y single bullet. " T h a t o n e , n e a r the l a m p post. ...No, n o t that one. Try again! A g a i n ! " "You fool! You missed." "There, across t h e street. You see, t h o s e two, crossing." Every word was u t t e r e d in a very calm flat tone. Obviously the soldier missed several times in a row. T h e officer was d i s a p p o i n t e d . H e t o o k the soldier's rifle a n d fired. T h e expression of s e l f - c o n t e n t o n his face said the shot h a d b e e n successful. ... T h e r e were q u i t e a few such successful shots o n O l d Nevskii P r o s p e k t

252 • Rafail Sh. Ganelin and in Goncharnaia Street. From the window my neighbor saw ... a little girl appear from Nevskii no. 132. She tried to cross the street when a bullet f r o m o n e of our brave men cut her down. ... A guest from the provinces had come for a visit to one of our neighbors. Standing in the gateway, five m e t e r s f r o m the soldiers, he peeped out curiously to see what General Khabalov's minions were doing. The next m o m e n t , a bullet smashed the skull of this curious fellow. There were many successful shots. O n e of the officers said he had to carry off 28 wounded on that day in his own automobile. First, the gendarme general, then colonels and lieutenant colonels, whose names I have given in the beginning, came up to the officer and firmly shook his hand for good service "to the Tsar and motherland." In Kirpichnikov's and Lukash's descriptions the shooting initiated by th soldiers of the Volynskii Regiment was not intensive and did not cause significant casualties. However, according to data received by the City Council, the day resulted in 50 dead and about 100 wounded. E n t e r i n g these numbers in his journal, A.P. Balk then added in parenthesis "in most cases, unfortunately, the fatalities were accid e n t a l " and then crossed out these words. 11 "For three million people it is a negligible percentage," he thought. Also in his opinion, all the casualties were a result of the shooting on Z n a m e n s k a i a Square. H e wrote that "the troops were shooting in other quarters too. but moderately. There was no need, after the first volleys the crowd scattered." What if the following episode a p p e a r e d in the stories of Volynskii officers to justify the origin of the casualties? As recorded by Lukash and Selyamaa, machine-gun fire originated from a truck or an automobile driven by d r u n k e n soldiers of a training unit of an u n k n o w n regiment. They were shooting at workers who came from Kolpino for bread. "Only now," insisted Lukash, "brotherly blood was shed by the soldiers, m a d e heavily drunk by their officers. But fellow soldiers quickly disarmed the d r u n k e n horde that dared shoot at the people. N o n e of these bandits returned to the barracks alive." According to Lukash, this incident happ e n e d at around 5 p.m. while the Volynskii Regiment was ordered to cease fire at 3 p.m. Seliamaa also asserts that shooting on the square was stopped at 3 p.m. sharp. In Byloe Kirpichnikov mentions the last shots by Vorontsov-Veliaminov at around 4 p.m. A t approximately this time, G e n e r a l Khabalov decided the troops should take up the defensive in the eastern part of Nevskii along the Catherine Canal. But soon it became known at the City Council that a battalion of the Pavlovskii Regiment—always considered the most reliable regiment—refused to fight against the public and stopped at the canal. Khabalov together with Chief of the Military O k h r a n a , Colonel V.I. Pavlenkov, managed to return the company to the barracks, disarm it and send the initiators to the Peter-Paul Fortress. Did the Pavlovskii Regiment's protest (not described here) have an impact on

The Day before the Downfall of the Old Regime • 253 h o w the situation was perceived at the City Council where the h e a d q u a r t e r s of t h e g o v e r n m e n t forces was located? N.F. Akaemov, who interviewed the witnesses, wrote that people split into two groups: o n e group that believed in the exist e n c e of a nerve center, something like "a council of councils," and a n o t h e r group that insisted that "the protest was nothing else but a disorganized strike and would be easily suppressed by reliable forces as soon as they arrived f r o m the vicinity." "And the G u a r d will fight for themselves. There is a black sheep in every flock. ...The Pavlovskii battalion does not count. . . . A f t e r all, it was suppressed," he q u o t e d the optimists. 1 2 City G o v e r n o r Balk did not mention the encounter with the Pavlovskii R e g i m e n t in his notes. On that day his reception r o o m s were packed with visitors. " S o m e were scared, but the majority was satisfied: finally the troops switched from observing the disorders to taking action," he wrote. 1 3 Prince von Oldenburg, form e r Premier A. F. Trepov, other ministers and Countess M.I. Vitte were concerned a b o u t the events and were trying to reach Balk from Tsarskoe Selo, where the Tsarina was staying with her children. Balk was also visited by two experts from the D e p a r t m e n t of Police—General A . A . R e i n b o t (Rezvoit), later G o v e r n o r of Moscow in 1906-1907, and General P.P. Meier, G o v e r n o r of Rostov-on-Don, who had b e e n Warsaw chief of police in 1905-1906. T h e r e was no mention of a coup during their discussions with Balk. "Disorders—yes," wrote Balk. "But Russia witnessed a n u m b e r of them in the last few years. A n d we officials of the Ministry of H o m e Affairs were far from hysterical. We got used to them and understood that losses on both sides were unavoidable. Yet, we could not imagine that in the long run troops would fail to suppress them. ...Long before twilight stillness and a p p a r e n t order fell upon the capital. The military c o m m a n d was extremely content with the actions of the soldiers of the Volynskii Regiment on the Square; the shooting did disperse the crowd," emphasized the Governor. 1 4 This observation coincides with N.F. A k a e m o v ' s report that, by the evening "the pressure of the rebellious crowd" had begun to subside, as in many previous conflicts. Cavalry units sent to "clear" the Nevskii Prospekt handled the task easily. T h e part of Nevskii Prospekt adjacent to Z n a m e n s k a i a Square was dark, since earlier that day the crowd had damaged the transformer. A searchlight was m o u n t e d on the top of the Admiralty that was supposed to illuminate Nevskii all the way through to Z n a m e n s k a i a Square. A patrol at the crossroads was instructed to let through neither pedestrians nor horse traffic. At 11 p.m. the Minister of H o m e Affairs A.D. P r o t o p o p o v joined the military session at the City Council. According to Balk, he was "calm and even cheerful." The reports of district heads were of a comforting nature. Chief of the O k h r a n a , General K.I. Globachev phoned, asked to excuse his absence and r e p o r t e d that "the actions of the troops had so oppressed the marchers that a decline in the intensity of disorders could be expected tomorrow." Even some years later, Balk thought that "he was right," referring to the stories of the Preobrazhenskii soldiers who conveyed those arrested under guard to the ministerial section of the

254 • Rafail Sh. Ganelin D u m a . The soldiers maintained that on the evening of 26 February, workers said to them: " D a m n you! We toil for you, and you shoot at us! Tomorrow we will sleep till lunch and only then go to work." In Balk's words: Even the m o d e r a t e shooting had such a repressive effect that the next morning one could be confident things would settle down in the capital. In the last two days mostly mobs were wandering about the city. By now they must be quite exhausted and, most importantly, must have realized that they cannot rely on military forces. I worked until 2 in the morning and for the first time during these days I went to bed with a feeling of relief. Crossing the reception area, I was fascinated by the divine winter beauty of the Admiralty Park and the poetic Admiralty spire. The city was asleep as if recovering from the ugliness of the past few days. Only a few cab drivers hunched over bonfires and next to them stood still an unchangeable guardian of order, the old chief of the Petrograd police. Some episodes in Balk's description of that day, as well as one of his orders, reveal doubts regarding the future behavior of the troops. H e recorded the general opinion of district chiefs that the troops "were tired" and remained hungry. This was particularly true about the Volynskii Regiment on Z n a m e n s k a i a Square. T h e reader r e m e m b e r s a close friend of Balk, Captain Mashkin, who replaced Colonel Viskovskii in leading the reserve battalion of the Volynskii Regiment. When Balk r e m a r k s to him that "everybody admired the soldiers of the Volynskii Regiment that day" he replied "with a bitter smile: 'Yes, it is true, their actions were perfect. But they are terribly exhausted, and at 4 in the morning we have to wake them up again. It is not easy.' I did not like his tone," wrote Balk. " H e was at the end of his rope." W h e n police inspectors (politseiskie pristavi) of the southern districts of Petrograd, according to H.F. Akaemov, asked Balk what to d o in case of assaults on police stations he answered: "If they are hooligans, beat them back. If, G o d forbid, they are soldiers, do not offer any resistance. You will end up losing police chiefs." The governor's fears came true the next morning when overnight the soldiers of the Volynskii Regiment went over to the side of the Revolution.

Notes 1 A . A . Blok, "Poslednie dni imperatorskoi vlasti," in A . A . Blok ed., Sobranie vols. (Leningrad, 1982) 5: 319.

sochinenii,

6

2 Padenie tsarskogo rezhima: Stenograficheskie otchety doprosov i pokazanii, dannykh v 1917 g. Chrezvychainoi sledstvennoi komissii Vremennogo pravitel'stva,7 vols. (Leningrad, 1 9 2 4 - 1 9 2 7 ) , 1: 1 9 0 - 1 9 1 .

The Day before the Downfall

of the Old Regime

• 255

3 N.F. Akaemov. "Agoniia starogo rezhima (Po pristavskim doneseniiam i pokazaniiam svidetelei)," lstoricheskii vestnik (April 1917): xxii. 4 A.P. Balk, "Poslednie piat' dnei tsarskogo Petrograda (23-28 fevralia 1917 g.), Dnevnik poslednego petrogradskogo gradonachal'nika," Sumerki 13, nos. 9 -12 (1991): 145. 5 Timofei Ivanovich Kirpichnikov was bom in 1892. In February 1917 he was a junior officer in the training unit of the reserve battalion of the Volynskii Regiment. On 1 April 1917 for leading the insurrection he was awarded the George Cross of the IV degree and promoted to junior ensign (podpraporschik) and on 7 May to ensign (praporschik). According to some sources, he was shot during the Civil War on the order of General A.P. Kutepov. His memoirs were published in Byloe (1917) bks. 5-6, nos. 27-28, reprinted in a collection of memoirs of the participants of the revolutionary movement in Petrograd. R.Sh. Ganelin, V.A. Ulanov, eds., Krushenie tsarizma: vospominaniia uchastnikov revoliutsionnogo dvizheniia v Petrograde, 1907 g.-fevral' 1917 g. (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1986), 300-314. An abridged version was published in Ogonek 11 (1927): 4-5. An article on the origin of Kirpichnikov's recollections was published in Byloe (1918) bk. 1, no. 29,239. It stated that minutes of his talk were recorded in March 1917 by F. F. Linde, one of the initiators of the April uprising of the soldiers of the Petrograd garrison in 1917, and by Ia.M. Fishman, who later became member of the Petrograd Military and Revolution Committee. The Committee of the Volynskii Regiment advised them to interview Kirpichnikov. A less detailed record of Kirpichnikov's memoirs was made by journalist N. Penchkovskii on 28 February and published in the magazine Leningrad 2 (1931): 73-76. For comparison of these two records refer to R.Sh. Ganelin, Z.P. Solovjeva, Vospominaniia T. Kirpichnikova kak istochnik po istorii fevral'skih revolutsionnykh dnei 1917g. v Petrograde: Rabochij klass Rossii, ego soiuzniki i politicheskie protivniki v 1917g. (Leningrad: Nauka, 1989), 178-195. 6 Byloe bks. 5-6, nos. 27-28, 5-6, 25-26. The same record with insignificant discrepancies can be found in P.P. (Colonel G.G. Perets), V tsitadeli russkoi revoliutsii. Zapiski komendanla Tavricheskogo dvortsa 27 fevralia-23 marta 1917g. 2d ed. (Petrograd, 1917), 14-18. In this edition it was called "rasskaz odnogo iz doblestnykh volyntsev." 7 See Ganelin and Solovieva, Vospominaniia T. Kirpichnikova, 178. 8 Birzhevye vedomosti, 5 March 1917. reprinted E. Semenov, "Fevral'skie i martovskie dni 1917 g." lstoricheskii vestnik (March 1917): 11-14. 9 Read about him in Ganelin and Solovieva, Vospominaniia T. Kirpichnikova, 193. 10 Ganelin and Solovieva, Vospominaniia T. Kirpichnikova, 188,194. 11 Balk, "Poslednie piat' dnei tsarskogo Petrograda," 146. 12 Akaemov, "Agoniia starogo rezhima," xxii-xxiii. 13 Balk, "Poslednie piat' dnei tsarskogo Petrograda," 145-146, emphasis added. 14 Ibid.

Unusual Comrades: Red Planning for the August igig Counter Offensive in the Russian Civil War CURTIS

S.

KING

...in the South, absolutely everything must be put on a war footing, and all work, all efforts, all thoughts subordinated to the war and only the war. Otherwise it will be im possible to repulse Denikin's attack. That is clear. And this must be clearly understood and fully put into practice. V . I . L E N I N , JULY

19191

A r e v o l u t i o n can m a k e s t r a n g e bedfellows. Such was the case of the Russian R e v o l u t i o n a n d the Civil War that e n s u e d . This conflict f o r c e d the c o o p e r a t i o n of d e v o t e d Bolshevik r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s V l a d i m i r Lenin and L e o n Trotsky with f o r m e r I m p e r i a l Russian A r m y officers such as Sergei S. K a m e n e v and Vladimir N. E g o r y e v — o f f i c e r s w h o m the Bolsheviks previously despised as r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s of a r e p r e s s i v e tsarist regime. T h e Bolshevik l e a d e r s soon f o u n d that their own s k e t c h y c o n c e p t s of a new, "socialist" style of w a r f a r e o f t e n failed against their p o w e r f u l W h i t e o p p o n e n t s . Facing d e f e a t , the r e v o l u t i o n a r i e s t u r n e d to f o r m e r tsarist officers to p r o v i d e m u c h n e e d e d military e x p e r t i s e to d e f e a t the Whites. D u r i n g the c o u r s e of the Civil War, the Bolshevik political l e a d e r s h i p achieved a m e a s u r e of c o o p e r a t i o n with their military c o m m a n d e r s that, h o w e v e r uneasy, w a s substantial e n o u g h to c o n t r i b u t e to the R e d victory. T h e multiple facets of c o o p e r a t i o n b e t w e e n the Bolshevik political chiefs a n d their military leaders in the August 1919 c o u n t e r offensive on the S o u t h e r n F r o n t provide an interesting view at the complexity and ultimate success of R e d political-military relations in the R u s s i a n Civil War. T h e c o n n e c t i o n b e t w e e n politics a n d w a r is hardly news; the great Prussian war t h e o r i s t , Carl von Clausewitz, e x a m i n e d this c o n n e c t i o n in the n i n e t e e n t h c e n t u ry, a n d his o f t - q u o t e d conclusion was that "war is not a m e r e act of policy, but a t r u e political i n s t r u m e n t , a c o n t i n u a t i o n of political activity by o t h e r means. W h a t r e m a i n s peculiar to war is simply the peculiar n a t u r e of its means. T h e political objective is the goal, war is the m e a n s of r e a c h i n g it, a n d m e a n s can n e v e r be c o n s i d e r e d in isolation f r o m their p u r p o s e . " 2 T h e most o b v i o u s aspect of Clause-

258 • Curtis S. King witz's c o n c e p t is t h a t t h e military " m e a n s " of any war should always c o n t r i b u t e to t h e a c c o m p l i s h m e n t of t h e political " g o a l " of t h a t war. Most s c h o l a r s a g r e e t h a t t h e B o l s h e v i k s a d h e r e d to this i d e a by k e e p i n g firm c o n t r o l o v e r their military l e a d e r s . H o w e v e r , m a n y h i s t o r i a n s h a v e o v e r s i m p l i f i e d t h e R e d political-military r e l a t i o n s h i p . S p a c e d o e s n o t p e r m i t a full discussion of t h e h i s t o r i o g r a p h y of t h e R u s s i a n Civil W a r a n d t h e R e d l e a d e r s h i p ; n o n e t h e l e s s , scholars h a v e g e n e r a l l y p o r t r a y e d t h e B o l s h e v i k c h i e f s a n d t h e i r military c o m m a n d e r s with very basic, if s o m e t i m e s c o n t r a d i c t o r y , views. O n o n e h a n d , L e n i n , Trotsky a n d t h e o t h e r p a r t y l e a d e r s a r e s e e n as brilliant political l e a d e r s w h o k e p t firm c o n t r o l o v e r t h e i r politically naive a n d u n r e l i a b l e military " e x p e r t s . " T h e o p p o s i t e view p a i n t s t h e B o l s h e v i k s as u t t e r l y i g n o r a n t of military realities who, if n o t f o r t h e skill of t h e p r o f e s s i o n a l officers, would h a v e f a i l e d t o win t h e war. Still o t h e r a c c o u n t s dismiss b o t h t h e B o l s h e v i k s a n d t h e military c o m m a n d e r s as i n c o m p e t e n t s w h o m a n a g e d t o win t h e w a r only t h r o u g h o v e r w h e l m i n g n u m b e r s , resources, a n d luck. 3 In f a c t , t h e r e is c o n s i d e r a b l e e v i d e n c e t h a t R e d political a n d military l e a d e r s m a n a g e d t o m a i n t a i n a r e a s o n a b l e b a l a n c e b e t w e e n their political goals and military m e a n s d u r i n g the war. This is n o t m e a n t t o imply t h a t R e d civil-military r e l a t i o n s w e r e p e r f e c t . T h e R e d s ' m u l t i p l e c o m m i t t e e s a n d system of political c o m m i s s a r s w e r e a w k w a r d , p e r s o n a l i t i e s s o m e t i m e s i n t e r v e n e d in t h e p l a n n i n g , a n d political infighting occasionally h i n d e r e d o p e r a t i o n s . Still, t h e R e d s g r a s p e d t h e e s s e n t i a l s of C l a u s e w i t z ' s political-military c o n n e c t i o n . T h i s essay will e x a m i n e o n e c a m p a i g n of t h e w a r — t h e Soviet c o u n t e r o f f e n s i v e in s o u t h R u s s i a in A u g u s t 1919—as a c a s e s t u d y of R e d p l a n n i n g in a m a j o r o p e r a t i o n . T h e f o r m u l a t i o n of t h e R e d p l a n s h o w s i n t e r p l a y b e t w e e n t h e technical skills of t h e military specialists ( t h e t e r m " m i l i t a r y specialists" r e f e r r e d t o the extsarist officers serving with t h e R e d s ) a n d t h e insight of t h e B o l s h e v i k leaders. W h a t e m e r g e s m o s t clearly is t h a t t h e R e d p l a n evolved o v e r time. It was influe n c e d by a r g u m e n t s t h a t w e r e o c c a s i o n a l l y h e a t e d , b u t g e n e r a l l y r a t i o n a l a n d p r o f e s s i o n a l . In fact, t h e h a r s h e s t e x c h a n g e s w e r e o f t e n a m o n g t h e military s p e cialists ( e x - o f f i c e r s ) t h e m s e l v e s while t h e B o l s h e v i k s a n d t h e military c o m m a n ders o f t e n displayed respect for each other's judgment.

BACKGROUND T h e B o l s h e v i k seizure of p o w e r in P e t r o g r a d in O c t o b e r 1917 ( N o v e m b e r by t h e n e w c a l e n d a r ) did n o t i m m e d i a t e l y p r e c i p i t a t e a civil war. O p p o s i t i o n t o t h e R e d s was d i s o r g a n i z e d , a n d t h e t r e a t y of B r e s t - L i t o v s k gave t h e n e w l e a d e r s in R u s s i a a v a l u a b l e " b r e a t h i n g s p a c e " to c o n s o l i d a t e their p o w e r . This c o n s o l i d a t i o n t o o k p l a c e in c e n t r a l R u s s i a with P e t r o g r a d a n d M o s c o w as t h e c o r n e r s t o n e s . Slowly, t h e o p p o s i t i o n m o v e m e n t s ( s o o n t o b e k n o w n as t h e W h i t e s ) f o r m e d o n t h e p e r i p h e r y of t h e f o r m e r R u s s i a n E m p i r e . E v e n t u a l l y , t h e W h i t e s m o u n t e d military threats to the R e d s from several different directions: the south (primarily the D o n

Unusual Comrades • 259 a n d Caucasus regions), the east (a vast area including Siberia and land adjacent to both sides of the Ural mountains), the northwest (the Baltic states and Petrograd), and the north (Archangel and Murmansk). All of these efforts posed significant threats to the Bolshevik regime. In the spring of 1919, the Reds focused their main effort in the east and by the s u m m e r they had achieved considerable success. Later that summer, the Reds began to t r a n s f e r their main effort to the south. In the course of this fighting, the R e d s had built a stable and largely conventional organization to run their military war e f f o r t . The Red c o m m a n d e r in chief of Glavkom was Sergei S. Kamenev and his chief of staff was Pavel P. Lebedev. (Red military leaders did not have formal r a n k s during the Civil War and were simply referred to as "comrade c o m m a n der.") Glavkom was the Russian abbreviation for the military "high c o m m a n d , " which included the c o m m a n d e r in chief and his supporting staff and bureaus. G l a v k o m controlled the various Red Fronts ( " f r o n t " is the Russian term for an A r m y G r o u p ) fighting the Whites. T h e Reds had established several other mechanisms for control of the war e f f o r t . Of course, the Bolshevik Party retained ultimate power with the Central Committee. Lenin headed this Committee as well as the State Defense Council, which consisted of m e m b e r s of the government representing the key commissariats prosecuting the war (military, economic, diplomatic and others). The War Commissar was the indefatigable Leon Trotsky, but he did not have unfettered power. H e belonged to another collective body as the Republic Revvoensoviet, which consisted of Trotsky, several other party members, and the Red A r m y C o m m a n d e r in Chief, Kamenev. The revvoensoviet concept was mirrored at Front and A r m y levels. At these levels, the revvoensoviety usually consisted of the commander, his chief of staff, and one or two political commissars. These structures were in place as the Reds prepared their forces in the south for the 1919 s u m m e r campaign. By July 1919 the fighting in south Russia had already lasted over a year. The f r o n t lines had swayed back and forth over a vast territory with each side enjoying intermittent success. Red forces in 1918 and early 1919 were often disorganized, and even though they fielded larger n u m b e r s than their White opponents, the R e d s lacked trained and battle-worthy soldiers. A f t e r a long and bitter struggle, the Whites seized Tsaritsyn (later r e n a m e d Stalingrad), a key city on the Volga river, but their offensive stalled in August 1919. The Red Southern Front h o p e d to exploit the White pause under its new commander, Vladimir N. Egoryev. T h e Front consisted of five armies (from west to east): the F o u r t e e n t h , T h i r t e e n t h , Eighth. Ninth, and Tenth Armies. By mid-1919, the Whites had still not achieved a high level of strategic coordination in Russia, but the forces in the south were significantly stronger in the summer of 1919 than at any previous time. The overall White c o m m a n d e r in the south, General Anton Denikin, commanded three forces: the Volunteer A r m y (a highly skilled collection of ex-tsarist officers and non-commissioned officers with a rec-

260 • Curtis S. King ent leavening of peasant recruits), the D o n Cossack Army, and the Caucasian A r m y (mostly Kuban Cossacks). Denikin had to placate differing political views between his subordinate forces, but his "Armed Forces of South Russia" ( A F S R ) were at the peak of their strength in July and August 1919. A f t e r taking Tsaritsyn, Denikin issued an order, his famous "Moscow Directive," that called for an advance by all three of his subordinate forces converging on Moscow. However, with Red and White forces evenly balanced in August, Denikin's forces had to parry a thrust from the Reds before resuming their own offensive.

T H E F O R M A T I O N OF A P L A N : JULY-AUGUST

1919

The formation of the Red plan for the August counter offensive was not simply a case of politicians versus military experts. In fact, the final version of the R e d concept evolved through a multifaceted process. The c o m m a n d e r in chief, Kamenev, desired a major blow on the eastern flank towards Tsaritsyn. Both Trotsky and Egoryev objected to aspects of this plan, but their objections had distinctly different approaches and reflected legitimate operational concerns. Egoryev agreed with a major offensive on Tsaritsyn, but he had reservations concerning K a m e n e v ' s secondary thrust with the Eighth and Thirteenth Armies. Trotsky's objections were based on broader political considerations; he believed that the main attack would be better directed on the western flank against the Volunteers near Kharkov (instead of Tsaritsyn) in order to take advantage of R e d support a m o n g the industrial sectors of the Donbas. It should be noted that Trotsky's "political" analysis was based on the effect of politics on the conduct of operations—not on any personal political motives. Whatever their opposition, neither Egoryev nor Trotsky undermined the August counter offensive. Their a r g u m e n t s against the plan were genuine and open, but once the Red leadership had finalized their plan both Trotsky and Egoryev did their best to carry out the offensive. The planning for a Southern Front attack intensified almost immediately a f t e r K a m e n e v ' s assumption of command in July, coinciding with Lenin and the Party leadership's increasing belief that the main Red effort n e e d e d to be in south Russia. At this time, the Bolshevik leader noted that in addition to earlier transfers of 70,000 soldiers, the Southern Front had received a n o t h e r 22,000 t r o o p s in the first week of July. Shortly after Lenin's message, the Party Central C o m m i t t e e , at Lenin's urging, issued the well-known decree, "All Out for the Fight against Denikin." 4 This document was, for the most part, a strategic, economic, and politically oriented series of instructions. Lenin t e r m e d the Soviet Republic "a single a r m e d military camp," and he called for the mobilization of m o r e workers, m o r e intensive propaganda, the need to bring deserters back to the army, increased economic efforts, and firm support of the military specialists. Lenin was clearly supporting the R e d c o m m a n d e r s and not meddling in operational matters.

Unusual Comrades • 261 Translating the desires of Bolshevik leaders into workable operational plans was a d e m a n d i n g task that required time. The new Front c o m m a n d e r , Egoryev, a f o r m e r tsarist officer with G e n e r a l Staff A c a d e m y training, struggled to halt the R e d r e t r e a t and restore order to his worn out forces. O n 16 July, the new comm a n d e r issued an o r d e r to the Southern Front A r m i e s that identified the greatest danger to the R e d s on the eastern flank of the front. 5 Two days later Egoryev slightly altered his instructions by giving a m o r e offensive role to the Eighth A r m y (a limited attack by the Eighth's right flank to ease the pressure on the Thirteenth A r m y ) , and by directing the Tenth A r m y to focus more on fortifying its current positions r a t h e r than on offensive actions. 6 Stopping a retreating army is one of the most difficult tasks faced by military commanders. The Southern Front withdrawal in June and July 1919 was no exception. The retreating peasant soldiers were often dispirited (and indifferent to almost any political appeal after several years of devastating war and terror executed by both sides), the supply system was a shambles, and reinforcements were o f t e n compelled to plug gaps in the line in a piecemeal fashion. Egoryev took reasonable steps to stop the Southern Front's retreat, but simple exhaustion a m o n g the attackers was probably the key factor that brought the White advance to a halt in the s u m m e r of 1919. Denikin's attacking forces had supply problems of their own as they advanced and the Whites had to dissipate their forces to cover ever-increasing pieces of occupied terrain. The main achievement of the R e d comm a n d e r s during the withdrawal was to k e e p their forces intact, thus allowing the White offensive to run its course. K a m e n e v recognized the delicate balance of forces, as well as the fleeting offensive opportunities on the Southern Front, and the Glavkom c o m m a n d e r wanted the R e d s to seize the initiative. O n 23 July he issued O r d e r 1116. This was the key d o c u m e n t outlining the plan for an offensive against Denikin, and thus it f o r m e d the basis for the August counter offensive. K a m e n e v began the o r d e r by coming to grips with the direction and timing of the main thrust: T h e S o u t h e r n Front is assigned the task of routing Denikin. For this purpose: 1. the Front will m a k e preparations for launching the main blow on its left flank by mid August. For this purpose, within the specified time: a) the Southern Front will p r e p a r e the Ninth and Tenth A r m i e s for the offensive by bringing them up to strength and providing for their a p p r o p r i a t e regrouping. b) the overall c o m m a n d of the strike g r o u p is assigned to the Second A r m y c o m m a n d e r Shorin. The Second A r m y h e a d q u a r t e r s is appointed as headq u a r t e r s of the Strike Group. [Shorin and his staff were transferred f r o m the E a s t e r n Front to the Southern Front for the offensive.] 7

262 • Curtis S. King K a m e n e v ' s directive went on to specify measures for reinforcing the strike group. This included bringing t h e 28 lh and 25 lh Rifle Divisions ( R D s ) from the E a s t e r n Front as well as transferring units f r o m the Kazan and Samara regions to replenish the depleted divisions of the Ninth and Tenth Armies. The Glavkom comm a n d e r instructed the Southern Front to use its reserve (the 56 lh R D and a separate brigade) to reinforce Shorin's group. Also, Kamenev asked Egoryev to send Glavkom the Southern Front's operational plan as soon as possible. A n o t h e r crucial aspect of K a m e n e v ' s plan appeared in the second paragraph of O r d e r 1116: P r e p a r e to inflict a more limited blow in the first days of August in the Voronezh direction with the forces of the Eighth Army, reinforced by the 31 st R D and also the 7 t h R D if the latter division has not been committed to the Kursk direction prior to the start of the offensive. The Southern Front comm a n d e r must bear in mind that the 7 l h R D is to be committed to the d e f e n s e of Kursk only in the most exceptional circumstances. 8 Finally, Kamenev directed the Eastern Front to transfer the First Siberian Rifle Brigade to the Southern Front for incorporation into the 13 th R D in o r d e r to strengthen the Eighth Army's secondary thrust. The Glavkom c o m m a n d e r wanted the Eighth A r m y to begin its offensive as planned, hoping for the timely arrival of the 13 lh RD. But even if r e i n f o r c e m e n t s were late, they could always join the diversionary attack after its start. K a m e n e v ' s order was clear and succinct, but still comprehensive. The main effort of the Southern Front was to be on the left (eastern) flank. The Ninth and Tenth Armies, with substantial reinforcements, were to form a strike group u n d e r the c o m m a n d of Vasilii N. Shorin, attack the enemy's flank, and seize Tsaritsyn with an eye to advancing into the Kuban. The main attack was to begin in "mid August," and the key secondary attack by the Eighth Army (later to include part of the Thirteenth A r m y ) was scheduled to start two weeks earlier, in the "first days of August." The logic of the timing was unmistakable. The purpose of any secondary, or diversionary, attack is to draw the e n e m y ' s attention away f r o m the direction of the main offensive. Clearly, a diversionary attack must begin prior to the main thrust if it has any hope of drawing the enemy's units away f r o m the primary objective. The two-week pause b e t w e e n the Eighth Army's thrust and Shorin's main attack would provide an a p p r o p r i a t e delay that would entice the Whites to commit to the feint, entraining and marching units away f r o m the Tsaritsyn area. Anything less than a 10- to 14-day separation would probably not give the Whites enough time to send their forces in the " w r o n g " direction. Kamenev's plan recognized this basic tenet f o r the timing of main and secondary offensives, and he clearly communicated his desires t o the Southern Front commander. Although Trotsky recognized the operational merits of K a m e n e v ' s plan, he

Unusual Comrades • 263 opposed the c o m m a n d e r in chief's choice of direction for the main effort. This objection was based on Trotsky's knowledge of the political peculiarities of the Civil War and their effect on operational planning. In two reports submitted to the Central Committee, Trotsky outlined his arguments. 9 The first of these reports, sent soon after a meeting at the Southern Front headq u a r t e r s in Kozlov, focused chiefly on operational considerations. Trotsky believed that K a m e n e v ' s plan d e m a n d e d a major regrouping of forces that would disrupt the current flow of operations. H e also believed that Denikin had already moved considerable forces to the eastern flank and thus was well disposed to repel a Red assault on Tsaritsyn. The War Commissar dismissed, on both political and military grounds, the possibility of Denikin and Kolchak uniting their forces on the eastern flank. H e was more concerned with the prospect of the Poles supporting D e n i k i n in the west. Finally, Trotsky reminded the Committee that Denikin's Volunteers were the key enemy (not the m o r e politically fickle Cossacks) and that the Reds n e e d e d to gain and maintain the initiative—without a pause for regrouping their units. In a later report Trotsky emphasized the political conditions in south Russia and their influence on Kamenev's plan. H e noted that Denikin's Volunteer A r m y was constantly feuding with its ostensible allies, the D o n and Kuban Cossacks, and he believed that K a m e n e v ' s plan of attack would only serve to drive the Cossacks into closer ties with Denikin's Volunteer Army. Trotsky also recognized that a f t e r the repeated fighting over the Kuban and North Caucasus regions, this region was devastated and would have difficulty supporting an offensive with a d e q u a t e transport and supplies. The War Commissar reiterated his earlier belief that the Reds should attack farther to the west near K h a r k o v where the Soviets could take advantage of their stronger base of political and logistic support among peasants and workers in the industrial areas of the Donbas. Finally, although Trotsky agreed with the c o m m a n d e r in chief's argument that reinforcements from the east would have a shorter distance to travel for an attack near the Volga, the War Commissar dismissed as specious the claim that K a m e n e v ' s plan would prevent a link up between Denikin and White Forces in the Urals; the Whites facing the Eastern Front had already been soundly d e f e a t e d and no longer represented a threat to join Denikin on the Volga. Both K a m e n e v ' s concept and Trotsky's counter arguments had considerable merit. The c o m m a n d e r in chief, a f o r m e r tsarist officer whose focus was on the operational conditions of the front, devised a plan that neatly skirted the enemy's main strength and o f f e r e d an opportunity to cut in behind the Volunteer Army. Trotsky, the astute revolutionary, saw advantages to an attack in a region where the Reds had considerable political support (the D o n b a s ) . The War Commissar minimized the operational and tactical difficulties of facing the Volunteers in a frontal assault while emphasizing the need to avoid an offensive that would only encourage the Cossacks to solidify their alliance with the Volunteers. Both concepts were well reasoned and cogent. K a m e n e v ' s plan ultimately failed, but to say

264 • Curtis S. King that Trotsky's c o u r s e would h a v e s u c c e e d e d is p u r e conjecture. W h a t is m o r e certain is that T r o t s k y — d e s p i t e his misgivings—gave his full e f f o r t in o r d e r to help K a m e n e v carry out the plan successfully. U n l i k e Trotsky, E g o r y e v a g r e e d with K a m e n e v ' s plan for the main attack on the left flank, but he o b j e c t e d to G l a v k o m ' s i n t e n d e d missions for the r e m a i n d e r of the S o u t h e r n Front. In a r e p o r t sent to G l a v k o m on 24 July, the Front comm a n d e r o f f e r e d an alternative plan. 1 0 This r e p o r t a p p e a r s to have been d e v e l o p e d b e f o r e E g o r y e v received a copy of O r d e r 1116, but the S o u t h e r n Front comm a n d e r was clearly aware of G l a v k o m ' s intent, probably f r o m previous discussions with K a m e n e v and Lebedev. E g o r y e v c o n f i r m e d the n e e d to c o n c e n t r a t e reinf o r c e m e n t s for the strike g r o u p in the N o v o k h o p e r s k - K a m y s h i n region, a n d he a g r e e d that the c a p t u r e of Tsaritsyn s h o u l d be the key objective of Shorin's group. H o w e v e r , E g o r y e v desired "an e n e r g e t i c d e m o n s t r a t i o n " by the F o u r t e e n t h A r m y — a n o p e r a t i o n smaller in scope a n d f u r t h e r west than K a m e n e v ' s p r o p o s e d s e c o n d a r y assault by the E i g h t h a n d T h i r t e e n t h Armies. In fact, Egoryev felt that the latter two a r m i e s n e e d e d to m a i n t a i n a static d e f e n s e until such time as the strike g r o u p ' s attack p r e s e n t e d an o p p o r t u n i t y for the Eighth A r m y to join in a general offensive. H e r e g a r d e d the V o l u n t e e r push on K h a r k o v as the most serio u s t h r e a t to the F r o n t ' s position, but he urged that the R e d s use only "local f o r c e s " to contain the e n e m y a d v a n c e . Recognizing the risks, Egoryev believed that only by c o m m i t t i n g all fresh r e i n f o r c e m e n t s to the strike g r o u p ' s blow would the R e d s be able to cut the W h i t e s f r o m their Kuban base b e f o r e a V o l u n t e e r attack in the K h a r k o v - K u r s k - O r e l d i r e c t i o n could achieve decisive results. E g o r y e v ' s plan had b o t h insights a n d flaws. T h e concept of minimizing t h e forces d e f e n d i n g K h a r k o v for the s a k e of providing all possible r e i n f o r c e m e n t s to the strike g r o u p s h o w e d that E g o r y e v was willing to take risks in o r d e r to achieve a decisive victory. T h e Front c o m m a n d e r saw the i m p o r t a n c e of focusing on the main e f f o r t w i t h o u t dissipating his limited forces piecemeal along the e n t i r e F r o n t . Egoryev, however, failed to s e e h o w a diversionary offensive might assist the main thrust by drawing White f o r c e s away f r o m the Tsaritsyn region. T h e S o u t h e r n Front c o m m a n d e r w a n t e d the E i g h t h a n d T h i r t e e n t h A r m i e s to c o n d u c t a " s t u b b o r n d e f e n s e " on their fronts, a n d he envisioned that the F o u r t e e n t h A r m y ' s d e m o n s t r a t i o n would begin " o n o r d e r . " While it might be a r g u e d t h a t a diversion on the F o u r t e e n t h A r m y ' s f r o n t could be just as effective as a seco n d a r y attack f r o m the Eighth and T h i r t e e n t h Armies, E g o r y e v ' s key m i s t a k e was his failure to set a definitive d a t e t h a t w o u l d e n a b l e a diversion to d r a w W h i t e forces away f r o m the Tsaritsyn direction. His r e p o r t stated that t h e c o n c e n t r a t i o n of forces for S h o r i n ' s strike g r o u p w o u l d be c o m p l e t e by 10 A u g u s t — t h u s implying that he could m a k e the " m i d A u g u s t " d e a d l i n e for t h e m a i n o f f e n s i v e . H o w e v e r , E g o r y e v p r o v i d e d n o d a t e s for the start of the s e c o n d a r y offensive. T h e next day E g o r y e v a c k n o w l e d g e d receipt of O r d e r 1116 a n d c o n f i r m e d t h e basic intent of his r e p o r t f r o m the day b e f o r e while adding details. 1 1 T h e F r o n t c o m m a n d e r b e g a n with a thinly veiled d i s p a r a g e m e n t of G l a v k o m ' s plan w h e n h e

Unusual Comrades • 265 claimed that the directive called for three simultaneous advances. His c o m m e n t was unjustified; K a m e n e v ' s plan called for one secondary effort followed by one main e f f o r t — n o t simultaneous, triple offensives. Egoryev reiterated his desire to conduct a " d e m o n s t r a t i o n " on the Fourteenth A r m y ' s front, while the Eighth and Thirteenth A r m i e s essentially p e r f o r m e d defensive roles. The latter two armies were to join in the attack towards Ekaterinoslav or Kursk-Valuiki at some later time, " d e p e n d i n g on the conditions." Finally, he asked—in fact pleaded—for G l a v k o m to give the Front more time to p r e p a r e for its attack^, stating that he was unsure of the condition of many of his units due to "vague and f r a g m e n t a r y " reports coming f r o m his subordinates, especially the Fourteenth Army. Unquestionably, Egoryev raised several legitimate points, not the least of which was the poor condition of most of the divisions e a r m a r k e d by Glavkom for the secondary thrust. O n e might also argue that an attack by the Fourteenth A r m y on the far right of the Front could create just as useful a diversion as an attack by the Eighth Army. Nonetheless, Egoryev failed to appreciate two key points—wherever the diversionary attack was directed, it had to begin before the main assault and be executed with sufficient vigor (not a half-hearted demonstration) in o r d e r to draw away significant White forces f r o m the Tsaritsyn region. Egoryev clamored for time to p r e p a r e his attacks, but his request was vague. Did he want to delay the main thrust, the diversion or both? In the end, Egoryev's request lacked the sense of timing between the diversion and the main attack needed to m a k e the counter offensive successful. D o c u m e n t s f r o m 26 and 27 July reinforced the intent of G l a v k o m while revealing that the disagreements between the high c o m m a n d and the Southern Front were substantial. First, a Glavkom directive subordinated the Red Twelfth Army to the Southern Front (from the Western Front). 1 2 A month later, the Twelfth A r m y was returned to the Western Front's control, but for the immediate future, the directive implied that the Fourteenth and Twelfth A r m y operations might be coordinated to k e e p the Whites off balance. However, Kamenev did not state that the Twelfth A r m y could be used to substitute for the diversionary attack of the Eighth and Thirteenth Armies. This Glavkom directive was followed with a n o t h e r high command set of instructions that explained the need for "active o p e r a t i o n s " at both Ekaterinoslav and Kharkov. 1 3 On the surface, Kamenev could be accused of ordering secondary offensives in two directions and conceding to Egoryev's desire to use the Fourteenth A r m y for the key diversionary attack. However, the latter portion of Kamenev's instructions clarified his intention that timing, not a specific direction, was pivotal to the R e d attack. H e emphasized that t h e intent of the secondary operation was to "rivet the enemy's attention on your right flank, this is necessary for the success of f u r t h e r operations." The c o m m a n d e r in chief emphasized that "even if not successful, we will buy time" to concentrate Shorin's strike group. More than anything else, Kamenev wanted a quicker start to the attack on the Voronezh direction—no later than early August—in o r d e r to pave the way for

266 • Curtis S. King Shorin's offensive. W h e t h e r or not the Fourteenth Army could contribute to the Eighth Army's diversion was not nearly as important as starting the secondary thrust on time. In support of his ideas, Kamenev reminded Egoryev of the meeting at the Front h e a d q u a r t e r s in Kozlov in which the c o m m a n d e r in chief had m a d e it clear that the diversionary thrust had to begin in early August in order to have the desired effect on enemy dispositions. Trotsky had also a t t e n d e d this meeting and two messages concerning the conference to the Central Committee and Lenin's State Defense Council shed light on the War Commissar's role and attitude towards the Southern Front's August counter offensive. 1 4 The first message, discussed above, presented Trotsky's objections to Glavkom's plan. In the second report, the War Commissar finally accepted, albeit reluctantly, Kamenev's concept, and Trotsky seemed to be most concerned with uniting Red efforts behind the upcoming offensive. H e reported that Egoryev, as well as his commissars and operational staff, shared significant disagreements with K a m e n e v ' s plan.Trotsky stated that he was not overly concerned with the substance of the disagreement, but he was very much worried that the Front c o m m a n d e r would not be able to execute the high c o m m a n d ' s plan with full vigor because of Egoryev's misgivings. The War Commissar even suggested that Egoryev might be relieved (in favor of Vladimir I. Selivachev) in o r d e r to ensure that the Southern Front leadership fully supported Kamenev's plan. Trotsky's latter report destroys the notion that he undermined Kamenev's plan. The War Commissar may have questioned the direction of Glavkom's main thrust, but he was clearly willing to subsume his own concerns to the greater good of preserving unity of c o m m a n d and backing the expertise of the military specialists. Trotsky believed that it was more important to put all effort behind Kamenev's plan rather than to continue endless debate, which might render any plan ineffective. Trotsky was even willing to remove the Front c o m m a n d e r in o r d e r to guarantee the full support of the entire chain of c o m m a n d . O n 28 July, Egoryev spoke by direct wire with Glavkom. His conversation focused on reporting the recent White efforts to "divert our a t t e n t i o n " away f r o m the main Volunteer thrust in the center of the front. 1 5 Although concerned about the situation near Poltava, Egoryev felt somewhat confident that he could occupy the initial starting positions for the offensive to the east of Kamyshin. Yet, he even hedged this assertion with the comment that the Tenth Army had committed its units to current missions and thus was having difficulty in "scraping together a reserve." Egoryev clearly felt that he was being pressed to conduct an offensive without enough time to gather his reinforcements for the strike group a n d a chance to put his retreating units into order; however, his c o m m e n t s do not reveal a deliberate desire to undermine the c o m m a n d e r in chief's plan. Egoryev's complaints reflect a c o m m o n desire of most military professionals to ensure that they have sufficient resources and time for the success of their mission. In the c o m f o r t of retrospective analysis, we can conclude that Egoryev failed to appreciate the need to begin an early diversion against the Volunteers. Regardless, the Southern

Unusual Comrades • 267

A.K. Stepin

L.L. Klyuev

Figure 17.1 Southern

Front Organization

A.I. Rataiskii

A.I. Gekker

for the August 1919 Counter

A.I. Egorov

Offensive

Front commander presented considered arguments for an alternative concept. The Red commanders were engaged in a professional disagreement with oversight, but not undo interference, from their political bosses. The Southern Front commander and his staff must have been working day and night at the end of July. Not only did the Front command engage in extensive communications with Glavkom and host the Kozlov meeting between the debating parties, it also issued five extensive orders to the Front's armies that outlined their tasks in the upcoming offensive. (See Figure 17.1 for the organization of the Southern Front's armies.) All of these instructions were dated 28 July, and although they supported the bulk of Kamenev's original plan, these directives reflected the still smoldering disagreements between Egoryev and the commander in chief over the nature and timing of the secondary blow. It is worth examining these orders in some detail. The Front's directive to the Fourteenth Army gave it a more active role than originally envisioned in Kamenev's Order 1116 but remained close to Glavkom's intent. 16 The Fourteenth Army was to capture Ekaterinoslav as soon as possible and then continue further to the southeast. Egoryev also tasked the Army to begin a movement on its left near Kharkov. The Front commander wanted the demonstration to draw the maximum amount of enemy forces towards the Fourteenth Army, which certainly reflected a crucial purpose of Glavkom's secondary blow. Finally, the Front advised the new Army commander, Alexander I. Egorov (not to be confused with his Front commander, Egoryev) to conserve his reserve in order to counter a possible White attack on Kharkov and be ready to exploit any Red success with a pursuit to Novocherkassk. Egoryev ordered the Thirteenth Army commander, Anatolii I. Gekker, to keep

268 • Curtis S. King his forces in a defensive role. 17 T h e Front c o m m a n d e r ordered the Thirteenth A r m y to "maintain the link" between the armies on its left and right. The directive placed particular emphasis on supporting the Eighth Army's right flank, telling G e k k e r to move his adjoining flank forward with the Eighth in o r d e r to prevent any gaps f r o m forming. In the final part of the order, Egoryev informed G e k k e r that the Front would retain the 7th R D in reserve in case of a d e e p penetration by the enemy, but if conditions permitted, Egoryev would give the division to the Thirteenth Army. In his directive to the Eighth Army, Egoryev began with an outline of the Front's overall design for the offensive. 1 8 H e explained that the main effort was to be with the Ninth and Tenth Armies, beginning in "mid August" with a demonstration by the Fourteenth Army. The Front c o m m a n d e r ordered the Eighth A r m y "between 2 and 5 August [to] deliver the first blow to draw in enemy reserves and tie down the enemy to your front." Egoryev informed A n d r e i I. Rataiskii, the Eighth A r m y c o m m a n d e r , that his A r m y would have to begin the offensive without the 31st RD. The A r m y was to advance to the line of Biryuch-Pavlovsk-Averinskii, and then join in with the general offensive of the Ninth and Tenth Armies in mid August. Egoryev told Rataiskii to create reserves and maintain links on his left flank with the Ninth Army. The final directive to the Front's forces went to the c o m m a n d e r of the strike group, Vasilii I. Shorin. 1 9 As he had m a d e clear in his other directives, Egoryev designated Shorin's force as the Front's main effort. In order to reinforce the strike group, the Front c o m m a n d e r promised to give Shorin the 56th R D from the Front reserve, the Kazan and Saratov Brigades, and the 25th and 28th R D s f r o m the Eastern Front. The group's "general tasks" were to smash the enemy and capture Novocherkassk-Manych. The more "immediate task" was to occupy the line Khop e r - D o n - T s a r i t s y n . Finally, Egoryev advised Shorin that the more energetically he began the offensive, the more easily his group could advance later, thus paving the way for the Eighth and Fourteenth Armies to join in the general offensive. Taken as a whole (see Figure 17.2), Egoryev's directives a d h e r e d to the spirit of K a m e n e v ' s plan with some variations. The principle area of a g r e e m e n t was that Shorin's group would launch the main effort with the goal of seizing Tsaritsyn. Egoryev also gave in to K a m e n e v ' s d e m a n d that the Eighth A r m y begin its diversionary attack in early August. However, Egoryev instructed the Eighth A r m y to time its blow s o m e w h e r e between 2 and 5 August, which showed that the Front c o m m a n d e r was still unable to pinpoint an exact d a t e for the attack. In fact, this lack of precision would haunt the offensive over the next two weeks when the diversionary attack was postponed several times. Finally, Egoryev's planned diversion by the Fourteenth was not in G l a v k o m ' s original plan, although K a m e nev gave his tacit approval as long as the Eighth A r m y began its assault soon enough to draw the White reserves away f r o m Shorin's group. Egoryev's alternative plan may have contained some flaws in its design, but the quality of his orders was outstanding. Each directive was crisply written with clear

270 • Curtis S. King tasks and lines of advance. The Front c o m m a n d e r began each army's order with an explanation of the Front's entire plan that placed that army's mission clearly within the context of the Front's scheme. In addition, Egoryev clearly delineated the distribution of reserves and reinforcements while urging his subordinates to build their own reserves that could be used to prevent enemy penetrations of the front or to exploit successful attacks. In some ways, these orders contrast with Egoryev's reports and wire conversations with the high command, which were sometimes obscure. This contrast may have been due to the difference, relatively common among military leaders, between giving orders to subordinates and debating plans with higher headquarters. Credit should also go to Nicolai V. Pnevskii, the Front chief of staff, who played a role in crafting and staffing operational orders. O n the same busy day of 28 July, the Central Committee replied to Trotsky's report on the divergence of views between the Front and the c o m m a n d e r in chief (differences that were now much less pronounced than at the earlier meeting at Front headquarters). 2 0 The Bolshevik leadership chose to ignore Trotsky's request to replace Egoryev with Selivachev. However, they reaffirmed the authority of the c o m m a n d e r in chief. Also, the Central Committee sent Ivan Smilga and Mikhail M. Lashevich to the Southern Front Revvoensoviet to oversee the Front's operations. In short, the political leadership was little concerned with the substance of operational disagreements between the military specialists, but they were particularly concerned that the effort was unified. Trotsky recognized the need to support Kamenev's plan and respected the technical skills of the military specialists. On 29 July, the War Commissar complained about the Central Committee's unwillingness to address the disagreements b e t w e e n Egoryev and Kamenev over the Southern Front's scheme of maneuver. 2 1 H e also did not like the posting of Lashevich and Smilga to the Southern Front. Despite these complaints, Trotsky still offered his support to Kamenev. Trotsky r e p o r t e d that the Front operations officer, A. M. Peremytov, had been replaced by K.Io. B e r e n d s for opposition to Glavkom's plan, but both Egoryev and his commissar, Gregorii la. Sokol'nikov, had eventually agreed to execute K a m e n e v ' s plan. Against this backdrop, Trotsky offered some insurance: Selivachev would b e c o m e the deputy Front commander-ready to replace the Front c o m m a n d e r in case Egoryev's "hesitations" negatively effected G l a v k o m ' s plan. The War Commissar felt that this was "the least painful solution." O n the same day,Trotsky directed the Ninth A r m y to prepare for its upcoming offensive. 2 2 His message mentioned nothing of the operational disagreements at the higher levels of c o m m a n d . The War Commissar was prudent not to let the strategic d e b a t e filter down to the subordinate commands. He directed the A r m y to conduct extensive political work to reverse the low morale resulting f r o m recent setbacks. This o r d e r confirms that Trotsky was not attempting to subvert K a m e n e v ' s efforts. The War Commissar had his objections towards the plan, but his instructions to subordinate units always reflected full support of the c o m m a n der in chief.

Unusual

Comrades

• 271

CONCLUSION In s u m , the A u g u s t c o u n t e r o f f e n s i v e r e v e a l s s e v e r a l a s p e c t s of civil-military relat i o n s a n d the level of military skill e x h i b i t e d o n the R e d side. T h e B o l s h e v i k political l e a d e r s and their ex-tsarist military l e a d e r s a r g u e d o v e r o p e r a t i o n a l plans, but t h e y u l t i m a t e l y c o o p e r a t e d and e v e n f o u n d a g r u d g i n g respect for e a c h o t h e r s ' v i e w s . T h e military specialists t e n d e d to s e e t h e c a m p a i g n in largely o p e r a t i o n a l t e r m s with a f o c u s o n the military a s p e c t s of m a n e u v e r i n g units, timing of o f f e n sives, the n e e d to bring o r d e r to R e d forces, and t h e m o r e technical d e t a i l s of moving

and positioning

reinforcements. The

Bolshevik

leaders,

particularly

Trotsky, b e t t e r p e r c e i v e d t h e political factors in s o u t h Russia, e v e n if t h e y o n l y partially g r a s p e d the t e c h n i c a l and tactical d e t a i l s of military o p e r a t i o n s . M o s t i m p o r t a n t l y , b o t h the political leaders and military specialists r e c o g n i z e d the diff e r e n c e s , p r e s e n t e d their a r g u m e n t s , and ultimately w o r k e d t o g e t h e r o n c e the d e c i s i o n had b e e n m a d e . In the e n d the R e d s w e r e d e f e a t e d in A u g u s t but l e a r n e d f r o m their d e f e a t . T h i s e n a b l e d t h e m to r e s h a p e their plan in O c t o b e r 1919. C o n t i n u i n g to c o m b i n e c o n v e n t i o n a l military e x p e r t i s e and the B o l s h e v i k p e r s p e c t i v e o n the political and social a s p e c t s of r e v o l u t i o n a r y war, t h e R e d s c o r r e c t e d their earlier errors. T h e f o r m a t i o n of the R e d plan for the A u g u s t 1919 c o u n t e r o f f e n s i v e , e v e n w i t h its s h o r t c o m i n g s , g a v e e v i d e n c e of this future, s u c c e s s f u l c o o p e r a t i o n .

Notes 1 V.I. Lenin, Selected Works, rev. ed., 3 vols. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), 3: 193. 2 Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976), 87. 3 The literature on the Russian Civil War is extensive, but frequently biased or often lacking details on military issues. Among western scholars, one of the most conservative works is by Richard Pipes, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1993). A more moderate view is taken by William Henry Chamberlin, The Russian Revolution 1918-1921, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1935). A strongly leftist view is represented by Edward Hallett Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, 3 vols. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1953). A work with more military detail than Chamberlin and Carr, but critical of Red military leaders is Evan Mawdsley, The Russian Civil War (Boston: Allen and Unwin, 1987). John Erickson, The Soviet High Command: A MilitaryPolitical History, 1918-1941 (Boulder: Westview Press, 1962) looks at the Red military leaders more favorably, but does not analyze their operational skills in much detail. D. Fedotoff White, The Growth of the Red Army (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1944) is typical of the view that the Bolshevik Party, not the military leadership, was the key to the Red victory. Russian views of the war include Leon Trotsky, How the Revolution Armed, 5 vols., trans. Brian Pearce (London: New Park Publications, 1979). Trotsky recognized the need for military specialists, but his analysis of the war is still traditionally Marxist, crediting economic and social factors for the Red victory. A.S. Bubnov, et at., eds., Grazhdanskaia Voina, 1918-1921, 3 vols. (Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izd., 1930) is the first (of three)

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4

5

6 7

8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Soviet official histories of the Civil War. The second volume of N.E. Kakurin, Kak srazhalas' revoliutsiia (Moscow: Gosudartsvennoe Izd., 1926) is even handed, but still relies heavily on an overall Marxist framework that minimizes the role of military leaders. One work that focuses on the origins of the military specialists, but not their operational skill, is A.G. Kavtaradze, Voennye Spetsialisly na sluzhbe Respubliki Sovetov 1917-1920gg. (Moscow: Nauka, 1988). Leon Trotsky, My Life (New York: Pathfinder, 1970), 451-455; Direktivy Glavnova Komandovaniia Krasnoi Armii (1917-1920). Sbornik Dokumentov [hereafter referred to as Glavkom] (Moscow: Voennoe Izdatel'stvo Ministerstva Oborony SSSR, 1969), 438-439, #407; and Lenin's Collected Works, 51: 8. Also see V.I. Lenin, Selected Works, 3 vols., rev. ed. (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975) 3: 184-199. This is a good English translation of the document. Russian language versions are available in Glavkom Directives, 344-345, and S. N. Shiskin et al., Direktivy Komandovaniia Frontov Armii (1917-1922) [hereafter referred to as Front], 4 vols. (Moscow: Voennoe Izdatel'stvo Ministerstva Oborony SSSR, 1972) 2: 280-281, #256. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi voennyi arkhiv [hereafter RGVA], f. 100, op. 3, d. 100, 1. 466 (Front, 2: 275-277, #252): RGVA, f. 100, op. 3, d 100,1. 470 (Front, 2: 278-279, #253); and RGVA, f. 100, op. 3, d. 100,1. 502 (Front, 2: 279-280, #254). RGVA, f. 100, op. 3, d. 100,1. 523 (Front, 2: 281-282, #257); and RGVA, f. 100, op. 3, d. 100, I. 534 (Front, 2: 283-284, #258). RGVA, f. 6, op. 10, d. 103, 1. 36-38 (Glavkom, 438-439, #408). An English translation is available in Jan M. Meijer, ed., The Trotsky Papers, 1917-1922 , 2 vols. (The Hague: Mouton, 1964-1971), 1: 606-609 as an appendix (note) to document #338. Ibid., emphasis added. RGVA, f. 6, op. 4, d. 49,1. 29-30 and Trotsky, How the Revolution Armed, 2:429-433. RGVA, f. 6, op. 4, d. 49,1. 31-36 (Front, 2: 284-289, #259). RGVA, f. 100, op. 3, d. 97,1. 176-178 (Glavkom, 439-440, #409). RGVA, f. 6, op. 10, d. 103,1. 32 (Glavkom, 440^41, #410). RGVA, f. 6, op. 4, d. 102,1. 241-243 (Glavkom, 441^42, #411). RGVA, f. 6, op. 4, d. 49,1. 29-30 and Meijer, The Trotsky Papers, 1: 604-605 (#338). RGVA, f. 6, op. 12, d. 63,1. 83. RGVA, f. 100, op. 3, d. 68,1. 91 (Front, 2: 290-291, #260). RGVA, f. 100, op. 3, d. 68,1. 92 (Front, 2: 291, #262). RGVA, f. 100, op. 3, d. 68,1. 93 (Front, 2: 292, #263). RGVA, f. 107, op. 1, d. 21,1. 126 (Front, 2: 290-291, #261). Meijer, The Trotsky Papers, 1: 610-613 (#340). Ibid., 1:612-615 (#342). Trotsky, How the Revolution Armed, 2: 356-358.

Wartime Entrepreneur: Mikhail Riabushinskii's Banking Business, 1914-1919 BORIS V.

ANAN'ICH

In his elaborate research on Merchants and Entrepreneurs in Imperial Russia, A l f r e d Rieber paid special attention to the role of the Old Believers in the develo p m e n t of Russian trade and industry. From the large family of Riabushinskiis he singled out the brothers Pavel, Vladimir, and Mikhail as "most active entrepreneurs," who devoted their creative energies, will, and talent to the economic revival of Moscow. 1 This article is devoted to the activities of one of them, Mikhail Pavlovich Riabushinskii, during the Revolution and Civil War and is based on his memoirs and letters collected in the manuscript d e p a r t m e n t of the New York Public Library. 2 The Riabushinskiis' entrepreneurial ethics and strategy during the first World War are already fairly well known. The history of the Riabushinskiis' trade company goes back to the early nineteenth century. They started with retail trade and already by the middle of the century, the family had amassed substantial capital. In 1867 the trade company named P. and V. Riabushinskii Brothers was opened in Moscow. In 1887 it was restructured to become the Manufactures Partnership of P.M. Riabushinskii and Sons. When P.M. Riabushinskii died in December 1899, he left the multimillion-ruble inheritance to his eight sons—Pavel, Sergei, Vladimir, Stepan, Nikolai, Mikhail, Dmitrii, and Fedor. In 1901 the Riabushinskiis acquired the bankrupt Kharkov Land Bank. Vladimir, Pavel and Mikhail became members of the board of directors. In 1902 they established the Banking House of the Riabushinskii Brothers. In 1912 the Manufactures Partnership was reorganized to become the Trade-Industrial Partnership of P.M. Riabushinskii and Sons, while the banking company was turned into the Moscow Bank with an endowment of 10 million rubles, a sum which was later increased to 25 million rubles. By 1917 the Riabushinskiis were the owners of numerous sizeable textile mills, with high-quality flax processing and first-rate fabric, along with timber and woodworking industries. 3 Like other families of Old Believers, the Riabushinskiis were in opposition to the monarchy and welcomed the February Revolution. However, they quickly became disappointed in the politics of the Provisional Government. Delivering a speech at the State Council in August 1917, Pavel P. Riabushinskii declared that

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"Russia is ruled by some impossible dream, ignorance, and demagogy." 4 Nonetheless, the fall of the Provisional G o v e r n m e n t turned out to have a fatal impact not only on the entrepreneurial activities of the Riabushinskiis, but on their personal destinies as well. They had to leave Moscow and attempted to reestablish their banking empire in the territories occupied by the White Army. In these extraordinary circumstances they strove to create new banks without necessary means, often relying solely on their experience and reputation. In D e c e m b e r 1917 Mikhail Riabushinskii fled to the south of Russia, carrying a false passport issued in the n a m e of A n d r e i Mikhailovich Markelov. A f t e r n u m e r o u s difficulties, he finally arrived in Kharkov. There this ex-owner of the Kharkov Land Bank found himself in the position of "a poor relative." He was allowed to put his desk in the office of the directors' board, but was refused any loans, under the pretext of the b a n k ' s regulations. Such " f o r c e d " unemployment b o t h e r e d Mikhail Riabushinskii and, after "a series of failures," he "discarded all the great plans and decided to start small." As a result of his lengthy negotiations, the Riabushinskii Trade-Industrial Partnership agreed to grant Mikhail 25,000 rubles. 5 Since this sum was insufficient to launch a large bank, it was necessary "to limit himself to starting a banking house." He chose to present it as a "local organization" and o p e n his venture under the n a m e of the Kharkov Banking House. A m o n g the f o u n d e r s were V.G. Korenev, A.G. Karpov, and P.N. Kotov, all of whom had already participated in Riabushinskiis' other enterprises. Korenev was Mikhail Riabushinskii's most important partner in founding the banking house. H e enjoyed great influence in the city as a native of Kharkov and played a major role in the board of the Kharkov Land Bank. P.N. Kotov was also associated with the bank. A.G. Karpov, ex-husband of Elizaveta Pavlovna Riabushinskaia, was the president of the board of directors of the Riabushinskiis' factories in Okulovka. R a t h e r quickly the basic capital of the banking house was increased f r o m 25,000 to 45,000 rubles. 6 Mikhail Riabushinskii maintained the office in the K h a r k o v Land Bank as his headquarters, and usually spent the first half of his working day there. O n e day he was unexpectedly visited by his "old acquaintance f r o m Moscow," A n d r e i Ivanovich Shul'ts, who belonged to a traditional Moscow stockbrokers' firm and who often used to p e r f o r m accounting transactions for t h e Riabushinskiis' Moscow Bank. Shul'ts o f f e r e d to renew their cooperation. Later, in his memoirs, Riabushinskii wrote: My first emotion was to burst out laughing, but before the laugh could reach my face, "the idea" came as a bold of lightning. It was exactly the o n e I was so desperately seeking during my long weeks in Kharkov. I went on staring at a surprised Shul'ts, while thoughts were racing in my head and "the idea" took form in this chaos. Everything was singing in me, I did not see or feel anything. I gave my thoughts some time to shape and systematize and to circulate the plan throughout my brain, filling up all its cells. In a minute every detail of the plan was ready. Why did it not occur to me earlier? It was so

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simple. I once again felt that thought is a free bird and cannot live in a cage. Shul'ts, with his thoughtless offer, gave an impulse and upon it I built a plan of how to create a big bank. 7 Mikhail Riabushinskii refused to take the accounting material from Shul'ts, but o f f e r e d to provide him with promissory notes for a whole range of companies, such as the Partnership of the Lokalovo Manufactures, the Riabushinskiis' Partnership, Partnership for Russian Linen ( R A L O ) , and others "for registration on the local stock exchange." The prestige of the Moscow Bank and the Riabushinskiis' Partnership was so high that Shul'ts accepted these conditions without reservation. Mikhail Riabushinskii o f f e r e d to discount the promissory notes for five million rubles. From this sum he intended to take 25 percent in cash, that is 1,250,000 rubles. H e decided to k e e p the remaining sum on his current accounts for these partnerships under the condition that he "would reserve the right to dispose of the current accounts, but only with checks, so that a person or a company could not cash such a check immediately, but would have to put it on a current account in the same bank." 8 Riabushinskii proposed that these firms would accept shares of the newly f o u n d e d bank and, upon receiving the payment, he would put it u n d e r his n a m e on his current bank account. 9 Riabushinskii's plan was not put into practice immediately. Shul'ts' offer was declined by Derzhavnyi Bank (the new name of the f o r m e r Kharkov d e p a r t m e n t of the State B a n k ) because the Derzhavnyi Bank refused to accept the bills of the enterprises that were "located outside of Ukraine." "Thus for 'Ukraine,' Russia is considered a foreign state, and this was told [to me] by people who spoke no other language but Russian," Riabushinskii complained. Shul'ts was also turned down by the Kharkov D e p a r t m e n t of the Moscow Merchant Bank, and only the Kharkov Accounting Bank, after some hesitation, accepted Riabushinskii's offer. 1 0 The success of the operation inspired Mikhail Riabushinskii. From a "poor relative" he "again became an authority who was trusted and whose orders were fulfilled and not questioned." As he wrote in his memoirs, when he was already in emigration, Success begot success. As if by magic everything started to work out. People trusted me blindly and followed me without hesitation. It was as if I was suffocating f r o m too much air. I wanted to spread my hands into eternity and bring everyone along. ...From this m o m e n t on, I lived as if in a state of oblivion. I devoted myself fully to work. ...I knew no fatigue, I knew no selfdoubts. ...I was going onward, onward f r o m one engagement to another. I did not accept failures. 1 1 As a result of the operation, Riabushinskii acquired five million rubles on his accounts, out of which a million and a quarter rubles was free of obligation. H e began to accumulate capital for the bank. A m o n g the first subscribers were the

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Riabushinskiis' firms, as well as many Muscovites who had come to Kharkov, including a rich diaspora of Moscow Armenians, together with the shareholders f r o m Kiev and southern provincial towns. The bank's starting capital was announced to be 15,000,000 rubles. Despite the fact that the director of the Ukrainian credit office was Z a m e n , a f o r m e r director of the Credit office in Petrograd and Mikhail Riabushinskii's good friend, Kiev for a long time did not want to approve the charters of the new bank. "They were reluctant to let the Muscovites into Ukrainian affairs, especially banks." 1 2 A f t e r tiresome red tape, the Minister of Finance finally approved the charters of the bank on 30 October/12 November 1918, at the same time agreeing with Kiev authorities on its n a m e — t h e SouthCentral Bank (Iugo-Tsentral'nyi bank). Vladimir Pavlovich Riabushinskii was elected the president of the b o a r d of directors, the vice-president was Mikhail Pavlovich Riabushinskii, m e m b e r s of the board were A.F. Deriuzhinskii, V.G. Korenev, S.S. Smirnov, while candidates were N.V. Teslenko and A.A. Rittikh.The bank was to cover the territory of Ukraine and the south of Russia. Almost immediately, the Riabushinskiis o p e n e d local branches in Kiev, Odessa, and Ekaterinoslavl. Thus, the Riabushinskiis' new bank began operations. All the bills issued by the Kharkov Accounting Bank were bought back ahead of time, partly because the Riabushinskiis succeeded in having their money, which they had buried in glass jars, brought from Moscow.To transport the money to Kharkov a special travelingbag with a false bottom was ordered and two of Riabushinskii's proxies, I.P. Anismov and Shinkarenko, risked their lives to bring them over a million rubles. The founding meeting of the South-Central Bank opened on 18 November/1 D e c e m b e r 1918. Of the 94 original shareholders 32 attended the meeting, representing personally and as proxies 51,884 shares for the sum of 12,971,000 rubles. In total, there were 60,000 shares issued for the sum of over 15,000,000 rubles. 1 3 Having f o u n d e d the South-Central Bank, the Riabushinskiis extended their p r o g r a m of financial expansion to the south of Russia, which was not then occupied by the Red Army. Thus they reached into three territories u n d e r independent governments: the Ukrainian Directory with the capital in Kiev, the D o n Cossack republic with the capital in Novocherkassk, and the Crimean regional government with the capital in Simferopol'. The Riabushinskiis intended to create their own "financial organizations" in all three areas and "to m a k e their structure flexible for reconfiguration in case of danger." In Rostov-on-Don, which was a financial center of the D o n Army, they decided to open the Black Sea Bank (Chernomorskii Bank), with a starting capital of 10,000,000 rubles and local branches in Novorossiisk, E k a t e r i n o d a r , and Batumi. In the Crimea and in Yalta, they intended to open the Tavrida Commercial Bank with a local branch in Sevastopol'. 1 4 As a result the South-Central Bank with h e a d q u a r t e r s in K h a r k o v and with branches in Kiev and Odessa, was supposed to cover U k r a i n e and the south of Russia. Meanwhile, the Black Sea Bank with headquarters in Rostov-onD o n and branches in Batumi, Novorossiisk, and Ekaterinodar was to cover the area along the D o n River, as well as the Caucasus, Kuban' and lower Volga

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regions. The Tavrida Bank with its h e a d q u a r t e r in Yalta and a branch in Sevast o p o l ' would offer its services for the Crimean peninsula. In addition, a trade comp a n y called the South-Russian Shareholding Society ( I u R A ) was created, with t h e e n d o w m e n t of one million rubles and the board of directors in Novorossiisk. T h e general meeting of the shareholders took place on 2/15 D e c e m b e r 1918, in R o s t o v - o n - D o n at the office of the Black Sea Bank on Bolshaia Sadovaia no. 47. T h e 44 shareholders represented personally and by proxy 17,807 shares for the sum of 4,451,750 rubles out of the total 20,000 shares for five million rubles. The b o a r d of directors and the council of the Black Sea Bank were elected. Mikhail Riabushinskii headed the board, which included Stepan Pavlovich Riabushinskii, A.G. Karpov, V.V. Nosov, M.I. Shaposhnikov. 1 5 Mikhail Riabushinskii did not succeed in forming the desired board of directors and the m e m b e r s h i p policy of the Tavrida Bank immediately. The regional C r i m e a n government approved its charters already on 4 / 1 7 0 c t o b e r 1918. However, Pavel P. Riabushinskii junior tried to turn this bank into an a u t o n o m o u s enterprise, independent f r o m the rest of the group. The "rebellion" was suppressed only in the beginning of January 1919 when Mikhail Riabushinskii went to Yalta to hold a general meeting of the shareholders on 12/25 January. The 20,000 shares of the Tavrida Bank with a total sum of 5.000,000 rubles were distributed among 178 shareholders, 24 of whom were present at the general meeting, representing personally and as proxies 19,034 shares for the sum of 4,758,5000 rubles. The board of the bank was headed by Vladimir Pavlovich Riabushinskii. Mikhail Riabushinskii became deputy director, and along with A.F. Deriuzhinskii and Sergei Pavlovich Riabushinskii entered the directors' board. 1 6 A cursory glance at the m e m b e r s of all the three bank boards and councils shows clearly the presence of the same people connected with the Riabushinskii family, either as relatives or by business ties. This ensured the Riabushinskiis' total control over the financial system created in the Russian south. Control was guaranteed by creating a central governing body for all the banks, named the S u p r e m e Financial Council, chaired by Mikhail Riabushinskii. It was also he who defined the mission of this organization: "In the chaos that was still ruling, and with all possible divisions that separated us from each other, we had to create a central organization that would be so flexible as to adjust to the changing circumstances and quickly handle new situations, not letting anarchy break through, guiding and directing our organizations continuously. It should also play a role in developing and directing economic policy, if possible uniform for everyone." 1 7 The members of the S u p r e m e Financial Council were Vladimir Pavlovich Riabushinskii, A.F. Deriuzhinskii, V.G. Korenev, V.V. Nosov, P.P. Riabushinskii senior, Stepan Pavlovich Riabushinskii, A . A . Rittikh, S.S. Smirnov, N.V. Teslenko, A.G. Karpov, and M.I. Shaposhnikov. 1 8 Thus the m a n a g e m e n t of virtually all the banks was concentrated in the hands of Mikhail Riabushinskii. Mikhail Riabushinskii saw the next step as strengthening the b a n k ' s international network. For this p u r p o s e he decided to use the Odessa branch of the

278 • Boris V. Ancin'ich South-Central Bank; Odessa was to become a "window to Europe." The SouthCentral Bank o p e n e d a branch in Constantinople, which was already in the hands of the allies. Mikhail Riabushinskii intended to use Constantinople for establishing a connection with Paris and L o n d o n , where he wanted to "found a headquarters until the chaos in Russia settles down." 1 9 In early February 1919 Mikhail Riabushinskii m a d e a trip to Odessa especially to establish the institution of couriers in the branch of the South-Central Bank and to organize the purchase of foreign currency through the Odessa banks (including a d e p a r t m e n t of Credit Lyonnaise), as well as through the consulates of foreign countries. While the development of the Riabushinskiis' financial system in the south of Russia was progressing, the White movement was experiencing o n e defeat after another. Kiev fell. With great difficulties, through the Kiev branch of the Petrograd International Bank, the Riabushinskiis managed to transfer part of their money to the Odessa branch of the International Bank. However, it refused to pay those transfers, which arrived from the fallen Kiev. Mikhail Riabushinskii succeeded in completing the transfers only because one of the members of the board of the Petrograd International Bank and a f o r m e r employee in one of the Riabushinskiis' banks, P.I. Zhaba, was in Odessa. Even so, he was only able to make it as an accounting transaction with a high interest rate. 2 0 While in Odessa, Mikhail Riabushinskii made arrangements for a visa application to travel abroad. Already in D e c e m b e r 1918, he received a passport, signed by the head of Foreign Affairs D e p a r t m e n t of the government of the Don Army, General-Lieutenant A. Bogaevskii. Now he was concerned with obtaining entrance visas to England, France, Tlirkey, Greece, and Romania. The feeling of an approaching catastrophe started to seriously worry him. His working days became less intense compared to just a year ago in Kharkov. He dined at the famous London Hotel in Odessa, where " o n e could see the elite of a crumbling city," to learn the latest news. H e r e he "met closely and often had b r e a k f a s t " with the American General Consul, V. Jenkins. Riabushinskii recalled later that "he was a medium height, slim, probably tubercular American, with sad and very intelligent eyes. I got to like him a lot. ...We spent hours together, passing time with a bottle of red wine, smoking cigars in the hotel restaurant, discussing all possibilities and conversing about general issues." 21 Mikhail Riabushinskii was troubled by the policy of the French authorities, who, in his opinion, were "flirting with the Ukrainians, transferred power in the city into their hands, d r e a m e d about the 'independent Ukraine' as their protectorate, and committed one blunder after another." He was even more concerned with the signs of c o m m o n people's hostile attitude to the authorities. The day the Russian troops left the city for the front, I went to the s q u a r e where they were assembling for the farewell parade. It felt very sad. The army behaved perfectly. They were truly ready for sacrifice. E v e n though they had a wild life in Odessa, they were now going to die, betrayed by the allies. The crowd a r o u n d them looked terrifying. None showed a sign of

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compassion to the troops that were saving their city from the Bolsheviks. T h e army was leaving the p a r a d e silently. I r e m e m b e r that only I and somebody else shouted " h u r r a h " , but the crowd kept silent, and the weight of such a hostile silence was heavier than the sharpest anger. 2 2 D e s p i t e a deteriorating political situation, Mikhail Riabushinskii continued exercising control over his banks, traveling between Rostov-on-Don, E k a t e r i n o d a r , a n d Novorossiisk. On 27 April/10 May 1919 he left Russia o n b o a r d an English naval vessel, accompanied by his secretary, R.A. Virkau. His wife Tatiana Fominishna and his small children, Tatiana and Pavlik, remained in Crimea. His journey was envisioned as a business trip to establish connections with international partners. However, Mikhail Riabushinskii was destined never to return again to Russia. The following incident, which cast a shadow on his departure, was a minor e p i s o d e that nevertheless hurt his national pride. When he was already boarding t h e boat, out of the blue there a p p e a r e d a small man, who grabbed Virkau's coat and asked what he was carrying. Virkau, not realizing what was going on, answered calmly: "a Russian typewriter." The man burst out screaming with indignation: "Why a Russian typewriter and why are you taking it out of Russia? ... Where is your permission?" Two soldiers arrived to the call of the white "commissar"; this little man was more and more arrogantly d e m a n d i n g the confiscation of the typewriter. ...Attracted by the noise, the English commandant of the port, Captain Douglas, came down. H e was a man of enormous build. Having learned from Virkau what was the matter, he pushed away the "commissar" with his huge " p a w " and quite sternly told him that this is English territory. ...The man somehow shrunk and immediately disappeared. This whole story evoked "mixed feelings" in Mikhail Riabushinskii. He felt that "his national pride was humiliated as some English captain allows himself to say on the Russian land that it is 'English territory,' but at the same time he was satisfied that this development e n d e d the 'stupid, annoying argument.'" 2 3 H e went abroad on commission f r o m the Voluntary Army. H e was assigned to establish trade exchange b e t w e e n the south of Russia and western exporters. In addition, M. Riabushinskii was worried about his accounts in the E u r o p e a n banks. A s it turned out, his anxiety had serious grounds. A s he wrote on 19 July/1 August f r o m London in a letter to his b r o t h e r Vladimir, "after all the talks with the bankers, their concern is whether they can cash the checks f r o m our enterprises, partly because of our nationality, as well as because of a general cynical unwillingness to pay, because we are outlawed." 2 4 H e m a d e the first attempt to cash five checks issued by the Odessa branch of the Credit Lyonnaise in Paris. H e had to visit the office of the Credit Lyonnaise four times, had to go twice to the Ministry

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of Trade and once to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to spend ten whole days on the matter, and only after such f r e q u e n t efforts could he finally obtain his money. H e also had problems getting the money in Paris from the current Partnership for Russian Linen ( R A L O ) account in the G u a r a n t e e Trust in the USA. To L o n d o n he brought checks for the total a m o u n t of 18,500 pounds. He had submitted them to the City Midland Bank, but the bank covered only the sum of 3,500 pounds. 2 5 Nevertheless, he was not fully disheartened, and not only did he obtain the money on the basis of the financial d o c u m e n t s in the banks of Paris and London, but he also started opening his own banks there. By early August, using the help of the stockbroker K. Kharchevskii (who had helped M. Riabushinskii in 1910 purchase the bust of Victor H u g o by Rodin), or one of his relatives, 26 he opened in Paris the Banque des Pays du Sud with a starting capital of 1,000,000 francs. The office was rented on the third floor in a house on the corner of Boulevard des Italiens and Rue des Italiens for 50,000 francs for a period of 12 years. On 23 July/5 August there was a general meeting of the shareholders, chaired by I.P. Anisimov. The meeting was purely formal.The shareholders chose three proxies, I.P. Anisimov, Kharchevskii, and V.N. Onoprienko. The board of directors included Mikhail Riabushinskii, N.V. Grudistov, and Kharchevskii. T h e whole staff of the bank included a Russian secretary and a French accountant. 2 7 The starting capital of the bank was later increased to 4,000,000 francs. The main shareholders were Mikhail Riabushinskii himself, and the enterprises belonging to the Riabushinskiis, such as the Moscow Bank, Partnership for Russian Linen ( R A L O ) . and the Rusanov's Partnership of the Belomor Timber Enterprises. Substantial amounts of capital stock were purchased by N.I. Kharchevskii, N.V. Grudistov, and G.A. Izvol'skii, the only son of the Russian ambassador in Paris, who was married to a rich owner of extensive sugar plantations in Cuba. 2 8 Following this, Mikhail Riabushinskii opened the Western Bank in London, initially with a starting capital of 10,000 pounds, later increased to 200,000 pounds. At this point, his Banque des Pays du Sud became one of the foreign shareholders of the Western Bank. A n o t h e r stockholder was the American Interseas Corporation, an enterprise created by Mikhail Riabushinskii in New York. 2 9 This time he decided to look for a serious p a r t n e r for Russian trade relations in the USA. O n the evening of 13/26 N o v e m b e r 1919 Mikhail Riabushinskii arrived in New York, accompanied by R . A . Virkau and N.V. Grudistov. At the outset, he settled his money relations with the G u a r a n t e e Trust but the bank refused to start a joint enterprise with him. T h e negotiations with the Singer Company and the Mercantile Bank of the A m e r i c a were equally unsuccessful as the conditions o f f e r e d by the latter were unacceptable to Riabushinskii. The negotiations with the G r a c e American International C o r p o r a t i o n went more fruitfully. T h e company was a joint venture of the export-import company of W. Grace and Co. (total assets of 50 million dollars) and the American International C o r p o r a t i o n , owned by the National City Bank of New York (with total assets reaching 100 million dollars). These large American companies decided to unite their assets in working with

Wartime Entrepreneur • 281 Russia and allotted one million dollars, of which one-third belonged to the W. G r a c e and Co., one-third came f r o m the American International Corporation, and one-sixth from Fredrick Holbrook, a construction engineer and vice-director of the C o r p o r a t i o n . The final sixth came f r o m A l e k s a n d e r Romanovich St. Galli, a Petrograd e n t r e p r e n e u r and f o r m e r representative of the Grace Company there, who now b e c a m e a vice-president of t h e G r a c e International Corporation. 3 0 Charles A. Stone, the president of the A m e r i c a n I n t e r n a t i o n a l C o r p o r a t i o n , organized a welcoming reception for Mikhail Riabushinskii in the Metropolitan Club where, along with the famous American entrepreneurs, he invited St. Galli, Petr Morozov, N.V. Grudistov, A.V. Ber, and a Russian trade agent in New York, S.A. Uget. H a v i n g consulted with the r e p r e s e n t a t i v e s of t h e G r a c e I n t e r n a t i o n a l C o r p o r a t i o n , Mikhail Riabushinskii decided it was necessary establish his own industrial enterprise in New York. T h u s the A m e r i c a n Interseas C o r p o r a t i o n with a starting capital of 1,000,000 dollars was established. The capital stock holders were again other Riabushinskii enterprises. A l m o s t half of the expenses were taken by the Partnership for Russian Linen ( R A L O ) and a substantial part was contributed by the Banque des Pays du Sud. Since G.A. Izvolskii lived permanently in New York, he was m a d e a m e m b e r of the board, being assigned also the duties of secretary and treasurer. In addition, t h e r e was another company started specifically for purchasing, leasing, and renting steamboats, named the American Interseas Shipping Corporation with a starting capital of 100,000 dollars. Its capital stock holders were the Partnership for Russian Linen ( R A L O ) and the American Interseas Corporation. 3 1 Thus, Mikhail Riabushinskii created his own network of companies in England, France and t h e US, which aimed at ensuring the development of trade relations with the south of Russia. Naturally, during the Civil War the Riabushinskiis could not hope for success in all their trade operations. Nevertheless, they succeeded in several. They brought a shipment of deer skins f r o m Arkhangel'sk to France and a shipment of timber f r o m Kovda to England, and they purchased English goods for the sum of 47,000 pounds, French goods for 500,000 francs, and A m e r i c a n goods f o r 18,000 dollars. They also leased an oil tanker and shipped 1,300 tons of petrol f r o m the Crimea, and then arranged for a second shipment with 2,900 tons of petrol. Remarkably, in his letters Mikhail Riabushinskkii refrained f r o m evaluating the political and military situation in Russia. H e was rather concerned with what was happening in E u r o p e and built his e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l strategy according to the local situation. A s he wrote in a letter to his b r o t h e r Vladimir on 12/25 N o v e m b e r 1919, "political and economic life a b r o a d is very tense and it is not clear how it would evolve in the near future. Thus, I decided to establish related enterprises in three countries—England, France, and A m e r i c a — s o that if there was a crisis in one or another of the states, we could move our h e a d q u a r t e r s to the third. Russia is now so weak economically that for a long time she won't be able to i m p l e m e n t an active financial policy. But keeping in mind that offense is the best defense, we transferred our work abroad. It is better to meet t h e m there than to wait for t h e m

282 • Boris

V.

Anan'ich

at h o m e . " 3 2 W h e n M i k h a i l R i a b u s h i n s k i i w a s writing this letter o n b o a r d

the

s t e a m e r , t r a v e l i n g f r o m N e w Y o r k to E u r o p e , his ideas a b o u t t h e d e v e l o p m e n t s in R u s s i a w e r e q u i t e f a r f r o m reality. Of c o u r s e , he could n o t i m a g i n e t h a t by a s t r a n g e irony of f a t e h e w a s d e s t i n e d t o s p e n d t h e rest of his life in t h e c a p i t a l of o n e of t h e t h r e e c o u n t r i e s h e m e n t i o n e d , namely, in L o n d o n . T h e f a i l u r e of t h e W h i t e m o v e m e n t led t o t h e collapse of the w h o l e b a n k i n g s y s t e m c r e a t e d by M i k h a i l R i a b u s h i n s k i i in t h e s o u t h of R u s s i a a n d in t h e C r i m e a . In t h e s i t u a t i o n of w o r l d e c o n o m i c crisis, all his a t t e m p t s to play a p r o m i n e n t role in w o r l d t r a d e w e r e also d o o m e d . His textile t r a d e o p e r a t i o n s in t h e 1920s n o t only h a r m e d him, b u t also i m p a i r e d t h e f a m i l y business of t h e Riabushinskiis. H i s b r o t h e r s h a r s h l y criticized him a n d a c c u s e d him of m a k i n g u n f e a s i b l e d e c i s i o n s " t o o p e n m o r e a n d m o r e b r a n c h e s all o v e r t h e w o r l d a n d t o m o n o p o l i z e t h e w o r l d textile t r a d e . " U p o n t h e d e m a n d of t h e b r o t h e r s , Mikhail h a d to close d o w n his A m e r i c a n e n t e r p r i s e s a n d t o t u r n t h e B a n q u e d e s Pays d u Sud i n t o an e x c h a n g e office. 3 3 M i k h a i l R i a b u s h i n s k i i e x p l a i n e d his f a i l u r e s of t h o s e t i m e s by t h e loss of his p r e v i o u s will a n d energy, by his d e t a c h m e n t f r o m R u s s i a . "I w a s tired a n d I w a n t e d to h a v e a rest," h e w r o t e in his m e m o i r s in 1931. " A n d w h e n fate, in t h e s h a p e of t h e w o r l d crisis, a g a i n s h o o k e v e r y t h i n g d o w n t o t h e very basics, I felt t h a t my f e e t w e r e n o l o n g e r o n t h e n a t i v e soil which so m a n y t i m e s r e n e w e d m y strength. I no longer had the stamina to maintain our business abroad. Everything f a i l e d a n d t u r n e d t o d u s t . H a d I b e e n in my n a t i v e land, this w o u l d n o t h a v e h a p p e n e d . . . . W h e n t h e last t h r e a d c o n n e c t i n g us to t h e m o t h e r l a n d w a s cut, o u r souls w e r e s e v e r e d as well. We t u r n e d b a r r e n . T h e m i n d s t o p p e d giving birth." 3 4 T h e actual r e a s o n f o r M i k h a i l R i a b u s h i n s k i i ' s failure is p r o b a b l y c a u s e d by t h e fact t h a t , w o r k i n g in t h e c i r c u m s t a n c e s of the d e e p e s t crisis a n d n o t k n o w i n g e n o u g h t h e s i t u a t i o n on t h e i n t e r n a t i o n a l m a r k e t , he was r e a d y to get involved in q u i t e d u b i o u s a n d risky e n t e r p r i s e s , t h u s b r e a k i n g the e n t r e p r e n e u r i a l t r a d i t i o n s of t h e O l d Believers. H o w e v e r , it is h a r d n o w t o j u d g e h o w justified R i a b u s h i n s k i i ' s activities w e r e . A f t e r all, t h e success of his financial and t r a d e e n t e r p r i s e s f r o m t h e very b e g i n n i n g d e p e n d e d o n t h e military a n d political s i t u a t i o n in Russia. M i k h a i l R i a b u s h i n s k i i ' s activities in Russia a n d a b r o a d d u r i n g 1918 a n d 1919 a r e a b o v e all i n t e r e s t i n g as an e x a m p l e of the e x c e p t i o n a l business activity u n d e r e x t r e m e circ u m s t a n c e s of o n e of t h e l e a d e r s of t h e R u s s i a n b o u r g e o i s i e w h o n o t w i t h o u t r e a son c o n s i d e r e d himself a r e p r e s e n t a t i v e of t h e n a t i o n a l capital. M i k h a i l R i a b u s h i n s k i i k e p t a h e i g h t e n e d n a t i o n a l sensitivity until his very last days. T h e s e f e e l i n g s largely g u i d e d his b e h a v i o r a n d a t t i t u d e s a n d w e r e s t r o n g e r t h a n his h a t r e d t o w a r d s t h e Soviet r e g i m e . A s h e w r o t e in a l e t t e r t o his son P a v e l in M a y 1945, I h a v e s t r a n g e f e e l i n g s t o w a r d s t h e Bolsheviks. A s a result of t h e i r activities all m y relatives, f r i e n d s , I personally, a n d my class, all of us s u f f e r e d . . . . W e t u r n e d t o dust, t o n o