European Russia was occupied by Indo-European and Ural-Altaic peoples from about
the 2d millennium BC. Among the peoples present in the steppe north of the Black
Sea were the Cimmerians. They were conquered by the Scythians in the 7th century
BC. The Scythians in turn were largely displaced by the Sarmatians in the 3d
century BC. In the early centuries AD a succession of tribes, the Goths, the
Huns, and the Avars, ruled the area. The Khazars (7th century) and the Bulgars
(8th century) established substantial states. Slavic settlements in the area are
documented from the 6th century on.
MEDIEVAL RUSSIA
The Slavs probably came from southern Poland and the Baltic shore and settled in
the region of mixed forest and meadowlands north of the fertile but unprotected
steppe lands of the south. The Slavs engaged in agriculture, hunting, and
fishing and gathered products of the forest. They settled beside the rivers and
lakes along the water route that was used by Viking warrior-traders (the
Varangians) to reach Constantinople. Using their superior military and
organizational skills, the Varangians exacted tribute from the Slavs and to this
end consolidated their rule in key points on the route to Constantinople. About
862 a group of Varangians led by Rurik took control of Novgorod. From there
Rurik moved south and established (879) his authority in Kiev, strategically
located above the Dnepr rapids where the open steppe met with the belt of Slavic
settlements in the forest-meadow region.
Kievan Rus'
Under Rurik's successor, Oleg (d. c.912), Kiev became the center of a federation
of strong points controlled by Varangian "dukes" who soon became Slavicized in
language and culture. Attempts by Duke Svyatoslav I(r. 945-72) to create an
"empire" in the region between the Dnepr and Danube failed, but Kiev was
effectively protected from nomads in the east by the Khazar state on the Volga.
With the conversion (c.988) of Duke Vladimir I to Eastern Christianity, Kiev
developed into a major cultural center, with splendid architecture, richly
adorned churches, and monasteries that spread Byzantine civilization.
The political and cultural apogee of Kievan Rus' was reached under Yaroslav the
Wise, who ruled from 1019 to 1054. Politically, Kiev was the center of a
federation of principalities tied together by their rulers who claimed to be
descendants of Rurik. The unity of Kievan Rus' was more of an ideal than a
reality (many internal feuds existed), but it served as an inspiration to later
generations. The socioeconomic base of this polity has been a subject of
controversy; liberal historians have singled out the trading role of the princes
and their retinues (druzhina), whereas Soviets historians insisted on the
primacy of agriculture and artisanal production. Probably trade was the mainstay
of political power, and agriculture (complemented by hunting and fishing) was
the major occupation of the population.
Culturally, Kiev served as the agent of transmission for Byzantine
civilization--Orthodox Christianity and its art (music, architecture, and
mosaics); it also developed, however, into the creative center of a high-level
indigenous culture represented, in literature, by the sermons of Hilarion (d.
after 1055) and Vladimir Monomakh (d. 1125); in historiography, by the
early-12th-century Primary Chronicle; in law, by Yaroslav's codification,
Pravda; and in monastic life, by Kiev's 11th-century cave monastery (Lavra).
This culture served as the common foundation for the later Ukrainian,
Belorussian, and Great Russian civilizations.
The decline of Kievan Rus' (starting in the late 11th century) was brought about
by internecine feuds, by a change in Byzantine trade patterns--which made the
old river route obsolete--and by the depopulation resulting from slaughter by
nomadic invaders from the east. The end, however, came swiftly when the Mongols,
surging forth from Central Asia, overran the South Russian plain. Kiev was
sacked in 1240, and the Mongol khans of the Golden Horde at Sarai on the Volga
established their control over most of European Russia for about two centuries.
Mongol Rule
The overlordship of the Mongols (see also Tatar) proved costly in economic
terms, because the initial conquest and subsequent raids to maintain the
Russians in obedience were destructive of urban life and severely depleted the
population. Equally costly--even to cities that escaped conquest, such as
Novgorod--were the tribute payments in silver. Politically the yoke was not
burdensome, for the Mongols ruled indirectly through local princes, and the
church was even shown respect and exempted from tribute (enabling it to assume a
cultural and national leadership role). The most deleterious long-lasting effect
of Mongol rule was isolation from Byzantium and western Europe, which led to a
turning inward that produced an aggressive inferiority complex. The exceptions
were the free cities of Novgorod and Pskov, ruled by oligarchies of merchants
(the princes, such as Alexander Nevsky, were merely hired military leaders) in
active contact with the Hanseatic League.
Rise of Moscow
In the shadow of Mongol overlordship and in the harsh environment of central
Russia, to which the population had fled from the south, the society and polity
of Moscow, or Muscovy, developed. Members of the ruling family of Kievan Rus'
had seized free lands in the northeast and colonized them with peasants to whom
they offered protection in return for payments in money and kind. Each one of
these princes was full master of his domain, which he administered and defended
with the help of his retainers (boyars). A semblance of family unity was
maintained by the claim of common descent from Rurik and of a "national"
consciousness based on the Kievan cultural heritage.
Taking advantage of genealogy, Mongol favor, church support, geographic
situation, and wealth, some of the local princes--for example, those of
Vladimir, Yaroslavl, Moscow, Suzdal, and Tver--became dominant in their region
and gradually forced the weaker rulers (along with their boyars) into their own
service. Of these principalities Moscow gradually emerged as the most powerful.
Its ruler Ivan I (Ivan Kalita; r. 1328-41) was granted the title grand duke of
Vladimir by the khanate as well as the right to collect tribute for the Mongols
from neighboring principalities. His grandson Dimitry Donskoi won the first
major Russian victory over the Mongols at Kulikovo (1380). Finally, after
victory in a fierce civil war, the elimination of a main rival at Tver (1485),
and the winning over of most small independent princes, Ivan III, grand duke of
Moscow (r. 1462-1505), emerged as the sole ruler in central Russia. The Golden
Horde had regained control after Kulikovo, but a century later it was seriously
weakened by internal strife. In 1480, therefore, Ivan III successfully
challenged Mongol overlordship by refusing the tribute.
Moscow's triumph was not complete, however, because another putative heir to
Kiev remained--the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, to whose rule many of the
independent princes of the southwest and the large boyar retainers of Belorussia
had gravitated. To the south and east the Muslim successors of the Golden Horde,
the khanates of Kazan, Astrakhan, and the Crimea, were serious threats to
Muscovy's security.
Although Moscow's annexation of Novgorod (1478) and Pskov (1510) gave it access
to the profitable Baltic trade and control over the far-flung colonial lands of
the northeast, it also opened the gates to religious and cultural challenges to
the spiritual and artistic self-sufficiency and provincialism of central Russia.
A conflict arose between church and state as well as between cultural nativism
and innovation; it ended, in the second quarter of the 16th century, in a
compromise that reaffirmed and strengthened the political values of Moscow
(autocracy) while respecting the economic power and position of the church and
liberalizing its cultural life to admit the influences from the Balkans and
western Europe. Yet the strain between those who wanted a spiritualistic church,
divested of worldly wealth (the nonpossessors, or Volga Elders), and the
possessors, followers of Joseph of Volokolamsk (d. 1515), who wished to retain
the church's wealth and institutional power, continued to affect Muscovite
cultural life.
Organization of the Muscovite State
The main political task of the grand dukes of Moscow was the absorption of
formerly independent princes and their servitors into the service hierarchy of
Moscow. This absorption was achieved by expanding the membership of the boyar
council (duma) to include the newcomers. A system of precedence (mestnichestvo)
based on both family status and service position kept the boyar class divided.
In addition, from the late 15th century on, the grand duke created a class of
military servitors (dvorianstvo) entirely subordinated to him by grants of land
on a temporary basis, subject to performance of service. The peasantry remained
outside this system, with village communes taking care of local fiscal and
police matters. Towns were under the direct rule of the grand duke's
representatives and enjoyed no municipal freedoms.
The culmination of absolutism was dramatically symbolized by the grandson of
Ivan III, Ivan IV (r. 1533-84). Assuming (1547) the title of tsar, he underlined
his claim to the succession of both Byzantium and the Golden Horde. The
conquests of the khanates of Kazan (1552) and Astrakhan (1556) followed, putting
the entire course of the Volga under Russian control. These conquests initiated
further expansion (1581) into Siberia, whose western regions were conquered by
the Cossack leader Yermak Timofeyevich, sponsored by the Novgorod family of salt
merchants, the Stroganovs.
Relying on his absolute power and increased military potential, Ivan IV
attempted to eliminate the competition of Lithuania and gain a port on the
Baltic. The 25-year war (1558-83) against Poland-Lithuania, Livonia, and
Sweden--accompanied by several devastating raids of Crimean Tatars against
Moscow (for example, in 1571)--ended in failure and seriously debilitated the
country. To mobilize all resources and cope with internal opposition, Ivan IV
set up his own personal guard and territorial administration (oprichnina,
1565-72), whose exactions and oppression did great damage to both the economy
and the social stability of the realm. The combined needs of the military
servitor class for labor and of the government for tax-paying peasants led to
legislation limiting the mobility of peasants. The edicts of Ivan's successors
(Fyodor I, r. 1584-98, and Boris Godunov, r. 1598-1605) initiated a process that
culminated in the complete enserfment of the Russian peasantry (Code of 1649).
THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES
The Muscovite dynasty ended in 1598 with the death of Ivan IV's son Fyodor I.
Real power during Fyodor's reign had been exercised by his brother-in-law Boris
Godunov, who was chosen to succeed him. Although Boris was a strong ruler, he
was regarded by many as a usurper. The exhausted country was, therefore,
precipitated into turmoil marked by the appearance of a series of pretenders to
the throne and provoking invasions by Poland, Sweden, and the Crimean Tatars
(see Time of Troubles; 1598-1613). Disgruntled boyar families, enserfed
peasants, Cossacks, and lower clergy tried in turn to take advantage of the
anarchy, but none succeeded. Eventually, a militia of noble servitors (dvoriane)
and townspeople of the northeast, based in Nizhni Novgorod, expelled the Poles
from Moscow, drove back the Swedes and Cossacks, and elected young Michael
Romanov as tsar in 1613. The Romanov dynasty was to rule Russia until 1917.
An Era of Conflict
Beneath a veneer of traditional forms and static structures profound changes
took place in the course of the 17th century, changes that resulted in
religious, cultural, political, and socioeconomic disarray. Efforts at reforming
the church structure and at modernizing the ritual along Byzantine and Ukrainian
lines, led by Nikon (patriarch from 1652 to 1666), were resisted in the name of
earlier spiritualist traditions by large segments of the population (led by
monks and parish priests). These Old Believers, about 25 percent of the
population, were persecuted by the state and virtually split away from official
culture and civil society. In suppressing the Old Believers the church lost much
of its moral authority and autonomy vis-a-vis the state.
The cultural gap between the elites and the people was deepened by political,
social, and economic conflicts: urban strife at times threatened the stability
of the regime itself (for example, the salt riots of Moscow, 1648, and revolts
in Pskov and Novgorod, 1650). The military servitors' struggle to establish full
control (legalized by the Code of 1649) over their peasants led to numerous
revolts. In 1670-71 dissatisfied Cossacks, persecuted Old Believers, escaped
serfs, and disgruntled urban elements joined forces under Stenka Razin in a
revolt that swept the entire Volga valley and threatened Moscow itself.
The religious crisis exacerbated the cultural conflict over the extent and
character of Westernization. Trade contacts, especially with England and the
Dutch, brought foreigners to Russia, and diplomatic exchanges grew more frequent
as Russia became involved in European military and diplomatic events. The
importation of Western technological innovations for military purposes brought
in their wake foreign fashions and cultural goods.
The trend was reinforced following the incorporation of eastern Ukraine (1654).
The ecclesiastical academy in Kiev (founded in 1637 by the Ukrainian churchman
Peter Mohyla) educated future clergy (and some laymen) according to contemporary
European neoscholastic philosophical and juridical curricula; its graduates
often continued their studies at central and western European universities.
Better trained and more learned than the native Muscovite clerics, the graduates
of the Kievan academy were welcomed in Moscow. They were the first to organize
regular schools there (for example, the Greco-Latin Slavonic Academy), and they
brought Western political and juridical works and belles-lettres to the Kremlin
court. The winds of culture and art blowing from the west also helped change
Muscovite tastes in architecture, icon painting, church music, and
poetry--changes in style that are usually labeled Moscow baroque. These foreign
and innovative influences helped smooth the path for the forceful
Europeanization that followed under Peter I.
The government, especially under Tsar Alexis (r. 1645-76), tried to cope with
the difficulties by centralizing the local administrations (prikazy, or
departments) under direct supervision of the boyar duma and the tsar, assisted
by professional hereditary clerks (diaki). Naturally, the fiscal burden grew in
proportion to centralization. To ensure domestic control and to carry on an
active foreign policy (for example, the annexation of the Ukraine in 1654 and
wars with Poland leading to a "perpetual peace" in 1686), a professional army of
streltsy (musketeers) and foreign mercenaries and modernized technology were
introduced. Although absolutism was retained intact, factionalism and palace
coups became more frequent and made pursuing coherent policies difficult. When
Tsar Fyodor III died in 1682 the situation was ripe for the energetic
intervention of a genuine leader. After the brief but tumultuous regency of
Sophia, 1682-89, Fyodor's half brother Peter grasped the opportunity.
The Reforms of Peter the Great
By dint of his driving energy and ruthlessness, Peter I(r.1682-1725) transformed
Russia and brought it into the concert of European nations. A struggle of almost
20 years with Charles XII of Sweden (1700-21; see Northern War, Great) and wars
with Ottoman Turkey (1710-11) and Persia (1722-23) radically changed Russia's
international position (symbolized by Peter's assumption of the new title of
emperor in 1721). By the Treaty of Nystad (1721) with Sweden, Russia acquired
the Baltic province of Livonia (including Estonia and most of Latvia), giving it
a firm foothold on the Baltic Sea and a direct relationship with western Europe.
In the south gains were modest, but they marked the beginning of a Russian
imperial offensive on the Black and Caspian seas.
These territorial gains, requiring much effort and great expenditures of labor
and resources, forced Peter to transform the institutional framework of the
state and to attempt a restructuring of society as well. The central
administration was streamlined along functional lines: a set of colleges on the
European model displaced the prikazy, and a senate of appointed officials
replaced the boyar duma; the church was put under direct state administration
with the abolition of the patriarchate and the establishment of a Holy Synod
(1721) of appointed ecclesiastical members supervised by a lay official. A navy
was created, and the army was reorganized along professional Western lines, the
peasantry furnishing the recruits and nobility the officers. The local
administration, however, remained a weak link in the institutional chain,
although it maintained the vast empire in obedience. The peasantry was subjected
to compulsory labor (as in the building of the new capital, Saint Petersburg,
begun in 1703) and to military service, and every individual adult male peasant
was assessed with a head, or poll, tax. By these measures the state severed the
last legal ties of the peasants to the land and transformed them into personal
serfs, virtually chattel, who could be moved and sold at will.
Other classes of society were not immune from state service either. Compulsory,
lifelong service was imposed on the nobility, and their status was made
dependent on ranks earned in military or administrative office (the Table of
Ranks of 1722 also provided for automatic ennoblement of commoners through
service). State service required education, and Peter introduced compulsory
secular, Westernized schooling for the Russian nobleman. While resistance to
compulsory service gradually forced its relaxation, education became an
internalized value for most nobles who were culturally Westernized by the
mid-18th century.
Peter failed to reshape the merchants into a Western bourgeoisie, however, and
his efforts at modernizing the economy had mixed results. The clergy turned into
a closed castelike estate, losing its spiritual and cultural influence. The
limitations of Peter's reforming drive were due to the inherent paradox of his
policy and approach: he aimed at liberating the creative forces of Russian
society, but he expected to accomplish this liberation only at his command and
through compulsion, at a pace that precluded an adaptation of traditional
patterns and values. He succeeded in transforming the upper class but failed to
change the common people; the deep cultural gulf in the long run undermined the
regime.
The Imperial Succession
Peter's impetuousness did not allow the new structure and patterns to congeal,
and after his death (1725) instability plagued the new institutional setup.
Having had his son, Alexis, tortured to death for alleged treason, Peter
abolished the traditional practice of succession, declaring (1722) that the
emperor could choose his successor. For the next half-century the throne was
exposed to a series of palace coups instigated by cliques of favorites and
dignitaries with the support of the Guards regiments. After the reign (1725-27)
of Peter's widow, Catherine I, Peter II (r. 1727-30), Anna (r.1730-40), Ivan VI
(r. 1740-41), Elizabeth (r. 1741-62), and Catherine II (r. 1762-96), who
supplanted her husband, Peter III, all came to the throne in this manner. The
only serious attempt at limiting the power of the throne (1730), however, failed
because of divisions among the nobility and their continued dependence on state
service. The autocracy managed to keep the nobility in subordination by
promoting the economic status of that class through salaries, gifts, and the
extension of its legal rights over the serfs, particularly following the
traumatic experience of the great peasant uprising (1773-75) under Yemelian
Pugachev.
The government proved unable to regularize its structure and practices through a
code of laws because it was feared that such a code would delegate power to
impersonal institutions. Personalized authority was favored by most subjects,
however, as a protection against abuses of officials and as a source of rewards.
The tension between a rational and automatic rule of law and a personalized
authority was never resolved in imperial Russia.
Expansion and Westernization
Two important processes dominated the 18th century. The first was imperial
expansion southward and westward. The southern steppe lands were gradually
settled by Russians, and the autonomous local social groupings--especially the
Cossacks (whose hetmanate in the Ukraine was abolished in 1764)--lost their
status and were assimilated into Russian serf society. The process was formally
completed by the Treaty of Kucuk Kainarji (1774), ending the first major
Russo-Turkish War, by which Russia secured the northern shore of the Black Sea,
and by the annexation (1783) of the Crimea, which put an end to the nomadic
threats from the southeast. By extending (1783) serfdom to the Ukraine the
economic integration of that area with Russia was achieved, and its large,
prosperous estates were soon able to feed a growing urban population and to
export grain abroad.
The empire's expansion westward was the result of the Partitions of Poland
(1772, 1792, 1795), which awarded Russia most of the eastern and central regions
of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. This expansion enhanced Russia's economic
potential and brought it closer to western Europe, but it also burdened the
empire with unsolvable national and religious problems and saddled it with
onerous diplomatic, military, and police tasks.
In the past, apart from the incorporation of small Finnish and Siberian tribes,
Muscovy had known only one major territorial conquest involving non-Russian and
non-Christian peoples--that of the Tatars of the Volga in the 16th century.
Their elites were quite successfully incorporated into the tsar's service
nobility (most eventually became Christians); as for the common folk, they were
subject to a special tribute (iassak), but their internal tribal affairs were
left to the care of traditional elders and chieftains. The imperial acquisitions
of the 18th century, however, brought a number of new nationalities under
Russian rule: Ukrainians, Poles, Crimean Tatars, Jews, Estonians, Latvians,
Lithuanians, and Baltic Germans. Wherever workable, these nationalities' elites
were recruited into the military and civil establishments. The common people
continued to be allowed their own traditional institutions, provided they paid
their taxes. The Russian church was discouraged from proselytizing. Legal
disputes were resolved according to native customary law if no Russians were
involved; otherwise Russian law took precedence. Before the birth of modern
nationalism in the 19th century this approach worked well enough so that the
imperial administration and the Russian elites were able to ignore the
multiethnic character of the empire.
The second process shaping 18th-century Russia is best characterized as the
cultural Westernization of the Russian elites. It was furthered by the
establishment of new educational institutions (the Academy of Sciences, 1725;
the University of Moscow, 1755; and military and private schools), the creation
of a modern national literature along Western lines (exemplified in the work of
Mikhail Lomonosov and Aleksandr Sumarokov), and the beginnings of scientific
research and discoveries (Lomonosov). Increased sophistication heightened
yearnings for free expression and implementation of enlightened Western moral
and social values. It led to a conflict between state control and educated
society's demand for creative freedom and to the emergence of an oppositionist
intelligentsia. In 1790, for example, Aleksandr Radishchev denounced the moral
evils of serfdom in A Journey from Saint Petersburg to Moscow.
Imperial expansion and cultural Westernization were accompanied by economic
modernization. Russia became a notable producer of iron, lumber, and naval
stores (pine products) and witnessed the expansion of urbanization and social
amenities. Catherine II intensified these developments and reaped their
benefits. In February 1762 the nobles had been freed from compulsory state
service by Peter III and had been given the right to travel abroad. But their
corporate status, security of person and property, and local administrative
function had not been clarified. This was even truer of the other free classes.
In order to obtain reliable and comprehensive information on conditions in the
empire (and to bolster her own legitimacy) Catherine convoked (1767) an assembly
of elected delegates from the free estates of the realm. The deputies were
expected to draft and bring to the assembly "instructions" (nakazy) listing the
conditions and needs of their electors. This "Legislative Commission" was soon
disbanded, but the instructions and debates gave Catherine ample material for a
picture of what the various free classes of the population expected from her. In
response she decided that Russian society should contribute more directly to
economic activity.
To this end she fostered security of property and person, at least for members
of the upper classes. In implementing this goal she followed two paths. First,
by the Statute on the Provinces (1775) she concentrated the administration of
the empire by breaking up its territory into manageable units (guberniia) under
appointed governors responsible to the sovereign and accountable to the senate.
Governors were to be assisted by boards of officials organized according to
function and, on the district level, by police officers elected by, and from
among, the local nobility or wealthy urban population. Second, the empress
planned to promote the formation of a civil society by granting the three
principal estates of the realm the right to form corporations. These would serve
to register their members, and to protect group interests, as well as each
individual member's person and property. The Charter to the Nobility (1785) put
local resident nobles in charge of district police, some judicial matters, and
the protection and supervision of orphans, widows, and incapacitated persons.
The Charter to the Towns (1785) similarly gave an active administrative role to
urban elites, while reserving paramount authority to governors and appointed
officials. A third charter giving state peasants a degree of self-government on
the village level was drafted but never implemented.
Though the practice fell far short of the intention, Catherine II did lay the
foundations for the emergence of a provincial civic and cultural life--a
prerequisite for the modernization of Russia in the 19th century.
THE 19TH CENTURY
Alexander I
Catherine's grandson Alexander I, who succeeded to the throne after the brief
reign (1796-1801) of his unbalanced father, Paul I, intended to give regular
institutional form to the results of the social and cultural evolution of the
18th century. The first years of Alexander's reign were marked by intensive
efforts at reforming the administration and at expanding the educational
facilities. Although the reforms did not bring about constitutionalism or limit
the autocracy, they did inaugurate rapid bureaucratization with better trained
officials.
Russia's involvement in the Napoleonic Wars proved in some ways an impediment to
the normal evolution of the country. Napoleon I's invasion of Russia in 1812,
although ending in his own defeat, was hardly a victory for Russia. The wars
proved costly, and the ultimate political gains (Finland, penetration into the
Caucasus) were rather slim despite Alexander's diplomatic role after 1815
(notably in the Holy Alliance). On the other hand, the reconstruction of
devastated territories along the route of the French invasion and of Moscow
(largely destroyed by fire during the French occupation) gave great impetus to
an economic takeoff and involved entrepreneurial initiatives by peasants and
urban commoners. It resulted in a rapid expansion of textile manufactures and
the building trades, which generated capital and resources for later Russian
industrialization.
During the wars the younger generation of educated society had acquired
self-confidence and a desire to be of use to their country and people; upon the
return of peace they tried to put their ideals into practice. Unavoidably, this
led to a clash with a government that was loath to give society genuine freedom
and that, after 1815, became more restrictive and obscurantist. Secret societies
were organized under the leadership of progressive officers, and, on the sudden
death of Alexander I in December 1825, they tried to take over the government.
This abortive insurrection of the Decembrists traumatized Alexander's successor,
his brother Nicholas I, into a policy of reaction and repression.
Nicholas I
Nicholas I's reign, however, was by no means static, and it proved seminal in
many respects. In spite of strict censorship, the golden age of Russian
literature occurred with the work of Aleksandr Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol, the young
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Leo Tolstoi, and Ivan Turgenev. Accompanying this literary
flowering, discussion circles sprang up in Moscow and Saint Petersburg in which
the intelligentsia debated Russia's identity, its historical path and role, and
its relationship to western Europe (the Slavophiles and Westernizers represented
the two main lines of interpretation that emerged).
Nicholas was unfavorably disposed to the humanities and limited admissions to
the universities, but he promoted technical and professional training. During
his reign a number of technical institutions of higher learning were founded,
and state support for needy students in professional schools was expanded. By
the end of the reign a cadre of well-trained professionals and officials had
been prepared to carry out reforms. Nicholas's government also brought to a
successful conclusion the codification of laws (1833; the achievement of Mikhail
Speransky), which enabled an orderly and systematic economic development of the
country. The building of railroads was initiated, the currency was stabilized,
and protective tariffs were introduced. As a result private enterprise was
activated, especially in consumer goods (textiles), in which even peasant
capital and skill participated. These developments only served to underscore the
backward nature of an agrarian economy based on serf labor. Nicholas was well
aware of this, but, fearing political and social disturbances, he did not go
beyond discussions in secret committees and the improvement of the
administration of state peasants.
All the while, however, his government encouraged middle-rank officials to
collect accurate and comprehensive data on Russia's economic and social
condition. The Imperial Geographic society sponsored expeditions and statistical
surveys that eventually provided the government with information needed to
undertake reforms.
The government's timidity was conditioned not only by fear of a peasant uprising
and a distrust of the nobility but also by its international policies.
Nicholas's reign was for the most part peaceful, although Russia did participate
in securing Greek independence (1828-29) and in curtailing Turkish power in the
Black Sea. Nicholas also acted as the "gendarme of Europe" when he crushed the
Polish insurrection of 1831-33 and helped Austria subdue the Hungarians in 1849.
The empire further expanded in the Far East (in the Amur River valley). At the
end of his reign Nicholas embroiled Russia in the Crimean War (1853-56).
Although the immediate cause of the war was a dispute over the guardianship of
the Holy Places in Palestine, underlying the conflict was the Eastern Question,
the prolonged dispute over the disposition of the territories of the
fast-declining Ottoman Empire. The Russians fought on home ground against
British and French troops assisted by Sardinian and Austrian forces. The course
of the war revealed the regime's weaknesses, and the death (1855) of Nicholas
allowed his son, Alexander II, to conclude a peace (the Treaty of Paris, 1856)
that debarred Russian warships from the Black Sea and Straits.
Alexander II and Emancipation of the Serfs
Russian society now expected and demanded far-reaching reforms, and Alexander
acted accordingly. The crucial reform was the abolition of serfdom on Mar. 3
(N.S.), 1861. In spite of many shortcomings it was a great accomplishment that
set Russia on the way to becoming a full-fledged modern society. The main
defects of the emancipation settlement were that cancellation of labor
obligations took place gradually, the peasants were charged for the land they
received in allotment (through a redemption tax), and the allotments proved
inadequate in the long run. The last was a consequence of demographic pressures
due to the administrative provisions of the act that restricted the mobility of
the peasants and tied them to their village commune, which was held responsible
for the payment of taxes; the former serfs remained second-class citizens and
were denied full access to regular courts. Nevertheless, 20 million peasants
became their own masters, they received land allotments that preserved them from
immediate proletarization, and the emancipation process was accomplished
peacefully.
Three other major reforms followed emancipation. The first was the introduction
(1864) of elected institutions of local government, zemstvos, which were
responsible for matters of education, health, and welfare; however, the zemstvos
had limited powers of taxation, and they were subjected to close bureaucratic
controls. Secondly, reform of the judiciary introduced jury trials, independent
judges, and a professional class of lawyers. The courts, however, had no
jurisdiction over "political" cases, and the emperor remained judge of the last
resort. Finally, in 1874, the old-fashioned military recruiting system gave way
to universal, compulsory 6-year military service.
Taken together, the reforms marked the end of the traditional socioeconomic
system based on serfdom, and set Russia fully on the path to an industrial and
capitalist revolution that brought problems of urbanization, proletarianization,
and agrarian crisis in its wake. In part the difficulties resulted from
unpreparedness and reluctance on the part of landowners (and many among the
intellectual elites) to make necessary adjustments in their economic practices
and social attitudes; but they were also caused by government policies that
hindered the emergence of a genuine capitalist bourgeoisie and industrial labor
force.
The impetus for reform was thwarted and arrested by external and domestic
events. Externally, the Polish rebellion of 1863-64 gave pause to the government
and, by exacerbating nationalistic feelings, strengthened the conservative
opposition to further reforms. The Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 undermined the
financial equilibrium, and chauvinistic passions were aroused when the Treaty of
San Stefano, which greatly increased Russian influence in the Balkans, was
substantially revised by the Congress of Berlin. At home in the 1860s radical
university students and nihilist (see nihilism) critics such as Nikolai
Chernyshevsky voiced dissatisfaction with the pace and direction of the reforms.
Radical associations were formed to propagandize socialist ideas, and student
youth "went to the people" in 1874-76 to enlighten and revolutionize the
peasantry. Repressed by the government, the young radicals turned to terrorism.
Eventually a group of narodniki (populists) called the People's Will condemned
the emperor to death, and after several dramatic but unsuccessful attempts they
killed him on Mar. 13 (N.S.), 1881.
Alexander III
Alexander II's violent death inaugurated the conservative and restrictive reign
of his son Alexander III. Nonetheless, the process of social and economic change
released by the reforms could not be arrested. Now society proved more dynamic
and took the lead in the drive for modernization and liberalization; the
government, on the other hand, incapable of giving up its autocratic traditions,
acted as a barrier. The deepening agrarian crisis--dramatized by the famine of
1891--turned the active elements from criticism to overt opposition. At the same
time, industrialization energetically pushed by Sergei Witte, minister of
finance (1892-1903), brought in its wake labor conflict, urban poverty, and
business cycles.
Expansion and Russian Nationalism
The acquisition of Caucasia, under Nicholas I, had required lengthy and
difficult campaigns against mountain populations using guerrilla tactics to
defend themselves. During the reign of Alexander II, largely on local military
initiative, the independent or autonomous Muslim principalities of Central Asia
were brought under Russian control and turned into virtual colonies for economic
exploitation and peasant settlement.
Paralleling the south and southeastward expansions of the empire, the
governor-general of Siberia, Nikolai N. Muraviev, forced China to relinquish
control over the lower course of the Amur River (Treaty of Aigun, 1858), opening
up the Pacific shore to Russian penetration and settlement. The Russian Empire
thus increased its territory and developed a genuinely colonial approach to the
newly incorporated lands and peoples. With the possible exception of Georgia
(incorporated early in the 19th century), native leadership was not absorbed
into the Russian nobility or cultural elite, as had been the case in earlier
conquests. New administrative practices developed in these territories with the
help and participation of the military resulted in the imposition of oppressive
rule and socio-economic discrimination against the native populations.
The Slavophile-Westernizer debates over the nature of Russian national identity
in the 1830s undoubtedly contributed to a more aggressive and self-centered
sense of Russian nationalism, which received strident expression during the
Polish revolt of 1863 and the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. It prompted the
government to embark on a consistent policy of Russification and harsh
repression of nationalist movements among the non-Russian peoples of the empire.
Imperial decrees restricted the use of the Ukrainian language and the privileged
status of the Germans in the Baltic provinces. Paradoxically, the actions
against the Baltic Germans encouraged the growth of nationalist feeling among
the Latvians and Estonians, whom the Germans had dominated. The suppression of
the Polish uprising of 1863 was followed by energetic Russification measures
aimed at eliminating the Polish language and Polish culture from public life.
Under Alexander III, discriminatory laws against Jews, involving residential
restrictions and limited access to secondary and higher education, were
reinforced and harshly applied. At the same time, the government did little to
control pogroms or anti-Jewish riots (see pogrom). Hundreds of thousands of Jews
emigrated to Western Europe and the United States, and many who aspired to
professional education and cultural assimilation were driven into the arms of
radical political parties.
These policies continued unabated under Alexander's son Nicholas II, whose
government also curtailed Finland's traditional autonomy.
Nicholas II
Nicholas succeeded his father in 1894. The new emperor soon dashed society's
hopes for political and social reform. To deflect attention from the worsening
social situation and to neutralize the revitalized revolutionary movement,
especially among the workers, the government embarked on imperialist adventures
in the Far East, provoking a war with Japan (1904-05; see Russo-Japanese War).
Russia suffered a humiliating defeat, although the peace terms (Treaty of
Portsmouth, 1905) were less onerous thanks to the mediation of U.S. president
Theodore Roosevelt and Japan's exhaustion.
The war triggered widespread disturbances within Russia, including rural
violence, labor unrest (in Saint Petersburg troops fired on a large crowd of
demonstrating workers; Bloody Sunday, Jan. 22, 1905), and naval mutinies (most
notably, that led by sailors of the battleship Potemkin in Odessa, June 1905).
The turmoil of the Russian Revolution of 1905 culminated in the general strike
of October, which forced Nicholas II to grant a constitution. Russia received a
representative legislative assembly, the Duma, elected by indirect suffrage. The
executive, however, remained accountable only to the emperor. Limited as its
powers were (the suffrage was further restricted in 1907), the Duma made the
government more responsive to public opinion. From 1906 to 1911 the government
was directed by Pyotr Stolypin, who combined repressive action with land reforms
to improve the position of the peasants.
The new political activity contributed to the remarkable upsurge of Russia's
artistic and intellectual creativity (called the Silver Age) that lasted until
the outbreak of World War I in 1914. The Silver Age marked Russia's coming of
age as a contributing participant in Western culture. This happened, first of
all, because of the high level of professionalization attained by Russian
scholars, scientists, and artists. The process had been initiated in the filed
of humanities under Alexander I and was confined at first to the nobility. The
reign of Nicholas I marked Russia's take-off in science and scholarship within
the framework of the universities and the Academy of Sciences. In the 1860s
prominent Russian scientists such as N. I. Lobachevsky and D. I. Mendeleyev
received full recognition in the West.
After the reforms of Alexander II, the needs of the zemstvos, the new judicial
system, and of the rapidly developing industrial system produced an exponential
increase in the number of technicians and professionals in such areas as law,
medicine, engineering, agronomy, and statistics. Professional associations aimed
at playing an active role in shaping government and public policies in their
fields for the benefit of society.
By the first decade of the 20th century Russia had moved to the forefront of
scholarly and scientific progress; the contributions of Russian scientists in
such areas as chemistry, aeronautics, linguistics, history;, archaeology, and
statistics were universally recognized.
Equally significant was the renaissance of religious life, and growing interest
in the question of church involvement in social problems. Reformist laymen and
clergy demanded greater independence for the church, calling for a national
church council to address the needs and define the character of Russia's
ecclesiastical institutions. Closely allied to the religious renaissance was the
development of the personalist-existentialist school of Russian philosophy by N.
A. Berdyayev, N. O. Lossky (1870-1965), L. Shestov (1866-1938), and others.
Last, but not least, the Silver Age witnessed an extraordinarily creative
outburst in the arts. The composer Igor Stravinsky, ballet impresario Sergei
Diaghilev, and the painter Wassily Kandinsky each had a strong influence on the
emergence of avant-garde modernism before and after World War I. In the same
period, constructivism and suprematism were original Russian contributions to
abstract art (see Russian art and architecture; Russian music).
Thus the years 1905-14 were a period of great complexity and ferment. To many
this feverish intellectual creativity, which had its social and political
counterpart in rural unrest, industrial discontent, revolutionary agitation, and
nationalist excesses (for example, the pogroms against the Jews), proved that
the imperial regime was nearing its inevitable end, which the outbreak of war
only served to delay. On the other side, liberals and moderate progressives saw
in these phenomena harbingers of Russia's decisive turn to political democracy
and social and economic progress, which was abruptly stopped in 1914.
In any event Russia went to war in August 1914. Determined to prevent further
Austro-Hungarian encroachment in the Balkans, the Russian government rallied to
the support of Serbia when Austria-Hungary declared war on that Balkan nation.
Russia's alliance with France and Britain (see Triple Entente) and
Austria-Hungary's with Germany helped transform the local Balkan conflict into
World War I. The strains of that bloody and disastrous conflict produced a
breakdown of both the political system and the social fabric in Russia. Food
riots in Petrograd (formerly Saint Petersburg) and other cities toppled the
monarchy in March (N.S.; February, O.S.) 1917.
The Russian Revolutions of 1917
Following the abdication of the emperor the Duma established a provisional
government, headed first by Prince Georgy Lvov (1861-1925) and later by
Aleksandr Kerensky. The government's authority was challenged, however, by an
increasingly radical Soviet (council) of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies, and it
could not stem the tide of disintegration. Eventually agrarian unrest, mass
desertions at the front, turmoil in the cities, and disaffection of the
non-Russian nationalities gave the Bolsheviks (see Bolsheviks and Mensheviks)
under Vladimir Ilich Lenin an opening to seize power in November (N.S.; October,
O.S.) 1917. Thus the second of the two Russian Revolutions of 1917 occurred,
leading to the establishment of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Marc Raeff
Bibliography: Auty, Robert, and Obolensky, Dimitri, eds., An Introduction to
Russian History, vol. 1, in Companion to Russian Studies (1976); Billington,
James H., The Icon and the Axe: An Interpretive History of Russian Culture
(1966); Blum, Jerome, Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the
Nineteenth Century (1981); Carmichael, Joel, A History of Russia (1990);
Cherniavsky, Michael, ed., Structure of Russian History (1970); Crummey, R. O.,
The Formation of Muscovy, 1300-1613 (1987); Dmytryshyn, Basil, A History of
Russia (1977); Fennell, John, The Crisis of Medieval Russia (1983); Florinsky,
Michael T., Russia: A History and an Interpretation, 2 vols. (1953); Halperin,
Charles, Russia and the Golden Horde (1985); Keep, John, Soldiers of the Tsar:
Army and Society in Russia, 1462-1874 (1985); Lyashchenko, Petr I., History of
the National Economy of Russia to the 1917 Revolution, trans. by L. M. Herman
(1949; repr. 1970); Parker, W. H., A Historical Geography of Russia (1969);
Pipes, Richard, Russia under the Old Regime (1975); Raeff, Marc, ed., Russian
Intellectual History: An Anthology (1966) and Understanding Imperial Russia
(1985); Salisbury, Harrison E., Black Night, White Snow: Russia's Revolutions,
1905-1917 (1978); Seton-Watson, Hugh, The Russian Empire, 1801-1917 (1967);
Rogger, H., Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution, 1881-1917 (1983);
Ulam, Adam, In the Name of the People: Prophets and Conspirators in
Prerevolutionary Russia (1977); Vernadsky, George, and Fisher, Ralph T., eds.,
comp. by Sergei G. Pushkarev, Dictionary of Russian Historical Terms from the
Eleventh Century to 1917 (1980); Vernadsky, George, et al., eds., A Source Book
for Russian History from Early Times to 1917, 3 vols. (1972); Walicki, A., A
History of Russian Thought: From the Enlightenment to Marxism (1979).
(c) 1997 Grolier, Inc.
