by James Millar
For his participation in the Great Northern Expedition, Chirikov was promoted to the rank of captain-commander in 1745. In 1746 he helped to compile new Pacific maps, based on data the Expedition had gathered. See also: BERING, VITUS JONASSEN
CHIRIKOV, ALEXZEI ILICH
(1703-1748), naval officer and explorer.
An instructor at St. Petersburg’s Naval Academy, Alexei Ilich Chirikov was selected in 1725 to be one of two assistants to Vitus Bering, recently appointed by Peter the Great to travel to Kamchatka and, from there, determine whether Asia and America were united.
Bering’s first Kamchatka expedition (1728-1730) was criticized for not having proven conclusively that Asia and America were not physically linked. Indeed, Chirikov had disagreed with Bering on the question of when the expedition should turn back, arguing that further exploration was needed. In response, Bering proposed an ambitious series of voyages and surveys that, together, became the Great Northern Expedition. Bering undertook a second survey of Russia’s northeasternmost waters. His second-in-command was Chirikov.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Fisher, Raymond Henry. (1977). Bering’s Voyages. Seattle: University of Washington Press. Neatby, L. H. (1973). Discovery in Russian and Siberian Waters. Athens: Ohio University Press. Urness, Carol Louise. (1987). Bering’s First Expedition. New York: Garland.
JOHN MCCANNON
CHKALOV, VALERY PAVLOVICH
(1904-1938), test pilot and polar aviator.
Born in the Volga town of Vasilevo (now Chkalovsk), Valery Pavlovich Chkalov went on to become the USSR’s most famous aviator of the 1930s. Hailed as the “Greatest Pilot of Our Times” and named a Hero of the Soviet Union, Chkalov, often referred to as the “Russian Lindbergh,” remains one of the Stalinist era’s greatest and best-loved celebrities.
CHKHEIDZE, NIKOLAI SEMENOVICH
A teenaged Chkalov became an aviation mechanic during the Russian Civil War. He qualified as a pilot by the age of seventeen and joined the air force, where he gained a reputation as a skilled but overly daring flier. Chkalov’s rashness caught up with him in 1929, when he caused an accident that killed another pilot. He was reprimanded and briefly discharged. Chkalov returned to the air force in 1930 but resigned in 1933 to work as a test pilot for designer Nikolai Polikarpov.
During the mid-1930s, Chkalov turned to long-distance flying and polar aviation, where he achieved his greatest renown. With Georgy Baidukov as copilot and Alexander Belyakov as navigator, Chkalov set an unofficial world record for distance flying in July 1936, by flying from Moscow to Udd Island, off the coast of Kamchatka. On June 18, 1937, the same team gained international fame by flying from Moscow to Vancouver, Washington, crossing over the North Pole along the way. This was an official world record, and even though it was broken the following month by Mikhail Gromov (who also flew to America over the North Pole), Chkalov’s bluff, hearty charm made him the most admired of “Stalin’s falcons,” the hero-pilots featured so prominently in the propaganda of the 1930s.
Chkalov died on December 15, 1938, testing a prototype of the Polikarpov I-180. He was given a hero’s funeral and buried in the Kremlin Wall. Rumors have persisted since Chkalov’s death that he was somehow killed on Stalin’s orders. Chkalov’s family and several prominent journalists have come out in support of this theory, but no concrete proof has emerged to link Stalin with Chkalov’s death. See also: AVIATION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baidukov, Georgii F. (1991). Russian Lindbergh: The Life of Valery Baidukov, tr. Peter Belov. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Hardesty, Von. (1987-1988). “Soviets Blaze Sky Trail over Top of World.” Air and Space/Smithsonian 2(5):48-54. McCannon, John. (1998). Red Arctic: Polar Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union, 1932-1939. New York: Oxford University Press.
JOHN MCCANNON
CHKHEIDZE, NIKOLAI SEMENOVICH
(1864-1926), revolutionary activist.
Born into a Georgian noble family in the west Georgian district of Imereti, Nikolai, or “Karlo” as he was better known, Semenovich went on to become a prominent figure in the Georgian social democratic movement and the RSDLP (the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party). He played a central role in the February revolution in Russia. His revolutionary career began with his expulsion from Odessa University (now in Ukraine) for participation in a student demonstration. On his return to Georgia, he became involved in local Marxist activities in the west Georgian town of Batumi. Prominent in the 1905 revolution in Georgia, and active in the local social democratic press, in 1907 he was elected as Georgian deputy to the Third State Duma (Russian imperial parliament). He led the RS-DLP faction in the Third and Fourth Dumas where he was threatened with expulsion a number of times. He led the faction in refusing to vote war credits to the Russian government in 1914.
Chkheidze made a name for himself as a great orator and was extraordinarily popular among Russian workers. It was no surprise that in February 1917 he was elected the first Chairman of the Petrograd (St. Petersburg) Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet. Given the Soviet’s powerful role in the revolution, Chkheidze was a key figure in Russian government policy during 1917. A menshevik, he became increasingly disillusioned with the path of Russian politics, as well as the ineffectiveness of his own Menshevik colleagues and the provisional government. On the eve of the October Revolution in 1917, Karlo returned to Georgia where he became, in 1918, Chairman of the Transcaucasian Seim (parliament). From 1919 to 1921, he was a member of the Georgian Constituent Assembly. After the Red Army invasion of Georgia in February of 1921, Karlo was forced into exile in Paris. He left behind two of his elder daughters; his only son had died in 1917. Unable to bear the petty politics of emigr? life, he committed suicide in 1926. See also: GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS; MENSHEVIKS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brovkin, Vladimir N. (1987). The Mensheviks after October: Socialist Opposition and the Rise of the Bolshevik Dictatorship. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
STEPHEN JONES
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CHRISTIANIZATION
CHRISTIANIZATION
Christianization was the acceptance of Christianity (in its Eastern Orthodox form) by the political elite of the early Rus principalities and its imposition upon the rest of the population at the end of the tenth century.
The most influential decision in the process of Christianization was made by Saint Vladimir Svyatoslavich, Prince of Kiev (r. 978-1015), to adopt Christianity and forcibly baptize those under his rule in the Dnieper River. His conversion is traditionally associated with the year 988 because the account of it in the Russian Primary Chronicle is recorded under that year, but sources point to either 987 or 989 instead.
This decision by Prince Vladimir was the result of a process of heightened activity by missionary monks and priests from Byzantium among the Slavs as well as increased military, diplomatic, and trade contact between the Rus and Constantinople from the mid-ninth century onward. Shortly after the Muslim invasion stripped much of the eastern provinces from the empire, the Church in Constantinople began to attempt to balance the losses in the east with gains in the north. Such activity brought the Byzantine Church into competition with the Roman Church, which also was active in converting pagan Slavic peoples. The evidence for increased trade between Constantinople and Rus at this time comes both from the Rus Primary Chronicle and from archaeological evidence, such as greater numbers of Byzantine coins found in Rus coin hordes dating from around 970 onward (although Islamic dirhams and silver ingots remained the main monetary medium of exchange throughout this period).
Christianity appeared among the Rus before Vladimir’s conversion. The first evidence found for it is from Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople (r. 858-867), who mentions that within a few years after the Rus attack on Constantinople in 860, some Rus converted to Christianity. In addition, Theo-phanes Continuatus tells us that an archbishop sent by Patriarch Ignatius (r. 847-858, 867-877) was received by the Rus in 876. In the tenth century, thr
ee significant occurrences preceded Vladimir’s conversion. First, in 911, negotiations in Constantinople over a treaty between the Greeks and the Rus allowed the Greek churchmen an opportunity to tell the Rus envoys about Christianity. Second, the treaty of 944 between the Rus and Greeks informs us that some Christians were among the Rus envoys. Finally, Princess Olga, the regent for her son Svyatoslav, traveled from Kiev to Constantinople in the 950s and converted to Christianity at that time.
The Russian Primary Chronicle has traditionally been the main source regarding the decision by Vladimir to convert, but now the scholarly consensus is that most of the account appearing in the chronicle is a later invention. The chronicle’s account is a compilation of four conversion stories tied loosely together. Three of these stories are similar to, and borrow from, stories told about the conversion of previous rulers in other countries, and thus can be considered literary commonplaces. One of the stories, however, finds independent confirmation in other sources of the time and may provide more reliable information.
In the first story, missionaries from Islam, Judaism, Western Christianity, and Eastern Christianity come to Kiev to convince Vladimir to convert to their particular religion. The most persuasive of these missionaries is a Greek philosopher who exegetically summarizes the Old and New Testaments and shows the prince an icon of the Last Judgment. But Vladimir decides “yet to wait a little.” In the second story, Vladimir sends ten “good and wise men” to each of the major neighboring religions. The emissaries are most impressed with what they see in Constantinople-in particular, the sublime church architecture and the beauty of the church service-yet Vladimir continues to wait. In the third story, Vladimir captures the Crimean city of Kherson, after making a vow he will convert to Christianity if successful, and demands the sister of the Byzantine emperor in marriage, but he still does not convert. In the fourth story, Vladimir goes blind in Kherson. Anna (the sister of the Byzantine emperor), who has arrived to marry Vladimir, tells him that when he is baptized he will have his sight restored; he then allows himself to be baptized and is cured of the affliction.
Of these four stories, only the third story, concerning the capture of Kherson, has much value for trying to determine the events of 988-989. In combination with contemporary Arabic, Armenian, and Byzantine sources, historians can create this context for the Primary Chronicle’s third story: Following a successful revolt by the Bulgarians and their defeat of the imperial army in August 986, the Byzantine general Bardas Phokas rose up
CHRONICLE OF CURRENT EVENTS
against the Emperor Basil II (r. 976-1025) in September 987 in Asia Minor. Vladimir, in return for providing six thousand troops directly to the empire and for taking action in the Crimea against those who supported the rebels, was promised by the emperor his sister Anna in marriage, provided Vladimir converted to Christianity. Some scholars think it was at this point (in 987) that Vladimir was baptized. The army of Bardas Phokas was defeated at Abydos on April 13, 989, and Vladimir’s capture of Kherson most likely occurred following that event, in the late spring or early summer of the same year. If we accept the contention of the compiler of the Rus Primary Chronicle, then Vladimir’s conversion occurred in Kherson shortly after Anna’s arrival. The baptism of the residents of Kiev in the Dnieper River would then have happened later that summer.
Arguing against a 989 date are three sources. The first is the Prayer to Vladimir, which states Vladimir captured Kherson in the third year, and died in the twenty-eighth year, of his conversion, thus dating his baptism to 987 and placing it presumably in Kiev. Interestingly, the Prayer is found together with a composition, the Life of Vladimir, that indicates he was baptized only after he took Kherson. Neither composition is found in a manuscript copy earlier than the fifteenth century, and their authorship is unknown. The second source dating Vladimir’s conversion to 987 is the Tale and Passion and Encomium of the Holy Martyrs Boris and Gleb, which, like the Prayer, states Vladimir died in the twenty-eighth year after his baptism. The third source (or, at least, three of its nineteen extant manuscript copies), the Reading about the Life and Murder of the Blessed Passion-sufferers Boris and Gleb, attributed to an eleventh-century monk, Nestor, provides the date 987 for Vladimir’s baptism. In order to resolve this apparent contradiction in the source evidence, some historians have suggested that 987 represents the year Vladimir began his period as a catechumen and 989 represents the year he was formally baptized.
The status of the early Rus Church dating from Vladimir’s acceptance of Christianity until 1037 has been a question in the historiography, whether Rus constituted a metropolitanate on its own (with the metropolitan residing either in Kiev or Pereslav) or was subordinate to another metropolitanate such as that of Ohrid, or whether it occupied an autonomous status directly under the patriarch of Constantinople with an archbishop as its head. That question has been decided in favor of Rus having its own metropolitan in Kiev from the beginning. After the rapid conversion, well-established existing pagan rituals and practices survived, especially in rural areas, for centuries. Such residual paganism existing side-by-side with Christian rituals and practices has been described as a special phenomenon called dvoyeverie (“dual belief”), but no solid evidence exists that paganism was any more prevalent here than in other areas of Eurasia that converted to Christianity so precipitously.
The conversion of Rus by Vladimir led to the formulation of a Christian religious culture in Rus based on that of the Eastern Church. It also saw the introduction of writing (including an alphabet based on the Greek alphabet), literature (most of it being translations from the Greek), monastic communities, Byzantine-style art and architecture, and Byzantine Church law. Along with Scandinavian, steppe, and indigenous Slavic elements, this Byzantine influence contributed significantly to the cultural, political, and social amalgamation that constituted the early Rus principalities. See also: KIEVAN RUS; OLGA; VLADIMIR, ST.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text. (1953). Ed. and tr. Samuel H. Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-Wetzor. Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of Sciences. Fennell, John. (1995). A History of the Russian Church: To 1448. London: Longman. Franklin, Simon, and Shepard, Jonathan. (1996). The Emergence of Rus, 750-1200. London: Longman. Poppe, Andrzej. (1976). “The Political Background to the Baptism of Rus’: Byzantine-Russian Relations between 986-89.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 30:197-244. Poppe, Andrzej. (1979). “The Original Status of the Old-Russian Church.” Acta Poloniae Historica 39:5-45. Sevcenko, Ihor. (1960). “The Christianization of Kievan Rus’.” Polish Review 5(4):29-35.
DONALD OSTROWSKI
CHRONICLE OF CURRENT EVENTS
The Chronicle of Current Events (Khronika tekushchikh sobyty) was a clandestine periodical of Soviet dissent. It reported on the activities of dissidents seeking to
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THE USSR
expand the sphere of civil freedom and political expression. It appeared at irregular intervals from 1968 to 1983.
The Chronicle was put together in Moscow by anonymous editors drawing on a network of informants throughout the Soviet Union. It was produced by samizdat (“self-publishing”) techniques. Typewritten texts with multiple carbon copies were compiled, the recipients of which retyped additional copies and passed them along in chain-letter fashion. The Chronicle documented the views of the dissidents, reported on their arrests and trials, and described their treatment in prisons, labor camps, and mental asylums.
The compilers of the Chronicle, like most of the civil liberties activists, came from the educated, professional stratum of Soviet society. The Chronicle contained reports not only on their efforts, but on the activities of national minorities and religious groups as well. These included, among others, the campaign of the Crimean Tatars to return to their homeland in the Crimea, from which they had been deported in World War II; the efforts of Soviet Jews to emigrate to Israel; and the demands of Lithuanian Catholics, Ukrainian Uniates, and Ba
ptists for religious freedom. Thus the Chronicle drew together hitherto isolated individuals and groups in an informal nationwide organization.
Though forced to publish by conspiratorial methods, the Chronicle was committed to the rule of law. It publicized repressive actions by the authorities and called on the government to observe the provisions of Soviet law and international agreements that guaranteed freedom of speech and association and other human rights. It served as an information and communication center for the dissident movement and linked its disparate strands. The publication’s existence was always precarious, however, and it was ultimately suppressed. See also: DISSIDENT MOVEMENT; JOURNALISM; SAMIZ-DAT
CHRONICLE OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE USSR
The Chronicle of Human Rights in the USSR was a journal devoted to the Soviet dissident movement. It was published in New York in English and Russian editions. Forty-eight issues appeared from 1972 to 1983. It was similar in nature to the Chronicle of Current Events, a samizdat (“self-published,” meaning clandestine) periodical compiled by dissidents within the Soviet Union, which was subject to suppression by the Soviet authorities.
The editor of the Chronicle of Human Rights was Valery Chalidze, who had been a rights activist in Moscow. Allowed to travel to the United States in 1972, he was deprived of his Soviet citizenship and could not return home.
The Chronicle reflected a juridical approach to Soviet dissent, reporting the Soviet government’s violations of its own laws in suppressing free expression. It documented arrests and trials of dissidents, conditions in the labor camps and mental asylums where some dissidents were held, and repression of movements defending the rights of national and religious minorities, among other topics. Citing Soviet laws, the Constitution of the USSR, and international covenants to which the Soviet Union was a party, the Chronicle sought to persuade the Soviet government to uphold its own guarantees of civil liberties.