Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  Hendley, Kathryn. (1998). “Remaking an Institution: The Transition in Russia from State Arbitrazh to Arbi-trazh Courts.” American Journal of Comparative Law 46:93-127. Hendley, Kathryn; Murrell, Peter; and Ryterman, Randi. (2001). “Law Works in Russia: The Role of Law in Interenterprise Transactions.” In Assessing the Value of Law in Transition Economies, ed. Peter Murrell. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Oda, Hiroshi. (2002). Russian Commercial Law. The Hague, Netherlands: Kluwer Law International.

  PETER B. MAGGS

  COURT, SUPREME

  The Supreme Court is “the highest judicial body for civil, criminal, administrative and other cases falling within the jurisdiction of courts of general jurisdiction” under Article 126 of the Russian Constitution. The courts of general jurisdiction hear all cases except: (1) lawsuits among businesses and between businesses and government agencies, which are heard by the Arbitration Court system; and (2) certain Constitutional issues, which are heard by the Constitutional Court. Beneath the Supreme Court are the highest courts of each of the eighty-nine subjects of the Russian Federation and the military courts. Beneath the courts of the subjects of the Russian Federation are a large number of district courts. Still lower in the hierarchy are Justice of the Peace Courts, which deal with relatively unimportant cases. The court structure and the relations between the courts are governed by the 1996 Constitutional Law on the Judicial System of the Russian Federation. Procedural rules are provided by the 2001 Criminal Procedure Code and the 2002 Civil Procedure Code.

  The Supreme Court has separate divisions for civil cases, criminal cases, and military cases. It has a President and a Presidium consisting of several high officers of the court. It also has a plenary session in which all the judges meet together. The Judicial Department of the Supreme Court handles the administration of all the courts of general jurisdiction. Most cases are heard by the Supreme Court on appeal from or petition for review of lower court decisions. Because the court sits in separate divisions and has a large number of judges, it is able to review a very large number of lower court cases. However, a few very important cases

  CRIMEA

  are heard by the Court in first instance. There is a mechanism for an appeal of these decisions to a higher level of the Supreme Court itself. The plenary session of the Court also has the power to issue interpretations of the law for the guidance of the lower courts. The interpretations and many other Court decisions are published at its web site. As the result of easy availability of these interpretations and decisions, lawyers are increasingly studying and citing Supreme Court rulings.

  The Supreme Court has in some cases refused to apply statute laws on the basis that they contradicted the Constitution. Gradually, however, its policy changed. When in doubt on the constitutionality of a law, the Supreme Court has typically referred the question to the Constitutional Court. However, the Supreme Court frequently hears cases concerning the conformity of administrative regulations to the Constitution and laws, and frequently invalidates such regulations. The Supreme Court of the twenty-first century is very different from the Supreme Court of the Soviet period, even though the court structure is little changed. In the Soviet period the Court was subservient to the Party authorities. The court did not control judicial administration, which was managed by the Ministry of Justice. It did cite the Constitution, but never refused to apply a law on the basis of the Constitution alone. See also: COURT, HIGH ARBITRATION; LEGAL SYSTEMS.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Burnham, William, and Danilenko, Gennady M. (2000). Law and Legal System of the Russian Federation, 2nd ed. Huntington, NY: Juris. Krug, Peter. (1997). “Departure from the Centralized Model: the Russian Supreme Court and Constitutional Control of Legislation.” Virginia Journal of International Law 37:725-786. Maggs, Peter B. (1997) “The Russian Courts and the Russian Constitution.” Indiana International and Comparative Law Review 8:99-117.

  PETER B. MAGGS

  CRIMEA

  Russian hegemony was established over the Crimea region in 1783 when the Tsarist empire destroyed the Crimean Tatar state. By the second half of the nineteenth century the Crimean population had declined to 200,000, of which half were Tatars. This proportion continued to decline as Slav migration to the region continued in the next century through industrialization, the building of the Black Sea Fleet, and tourism. By the 1897 and 1926 censuses the Tatar share of the population had declined to 34 and 26 percent respectively.

  During the civil war of 1917-1922, Crimea was claimed by the independent Ukrainian state, which obtained it under the terms of the 1918 Brest-Litovsk Treaty. But Crimea was also the scene of conflict between the Whites and Bolsheviks. In October 1921 Crimea was included within the Russian Federation (RSFSR) as an autonomous republic with two cities (Sevastopol and Evpatoria) under all-union jurisdiction.

  Crimea’s ethnic composition changed in May 1944 when nearly 200,000 Tatars and 60,000 other minorities were deported to Central Asia. It is estimated that up to 40 percent of the Tatars died during the deportation. A year later Crimean autonomy was formally abolished, and the peninsula was downgraded to the status of oblast (region) of the Russian Federation. All vestiges of Tatar influence were eradicated.

  Crimea’s status was again changed in 1954 when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev transferred it to the Ukrainian SSR. It remained an oblast until 1991, when a popularly supported referendum restored its status to an autonomous republic within Ukraine. Tatars began to return to Crimea in the Gorbachev era, but they still only accounted for 15 percent of the population, with the remainder of the population divided between Russians (two-thirds) and russified Ukrainians.

  The status of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, and the division of the Soviet Black Sea Fleet stationed on the peninsula, were the object of acrimonious dispute between Ukraine and Russia in the post-Soviet era. The Russian parliament repeatedly voted to demand that Ukraine return both Crimea and Sevastopol. Furthermore, the parliament argued that legally they were Russian territory and that Russia, as the successor state to the USSR, had the right to inherit Sevastopol and the Black Sea Fleet.

  This dispute was not resolved until May 1997, when Ukraine and Russia signed a treaty that recognized each other’s borders. The treaty was quickly ratified by the Ukrainian parliament (Rada), but both houses of the Russian parliament

  CRIMEAN KHANATE

  only ratified it after intense lobbying from Ukraine in October 1998 and February 1999.

  The resolution of the question of the ownership of Crimea and Sevastopol between 1997 and 1999 also assisted in the division of the Black Sea Fleet. Russia inherited 80 percent of the fleet and obtained basing rights scheduled to expire in 2017. The situation was also stabilized by Crimea’s adoption in October 1998 of a constitution that for the first time recognized Ukraine’s sovereignty.

  Within Crimea the Tatars have been able to mobilize large demonstrations, but their small size has prevented them from having any significant influence on the peninsula’s politics. Between 1991 and 1993 the former communist leadership of Crimea, led by Mykola Bagrov, attempted to obtain significant concessions from Kiev in an attempt to maximize Crimea’s autonomy. This autonomist line was replaced by a pro-Russian secessionist movement that was the most influential political force between 1993 and 1994; its leader Yuri Meshkov was elected Crimean president in January 1994. The secessionist movement collapsed between 1994 and 1995 due to internal quarrels, lack of substantial Russian assistance, and Ukrainian economic, political, and military pressure. The institution of a Crimean presidency was abolished in March 1995. From 1998 to 2002 the peninsula was led by Communists, who controlled the local parliament, and pro-Ukrainian presidential centrists in the regional government. In the 2002 elections the Communists lost their majority in the local parliament, and it, like the regional government, came under the control of pro-Ukrainian presidential centrists. See also: BLACK SEA FLEET; CRIMEAN KHANATE; CRIMEAN TATARS; CRIMEAN WAR; SEVASTOPOL; TATARSTAN AND TATARS; UKRAI
NE AND UKRAINIANS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Allworth, Edward, ed. (1988). Tatars of the Crimea: Their Struggle for Survival. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Kuzio, Taras. (1994). “The Crimea and European Security.” European Security 3(4): 734-774. Kuzio, Taras. (1998). Ukraine: State and Nation Building (Routledge Studies of Societies in Transition, 9). London: Routledge. Lazzerini, Edward. (1996). “Crimean Tatars.” In The Nationalities Question in the Post-Soviet States, ed. Graham Smith. London: Longman.

  TARAS KUZIO

  CRIMEAN KHANATE

  One of the surviving political elements of the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate comprised all of the Crimean peninsula, except for the southern and western coast, which was a province of the Ottoman Empire after 1475 (Kefe Eyalet), and survived until 1783 when it was annexed by the Russian Empire. The Khanate’s ruling dynasty, the Girays, established its residence and “capital” in the valley of Bah?e Saray, from which it ruled most of the peninsula, and conducted relations with the Ottomans in the south.

  Among the early Crimean khans, most important were Mengli Giray I (1467-1476 and 1478-1515), who is considered the “founder” of the Khanate; Sahib Giray I (1532-1551), who competed with Ivan IV for control of Kazan and Astrakhan, and lost; and Devlet Giray I (1551-1577), who led a campaign against Moscow. It was Mengli Giray who used Italian architects to build the large khan’s palace and the important Zincirli Medrese in Bah?e Saray and, through patronizing artists and writers, establishing the khanate as a Sunni Muslim cultural center.

  The khanate had a special relationship with the Ottoman Empire. Never Ottoman subjects, the Khanate’s Giray dynasty was considered the crucial link between the Ottomans and the Mongols, particularly Ghenghis Khan. Had the Ottoman dynasty died out, the next Ottoman sultan would have been selected from the Giray family. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Gi-rays often provided military support for Ottoman campaigns, in Hungary and in Iran. Crimean mounted archers were considered by the Ottomans to be among the most reliable and effective elements of their armies.

  So far as the Russians were concerned, the most important feature of the khanate was the latter’s dependence on raiding Muscovite lands for economic benefit. Crimean Tatars frequently “harvested the steppe” and brought Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish peasants to Crimea for sale. Slave markets operated in Kefe and Gozleve, where merchants from the Ottoman Empire, Iran, and Egypt purchased Slavic slaves for export. Several raids reached as far as Moscow itself. Slave market tax records indicate that more than a million were sold in Crimea in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

  CRIMEAN TATARS

  Eighteenth-century Russian governments tried to bring an end to these raids. An invasion of Crimea in 1736 succeeded in destroying much of the khanate’s capital Bah?esaray, including the palace, though the Russian army soon abandoned that effort. The Girays were able to rebuild much of the city over the next ten years.

  It was left to Catherine II to bring an end the khanate, in 1783. Russian victories over the Ottomans resulted in, first, the Treaty of Karasu Bazaar between Russia and the Khanate in November 1772, followed by the Treaty of K???k Kaynarca between Russia and the Ottoman Empire in 1774. Karasu Bazaar established an “alliance and eternal friendship” between the khanate and Russia; the second cut all ties between the khanate and the Ottoman Empire.

  For nine years, Catherine II worked with the last Crimean Khan, ?ahin Giray, in an experiment in “independence,” implementing some of her “enlightened” political ideas in a Muslim, Tatar society. Recognizing failure in this venture, Catherine annexed the khanate and the rest of the Crimean peninsula to the empire in 1783. See also: CATHERINE II; CRIMEAN TATARS; GOLDEN HORDE; NATIONALISM IN TSARIST EMPIRE

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Fisher, Alan. (1970). The Russian Annexation of the Crimea, 1772-1783. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Fisher, Alan. (1999). A Precarious Balance: Conflict, Trade, and Diplomacy on the Russian-Ottoman Frontier. Istanbul: Isis Press.

  ALAN FISHER

  CRIMEAN TATARS

  A Turkic people who settled the Crimean peninsula over the two hundred years after Batu Khan’s conquest, the Tatars of the Crimea came from Central Asia and Anatolia. By 1450, almost the whole of the peninsula north of the coastal mountains was Tatar land. The Tartat language was a combination of the Turkish of the Anatolian Seljuks and the Chagatay Turkic of the Tatar rulers of the Volga region, though by the end of the fifteenth century, Crimean Tatar was a dialect different from both. In the fifteenth century, the Crimean Tatars established a state (khanate) and a ruling dynasty (Giray) with its political center first in Solhat and later in Bah?esaray. This khanate was closely associated with the Ottoman Empire to the south, though it retained its sovereignty. No Ottoman officials exercised authority within the lands of these Tatars. Crimean Tatar authors wrote histories and chronicles that emphasized distinctions between Tatars and other Turkic peoples, including the Ottomans.

  As the Crimean Tatar economy depended on the slave trade and raids into Russian and other Slavic lands, it was inevitable that Russia would strive to gain dominance over the peninsula. But it was only in the eighteenth century that Russia had sufficient power to defeat, and, ultimately, annex the peninsula and incorporate the remaining Tatars into their empire. The annexation took place in 1783.

  Russian domination put enormous pressures on the Tatars-causing many to emigrate to the Balkans and Ottoman Empire during the nineteenth century. One of the Tatar intellectuals, Ismail Bey Gaspirali, tried to establish an educational system for the Tatars that would allow them to survive, as Tatars and as Muslims, within the Russian Empire. He had substantial influence over other Turkic Muslims within the empire, an influence that spread also to Turkish intellectuals in Istanbul.

  Throughout the nineteenth century the Russian government encouraged Russian and Ukrainian peasants to settle on the peninsula, placing ever greater pressures on the Tatar population. Although the Revolution of 1917 promised some relief to the Tatars, with the emergence of “national communism” in non-Russian lands, the Tatar intellectual and political elites were destroyed during the Stalinist purges.

  The German occupation of Crimea after 1941 produced some Crimean Tatar collaboration, though no greater proportion of Tatars fought against the USSR than did Ukrainians or Belorus-sians. Nevertheless, the entire Crimean Tatar nationality was collectively punished in 1944, and deported en masse to Central Asia, primarily Uzbekistan. In the 1950s, Crimea was assigned to the Ukrainian SSR, at the three hundredth anniversary of Ukraine’s annexation to the Russian Empire. Ukrainians and Russians resettled Tatar homes and villages.

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  CRIMEAN TATARS

  Crimean Tatars mark the fifty-fourth anniversary of Stalin’s order to deport their ancestors from the Crimean peninsula, May 18, 1998. PHOTOGRAPH BY SERGEI SVETLITSKY/ASSOCIATED PRESS. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION.

  Many Tatars fled to Turkey, where they joined descendants of Tatars who had emigrated from Crimea in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the early 2000s it was estimated that there were more than 5 million Crimean Tatar descendants who were citizens of the Republic of Turkey. They have been thoroughly assimilated as Turks, though they continue Tatar cultural and literary activities.

  During the next thirty-five years, Tatars in Central Asian exile continued to maintain their national identity, through cultural and political means. They published, in Tatar, a newspaper in Tashkent, Lenin Bayrag?, and united their efforts with various Soviet dissident groups. Some attempted to return to the Crimean peninsula, with modest success.

  With the collapse of the USSR, and the new independence of the Ukraine, continued efforts have been made by Tatars to reestablish some of their communities on the peninsula. Crimean Tatars, however, remain one of the many “nationalities” of the former USSR that have not been able to establish a new nation. See also: DEPORTATIONS; GASPIRALI, ISMAIL BEY; ISLAM; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALI
TIES POLICIES, TSARIST.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Allworth, Edward A., ed. (1998). The Tatars of Crimea : Return to the Homeland: Studies and Documents. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Fisher, Alan. (1978). Crimean Tatars. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. Fisher, Alan. (1998). Between Russians, Ottomans and Turks: Crimea and Crimean Tatars. Istanbul: Isis Press.

  ALAN FISHER

  CRIMEAN WAR

  CRIMEAN WAR

  The Crimean War (1853-1856) was Europe’s greatest war between 1815 and 1914, pitting first Turkey, then France and England, and finally Piedmont-Sardinia against Russia.

  The incautious and miscalculated decision by Nicholas I to activate his southern army corps and Black Sea fleet in late December 1852 can be attributed to several general misperceptions: the official myth that Russia legally protected the Ottoman Orthodox; disinformative claims of Ottoman perfidy regarding the Orthodox-Catholic dispute over Christian Holy Places; and illusions of Austrian loyalty and British friendship. Attempts to interest the British in a partition of the Ottoman Empire failed. Britain followed France in sending a fleet to the Aegean to back Turkey, after Russia’s extraordinary ambassador to Istanbul, Alexander Menshikov, acted peremptorily, following the tsar’s instructions, in March 1852. Blaming Turkish obstinacy on the British ambassador Stratford de Redcliffe, the Russians refused to accept the Ottoman compromise proposal on the Holy Places on the grounds that it skirted the protection issue. Russia broke relations with Turkey in May and occupied Moldavia and Wallachia in July.

  While the Ottomans mobilized, European statesmen sought an exit. Russia’s outright rejection in September of another Ottoman compromise finessing the protection issue, one which the British found reasonable, emboldened the Turks to declare war and attack Russian positions in Wallachia and the eastern Black Sea (October). Admiral Pavel