Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

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  DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR MIKHAILOVICH

  (The Gambler) depicts the dramatic incompatibility of Russian and Western European mentalities against the background of a German gambling resort. Pressured by a treacherous publisher, Dos-toyevsky was forced to dictate this novel within twenty-six days to stenographer Anna Grigor’evna Snitkina (1846-1918), who shortly thereafter became his wife.

  Endlessly haunted by creditors and needy family members, the Dostoyevskys escaped abroad, spending years in Switzerland, Germany, and Italy. They often lived near casinos where the writer unsuccessfully tried to resolve his financial ills. Against all odds, during this period Dostoyevsky created some of his most accomplished works, particularly the novel Idiot (1868), the declared goal of which was to portray a “perfectly beautiful human being.” The title character, an impoverished prince, clashes with the rapidly modernizing, cynical St. Petersburg society. In the end, although conceptualized as a Christ-like figure, he causes not salvation but murder and tragedy.

  Dostoyevsky’s following novel, Besy (The Devils, 1872), was interpreted as “anti-nihilist.” Openly polemical, it outraged the leftist intelligentsia who saw itself caricatured as superficial, na?ve, and unintentionally destructive. Clearly referring to the infamous case of Sergei Nechaev, an anarchist whose revolutionary cell killed one of its dissenting members, The Devils presents an astute analysis of the causality underlying terrorism, and societal disintegration. Yet it is also a sobering diagnosis of the inability of Russia’s corrupt establishment to protect itself from ruthless political activism and demagoguery.

  While The Devils quickly became favorite reading of conservatives, Podrostok (A Raw Youth, 1875) appealed more to liberal sensitivities, thus reestablishing, to a certain extent, a balance in Dos-toyevsky’s political reputation. Artistically uneven, this novel is an attempt to capture the searching of Russia’s young generation “who knows so much and believes in nothing” and as a consequence finds itself in a state of hopeless alienation.

  In the mid-1870s, Dostoyevsky published the monthly journal Dnevnik pisatelia (Diary of a Writer) of which he was the sole author. With its thousands of subscribers, this unusual blend of social and political commentary enriched by occasional works of fiction contributed to the relative financial security enjoyed by the author and his family in the last decade of his life. Its last issue contained

  Fyodor Dostoevsky by Vasily Perov, 1872. © ARCHIVO ICONOGRAFICO, S.A./CORBIS the text of a speech that Dostoyevsky made at the dedication of a Pushkin monument in Moscow in 1880. Pushkin is described as the unique genius of universal empathy, of the ability to understand mankind in all its manifestations-a feature that Dostoyevsky found to be characteristic of Russians more than of any other people.

  Brat’ia Karamazovy (The Brothers Karamazov, 1878-1880) became Dostoyevsky’s literary testament and indeed can be read as a peculiar synthesis of his artistic and philosophical strivings. The novel’s focus on patricide is rooted in the fundamental role of the father in the Russian tradition, with God as the heavenly father, the tsar as father to his people, the priest as father to the faithful, and the paterfamilias as representative of the universal law within the family unit. It is this underlying notion of the universal significance of fatherhood that connects the criminal plot to the philosophical message. Thus, the murder of father Fyodor Karamazov, considered by all three brothers and carried out by the fourth, the illegitimate son, becomes tantamount to a challenge the world order per se.

  Dostoyevsky’s significance for Russian and world culture derives from a number of factors,

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  among them the depth of his psychological per-ceptiveness, his complex grasp of human nature, and his ability to foresee long-term consequences of human action-an ability that sometimes bordered on the prophetic. Together with his rhetorical and dramatic gifts, these factors outweigh less presentable features in the author’s persona such as national and religious prejudice. Moreover, Dos-toyevsky’s willingness to admit into his universe utterly antagonistic forces-from unabashed sinners whose unspeakable acts of blasphemy challenge the very foundations of faith, to characters of angelic purity-has led to his worldwide perception as an eminently Christian author. But it also caused distrust in certain quarters of the Orthodox Church; as a matter of fact, his confidence in a gospel of all-forgiveness was criticized as “rosy Christianity” (K. Leont’ev), a religious aberration neglecting the strictness of divine law. From a programmatic point of view, Dostoyevsky preached a Christianity of the heart, as opposed to one of pragmatism and rational calculation.

  Dostoyevsky’s impact on modern intellectual movements is enormous: Freud’s psychoanalysis found valuable evidence in his depictions of the mysterious subconscious, whereas Camus’ existentialism took from the Russian author an understanding of man’s inability to cope with freedom and his possible preference for a state of non-responsibility.

  Dostoyevsky was arguably the first writer to position a philosophical idea at the very heart of a fictional text. The reason that Dostoyevsky’s major works have maintained their disquieting energy lies mainly in their structural openness toward a variety of interpretative patterns, all of which can present textual evidence for their particular reading. See also: CHEKHOV, ANTON PAVLOVICH; GOGOL, NIKOLAI VASILIEVICH; GOLDEN AGE OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE; PETRASHEVTSY

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Bakhtin, Mikhail M. (1973). Problems of Dostoyevsky’s Poetics. Ann Arbor: Ardis. Catteau, Jacques. (1989). Dostoyevsky and the Process of Literary Creation. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Frank, Joseph. (1976). Dostoyevsky: The Seeds of Revolt, 1821-1849. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Frank, Joseph. (1983). Dostoyevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850-1859. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Frank, Joseph. (1986). Dostoyevsky: The Stir of Liberation, 1860-1865. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Frank, Joseph. (1995). Dostoyevsky: The Miraculous Years, 1865-1871. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Frank, Joseph. (2002). Dostoyevsky: The Mantle of the Prophet, 1871-1881. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Pattison, George, ed. (2001). Dostoyevsky and the Christian Tradition. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Scanlan, James. (2002). Dostoevsky the Thinker. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

  PETER ROLLBERG

  DUDAYEV, DZHOKHAR

  (1944-1996), leader of Chechen national movement, first president of Chechnya.

  One of ten children in a Chechen family deported to Kazakhstan in 1944 and allowed to return home in 1957, Dzhokhar Dudayev graduated from the Air Force Academy, entered the CPSU in 1966, and eventually became major general of the air force, the only Chechen to climb that high within the Soviet military hierarchy. Reportedly, he won awards for his part in air raids during the Soviet war in Afghanistan. In November 1990, Dudayev, an outsider to the Chechen national movement, was unexpectedly elected by its main organization, the Chechen National Congress, as its leader and commander of the National Guard. Having called for local resistance to the August 1991 coup in Moscow, Dudayev seized the opportunity to overthrow the CPSU establishment of the Checheno-Ingush Autonomous Republic by storming the Supreme Soviet in Grozny, forcing the resignation of key officials, and winning the presidency in a chaotic and irregular vote. On November 1, he decreed the independence of the Chechen Republic, soon ratified by the newly elected Chechen parliament (Ingushetia separated itself from Chechnya via referendum to remain within Russia). Political divisions in Moscow and latent support from sections of its elite helped to thwart a military invasion, while Dudayev bought or obtained most of Moscow’s munitions in Chechnya from the federal military. The peaceful half of his rule (1991-1994) was plagued by general post-Soviet anarchy and the looting of assets, collusion between federal and local criminals and officials, and lack of economic brainpower, exacerbated by the outflow of Russ412

  DUGIN, ALEXANDER GELEVICH

  General Dzhokhar Dudayev and armed supporters in Chechnya. �
� Tchetchenie/CORBIS SYGMA ian-speaking industrial cadres as a result of his eth-nocratic policies. In mid-1993, Dudayev disbanded the opposition-minded Constitutional Court and dispersed the parliament (an example that he then advised Yeltsin to follow). From then on, he was faced with armed rebels, aided by Moscow hardliners. Initially a secular ruler, by late 1994 he shifted to Islamist rhetoric. In December 1994, after failed negotiations and a botched attempt by pro-Moscow rebels to dislodge him, Chechnya was invaded by federal troops. Dudayev had to flee Grozny and thereafter led the armed resistance in the mountains, up until his death in a rocket attack by federal forces in April 1996. See also: CHECHNYA AND CHECHENS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Dunlop, John B. (1998). Russia Confronts Chechnya: Roots of a Separatist Conflict. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Lieven, Anatol. (1998). Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

  DMITRI GLINSKI

  DUGIN, ALEXANDER GELEVICH

  (b. 1962), head of the Russian sociopolitical movement Eurasia; editor of the journal Elementy; and a leading proponent of geopolitics and Eurasianism with a strong Anti-Western, anti-Atlantic bias.

  In the late 1970s Dugin entered the Moscow Aviation Institute but was expelled during his second year for what he described as “intensive activities.” He joined the circles associated with a Russian nationalist movement of the 1980s and at the end of the 1980s was a member of the Central Council of the national-patriotic front “Pamyat” (Memory), then led by Dmitry Vasiliev. With the end of

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  the Soviet Union, Dugin emerged as the chief ideologue of the writer Edvard Limonov’s National-Bolshevik Party, a fringe movement that cultivated political ties with alienated youths. Dugin also became a major figure in the “Red-Brown” opposition to the Yeltsin administration. He joined the editorial board of Alexander Prokhanov’s Den (Day) and then Zavtra (Tomorrow) after 1993. Dugin’s writings combine mystical, conspiratorial, geopolitical, and Eurasian themes and draw heavily on the notion of a conservative revolution. This ideology emphasizes the Eurasian roots of Russian mes-sianism and its fundamental antagonism with Westernism and globalism, and outlines the way in which Russia can go about creating an alternative to the Western “New World Order.” This alternative is totalitarian in its essentials. Drawing heavily upon German geopolitical theory and Lev Gumilev’s Eurasianism, Dugin outlined his own position in Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia (1997). In 1999 Dugin campaigned actively for the victory of a presidential candidate who would embrace his ideas of an anti-Western Eurasianism and supported Vladimir Putin as the “ideal ruler for the present period.” Working closely with Gleb Pavlovsky, the Kremlin’s spin doctor, Dugin actively developed an Internet empire of connections to disseminate his message. In the wake of Putin’s alliance with the United States in the war against terrorism, Dugin has called into question the president’s commitment to Eurasian-ism and rejoined the opposition. Dugin has been particularly adept at exploiting the Internet to spread his message through a wide range of media. See also: GUMILEV, LEV NIKOLAYEVICH; NATIONALISM IN THE SOVIET UNION

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Shenfield, Steven D. (2001). Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Yasmann, Victor. (2001). “The Rise of the Eurasians.” RFE/RL Security Watch 2 (17):1.

  JACOB W. KIPP

  DUMA

  Known officially as the State Duma, this institution was the lower house of the Russian parliamentary system from 1906 to 1917. In Kievan and Muscovite times, rulers convened a “boyars’ duma” of the highest nobles to provide counsel on major policy issues. During the 1600s this institution fell into disuse, but late-nineteenth-century liberals lobbied for establishment of a representative body to help govern Russia. After the Revolution of 1905, Tsar Nicholas II agreed to form an advisory council, the Bulygin Duma of August 1905. However, revolutionary violence increased in the next two months, and in his October 1905 Manifesto the tsar reluctantly gave into the urgings of Sergei Witte to grant an elected representative Duma with full legislative powers.

  This promise, plus other proffered reforms, helped split the broad revolutionary movement, winning over a number of moderates and liberals. With violence waning, the tsar weakened the authority of the proposed Duma by linking it with a half-appointed upper house, the State Council; by excluding foreign and military affairs and parts of the state budget from its purview; and by weighting election procedures to favor propertied groups. Moreover, at heart Nicholas never accepted even this watered-down version of the Duma as legitimate, believing it an unwarranted infringement on his divine right to rule. On the other hand many reformers saw the Duma as the first step toward a modern, democratic government and hoped to expand its authority.

  FIRST AND SECOND DUMAS, 1906-1907

  Based on universal male suffrage over age twenty-five, elections for the First Duma were on the whole peaceful and orderly, although the indirect system favored nobles and peasants over other groups. The revolutionary Social Democrats and Socialist Revolutionaries boycotted the elections, while the liberal Constitutional Democrats (Cadets) conducted the most effective campaign. The latter won a plurality of members, and peasant deputies, though usually unaffiliated with any party, proved anti-government and reformist in their views. Perhaps too rashly, the Cadet deputies pursued a confrontational policy toward the government, demanding radical land reform, extension of the Duma’s budgetary authority, and a ministry responsible to the Duma. After three months of bitter stalemate, Nicholas dissolved the Duma.

  Elections to the Second Duma in the fall of 1906 worsened the political impasse. Although the Cadets lost ground, radical parties participated and elected several deputies, and the peasants again re414

  DUMA

  Nicholas II opens the Duma in St. Petersburg. © HULTON-DEUTSCH COLLECTION/CORBIS turned oppositionist representatives. Openly hostile to the government, the Second Duma, like the first, proved unable to find a compromise program and was also dissolved after several months.

  THIRD AND FOURTH DUMAS, 1907-1917

  Under the Fundamental Laws adopted in 1906 as a semi-constitutional structure for Russia, the tsar could dissolve the Duma and enact emergency legislation in its absence. Using this authority, Prime Minister Pyotr Stolypin decreed a new electoral system for the Duma on June 3, 1907. He retained indirect voting but increased the weighting in favor of the nobility from 34 to 51 percent and decreased that of the peasantry from 43 to 22 percent. The new law also reduced the number of non-Russian deputies in the Duma by about two-thirds. Stolypin achieved his goal of a more conservative assembly, for the 1907 elections to the Third Duma returned 293 conservative deputies, 78 Cadets and other liberals, 34 leftists, and 16 nonparty deputies, giving the government a comfortable working majority. The Octobrists, a group committed to making the October Manifesto work, emerged as the largest single bloc, with148 deputies. Consequently, the Third Duma lasted out its full term of five years, from 1907 to 1912.

  Until his assassination in 1911, Stolypin succeeded for the most part in cooperating with the Third Duma. The deputies supported an existing agrarian reform program first drawn up by Witte and instituted in 1906 by Stolypin that called for dissolution of the peasant commune and establishment of privately owned peasant plots, a complicated procedure that was only partially completed when World War I interrupted it. The government and the Duma joined hands in planning an expansion

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  DUNAYEVSKY, ISAAK OSIPOVICH

  of primary education designed to eradicate illiteracy and to have all children complete at least four years of education. Although the State Council blocked this legislation, the Ministry of Education began on its own to implement it. Stolypin, a staunch nationalist, also initiated legislative changes limiting the authority of the autonomous Finnish parliament and establishing zemstvos in western Russia designed to subordinate Polish influence there. Finally, without muc
h success the Third Duma propounded military reform, particularly the improvement of naval administration. By 1912 the Octobrist Party had split, government ministers were at odds, and rightist and nationalist influences dominated at court. Moreover, unrest was growing among the urban population.

  Elections to the Fourth Duma in late 1912 returned a slightly more conservative body, but it had hardly begun work when World War I erupted in August 1914. An initial honeymoon between the Duma and the government soon soured as military defeats, administrative chaos, and ministerial incompetence dismayed and irked the deputies. By 1915 a Progressive Bloc, formed under liberal leadership, urged reforms and formation of a ministry of public confidence, but it had little impact on the government or the tsar. Shortly after the February 1917 Revolution broke out, Nicholas dissolved the Duma, but its members reconstituted themselves privately and soon formed a Temporary Committee to help restore order in Petrograd. After the tsar’s abdication, this committee appointed the Provisional Government that, though sharing some aspects of power with the Petrograd Soviet, ran the country until the outbreak of the Bolshevik Revolution in the fall of 1917.

  The Duma system opened the door to representative government and demonstrated the political potential of an elected parliament. This experience helped legitimize the post-1991 effort to establish democracy in Russia. Yet the four Dumas’ record was spotty at best. Useful legislation was discussed and sometimes passed, but divisions among the moderates, the inexperience of many politicians, the reactionary influences of the State Council along with some ministers and the tsar’s entourage, and the visceral refusal of Nicholas II to accept an independent legislature made it almost impossible for the Duma to be the engine of reform in old-regime Russia. See also: CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY; FUNDAMENTAL LAWS OF 1906; NICHOLAS II