Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Anderson, David. (2000). “The Evenkis of Central Siberia.” In Endangered Peoples of the Arctic. Struggles to Survive and Thrive, ed. Milton M. Freeman. West-port, CT: Greenwood Press. Anderson, David. (2000). Identity and Ecology in Arctic Siberia. The Number One Reindeer Brigade. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fondahl, Gail. (1998). Gaining Ground? Evenkis, Land, and Reform in Southeastern Siberia. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

  GAIL A. FONDAHL

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  FABERG?, PETER CARL

  (1846-1920), jeweler to the Russian imperial court; creator of the stunning Easter eggs, holiday gifts to Nicholas II and his family.

  Peter Carl Faberg? was born in 1846 in St. Petersburg, the son of a master goldsmith. The French surname of the future jeweler derives from his family’s Huguenot background; they left France during the seventeenth century, moving eastward from Germany to the Baltic before settling in Russia. Peter Carl, also called Carl Gustavovich in keeping with the Russian patronymic tradition, was educated in the local German-language school and later attended commercial courses at the Dresden Handelsschule. The combination of his astonishing craftsmanship and cosmopolitanism gave him entry to all European royal houses.

  In 1861 young Carl set out on his requisite Grand Tour of the continent. He developed an abiding interest in renaissance and baroque designs and was especially influenced by the French rococo of the eighteenth century. His mastery of fine detail and ability to work in a variety of precious metals and jewels, including hardstone carving, contributed to his unique style Faberg?. In addition to his legendary eggs, whose matching of the delicacy of fine jewelry with technological innovations was epitomized by the miniature Trans-Siberian train that chugged through one of them, his oeuvre ranged from carved animals to icons to cigarette cases. His clients, primarily from the pan-European aristocracy, knew that he could be trusted not to repeat the specific designs they requested.

  Faberg? matched his exquisite style with a finely honed business acumen. From his renowned establishment in St. Petersburg on Bolshaya Morskaya Street, he published catalogs of his ob-jets d’art. Employing the finest craftsmen, he expanded his enterprise to Moscow, drawing the attention of serious art collectors from Bangkok to Boston; special exhibitions held around the world continue to attract by the thousands. He left Russia in 1918 and died in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1920. Faberg? lies buried alongside his wife in Cannes. See also: FRENCH INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA; ST. PETERSBURG

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Von Habsburg, G?za. (2000). Faberg?: Imperial Craftsman and his World, with contributions by Alexander Von

  473

  FAMILY CODE OF 1926

  Solodkoff and Robert Bianchi. London: Booth-Clibborn Editions.

  LOUISE MCREYNOLDS

  See also: FAMILY CODE ON MARRIAGE, THE FAMILY, AND GUARDIANSHIP; FAMILY EDICT OF 1944; FAMILY LAWS OF 1936; MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE

  FAMILY CODE OF 1926

  In 1926 the Soviet government affirmed a new Code on Marriage, the Family, and Guardianship to replace the 1918 version. Adopted after extensive and often heated nationwide debate, the new Code addressed several social issues: the lack of protection for women after divorce; the large number of homeless orphans (besprizorniki); the incompatibility of divorce and common property within the peasant household; and the mutual obligations of cohabiting, unmarried partners.

  The new Code promoted both individual freedom and greater protection for the vulnerable. It simplified the divorce procedure in the 1918 version even further by transferring contested divorces from the courts to local statistical bureaus. Either spouse could register a divorce without the partner’s consent or even knowledge. This provision removed the law’s last vestige of authority over the dissolution of marriage, circumscribing both the power of law and the marital tie. The Code recognized de facto marriage (cohabitation) as the juridical equal of civil (registered) marriage, thus undercutting the need to marry “legally.” It provided a definition of de facto “marriage” based on cohabitation, a joint household, mutual upbringing of children, and third party recognition. It established joint property between spouses, thus providing housewives material protection after divorce. It abolished the controversial practice of “collective” paternity featured in the 1918 Family Code. If a woman had sexual relations with several men and could not identify the father of her child, a judge would assign paternity (and future child support payments) to one man only. The Code incorporated an April 1926 decree that reversed the prohibition on adoption and encouraged peasant families to adopt homeless orphans, who were to be fully integrated into the peasant household and entitled to land. It set a time limit on alimony to one year for the disabled and provided six months of alimony for the needy or unemployed. It also created a wider circle of family obligations by expanding the base of alimony recipients to include children, parents, siblings, and grandparents.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Farnsworth, Beatrice. (1978). “Bolshevik Alternatives and the Soviet Family: The 1926 Marriage Law Debate.” In Women in Russia, eds. Dorothy Atkinson, Alexander Dallin, Gail Warshovsky Lapidus. Sussex, UK: Harvester Press. Goldman, Wendy. (1984). “Freedom and Its Consequences: The Debate on the Soviet Family Code of 1926.” Russian History 11(4):362-388. Goldman, Wendy. (1991). “Working-Class Women and the ‘Withering-Away’ of the Family: Popular Responses to Family Policy.” In Russia in the Era of NEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture, eds. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Alexander Rabinowitch, Richard Stites. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lapidus, Gail Warshovsky. (1978). Women in Soviet Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Quigley, John. (1979). “The 1926 Soviet Family Code: Retreat from Free Love.” Soviet Union 6(2):166-74.

  WENDY GOLDMAN

  FAMILY CODE ON MARRIAGE, THE FAMILY, AND GUARDIANSHIP

  The Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets ratified the Code on Marriage, the Family, and Guardianship in October 1918, one year after the Bolsheviks took power. Alexander Goikhbarg, the young author of the Code, expected that family law would soon be outmoded and “the fetters of husband and wife” unnecessary. Goikhbarg and other revolutionary jurists believed children, the elderly, and the disabled would be supported under socialism by the state; housework would be socialized and waged; and women would no longer be economically dependent on men. The family, stripped of its social functions, would “wither away,” replaced by “free unions” based on mutual love and respect. The Code aimed to provide a transitional legal framework for that short period in which legal duties and protections were still necessary.

  Prerevolutionary jurists had attempted throughout the late nineteenth century to reform Russia’s strict laws on marriage and divorce, but achieved little success. Up to 1917, Russian law recognized

  FAMILY CODE ON MARRIAGE,

  THE FAMILY, AND GUARDIANSHIP

  the right of religious authorities to control marriage and divorce. Women were accorded few rights by either church or state. According to state law, a wife owed her husband complete obedience. She was compelled to live with him, take his name, and assume his social status. Up to 1914, a woman was unable to take a job, get an education, or execute a bill of exchange without her husband’s consent. A father held almost unconditional power over his children. Only children from a legally recognized marriage were considered legitimate, and illegitimate children had no legal rights or recourse. Up to 1902, when the state enacted limited reforms, a father could recognize an illegitimate child only by special imperial consent. The Russian Orthodox Church considered marriage a holy sacrament, and divorce was almost impossible. It was permissible only in cases of adultery (witnessed by two people), impotence, exile, or unexplained and prolonged absence. In cases of adultery or impotence, the responsible party was permanently forbidden to remarry.

  The 1918 Code swept away centuries of patriarchal and ecclesiastical power and established a new vision based on individual ri
ghts and gender equality. It was predated by two brief decrees enacted in December 1917 that substituted civil for religious marriage and established divorce at the request of either spouse. The 1918 Code incorporated and elaborated on these two decrees. It abolished the inferior legal status of women and created equality under the law. It eliminated the validity of religious marriage and gave legal status to civil marriage only, creating a network of local statistical bureaus (ZAGS) for the registration of marriage, divorce, birth, and death. The Code established no-grounds divorce at the request of either spouse. It abolished the juridical concept of “illegitimacy” and entitled all children to parental support. If a woman could not identify the father of her child, a judge assigned paternal obligations to all the men she had sexual relations with, thus creating a “collective of fathers.” It forbade adoption of orphans by individual families in favor of state guardianship: jurists feared adoption, in a largely agrarian society, would allow peasants to exploit children as unpaid labor. The Code also sharply restricted the duties and obligations of the marital bond. Marriage did not create community of property between spouses: a woman retained full control of her earnings after marriage, and neither spouse had any claim on the property of the other. Although the Code provided an unlimited term of alimony for either gender, support was limited to the disabled poor. The Code presumed that both spouses, married or divorced, would support themselves.

  The 1918 Code was very advanced for its time. Comparable legislation on equal rights and divorce would not be passed in Europe or the United States until the end of the twentieth century. Yet many Soviet jurists believed that the Code was not “socialist” but “transitional” legislation. Goikhbarg, like many revolutionary jurists, expected that law, like marriage, the family, and the state, would soon “wither away.”

  The Code had a significant effect on the population, both rural and urban. By 1925, Soviet citizens had widely adopted civil marriage and divorce. The USSR displayed a higher divorce rate than any European country, with fifteen divorces for every one hundred marriages. The divorce rate was higher in the cities than in the rural areas, and highest in Moscow and Leningrad. In Moscow, there was one divorce for every two marriages. Soviet workers, women in particular, suffered high unemployment during the 1920s, and divorce proved a special hardship for women who were unable to find work. Peasant families found it difficult to reconcile customary law with the autonomous property provisions of the Code. After extensive debate, Soviet jurists enacted a new Family Code in 1926 to redress these and other problems. See also: FAMILY CODE OF 1926; FAMILY EDICT OF 1944, FAMILY LAWS OF 1936; MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Berman, Harold. (1963). Justice in the USSR: An Interpretation of Soviet Law. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Goldman, Wendy. (1993). Women, the State and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy, 1917-1936. New York: Cambridge University Press. Hazard, John. (1969). Communists and Their Law. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stites, Richard. (1978). The Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism and Bolshevism, 1860-1930. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Wood, Elizabeth. (1997). The Baba and the Comrade: Gender and Politics in Revolutionary Russia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

  WENDY GOLDMAN

  FAMILY EDICT OF 1944

  FAMILY EDICT OF 1944

  This decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet claimed to “protect motherhood and childhood.” Amid deep concern for wartime manpower losses and social dislocation, the decree sought to increase natality and reinforce marriage.

  The law’s best-known provisions rewarded prolific mothers and made divorce more difficult to obtain; its pro-natalism and support for marriage reinforced prewar trends apparent in the Family Laws of 1936. Pro-natalist measures included family allowances paid to mothers regardless of marital status, extended maternity leave, protective labor legislation for pregnant and nursing women, and an ambitious plan to expand the network of childcare services and consumer products for children. Bearers of ten or more living children were honored as “Mother-heroines.”

  Other provisions tightened marital bonds by making divorce more onerous. Proceedings now took place in open court, with both parties present and the court obligated to attempt reconciliation. The intent to divorce was published in the newspaper, and fines increased substantially. Reversing the 1926 Family Code, only registered (not common-law) marriages were now officially recognized. The state also reestablished the notion of illegitimacy: only children of registered marriages could take their father’s name and receive paternal child support.

  The legislation had no significant lasting effect on birth or divorce rates. Despite its ambitious goals, promises of augmented childcare services and consumer goods went unfulfilled, given postwar economic devastation and prioritization of defense and heavy industries. The law’s greatest significance was perhaps as a manifestation of the ongoing Soviet effort to imbue private life with public priorities. See also: FAMILY CODE OF 1926; FAMILY CODE ON MARRIAGE, THE FAMILY, AND GUARDIANSHIP; FAMILY LAWS OF 1936

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Bucher, Greta. (2000). “Struggling to Survive: Soviet Women in the Postwar Years.” Journal of Women’s History 12(1):137-159. Field, Deborah. (1998). “Irreconcilable Differences: Divorce and Conceptions of Private Life in the Khrushchev Era.” Russian Review 57(4):599-613.

  REBECCA BALMAS NEARY

  FAMILY FARM See KHUTOR.

  FAMILY LAWS OF 1936

  In 1936, the Soviet state enacted several laws that sharply departed from previous legislation. The Soviet Union had been the first country in the world to legalize abortion in 1920, offering women free abortion services in certified hospitals. In 1936, however, the Central Executive Committee outlawed abortion. Anyone who performed the operation was liable to a minimum of two years in prison, and a woman who received an abortion was subject to high fines after the first offense. The new law offered monetary incentives for childbearing, providing stipends for new mothers, progressive bonuses for women with many children, and longer maternity leave for white-collar workers. The criminalization of abortion reflected growing anxiety among health workers, managers, and state officials over the rising number of abortions, the falling birth rate, the shortage of labor, and the possibility of war.

  The law also made divorce more difficult and stiffened criminal penalties for men who refused to pay alimony or child support. It required both spouses to appear to register a divorce and increased costs for the first divorce to fifty rubles, 150 rubles for the second, and three hundred rubles for the third. It set minimum levels for child support at one-third of a defendant’s salary for one child, fifty percent for two children, and sixty percent for three or more, increasing the penalty for nonpayment to two years in prison.

  The law was part of a longer and larger public campaign to promote “family responsibility” and to reverse almost two decades of revolutionary juridical thinking. In April 1935, the Council of People’s Commissars (Sovnarkom) granted the courts sweeping new powers to try and sentence children aged twelve and older as adults; this resulted in mass arrests and imprisonment of teenagers, mostly for petty theft. In May 1935 the local Commissions on the Affairs of Minors were abolished, and responsibility for all juvenile crime was shifted to the courts. Punishment replaced an earlier commitment to pedagogical correction. The 1936 laws also marked a turn in attitudes toward law and family. Jurists condemned as “legal nihilism” earlier notions that the law and the family would “wither away.” Many legal theorists of the

  FAMINE OF 1921-1922

  1920s, including Yevgeny Pashukanis and Nikolai Krylenko, were arrested and shot. See also: FAMILY CODE OF 1926; FAMILY CODE ON MARRIAGE, THE FAMILY, AND GUARDIANSHIP; FAMILY EDICT OF 1944

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Goldman, Wendy. (1991). “Women, Abortion, and the State, 1917-1936.” In Russia’s Women: Accommodation, Resistance, Transformation, eds. Barbara Clements, Barbara Engel, Christine Worobec. Berkeley: Univ
ersity of California Press. Goldman, Wendy. (1993). Women, the State, and Revolution: Soviet Family Policy and Social Life, 1917-1936. New York: Cambridge University Press. Sharlet, Robert. (1984). “Pashukanis and the Withering-Away of Law in the USSR.” In Cultural Revolution in Russia, 1928-31, ed. Sheila Fitzpatrick. Blooming-ton: Indiana University Press.

  WENDY GOLDMAN

  FAMINE OF 1891-1892

  The famine of 1891-1892 was one of the most severe agricultural crises to strike Russia during the nineteenth century. In the spring of 1891 a serious drought caused crops to fail along the Volga and in many other grain-producing provinces. The disaster came on the heels of a series of poor harvests, its impact worsened by endemic peasant poverty and low productivity. The population of the affected areas had few reserves of food and faced the prospect of mass starvation.

  Beginning in the summer of 1891, the imperial Russian government organized an extensive relief campaign. It disbursed almost 150 million rubles to the stricken provinces, working closely with the zemstvos, institutions of local self-government responsible for aiding victims of food shortages. The ministry of internal affairs established food supply conferences to coordinate government and zemstvo efforts to find and distribute available grain supplies. When massive backlogs of grain shipments snarled the railroads and threatened the timely delivery of food, the government dispatched a special agent to remedy the situation. The heir to the throne, the future Nicholas II, chaired a committee designed to encourage and focus charitable efforts. Many public-spirited Russians-Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Vladimir Korolenko and others-rushed into the countryside on their own initiative, setting up a large network of private soup kitchens and medical aid stations.