Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Bergson, Abram. (1964). The Economics of Soviet Planning. New Haven: Yale University Press. Carr, Edward Hallett, and Davies, R. W. (1969-[1978]). Foundations of a Planned Economy, 1926-1929. 3 vols. London: Macmillan. Nove, Alec. (1961). The Soviet Economy. New York: Praeger.

  MARTIN C. SPECHLER

  GLINKA, MIKHAIL IVANOVICH

  GLAVLIT

  The Main Directorate for Literary and Publishing Affairs (Glavnoe Upravlenie po Delam Literatury i Izdatelstv), known as Glavlit, was the state agency responsible for the censorship of printed materials in the Soviet Union. Although print was its main focus, it sometimes supervised the censorship of other media, including radio, television, theater, and film. Glavlit was created in 1922 to replace a network of uncoordinated military and civilian censorship agencies set up after the Bolshevik seizure of power. Although freedom of the press nominally existed in the Soviet Union, the government reserved the right to prevent the publication of certain materials. Glavlit was charged with preventing the publication of economic or military information believed to pose a threat to Soviet security; this included subjects as diverse as grain harvests, inflation, incidence of disease, and the location of military industries. Party and military leaders compiled a list of facts and categories deemed secret.

  Glavlit was also charged with suppressing any printed materials deemed hostile to the Soviet state or the Communist Party. This ran the gamut from pornography to religious texts to anything that could be construed as critical of the party or state, whether implicitly or explicitly. Individual censors had a fair amount of discretion in this area, and often showed considerable creativity and paranoia in their work. The severity of censorship varied with the political climate. Glavlit was particularly strict in its supervision of the private publishers allowed to operate between 1921 and 1929.

  Although some state publishing houses were initially exempted from Glavlit’s supervision, by 1930 all printing and publishing in the Soviet Union was subject to pre-publication censorship. Everything from newspapers to books to ephemera, such as posters, note pads, and theater tickets, required the approval of a Glavlit official before it could be published; violation of this rule was a serious criminal offense.

  Glavlit had several secondary functions, including the censorship of foreign literature imported to the Soviet Union. It also took part in purging materials associated with “enemies of the people” from libraries, bookstores, and museums.

  Glavlit was part of the Russian Republic’s Commissariat of Enlightenment until 1946, when it was placed under the direct authority of the All-Union Council of Ministers. Its official name changed several times after this point, usually to a variant of Main Directorate for the Protection of Military and State Secrets. Despite these changes, the acronym Glavlit continued to be used in official and unofficial sources. Technically a state institution, Glavlit answered directly to the Communist Party’s Central Committee, which oversaw its work and appointed its leadership. Each Soviet Republic had its own Glavlit, with the Russian Republic’s Glavlit setting the overall tone for Soviet censorship.

  While most Soviet writers and editors learned to practice a degree of self-censorship to avoid problems, Glavlit served as a deterrent for those willing to question orthodox views. Its standards were relaxed in late 1988 as part of Mikhail Gorbachev’s glasnost campaign. Glavlit was dissolved by presidential decree in 1991, essentially ending prepub-lication censorship in Russia, but other forms of state pressure on media outlets remained in effect. See also: CENSORSHIP; GLASNOST; JOURNALISM; NEWSPAPERS; SAMIZDAT; TELEVISION AND RADIO; THEATER

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Fox, Michael S. (1992). “Glavlit, Censorship, and the Problem of Party Policy in Cultural Affairs, 1922- 1928.” Soviet Studies 44(6):1045-1068. Plamper, Jan. (2001). “Abolishing Ambiguity: Soviet Censorship Practices in the 1930s.” Russian Review 60(4):526-544. Tax Choldin, Marianna, and Friedberg, Maurice, eds. (1989). The Red Pencil: Artists, Scholars and Censors in the USSR. Boston: Unwin-Hyman.

  BRIAN KASSOF

  GLINKA, MIKHAIL IVANOVICH

  (1804-1857), composer, regarded as founder of Russian art music, especially as creator of Russian national opera.

  Mikhail Glinka, the musically gifted son of a landowner, gained much of his musical education during a journey to Europe (1830-1834). In Italy he became acquainted with the opera composers Vincenzo Bellini and Gaetano Donizetti, and in Berlin he studied music theory. After his return, Glinka channeled the spiritual effects of the trip into the composition of a work that went down in history as the first Russian national opera, “A Life for

  GLINSKAYA, YELENA VASILIEVNA

  the Tsar” (1836). Three aspects of this opera were formative to operatic style in Russia: the national subject (here taken from the seventeenth century), the libretto in Russian, and the musical language, which combined the European basic techniques with Russian melodic patterns. The patriotic character of the subject fit extremely well into the conservative national attitudes of the 1830s under Tsar Nicholas I. In spite of Glinka’s stylistic borrowings from European tradition, the Russian features of the music made way for a national art music apart form the dominant foreign models. Overnight, Glinka became famous and soon was admired as the father of Russian music. Whereas the “Life for the Tsar” marked the beginning of the historical opera in Russia, “Ruslan and Lyudmila” (1842) established the genre of the Russian fairy-tale opera. Thus, Glinka embodied the two strands of Russian opera that would flourish in the nineteenth century. Stylistically Glinka’s Russian and Oriental elements exerted greatest influence on the following generations. Glinka became not only a creative point of reference for many Russian composers but also a national and cultural role model, and later a figure of cult worship with the reestablishment of Soviet patriotism under Josef Stalin. See also: MUSIC; OPERA

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Brown, David. (1974). Mikhail Glinka: A Biographical and Critical Study. London: Oxford University Press. Orlova, Aleksandra A. (1988). Glinka’s Life in Music: A Chronicle. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Research Press.

  MATTHIAS STADELMANN

  GLINSKAYA, YELENA VASILIEVNA

  (d. 1538), the second wife of Grand Prince Basil III and regent for her son Ivan IV from 1533 to 1538.

  Yelena Vasilievna Glinskaya was the daughter of Prince Vasily Lvovich Glinsky and his wife Anna, daughter of the Serbian military governor, Stefan Yakshich. After Basil III forced his first wife, Solomonia Saburova, to take the veil in 1525 because of her inability to produce offspring, he entered into a second marriage with Glinskaya in the following year. They bore two sons, the future Ivan IV and his younger brother Yury Vasilyevich. Because Ivan IV was only three years old at the time of Basil III’s death in 1533, Glinskaya became a regent of the Russian state during his minority. Although Basil III had entrusted the care of his widow and sons to relatives of Glinskaya and apparently had not made specific provisions for her regency, the royal mother used her pivotal dynastic position to defend her son’s interests against those of rival boyar factions at court. Aided by her presumed lover, Prince Ivan Ovchina-Telepnev-Obolensky, and Metropolitan Daniel, Glinskaya headed up a government marked by efficient policies, both abroad and at home. Her government successfully fended off the efforts of Lithuania, the Crimean khan, and Kazan to encroach on Russian territories. At Glinskaya’s death in 1538, Russia was at peace with its neighbors. Domestically, Glinskaya moved to eliminate the power of the remaining appanage princes, who presented a dynastic challenge to the Grand Prince. She initiated the creation and fortification of towns throughout the Russian realm, increasing the protection of the population and that of the realm substantially. In 1535 the regency government introduced a currency reform, adopting a single monetary system, which significantly improved economic conditions in Russia. Glinskaya’s government also worked toward the institution of a system of local judicial officials, which was eventually realized in Ivan IV’s reign. While Gli
nskaya managed to keep in check the various aristocratic factions, which sought to increase their influence vis-?-vis the young heir to the throne, the situation quickly reversed after her death. Without the protecting hand of his mother, the young Ivan IV was exposed to the political intrigues of the boyars until his ascendance to the throne in 1547.

  As a royal wife, Glinskaya shared the problems of all Muscovite royal women, especially their concern about the production of children and their health. Glinskaya joined her husband on arduous pilgrimages to pray for offspring. Like her predecessor, Saburova, she seems to have believed that her womb could be divinely blessed. Five letters to Glinskaya attributed to Basil III portray the Grand Princess as a devoted mother who struggled to maintain her children’s physical and emotional well-being.

  Glinskaya’s legitimacy and effectiveness as a regent have been the subject of scholarly debate. While earlier studies have treated the grand princess as a figurehead and her regency as a period of transition, recent work on the early sixteenth century

  GODUNOV, BORIS FYODOROVICH

  stresses Glinskaya’s political achievements in her own right. During the reign of her son, the Grand Princess’s political and social status was enhanced in the chronicles produced at the royal court, and Glinskaya became a model for future tsars’ wives. See also: BASIL III; IVAN IV

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Miller, David. (1993). “The Cult of Saint Sergius of Radonezh and Its Political Uses.” Slavic Review 52(4): 680-699. Pushkareva, Natalia. (1997). Women in Russian History from the Tenth to the Twentieth Century, tr. and ed. Eve Levin. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Thyr?t, Isolde. (2001). Between God and Tsar: Religious Symbolism and the Royal Women of Muscovite Russia. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.

  ISOLDE THYR?T

  Ladoga and Riurikovo gorodishche. Gnezdovo’s most intense period of settlement dates to the period from 920 to the 960s, when its settlements had reached their maximum size and when many of the largest burial mounds were raised. Gnezdovo was abandoned in the early eleventh century, when a new center, Smolensk, assumed Gnezdovo’s role in international and regional trade. See also: KIEVAN RUS; ROUTE TO THE GREEKS; VIKINGS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Avdusin D.A. (1969). “Smolensk and the Varangians according to Archaeological Data.” Norwegian Archaeological Review 2:52-62.

  HEIDI M. SHERMAN

  GNEZDOVO

  Located in the Upper Dnepr River, thirteen kilometers west of Smolensk, Gnezdovo was a key portage and transshipment point along the “Route to the Greeks” in the late ninth through the early eleventh centuries. The area provided easy access to the upper reaches of the Western Dvina, Dnepr, and Volga rivers. The archaeological complex consists of several pagan and early Christian cemeteries (17 hectares), one fortified settlement (1 hectare), and several unfortified settlements. More than 1,200 of the estimated 3,500 to 4,000 burial mounds have been excavated. While Balt and Slav burials are found in great number, the mounds with Scandinavian ethnocultural traits (cremations in boats and rich inhumations and chamber graves) receive the most attention. However, no more than fifty mounds can be positively identified as Scandinavian. Gnezdovo’s burials are among the richest for European Russia in the tenth century and include glass beads, swords, horse riding equipment, silver and bronze jewelry, and Islamic, Byzantine, and western European coins.

  Although much of Gnezdovo’s settlement layers have perished, recent excavations reveal house foundations and pits containing the remains of iron smithing and the working of nonferrous metals into ornaments, not unlike production of the contemporaneous and better-preserved sites of Staraia

  GODUNOV, BORIS FYODOROVICH

  (1552-1605), Tsar of Russia (1598-1605).

  Tsar Boris Godunov, one of the most famous (or infamous) rulers of early modern Russia, has been the subject of many biographies, plays, and even an opera by Mussorgsky. Boris’s father was only a provincial cavalryman, but Boris’s uncle, Dmitry Godunov (a powerful aristocrat), was able to advance the young man’s career. Dmitry Go-dunov brought Boris and his sister, Irina, to the court of Tsar Ivan IV, and Boris enrolled in Ivan’s dreaded Oprichnina (a state within the state ruled directly by the tsar). Boris soon attracted the attention of Tsar Ivan, who allowed him to marry Maria, the daughter of his favorite, Malyuta Sku-ratov (the notorious boss of the Oprichnina). Boris and Maria had two children: a daughter named Ksenya and a son named Fyodor. Both children received excellent educations, which was unusual in early modern Russia. Boris’s sister Irina was the childhood playmate of Ivan IV’s mentally retarded son, Fyodor, and eventually married him. When Tsar Ivan died in 1584, he named Boris as one of Tsar Fyodor I’s regents. By 1588, Boris triumphed over his rivals to become Fyodor’s sole regent and the effective ruler of Russia.

  Boris Godunov has been called one of Russia’s greatest rulers. Handsome, eloquent, energetic, and extremely bright, he brought greater skill to the tasks of governing than any of his predecessors and was an excellent administrator. Boris was respected in international diplomacy and managed to make

  GODUNOV, BORIS FYODOROVICH

  Tsar Boris Godunov posed with the Russian regalia of state, to underscore his dubious claim to the throne. ARCHIVO ICONOGRAFICO, S.A./CORBIS. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION. peace with Russia’s neighbors. At home he was a zealous protector of the Russian Orthodox Church, a great builder and beautifier of Russian towns, and generous to the needy. As regent, Boris was responsible for the elevation of his friend, Metropolitan Job (head of the Russian Orthodox Church), to the rank of Patriarch in 1589; and Boris’s generosity to the Church was rewarded by the strong loyalty of the clergy. Boris continued Ivan IV’s policy of rapidly expanding the state to the south and east; but, due to a severe social and economic crisis that had been developing since the 1570s, he faced a declining tax base and a shrinking gentry cavalry force. In order to shore up state finances and the gentry so that he could continue Russia’s imperial expansion, Boris enserfed the Russian peasants in the 1590s, tied townspeople to their taxpaying districts, and converted short-term slavery to permanent slavery. Boris also tried to tame the cossacks (bandits and mercenary soldiers) on Russia’s southern frontier and harness them to state service. Those drastic measures failed to alleviate the state’s severe crisis, but they did make many Russians hate him.

  Boris was accused by his enemies of coveting the throne and murdering his rivals. When it was reported that Tsar Ivan IV’s youngest son, Dmitry of Uglich (born in 1582), had died by accidentally slitting his throat in 1591, many people believed Boris had secretly ordered the boy’s death in order to clear a path to the throne for himself. (Several historians have credited that accusation, but there is no significant evidence linking Boris to the Uglich tragedy.) When the childless Tsar Fyodor I died in 1598, Boris was forced to fight for the throne. His rivals, including Fyodor Romanov (the future Patriarch Filaret, father of Michael Romanov), were unable to stop him from becoming tsar, but they did manage to slow him down. At one point, an exasperated Boris proclaimed that he no longer wanted to become tsar and retired to a monastery. Patriarch Job hastily convened an assembly of clergy, lords, bureaucrats, and townspeople to go to the monastery to beg Boris to take the throne. (This ad hoc assembly was later falsely represented as a full-fledged Assembly of the Land [or Zemsky Sobor] duly convened for the task of choosing a tsar.) In fact, Boris had enormous advantages over his rivals; he had been the ruler of Russia for a decade and had many supporters at court, in the Church, in the bureaucracy, and among the gentry cavalrymen. By clever maneuvering, Boris was soon accepted by the aristocracy as tsar, and he was crowned on September 1, 1598.

  For most Russians, the reign of Tsar Boris was an unhappy time. Indeed, it marked the beginning of Russia’s horrific Time of Troubles (1598-1613). By the end of the sixteenth century, Russia’s developing state crisis reached its deepest stage, and a sharp political struggle within the ruling elite undermined Tsar Boris’s legitimacy in the eyes of many of his s
ubjects and set the stage for civil war. In his coronation oath, Tsar Boris had promised not to harass his political enemies, but he ended up persecuting several aristocratic families, including the Romanovs. That prompted some of his opponents to begin working secretly against the Godunov dynasty. Contemporaries described the fearful atmosphere that developed in Moscow and the gradual drift of Tsar Boris’s regime into increasingly harsh reprisals against opponents and more frequent use of spies, denunciations, torture, and executions.

  GOGOL, NIKOLAI VASILIEVICH

  Early in Tsar Boris’s reign catastrophe struck Russia. In the period 1601-1603, many of Russia’s crops failed due to bad weather. The result was the worst famine in all of Russian history; up to one-third of Tsar Boris’s subjects perished. In spite of Boris’s sincere efforts to help his suffering people, many of them concluded that God was punishing Russia for the sins of its ruler. Therefore, when a man appeared in Poland-Lithuania in 1603 claiming to be Dmitry of Uglich, miraculously saved from Boris Godunov’s alleged assassins back in 1591, many Russians were willing to believe that God had saved Ivan the Terrible’s youngest son in order to topple the evil usurper Boris Godunov. When False Dmitry invaded Russia in 1604, many cossacks and soldiers joined his ranks, and many towns of southwestern Russia rebelled against Tsar Boris. Even after False Dmitry’s army was decisively defeated in the battle of Dobrynichi (January 1605), enthusiasm for the true tsar spread like wildfire throughout most of southern Russia. Support for False Dmitry even began to appear in the tsar’s army and in Moscow itself. A very unhappy Tsar Boris, who had been ill for some time, withdrew from public sight. Despised and feared by many of his subjects, Boris died on April 13, 1605. It was rumored that he took his own life, but he probably died of natural causes. Boris’s son took the throne as Tsar Fyodor II, but within six weeks the short-lived Godunov dynasty was overthrown in favor of Tsar Dmitry. See also: ASSEMBLY OF THE LAND; COSSACKS; DMITRY, FALSE; DMITRY OF UGLICH; FILARET ROMANOV, PATRIARCH; FYODOR IVANOVICH; IVAN IV; JOB, PATRIARCH; OPRICHNINA; ROMANOV, MIKHAIL FYODOROVICH; SLAVERY; TIME OF TROUBLES