by James Millar
Lenin’s last year was spent at his country residence near Moscow. In the company of Nadezhda Krupskaya and his sisters, he lived out his last months being read to and taken on walks in his wheelchair. In October 1923 he even had enough energy to return for a last look around his Kremlin office, despite the guard’s initial refusal to admit him because he did not have an up-to-date pass. However, his health continued to deteriorate, and he died on the evening of January 21, 1924. See also: BOLSHEVISM; FEBRUARY REVOLUTION; JULY DAYS OF 1917; KORNILOV AFFAIR; KRUPSKAYA, NADEZHDA KONSTANTINOVNA; LENIN’S TESTAMENT; LENIN’S TOMB; NEW ECONOMIC POLICY; OCTOBER MANIFESTO; OCTOBER REVOLUTION; POPULISM; WAR COMMUNISM; WHAT IS TO BE DONE?
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Carr?re d’Encausse, H?l?ne. (1982). Lenin: Revolution and Power. London: Longman. Claudin-Urondo, Carmen. (1977). Lenin and the Cultural Revolution. Sussex and Totowa, New Jersey: Harvester Press/Humanities Press. Harding, Neil. (1981). Lenin’s Political Thought. 2 vols. London: Macmillan. Harding, Neil. (1991). Leninism. London: Macmillan. Krupskaya, Nadezhda. (1970). Memories of Lenin. London: Panther. Lenin, Vladimir Ilich (1960-1980) Collected Works. 47 vols. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Lenin, Vladimir Ilich. (1967). Selected Works. 3 vols. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Lewin, Moshe. (1968). Lenin’s Last Struggle. New York: Random House. Pipes, Richard. (1996). The Unknown Lenin. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Read, Christopher. (2003). Lenin: A Revolutionary Life. London: Routledge. Service, Robert. (1994). Lenin: A Political Life. 3 vols. London: Macmillan. Service, Robert. (2000). Lenin: a Biography. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shub, David. (1966). Lenin. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Ulam, Adam. (1969). Lenin and the Bolsheviks. London: Fontana/Collins. Volkogonov, Dmitril. (1995). Lenin: Life and Legacy, ed. Harold Shukman. London: Harper Collins. Weber, Gerda, and Weber, Hermann. (1980). Lenin: Life and Work. London: Macmillan. White, James. (2000). Lenin: The Practice and Theory of Revolution. London: Palgrave. Williams, Beryl. (2000). Lenin. London: Harlow Longman.
CHRISTOPHER READ
LEONTIEV, KONSTANTIN NIKOLAYEVICH
LEONTIEV, KONSTANTIN NIKOLAYEVICH
(1831-1891), social philosopher, literary critic, and novelist.
Konstantin Nikolayevich Leontiev occupied a unique place in the history of nineteenth-century Russian social thought. He was a nationalist and a reactionary whose position differed in significant respects from the thinking of both the Slavophiles and the Pan-Slavists. Some historians refer to Leon-tiev’s social philosophy as Byzantinism.
Leontiev led a varied life, in which he was in turn a surgeon, a diplomat, an editor, a novelist, and a monk. He was raised on a small family estate in the province of Kaluga. After studying medicine at the University of Moscow, he served as a military surgeon during the Crimean War. Following his military service, he returned to Moscow to continue the practice of medicine and to write a series of novels that enjoyed little success. He married a young, illiterate Greek woman in 1861, but continued to engage in a series of love affairs. His wife gradually descended into madness.
In 1863 Leontiev entered the Russian diplomatic service, which led to his assignment to posts in the Balkans and Greece. While serving in that region, he developed an admiration for Byzantine Christianity, which was to remain a dominant theme in his thinking. He was irresistibly attracted to the Byzantine monasticism that he observed during a stay at Mount Athos in 1871 and 1872. Leontiev arrived at the conviction that aesthetic beauty, not happiness, was the supreme value in life. He rejected all humanitarianism and optimism; the notion of human kindness as the essence of Christianity’s social teaching was utterly alien to him. His stance was anomalous in that he lacked strong personal religious faith, yet advocated strict adherence to Eastern Orthodox religion. He believed that the best of Russian culture was rooted in the Orthodox and autocratic heritage of Byzantium, and not the Slavic heritage that Russia shared with Eastern Europeans. He thought that the nations of the Balkans were determined to imitate the bourgeois West. He hoped that despotism and obscurantism could save Russia from the adoption of Western liberalism and constitutionalism, and could give Russia and the Orthodox Christians of the Balkans the opportunity to unite on the basis of their common traditions, drawn from the Byzantine legacy. Leontiev accepted Nikolai Danilevsky’s conception that each civilization develops like an organism, and argued that each civilization necessarily passes through three phases of development, from an initial phase of primary simplicity to a second phase, a golden era of growth and complexity, followed at last by “secondary simplification,” with decay and disintegration. He despised the rationalism, democratization, and egalitarianism of the West of his day, which he saw as a civilization fully in the phase of decline, as evident in the domination of the bourgeoisie, whom he held in contempt for its crassness and mediocrity. He thought it desirable to delay the growth of similar tendencies in Russia, but he concluded, with regret, that Russia’s final phase of dissolution was inevitable, and saw some signs that it had already begun.
Leontiev did not hesitate to endorse harshly repressive, authoritarian rule for Russia in order to stave off the influence of the West and slow the decline as long as possible. He saw Tsarist autocracy and Orthodoxy as the powerful forces protecting tradition in Russian society from the dangerous tendencies toward leveling and anarchy. He glorified extreme social inequality as characteristic of a civilization’s phase of flourishing complexity. Unlike the Slavophiles, Leontiev had little admiration for the Russian peasants, who in his view inclined toward dishonesty, drunkenness, and cruelty, and he repudiated the heritage of the reforms adopted by Alexander II. Toward the end of his life, he became increasingly pessimistic about the possibility of preserving autocracy and aristocracy in Russia.
After leaving the diplomatic service, Leontiev suffered from constant financial stringency, despite finding a position as an assistant editor of a provincial newspaper. His stories about life in Greece did not find a wide audience, although late in his life he did attract a small circle of devoted admirers. In 1891 he took monastic vows and assumed the name of Clement. He died in the Trinity Monastery near Moscow in the same year.
Leontiev was one of the most gifted literary critics of his time, though he was not widely appreciated as a novelist. In Against the Current: Selections from the Novels, Essays, Notes and Letters of Konstantin Leontiev (1969), George Ivask says that in Leontiev’s long novels, “his narration is often capricious, elliptic, impressionistic, and full of lyrical digression depicting the vague moods of his superheroes, who express his own narcissistic ego.” After Leontiev’s death Vladimir Soloviev contributed to the recognition of Leontiev’s erratic
LERMONTOV, MIKHAIL YURIEVICH
brilliance, stimulating a revival of interest in Leon-tiev in the early twentieth century. See also: BYZANTIUM, INFLUENCE OF; DANILEVSKY, NIKOLAI; NATIONALISM IN THE ARTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ivask, George, ed. (1969). Against the Current: Selections from the Novels, Essays, Notes and Letters of Konstan-tin Leontiev. New York: Weybright and Talley. Roberts, Spencer, ed. and tr. (1968). Essays in Russian Literature: The Conservative View: Leontiev, Rozanov, Shestov. Athens: Ohio University Press. Thaden, Edward C. (1964). Conservative Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Russia. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
ALFRED B. EVANS JR.
ical, is his greatest work in this genre. The main character, Pechorin, is an example of a disenchanted and superfluous man, and his story provides a bitter critique of Russian society. In this novel Ler-montov masterfully and realistically described the landscape of the Caucasus, the everyday life of the various tribes there, and a wide range of characters.
Lermontov was killed in a duel with a former classmate in 1841. See also: GOLDEN AGE OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE; PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Garrard, John. (1982). Mikhail Lermontov. Boston: Twayne. Kelly, Laurence. (2003). Tragedy in the Caucasus. London: Tauris.
ZHAND P. SHAKIBI
LERMONTOV, MIKHAIL YURIEVICH
(1814-1841), leading nineteenth-century Russian poet and prose writer.
Mikhail Yurievich Lermontov became one of Russia’s most prominent literary figures. Based on the quality and evolution of his writing, some believe that if he had lived longer he would have surpassed the greatness of Alexander Pushkin. Lermontov’s reputation is rooted equally in his poetry and prose. Fame came to him in 1834 when he wrote Death of a Poet, in which he accuses the Imperial Court of complicity in Pushkin’s death in a duel.
The evolution of Lermontov’s poetry reflected a change in emphasis from the personal to wider social and political issues. The Novice (1833) is known for its tight structure and elegant language. The Demon (1829-1839) became his most popular poem. Taking place in the Caucasus, it describes the love of a fallen angel for a mere mortal. The Circassian Boy (1833) reflects his strong scepticism in regard to religion and admiration of premodern life. The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov (1837) is his greatest poem set in Russia. His best-known play is The Masquerade (1837), a stinging commentary on St. Petersburg high society.
Lermontov is considered to be the founder of the Russian realistic psychological novel, further developed by Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy. A Hero of Our Time, which is partly autobiographLESKOV, NIKOLAI SEMENOVICH (1831-1895), prose writer with an unmatched grasp of the Russian popular mentality; supreme master of nonstandard language whose stories and novels often contrast societal brutality against the decency of “righteous men” (pravedniki).
Nikolai Semenovich Leskov spent his youth in part on his father’s estate and in part in the town of Orel, interacting with a motley cross-section of provincial Russia’s population. Although lacking a completed formal education, he later boasted professional experiences ranging from criminal investigator to army recruiter and sales representative. His first short stories appeared in 1862.
From the beginning, Leskov’s prose conveyed deep compassion for the underdog. Aesthetically, he brought the narrative tool of skaz-relating a story in colorful, quasi-oral language marked as that of a personal narrator-to a new degree of perfection. Among his best works are the novellas Ledi Makbet Mtsenskogo uyezda (Lady Macbeth of Mt-sensk, 1865) and Zapechetlenny angel (The Sealed Angel, 1873); the former is a gritty tale of raw passions leading to cold-blooded murders, including infanticide, while the latter is the story of errant icon painters who encounter a miracle. Soboryane (Cathedral Folk, 1867-1872), a masterLEZGINS ful novel-chronicle, depicts the Russian clergy in a respectful manner uncommon for its time; however, a subsequent spiritual crisis caused Leskov’s ultimate break with the Orthodox Church. His fairytale “Levsha” (The Lefthander, 1881) became an instant popular classic, praising the rich talents of Russian rank-and-file folk while bemoaning their pathetic lot at the hands of an indifferent ruling class.
Leskov’s unique, first-hand knowledge of Russian reality, in combination with uncompromising ethical standards, alienated him from both the liberal and the conservative mainstream. Throughout his career, he opposed nihilism and remained a “gradualist,” insisting that Russia needed steady evolution rather than an immediate revolution.
Leo Tolstoy aptly called Leskov “the first Russian idealist of a Christian type.” See also: SKAZ Mogilev (now southeast Belarus), Peter brought up a flying corps of 5,000 infantry and 7,000 dragoons. Peter divided his forces into two columns, one commanded by himself, the other by his favorite, Alexander Menshikov. In a fortified camp made of the wagons, Lewenhaupt defended himself from noon on, until the Russian general Reinhold Bauer came up with another 5,000 dragoons. Around 7:00 P.M. the fighting stopped, and Lewen-haupt retreated south toward the main Swedish army, losing half his force and most of the supplies. Peter estimated the Russian losses at 1,111 killed and 2,856 wounded. The battle played an important role in sapping the strength of the Swedish army and provided Russia with an important psychological victory as well. To the end of his life Peter celebrated the day with major festivities at court. See also: GREAT NORTHERN WAR; PETER I
PAUL A. BUSHKOVITCH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lantz, Kenneth. (1979). Nikolay Leskov. Boston: Twayne. McLean, Hugh. (1977). Nikolai Leskov: The Man and His Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
PETER ROLLBERG
LESNAYA, BATTLE OF
The battle of Lesnaya, fought on October 9, 1708, between the Russian army of Peter the Great and a Swedish column under General Adam Ludvig Lewenhaupt, played an important role in the campaign of that year through its weakening of the Swedish army. Russia’s aim was to resist the attempt of Charles XII, King of Sweden, to invade Russia. Charles marched through Poland, reaching Grodno (now western Belarus) by January 1708, and resumed the march eastward toward Moscow the following June. Peter’s army retreated before him, laying waste the land and offering occasional resistance. At the Russian-Polish border, Charles realized that he could go no further east, as he was running out of supplies, so he turned south toward the Ukraine. At the same time, General Lewenhaupt was moving southeast from Riga to join his king with 12,500 men, sixteen guns, and several thousand carts filled with supplies for the Swedish army. As Lewenhaupt approached the village of Lesnaya, on the small river Lesyanka southeast of
LEZGINS
The Lezgins are an ethnic group of which half resides in the Dagestani Republic. According to the 1989 census they numbered 240,000 within that republic, a little more than 11 percent of the population. All told, some 466,006 Lezgins lived in the Soviet Union, with most of the rest residing in Azerbaijan. Of the total, 91 percent regarded Lez-gin as their native language and 53 percent considered themselves to be fluent in Russian as a second language. Within Dagestan the Lezgins are concentrated mainly in the south in the mountainous part of the republic.
The Lezgin language is a member of the Lez-gin group of the Northeast Caucasian languages. In Soviet times they were gathered in the larger category of the Ibero-Caucasian family of languages. The languages within this family, while geographically close together, are not closely related outside of its four major groupings. This categorization has become understood more as a part of the Soviet ideology of druzhba narodov (friendship of peoples). The other Lezgin languages are spoken in Azerbaijan and Dagestan. They are generally quite small groups, and the term “Lezgin” as an ethnic category has sometimes served to cover the entire group. Ethnic self-identity, calculated with language and religion, has been a fluid concept.
LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY
The Lezgin language since 1937 has been written in a modified Cyrillic alphabet. Following the pattern of other non-Slavic languages in the Soviet Union, it had a Latin alphabet from 1928 to 1937. Before that it would have been written in an Arabic script. A modest number of books have been published in the Lezgin language. From 1984 to 1985, for example, fifty titles were published. This compares favorably with other non-jurisdictional ethnic groups, such as their fellow Dagistanis, the Avars, but less so with some nationalities that possessed some level of ethnic jurisdiction, such as the Abkhazians.
The Lezgins long gained a reputation as mountain raiders among people to their south, particularly the Georgians. Again, precision of identity was not necessarily a phenomenon in naming raiders as Lezgins. The Lezgins and the Lezgin languages were likely a part of the diverse linguistic composition of the Caucasian Kingdom of Albania. Much has been said of Udi in this context.
In the post-Soviet world the Lezgins have been involved in ethnic conflict in both Azerbaijan and Dagestan. They form a distinct minority in the former country and experience difficulty in the context of this new nation’s attempt to define its own national being. In Dagestan the Lezgins, located in the mountains and constituting only 15 percent of the population, find themselves generally alienated from the centers of power. They are also in conflict with some of the groups that live more closely to them. See also: DAGESTAN; ETHNOGRAPHY, RUSSIAN AND SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, T
SARIST
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Karny, Yo’av. (2000). Highlanders: a Journey to the Caucasus in Quest of Memory. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
PAUL CREGO
LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY
The Liberal Democratic Party of Russia (LDPR; known as the LDPSU during the last months of the Soviet period) was created in the spring of 1990, with active participation of the authorities and special services, as a controllable alternative to the growing democratic movement. In the 1991 presidential elections, the liberal democratic leader, the political clown Vladimir Zhirinovsky, won a surprising 6.2 million votes (7.8%) and took third place after victorious Boris Yeltsin and the main Communist candidate Nikolai Ryzhkov. In the 1993 Duma elections, the victories of the LDPR became a sensation; Zhirinovsky alone, capitalizing on sentiments of protest, secured 12.3 million votes (22.9%). From there the LDPR was able to advance five candidates in single-mandate districts. Such resounding success-both on the party list and in the districts-would not befall the LDPR again, although in 1994 and 1995 Zhirinovsky stirred up considerable energy for party formation in the provinces. In the 1995 elections, the LDPR registered candidates in 187 districts (more than the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, or KPRF) but received only one mandate and half its previous vote: 7.7 million votes (11.2%, second to the KPRF). In the 1996 presidential elections, Zhirinovsky received 4.3 million votes (5.7%, fifth place). The LDPR held approximately fifty seats in the Duma from 1996 to 1999 which helped repay, with interest, the resources invested earlier in the party’s publicity since, with the domination of the left in the Duma, these votes were able to tip the scales in favor of government initiatives. The LDPR turned into an extremely profitable political business project.