by James Millar
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Zaslavskaia, Tat’iana I. (1984). “The Novosibirsk Report.” Survey 28(1):88-108. Zaslavskaia, Tat’iana I. (1989). A Voice of Reform: Essays by Tat’iana I. Zaslavskaia, ed. and intro. Murray Yanowitch. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Zaslavskaia, Tat’iana I. (1990). The Second Socialist Revolution: An Alternative Soviet Strategy, tr. Susan M. Davies and Jenny Warren. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
ALFRED B. EVANS JR.
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NOVOSILTSEV, NIKOLAI NIKOLAYEVICH
NOVOSILTSEV, NIKOLAI NIKOLAYEVICH
(1761-1836), friend and adviser to Emperor Alexander I.
Nikolai Nikolayevich Novosiltsev was the illegitimate son of a woman whose brother, Alexander Sergeyevich Stroganov, was an important government official. Stroganov took the boy in and raised him in a household known for its hospitality and refinement, although, according to a contemporary, he was “brought up by his generous uncle like a poor relation” (Saunders, p. 5). Novosiltsev served in the army from 1783 to 1795, and during this time apparently made the acquaintance of the future emperor Alexander I. In 1796, when Alexander’s father, Paul I, ascended to the throne, Alexander asked Novosiltsev to draw up a “programmatic introduction” to the constitutional reforms Alexander was then considering. The document has been lost, but it appears to have focused on the education of those who would someday represent the empire’s vast population. In 1798 Novosiltsev helped Alexander found the St. Petersburg Journal and became a frequent contributor. Paul, meanwhile, was becoming suspicious of Novosiltsev’s liberalism and his influence on Alexander, so in 1797 the young man left Russia for Britain. He spent four years there attending university lectures and meeting such notables as Jeremy Bentham.
In 1801, when Paul was murdered and Alexander became emperor, Novosiltsev returned to Russia, where he became a member of Alexander’s Unofficial or Secret Committee, which regularly met with the emperor over the next two years to discuss plans for reform. Novosiltsev persuaded the committee to review the domestic situation and various departmental reforms and then draft a constitution. Within a matter of weeks Alexander began to voice doubts about the project. In an August 1801 memorandum to Alexander, Novosiltsev revealed the limits to his proposed reform program, stating that the Senate, an appointed body established by Peter the Great to govern the empire while the tsar was away, would be unable to implement and manage reform. Only the ruler could bring about the “Natural Rights, the Lawful Freedom and the security of each member of society.” In a similar vein Novosiltsev urged Alexander to reject a proposal to introduce the right of habeas corpus, arguing that since a future situation may require it to be suspended, it would be best to not enact it at all.
In 1801 Novosiltsev was appointed chairman of a new commission on laws, and from 1802 to 1808, as assistant to the minister of justice, he helped draw up the Statute on Free Cultivators, a singularly ineffective effort to emancipate some of the serfs. From 1803 to 1810 he was president of the Imperial Academy of Sciences. In 1804 he undertook a diplomatic mission to Britain to obtain an alliance against Napoleon. The British were offended by his vanity and arrogance and viewed with bewilderment or hostility his proposals dealing with the Ottoman Empire and a German Confederation. The talks failed to produce a treaty until Napoleon’s annexation of Genoa in 1805 forced Russia and Britain into an alliance.
After the defeat of Napoleon, Novosiltsev served as Russia’s imperial-royal commissioner for Poland, which was then a constitutional monarchy under Alexander. In 1820, at the emperor’s request, Novosiltsev prepared a constitutional charter for Russia. Its key feature was decentralization and a genuinely federal structure. The empire was to be divided into twelve “vice-regencies” with elected assemblies at the local and national levels. The document, which also emphasized personal and civil liberties, was never implemented, and its effect on Alexander, if any, is unclear. His successor, Nicholas I, found the charter “most objectionable” and ordered all copies destroyed.
Novosiltsev has been described as an aggressively ambitious but poorly educated man. He was covetous of a place in Russian society, but he felt excluded from it. He was without doubt a talented and intelligent person, but he was unable to bridle his arrogance and cynicism, especially as administrator of Poland and as a diplomat. See also: ALEXANDER I; NAPOLEON I; PAUL I; POLAND
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Grimstead, Patricia Kennedy. (1969). The Foreign Ministers of Alexander I. Berkeley: University of California Press. Hartley, Janet M. (1994). Alexander I. New York: Longman. Saunders, David. (1992). Russia in the Age of Reaction and Reform, 1801-1881. London: Longman.
HUGH PHILLIPS
1076
NOVY MIR
NOVOZHILOV, VIKTOR VALENTINOVICH
(1892-1970), Soviet economist who made important contributions to the revival of modern economics in the Soviet Union, especially via the concept of opportunity cost.
Novozhilov was educated at Kiev University, finishing in 1915. While still a student, he wrote two serious economic works, one of which was awarded a gold medal in 1913. Among his teachers were two famous economists, Yevgeny Yevge-nievich Slutsky and Mikhail Ivanovich Tugan-Baranovsky. He taught at universities in Ukraine until 1922, when he went to Leningrad. There he taught and worked for the rest of his life. He was often in political trouble for his economic views, and had a very difficult time getting his work published. In the post-Stalin years, however, he gained authority and influence, and in 1965 he received the Lenin Prize (along with Vasily Sergeyevich Nemchinov and Leonid Vitaliyevich Kantorovich). In November 1965, he moved to the Leningrad branch of the Central Economic-Mathematical Institute. He was elected a full member of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR.
Novozhilov was one of the most creatively significant of the Soviet economists. His most notable scientific contribution concerned the capital intensity issue, which grew out of his participation over many years in the work of institutes designing new plants and technologies. It was on the basis of this experience that he wrote his doctoral dissertation, titled Methods of Measuring the National Economic Effectiveness of Project Variants, a theme which ultimately led him to a general opportunity-cost theory of value and allocation.
Novozhilov was a rarity in Soviet economics, a representative of the prerevolutionary intelligentsia who managed to preserve its values in the Soviet environment. He was a man of sterling character and attractive personality, an erudite scholar with a cosmopolitan view of the world, and an accomplished violinist and painter. He understood English, though he did not feel comfortable speaking it. See also: SLUTSKY, YEVGENY YEVGENIEVICH; TUGAN-BARANOVSKY, MIKHAIL IVANOVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Robert Campbell. (1961). “Marx, Kantorovich, and Novozhilov: Stoimost Versus Reality,” Slavic Review 20: 402-418. Novozhilov, Valentin. (1970). Problems of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Optimal Planning. White Plains, NY: International Arts and Sciences Press.
ROBERT W. CAMPBELL
NOVY MIR
Novy Mir (New World), a literary, critical, and political journal based in Moscow, was founded in 1925 as part of an official initiative to revivify the Russian tradition of the thick journal in the wake of the Bolshevik Revolution. True to that tradition, Novy Mir published political and social commentaries along with its staple of fiction, poetry, and literary criticism. Having come into being during the mid-1920s, during the last few years of relative cultural openness in the young Soviet Union, the journal published works by the most prominent writers of the day. The major works of literature published in the journal during this period were Maxim Gorky’s novel The Life of Klim Samgin (Zhizn Klima Samgina) and Alexei Tolstoy’s Road to Calvary (Khozhdenie po mukam).
Like Soviet culture as a whole, from the early 1930s until Stalin’s death in 1953, what Novy Mir could publish was severely limited by the strictures of the official doctrine of Socialist Realism, which dictated that all publications must actively support the building of socialism in the Soviet Union.
Following the death of Stalin in 1953, however, Novy Mir soon established itself as the most prestigious literary journal of the post-Stalin period. Under the editorship of the poet Alexander Tvardovsky, the journal ushered in the ensuing period of cultural liberalism with the publication of the groundbreaking article by the critic Vladimir Pomerant-sev, “On Sincerity in Literature” (Ob iskrennosti v literature), which called for the “unvarnished” portrayal of reality in Soviet literary works. Tvar-dovsky’s first tenure as editor of the journal ended when, in reprisal for his publication of politically questionable works, he was replaced by the prose writer Konstantin Simonov in 1954. Simonov himself, however, fell victim to the uncertain cultural “thaw” of the times and was deposed as editor in the wake of his 1956 publication of Vladimir Dud-intsev’s controversial novel, Not by Bread Alone (Ne khlebom edinym). Tvardovsky was reappointed editor in 1958 and led the journal through its most illustrious period.
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NYSTADT, TREATY OF
The journal, with its distinctive pale blue cover, became the leading literary periodical of the cultural relaxation under Khrushchev. Its most historically resonant publication of this period was Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novella, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich (Odin den Ivana Denisovicha), in 1962. During the years of cultural stagnation under Brezhnev, the limits of the allowable in Soviet literature and culture again tightened. Tvar-dovsky struggled to maintain Novy Mir’s liberal profile until he was forced by increasing political pressure to resign from the editorship in 1970. The journal came into its own again during the glas-nost period. The prose writer Sergei Zalygin assumed the editorship of the journal in 1986 and, like Tvardovsky before him, steered the journal to a leading role in the liberalization of Soviet culture under Gorbachev. The landmark Novy Mir publications of the glasnost period included the appearance in 1988 of Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago, which had been rejected for publication in the journal in 1950s. Novy Mir also served as the primary outlet for Sozhenitsyn’s previously banned publications during this period. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a market economy in Russia, Novy Mir, like other major Soviet publications, has struggled to adjust to the changing economic and cultural situation. See also: GLASNOST; GORKY, MAXIM; INTELLIGENTSIA; PASTERNAK, BORIS LEONIDOVICH; SIMONOV, KON-STANTIN MIKHAILOVICH; SOCIALIST REALISM; THAW, THE; THICK JOURNALS; TOLSTOY, LEO NIKOLAYEVICH; SOLZHENITSYN, ALEXANDER ISAYEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Glenny, Michael, ed. (1967). Novy Mir: A Selection, 1925-1967. London: Jonathan Cape Ltd. Spechler, Dina R. (1982). Permitted Dissent in the USSR: Novy Mir and the Soviet Regime. New York: Praeger.
CATHARINE NEPOMNYASHCHY
NYSTADT, TREATY OF
The Treaty of Nystadt was signed on August 30 (September 10, O.S.), 1721, in the Finnish town of Nystadt. It ended the twenty-one year Great Northern War between Russia and Sweden. The treaty was the result of several years of negotiations between the warring parties. The clauses were:
1. “Eternal peace” was established on land and sea 2. All hostilities were committed to oblivion, except for the crimes of the Russian Cossacks who had aided the Swedes
3. All military action ceased
4. Sweden agreed to cede to Russia Livonia (Lifliandia), Estonia (Estliandia), Ingermanland (Ingria), part of Karelia with Vyborg district, with the towns of Riga, D?nam?nde, Pernau, Reval (Tallinn), Dorpat, Narva, Vyborg, Kex-holm, and the islands of Oesel, Dago, and Meno 5. Russia agreed to evacuate Finland (invaded in 1713-1714) and to pay Sweden two million thalers compensation 6. Sweden was granted entitlement to trade in Riga, Reval, and Arensburg, and to purchase grain duty-free 7. Russia agreed not to interfere in Swedish domestic affairs
8. The border was defined in detail
9. The former Swedish provinces annexed to Russia were to retain all their privileges and rights unwaveringly 10. The Protestant faith was to enjoy the same freedoms as Orthodoxy 11. Claims to landed estates in Livonia and Estonia were to be settled, and 12. Swedish citizens with claims to land could retain their estates only if they swore allegiance to the Russian crown 13. Russian troops still in Livonia were to be provisioned, but they were required to take all their weapons and supplies when they left, and to return archives and documents 14. Prisoners of war were to be returned (unless they wished to stay) 15. The kingdom of Poland, as an ally of both signatories, was included in the treaty, but Sweden was free to conclude a separate treaty with Poland 16. There was to be free trade between Sweden and Russia 17. Swedish merchants were allowed to maintain warehouses in Russian towns and ports 18. The parties agreed to help each other in case of shipwrecks and 19. To greet ships of both nations with the usual friendly shots 20. Ambassadors and envoys were to pay their own expenses, but the host power would provide escorts 21. Other European powers were given the option to enter the treaty within three months
10.
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NYSTADT, TREATY OF
22. Quarrels and disputes were to be settled equitably, without breaching the peace 23. Traitors, murderers, and criminals would be extradited 24. The treaty was to be ratified in three weeks in Nystadt
The treaty was published in Russian in large print runs of five thousand copies in 1721 and twenty thousand copies in 1723, following the authorization of the map showing the new borders. It sealed both Russia’s rising status as a leading player in European politics and Sweden’s decline as a major military power, marking its disappearance from the southern shores of the Baltic, to the advantage of Denmark, Prussia, and Russia. It also underlined Poland’s status as a client state. At the official celebrations in St. Petersburg in October 1721, Peter accepted the titles Great, Emperor, and Father of the Fatherland from the Senate, further arousing the belief in some European countries that Russian influence was to be feared “more than the Turks.” Except for the changes related to Finland, the treaty defined Russia’s Baltic presence for the rest of the imperial era. The acquisition of ports brought Russia both economic and strategic advantages as well as an influx of highly educated Baltic German personnel to work in the imperial civil service. See also: GREAT NORTHERN WAR; PETER I; SWEDEN, RELATIONS WITH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bagger, H. (1993). “The Role of the Baltic in Russian Foreign Policy 1721-1773.” In Imperial Russian Foreign Policy, ed. Hugh Ragsdale. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Hughes, Lindsey. (1990). Russia in the Age of Peter the Great. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
LINDSEY HUGHES
1079
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OBROK
Rent in kind or money (quitrent).
Obrok was land rent paid by a peasant to his lord either in kind or in money. Although there is disagreement about its status prior to the Mongol conquest, scholars agree that from the mid 1200s to the end of the 1400s, rents in kind dominated the economy after the Mongol invasion destroyed the urban market and caused a precipitous population decline.
As a market reemerged in the late 1400s and 1500s, dues paid in money increased significantly. But by the end of the fifteenth century, the new money dues were forcibly converted into more profitable labor dues (barshchina). The latter became predominant on seigniorial estates into the early eighteenth century.
By the last third of the 1700s, market development and major agricultural expansion into the black soil region produced regional economic specialization. Rent in cash and in kind came to predominate in the non-black soil region, which extended north from Moscow. Fifty-five percent of the serfs in the region were on obrok. Increasingly the payments were in cash, which was earned largely from nonagricultural wages. This overall proportion remained relatively stable down to the emancipation, even though there was a strong shift from labor dues to cash payments near the capital as wages rose.
There has been a major controversy over what happened to the level of cash payments in the last hundred years of serfdom. Clearly, the nominal value of the payments increased rather sharply.
But when adjustments are made for inflation and price increases, Western, Soviet, and post-Soviet scholars agree the increase was fairly moderate. See also: BARSHCHINA; SERFDOM
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blum, Jerome. (1961). Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Moon, David. (1999). The Russian Peasantry, 1600-1930: The World the Peasants Made. London: Longman.
ELVIRA M. WILBUR
1081
OBRUCHEV, NIKOLAI NIKOLAYEVICH
OBRUCHEV, NIKOLAI NIKOLAYEVICH
(1830-1904), imperial Russian general staff officer, military statistician, planner and chief of the Main Staff.
General-Adjutant Nikolai Obruchev was born in Warsaw, the son of an officer of modest means. He completed the First Cadet Corps in 1848 and the Nicholas Military Academy in 1854. Subsequently, as professor at the Academy, he was a founder of Russian military statistics. In 1858 he became the first editor of the military professional monthly Voyenny sbornik (Military Collection), but was soon removed for the printing of articles critical of Russian logistics in the Crimean War. In 1863, under War Minister Dmitry Milyutin’s tutelage, he became the secretary of the Military Academic Committee within the Main Staff. From this position he supported creation of an independent general staff and actively advanced Milyutin’s military reforms. Obruchev played a major role in planning for the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878. His subsequent plans for the military preparation of Russian Poland in the event of war against the Dual Alliance were influential until 1914.