Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  The party’s unity and its relationship with the government depended on the latter’s dedication to the spirit of the constitutional system and policy of reform. The great increase in the party’s numbers made maintenance of unity between its left and right wings problematic.

  Initially the Stolypin-Octobrist alliance worked relatively well, especially in regard to peasant reform. However, by 1909 conservatives fearful of the institutionalization of the new system by the Stolypin-Octobrist partnership worked to break it. The Naval General Staff crisis was the first step in this direction. The Octobrists regarded Nicholas II’s rejection, with the urging of conservatives, of a bill concerning the Naval General Staff that had already been passed by both houses of parliament, as a violation of the spirit of the October Manifesto. Conservative attacks on Stolypin and increased fragmentation within the party forced Stolypin to turn increasingly to the right, thereby placing his relationship with the Octobrists and their unity under additional strain. In 1911 the conservatives in the State Council, with the help of Nicholas II, rejected the Western Zemstvo Bill already passed by the Duma. Stolypin, infuriated by constant conservative attempts to block his policies, forced Nicholas II to disband the parliament provisionally, as allowed by Article 87 of the Fundamental Laws, and make the bill law by decree. The Octobrists, although they had supported this bill, considered Stolypin’s step to be a betrayal and undermining of the constitutional system. They went into opposition.

  In elections to the Fourth Duma (1912), the Oc-tobrists, while remaining the largest party, saw their share of the vote collapse to ninety-five. Morale in the party was at an all-time low, reflecting the overall disappointment with the gradual but successful emasculation of the constitutional system by conservatives and Nicholas II.

  Octobrist unity cracked in 1913 when Guchkov, admitting that attempts to cooperate with the government to achieve needed reform had failed, urged adoption of a more aggressive stance toward the government, which since the assassination of Stolypin in 1911 had showed few signs of continuing reform. While the Central Committee supported this step, the larger body of deputies split on this issue. Disappointed with lack of party backing for such a move, some twenty-two deputies formed the Left Octobrists. The majority formed the Zemtsvo Octobrists under the leadership of M.V. Rodzyanko, the party’s leader. Some ten to fifteen remained uncommitted to either side. The party ceased to have any real power.

  The weakening and fragmentation of the Oc-tobrist Party mirrored the collapse of Russia’s experiment with constitutional monarchy. See also: CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY; NICHOLAS II; OCTOBER MANIFESTO; STOLYPIN, PETER ARKADIEVICH

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Hosking, Geoffrey. (1973). The Russian Constitutional Experiment: Government and Duma, 1907-1914. London: Cambridge University Press. Seton-Watson, Hugh. (1991). The Russian Empire, 1801-1917. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Waldron, Peter. (1998). Between Two Revolutions: Stolypin and the Politics of Renewal in Russia. London: UCL Press.

  ZHAND P. SHAKIBI

  1097

  ODOYEVSKY, VLADIMIR FYODOROVICH

  ODOYEVSKY, VLADIMIR FYODOROVICH

  (1804-1869), romantic and gothic fiction writer, pedagogue, musicologist, amateur scientist, and public servant.

  A Russian thinker with encyclopedic knowledge whom contemporaries dubbed “the Russian Faust” (a character in one of his novels), Vladimir Odoyevsky was mentioned in his day in the same breath as Alexander Pushkin and Nikolai Gogol. He is perhaps best known for the philosophical fantasy Russian Nights (Russkie nochi), published in 1844. In 1824-1825 he edited, with Wilhelm K?chelbecker, four issues of the influential periodical Mnemosyne. Its purpose was to champion Russian literature and German philosophy at a time when everyone else seemed fascinated with French ideas. Odoyevsky contributed works such as “The City Without a Name” (1839) to Nekrasov’s influential magazine Sovremennik (Contemporary). In 1823 he founded a group called “Lovers of Wisdom” (Lyubomudry, a literal translation of the Greek word “philosophy”). Propounding ideas of philosophic realism, the group was dissolved soon after the Decembrist uprising in 1825, even though the group’s pursuits truly were only philosophical, not political. The failed rebellion deeply affected Odoyevsky, because-like the poet Pushkin-he had many friends among the Decembrists, including his cousin, the poet and guards’ officer, Alexander Odoyevsky (1802-1839), and the writer Wilhelm K?chelbecker (1797-1846), both of whom were imprisoned and exiled after the uprising.

  A Slavophile of sorts, Odoyevsky believed in the decline of the West and the future greatness of Russia. He met regularly with other Slavophile thinkers, such as Ivan Kireyevsky, Alexander Koshelev, Mel-gunov, Stepan Shevyrev, Mikhail Pogodin (the last two were professors at Moscow State University), and the young poet Dmitry Venevitinov.

  In the 1830s Odoyevsky was preoccupied with political questions, antislavery, anti-Americanism, Russian messianism, the innate superiority of Russia over the West, and criticisms of Malthus, Bentham, and the Utilitarians. The novel Russian Nights contains a mixture of these ideas. Odoyevsky proposed a revealing subtitle, which his editor later rejected: “Russian Nights, or the Indis-pensability of a New Science and a New Art.” Throughout the novel the main characters grapple with topics such as the meaning of science and art, logic, the sense of human existence, atheism and belief, education, government rule, the function of individual sciences, madness and sanity, poetic creation, Slavophilism, Europe and Russia, and mercantilism.

  Odoyevsky also cherished music and musicians, composing chamber music as early as his teens and writing critical appraisals of composers such as Mikhail Glinka. He was devoted to the history and structure of church singing and collected notational manuscripts to preserve them for future generations. As he wrote in one of his letters: “I discovered the definite theory of our melodies and harmony, which is similar to the theory of medieval Western tunes, but has its own peculiarities.”

  Odoyevsky excelled the most in the genre of the short story, particularly ones geared toward children. Two stories rank among the best in children’s fare: “Johnny Frost” and “The Town in a Snuff Box.” Generally, Odoyevsky’s fiction reflects two main tendencies. First, he expresses his philosophical convictions imaginatively and often fantastically. His stories typically move from a recognizable setting to a mystical realm. Secondly, he injects commentary on the shortcomings of social life in Russia, usually in a satiric mode. See also: GOLDEN AGE OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE; LOVERS OF WISDOM, THE; SLAVOPHILES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Cornwell, Neil. (1998). Vladimir Odoevsky and Romantic Poetics: Collected Essays. Providence, RI: Berghahn Books. Minto, Marilyn. (1994). Russian Tales of the Fantastic. London: Bristol Classical Press. Rydel, Christine. (1999). Russian Literature in the Age of Pushkin and Gogol. Detroit: Gale Group. Smith, Andrew. (2003). Empire and the Gothic: the Politics of Genre. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

  JOHANNA GRANVILLE

  OFFICIAL NATIONALITY

  In 1833, Sergei Uvarov, in his first published circular as the new minister of education, coined the tripartite formula “Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality” as the motto for the development of the Russian Empire. The three terms also became the main ingredients of the doctrine that dominated the era

  1098

  OFFICIAL NATIONALITY

  of Emperor Nicholas I, who reigned from 1825 to 1855, and that came to be called “official nationality.” About two dozen periodicals, scores of books, and the entire school system propagated the ideas and made them the foundation for guiding Russia to modernity without succumbing to materialism, revolutionary movements, and blind imitation of foreign concepts.

  The meaning of Orthodoxy and autocracy were clear. The Orthodox faith had formed the foundation of Russian spiritual, ethical, and cultural life since the tenth century, and had always acted as a unifying factor in the nation. It also proved useful in preaching obedience to authority. Autocracy, or absolute monarchy, involved the conviction that Russia would
avoid revolution through the enlightened leadership of a tsar, who would provide political stability but put forth timely and enlightened reforms so that Russia could make constant progress in all spheres of national life. Political theory had long argued, and Russia’s historical lessons seemed to demonstrate, that a single ruler was needed to maintain unity in a vast territory with varied populations.

  The third term in the tripartite formula was the most original and the most mysterious. The broad idea of nationality (narodnost) had just become fashionable among the educated public, but there was no set definition for the concept. In 1834, Peter Plet-nev, a literary critic and professor of Russian literature at St. Petersburg University, noted: “The idea of nationality is the major characteristic that contemporaries demand from literary works . . . ,” but, he went on, “one does not know exactly what it means.” A variety of schools of thought on the subject arose in the 1830s and 1840s.

  The romantic nationalists, led by Michael Pogodin and Stephen Shevyrev of Moscow University and the journal The Muscovite, celebrated Russia’s absolutist form of government, its uniqueness, its poetic richness, the peace-loving virtues of its denizens, and the notion of the Slavs as a chosen people, all of which supposedly bestowed upon Russia a glorious mission to save humanity and made it superior to a “decaying” West. The Slavophiles, led by Moscow-based landowners including the Aksakov and Kireyevsky brothers, opposed such western concepts as individualism, legalism, and majority rule, in favor of the notion of sobornost: a community, much like a church council (sobor), should engage in discussion, with the aim of achieving a “chorus” of unanimous decision and thus preserving a spirit of harmony, and brotherhood. The people then would advise the tsar, through some type of land council (zemsky sobor), a system, the Slavophiles believed, that was the “true” Russian way in all things. The Westerniz-ers, in contrast, sympathized with the values of other Europeans and assumed that Russian development, while traveling by a different path, would occur in the context of the liberal tradition that valued the individual over the state. All three groups, however, agreed on the necessity for emancipation, legal reform, and freedom of speech and press.

  The doctrine of official nationality represented the government’s response to these intellectual currents, as well as to the wave of revolutions that had spread through much of the rest of Europe beyond Russia’s borders. The proponents of this doctrine, however, did not speak with one voice. For instance, because of their support for the existing state, the romantic nationalists are often defined as proponents of official nationality. However, the most influential group, sometimes called dynastic nationalists, included Emperor Nicholas I and the court, and their views were propagandized in the far-flung journalistic enterprises of Fadei Bulgarin, Nicholas Grech, and Osip Senkovsky. Their understanding of narodnost was based on patriotism, a defensive doctrine used to support the status quo and Russia’s great-power status. For them, “Rus-sianness,” even for Baltic Germans or Poles, revolved around a subject’s loyalty to the autocrat. In other words, they equated the nation with the state as governed by the dynasty, which was seen as both the repository and the emblem of the national culture.

  Sergei Semenovich Uvarov’s own views of nationality straddled the many schools of thought. He shared the bulk of the opinions of the dynastic nationalists, patronized the romantic nationalists and their journal, praised the Slavophiles for their Orthodox spirit, and accepted some Westernizing tendencies in Russia’s historical development. But this architect of official nationality espoused a doctrine that lacked appeal and vitality. Instead of regarding the people as actively informing the content of nationality, Uvarov believed that the state should define, guide, and impose “true” national values upon a passive population. In a word, his concept of narodnost excluded the creative activity of the narod and made it synonymous with loyalty to throne and altar. The doctrine, while it achieved the stability which was its aim, proved anachronistic and did not survive Nicholas I and Uvarov, both of whom died in 1855.

  1099

  OGARKOV, NIKOLAI VASILEVICH

  See also: NATIONALISM IN TSARIST EMPIRE; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; NATION AND NATIONALITY NICHOLAS I; SLAVOPHILES; UVAROV, SERGEI SEMEN-OVICH; WESTERNIZERS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Lincoln, W. Bruce. (1978). Nicholas I: Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Riasanovsky, Nicholas. (1967). Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855. Berkeley: University of California Press. Whittaker, Cynthia H. (1984). The Origins of Modern Russian Education: An Intellectual Biography of Count Sergei Uvarov, 1786-1855. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.

  CYNTHIA HYLA WHITTAKER

  OGARKOV, NIKOLAI VASILEVICH

  (1917-1994), marshal, chief of the Soviet General Staff, Hero of the Soviet Union, (1917-1944).

  Nikolai Ogarkov was one of the outstanding military leaders of the Soviet General Staff, who combined technical knowledge with a mastery of combined arms operations. He was born on October 30, 1917, in the village of Molokovo in Tver oblast and graduated from an engineering night school in 1937. In 1938 he joined the Red Army and graduated from the Kuybyshev Military Engineering Academy in 1941. Ogarkov served as combat engineer with a wide range of units on various fronts throughout World War II. After the war he completed the advanced military engineering course at the Kuybyshev Military Engineering Academy. Ogarkov advanced rapidly in command and staff assignments and graduated in 1959 from the Voroshilov Academy of the General Staff. Thereafter he commanded a motorized rifle division in East Germany and held command and staff postings in various military districts. In 1968 he assumed the post of deputy chief of the General Staff and head of the Operations Directorate, where he was involved in planning the military intervention in Czechoslovakia. In 1974 he assumed the post of first deputy chief of the General Staff, and then chief of the General Staff in 1977. Ogarkov held that post until 1984. During his tenure he oversaw the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and was the voice of the Soviet government in the aftermath of the shooting down of the Korean airliner, KAL 007. He was an articulate advocate of the Revolution in Military Affairs, which he believed was about to transform military art. He stressed the impact of new technologies associated with automated command and control, electronic warfare, precision strike, and weapons based on new physical principles upon the conduct of war. His advocacy of increased defense spending contributed to his removal from office in 1984. Ogarkov died on January 23, 1994. See also: AFGHANISTAN, RELATIONS WITH; MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Kokoshin, Andrei A. (1998). Soviet Strategic Thought, 1917-91. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Odom, William E. (1998). The Collapse of the Soviet Military. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Zisk, Kimberly Marten. (1993). Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation, 1955-1991. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

  JACOB W. KIPP

  OGHUZ See TORKY.

  OKOLNICHY

  Court rank used in pre-Petrine Russia.

  The term okolnichy (pl. okolnichie) meaning “someone close to the ruler,” is derived from the word okolo (near, by). The sources first mention an okolnichy at the court of the prince of Smolensk in 1284. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, okolnichie acted as administrators, judges, and military commanders, and as witnesses during compilation of a prince’s legal documents. When a prince was on campaign, okolnichie prepared bridges, fords, and lodging for him. Okolnichie usually came from local elite families. By the end of the fifteenth century, the rank of okolnichy became part of the hierarchy of the Gosudarev Dvor (Sovereign’s Court), second after the rank of boyar. Unlike boyars, who usually performed military service, okolnichie carried out various administrative assignments in the first half of the sixteenth century. Later, the okolnichie conceded their administrative functions to the secretaries.

  1100

  OKUDZHAVA, BULAT SHALOVICH

  Under Ivan IV
, the majority of okolnichie belonged to the boyar families who had long connections with Moscow. For most elite courtiers, with the exception of the most distinguished princely families, service as okolnichie was a prerequisite for receiving the rank of boyar. The rank of okolnichy also served as a means of integrating families of lesser status into the elite. By the end of the sixteenth century, the distinction between boyars and okolnichie was based largely on genealogical origin and seniority in service. From the middle of the seventeenth century, the number of okolnichie increased because of the growing size of the court. Many historians believe that all okolnichie were admitted to the royal council, the Boyar Duma, though in fact only a few of them attended meetings with the tsar. See also: BOYAR; BOYAR DUMA

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Kleimola, Ann M. (1985). “Patterns of Duma Recruitment, 1505-1550.” In Essays in Honor of A. A. Zimin, ed. Daniel Clarke Waugh. Columbus, OH: Slavica. Poe, Marshall T. (2003). The Russian Elite in the Seventeenth Century. 2 vols. Helsinki: The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.