by James Millar
Many Old Believers, however, retreated into their old practices of secrecy in worship, use of homes instead of officially sanctioned churches, and even flight into the wilderness. Rural Old Believers continued to be skeptical of outsiders, especially communists, and tried to retain ritual distance between the faithful and the unbelievers. Sometimes, illegal or informal conferences debated the problems of secular education, military service, and intermarriage. In the most extreme cases, Old Believer families moved ever farther into Siberia, sometimes even crossing into China. Notably, Old Believers also emigrated to Australia, Turkey, the United States, and elsewhere, continuing a trend that that had begun in the late nineteenth century.
The period of glasnost and perestroika created significant international scholarly and popular interest in the Old Believers, though that has waned during the years of economic difficulty following the breakup of the USSR. In post-communist Russia, Old Believers have become bolder and more public, reviving publications, building churches, and reconstituting community life. They have fought to have the Old Belief recognized by the government as one of Russia’s historical faiths, hoping to put the Old Belief on par with the Russian Orthodox Church as a pillar of traditional (i.e., noncommunist) values. Old Believers have continued to struggle with the demands of tradition in a rapidly changing political, social, cultural, and economic environment. See also: ALEXANDER MIKHAILOVICH; AVVAKUM PETRO-VICH; CHURCH COUNCIL, HUNDRED CHAPTERS; NIKON, PATRIARCH; OLD BELIEVER COMMITTEE; ORTHODOXY; RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cherniavsky, Michael. (1996). “The Old Believers and the New Religion.” Slavic Review 25:1-39. Crummey, Robert O. (1970). The Old Believers and the World of Antichrist: The Vyg Community and the Russian State, 1694-1855. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press. Michels, Georg Bernhard. (1999). At War with the Church: Religious Dissent in Seventeenth-Century Russia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
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Peskov, Vasily. (1994). Lost in the Taiga: One Russian Family’s Fifty-Year Struggle for Survival and Religious Freedom in the Siberian Wilderness, tr. Marian Schwartz. New York: Doubleday. Robson, Roy R. (1995). Old Believers in Modern Russia. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press. Scheffel, David Z. (1991). In the Shadow of Antichrist: The Old Believers of Alberta. Lewiston, NY: Broadview Press.
ROY R. ROBSON
OLD STYLE
Until January 31, 1918, Russia used the Julian calendar, while Western Europe had gradually changed to the Gregorian calendar after its introduction by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. Orthodox Russia, associating the Gregorian calendar with Catholicism, had resisted the change. As a result, Russian dates lagged behind contemporary events. In the nineteenth century, Russia was twelve days behind the West; in the twentieth century it was thirteen days behind. Because of the difference in calendars, the revolution of October 25, 1917, was commemorated on November 7. To minimize confusion, Russian writers would indicate their dating system by adding the abbreviation “O.S.” (Old Style) or “N.S.” (New Style) to their letters, documents, and diary entries. The Russian Orthodox Church continues to use the Julian system, making Russian Christmas fall on January 7. See also: CALENDAR son Igor into Oleg’s care. It is not known whether Oleg succeeded Rurik in his own right or as the regent for Igor. In 882 he assembled an army of Varangians and East Slavs and traveled south from Novgorod, capturing Smolensk and Lyubech. At Kiev, he tricked the boyars Askold and Dir into coming out to greet him. Accusing them of having no right to rule the town because they were not of princely stock as he and Igor were, he had them killed. Oleg became the prince of Kiev and proclaimed that it would be “the mother of all Rus towns.” He waged war against the neighbouring East Slavic tribes, made them Kiev’s tributaries, and deprived the Khazars of their jurisdiction over the middle Dnieper. Oleg thus became the founder of Rus, the state centered on Kiev.
In 907 Oleg attacked Constantinople. Although some scholars question the authenticity of this information, most accept it as true. His army, constituting Varangians and Slavs, failed to breach the city walls but forced the Greeks to negotiate a treaty. One of Oleg’s main objectives was to obtain the best possible terms for Rus merchants trading in Constantinople. He was thus the first prince to formalize trade relations between the Rus and the Greeks. In 911 (or 912) he sent envoys to Constantinople to conclude another more juridical treaty. The two agreements were among Oleg’s greatest achievements. According to folk tradition, he died in 912 after a viper bit him when he kicked his dead horse’s skull. Another account says he died in 922 at Staraya Ladoga. See also: KIEVAN RUS; RURIKID DYNASTY; VIKINGS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Gerhart, Genevra. (1974). The Russian’s World: Life and Language. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Hughes, Lindsey. (1998). Russia in the Age of Peter the Great. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
ANN E. ROBERTSON
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Franklin, Simon, and Shepard, Jonathan. (1996). The Emergence of Rus, 750-1200. London: Longman. Vernadsky, George. (1948). Kievan Russia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
MARTIN DIMNIK
OLEG
(died c. 912), first grand prince of Kiev, asserted his rule over the East Slavic tribes in the middle Dnieper region and concluded treaties with Constantinople.
When Rurik was on his deathbed in 879 he gave his kinsman Oleg “the Sage” control over his domains in northern Russia and placed his young
OLGA
(d. 969), Kievan grand princess and regent for her son Svyatoslav.
Under the year 903, the Primary Chronicle reports that Oleg, Rurik’s kinsman and guardian to his son Igor, obtained a wife for Igor from Pskov by the name of Olga. It is unclear whether Igor was
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actually the son of Rurik, the semi-legendary founder of the Kievan state, but, as Igor and Olga’s son Svyatoslav was born in 942, it is very likely that the chronology in the text is faulty and that the marriage did not take place in 903. Legend has it that Olga was of Slavic origin, but evidence is again lacking.
On a trip to collect tribute from an East Slavic tribe called the Derevlians (forest dwellers) in 945, Igor was killed, and the Derevlians decided that Mal, their prince, should marry Olga, who was serving as regent for her minor son. Olga pretended to go along with the plan, but then violently put down their uprising by means of three well-planned acts of revenge, after which she destroyed the Derevlian capital Iskoresten. The chronicle account of Olga’s revenge is formulaic, based on folklore-like riddles that the opponent must comprehend in order to escape death. The tales are clearly intended to demonstrate Olga’s wisdom. From 945 to 947, after her defeat of the Derevlians, Olga established administrative centers for taxation, which eliminated the need for collecting tribute. During her regency she significantly expanded the land holdings of the Kievan grand princely house.
Olga was the first member of the Rus ruling dynasty to accept Christianity. Scholars have debated when and where she was converted, as the sources give conflicting accounts, but there is some evidence that she became a Christian in Constantinople in 954 or 955 and was hosted by Con-stantine Porphyrogenitus as a Christian ruler during a subsequent visit in 957. According to the Primary Chronicle account, which is likely intended to mirror her rejection of Mal, Olga eludes a marriage proposal from Constantine by resorting once again to cunning, although this time her actions are nonviolent and motivated by Christian chastity rather than revenge.
Despite considerable effort, Olga was unable to establish Christianity in Rus, and failed to secure help to that end either from Byzantium or the West. In 959 after her Byzantine efforts had yielded no results, she requested a bishop and priest from the German king, Otto I. Although a mission under Bishop Adalbert was sent after much delay, it was not well received and departed soon afterwards. When her regency ended, Olga continued to play an influential role, as Svyatoslav was frequently away on military campaigns.
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Olga died in 969 and was eventually canonized by the Orthodox Church. The Primary Chronicle does not report where she was buried, but Jakov the Monk writes in his Memorial and Encomium to Vladimir that her remains later lay in the Church of the Holy Theotokos (built in 996) and that their uncorrupted state indicated that God glorified her body because she glorified Him. One of the most enduring images associated with Olga is first encountered in the Sermon on Law and Grace (mid-eleventh century) by Metropolitan Hilarion, but repeated often in later works. In praising Olga and Vladimir, Hilarion compares them to the first Christian Roman emperor, Constantine, and his mother Helen, who discovered the Holy Cross. See also: KIEVAN RUS; PRIMARY CHRONICLE; RURIKID DYNASTY; SVYATOSLAV I; VLADIMIR, ST.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Franklin, Simon, and Shepard, Jonathan. (1996). The Emergence of Rus, 750-1200. London: Longman. Hollingsworth, Paul. (1992). The Hagiography of Kievan Rus’. Cambridge, MA: Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University. Poppe, Andrzej. (1997). “The Christianization and Eccle-siatical Structure of Kyivan Rus’ to 1300.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 21:311-392. Cross, Samuel Hazzard, and Sherbowitz-Wetzor, Olgerd P., ed and tr. (1953). The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text. Cambridge, MA: The Mediaeval Academy of America.
DAVID K. PRESTEL
OPERA
Opera reached Russia in 1731, when an Italian troupe from Dresden visited Moscow. In 1736 it was established at the tsarist court in St. Petersburg. Early Russian opera was mostly in Italian and French. Works in Russian were usually set in Russia, but representations of Russian history on the operatic stage began only in 1790 with The Early Reign of Oleg, a collaboration of the court composers Vasily Pashkevich (a Russian), Carlo Canob-bio, and Giuseppe Sarti (both Italians) on a Russian libretto written by Catherine II.
The popularity of the court theaters in the early nineteenth century made their stages a possible venue of propaganda. This potential was fully realized in Mikhail Glinka’s first opera (1836), with a libretto written by Baron Rosen, secretary of the
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Soviet opera singers perform Rock Flower in 1950. © YEVGENY KHALDEI/CORBIS successor to the throne. Initially named for its protagonist, Ivan Susanin, the opera was renamed A Life for the Tsar when Glinka dedicated it to Nicholas I (Soviet legend had it that the new title was imposed against Glinka’s will). In its wholesale affirmation of the doctrine of “official nationality” as proclaimed by Nicholas, the opera became a symbol of Russian autocracy.
Opera was now the most popular form of entertainment in Russia, but apart from Glinka there were no notable domestic composers. To satisfy the demand, a new Italian troupe was established in St. Petersburg in 1843. Its repertory was the same as that of other Italian enterprises abroad; except for censorial changes to libretti, there was nothing Russian about it. This artistic showcase, cherished not only by the aristocracy but also by the radical intelligentsia, slowed down the development of Russian opera (and Russian music in general). Russian musicians, then mostly amateurs (composers and performers alike), even suffered from legal dis1108
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crimination: Until 1860, “musician” was not a recognized profession; moreover, for a long time a limit was imposed on the yearly income of Russians (but not of foreigners) in the performing arts, and Russian composers were expressly forbidden to write for the Italian company. Only after the establishment of conservatories in the 1860s did Russian opera become really competitive; performance standards rose, and gradually a Russian repertory accumulated.
The first successful Russian opera after Glinka was Alexander Serov’s Rogneda (1865). Its fictional plot unfolds against the background of the “baptism of Russia” in 988. As affirmative of the official view on Russian history as A Life for the Tsar, it earned its creator a lifelong pension from Alexander II. Soon after, three composers from the “Mighty Handful” embarked on operas based on Russian history: Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Maid of Pskov (based on Ivan IV, after Lev Mey, 1873), Modest Musorgsky’s Boris Godunov (after Alexander Pushkin’s play, 1874), and Alexander Borodin’s Prince Igor (premiered posthumously, 1890). While Prince Igor affirmed autocracy, the other two works did not; furthermore, their protagonists were Russian tsars, whose representation on the operatic stage was forbidden. The ban was partly lifted, which made the production of the two operas possible. It remained in force for members of the House of Romanov, however, and that is why, in Musorgsky’s second historical opera, Kho-vanshchina (unfinished; produced posthumously in 1886), the curtain falls before an announced appearance of Peter I; the same happens with Catherine II in Peter Tchaikovsky’s The Queen of Spades (1891). The representation of Orthodox clergy was also forbidden; while the Jesuits in Boris Godunov presented no problem, the Orthodox monks had to be recast as “hermits,” and a scene set in a monastery was omitted. But before 1917 no Russian composer ever withdrew an opera instead of complying with the censor’s demands, nor did anyone try to circumvent the censorship by having a banned Russian opera performed abroad.
After the accession of Alexander III, the crown’s monopoly of theaters was revoked (1882), and private opera companies emerged; Savva Mamontov’s in Moscow became the most famous. In 1885 the Italian troupe was disbanded. Russian opera took over its representative and social functions as well as its repertory. While opera continued to be a favorite of the public, leading Russian composers gradually lost interest in it, turning to ballet and instrumental genres instead. Fairy-tale operas were favored over depictions of Russian history, but Rimsky-Korsakov’s last opera, The Golden Cockerel (after Pushkin, Moscow 1909), is often seen as a satire on Russian autocracy.
Censorship was restored after the 1917 revolution, although it took a different turn. A Life for the Tsar was banned until revised as Ivan Susanin with a new libretto by Sergei Gorodetsky (Moscow 1939). Other pre-1917 operas underwent minor modifications. There were also new operas interpreting history in Soviet terms and even “topical” operas intended to educate the public. Ivan Dzerzhinsky’s “song opera” Quiet Flows the Don (Moscow 1934, after Mikhail Sholokhov’s novel) was held up as a model against Dmitry Shostakovich’s anarchic Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District (1934; not based on history, but in a realistic historical setting), which was banned in 1936. Josef Stalin’s megalomania shows through Sergei Prokofiev’s War and Peace (after Leo Tolstoy’s novel). Composed in response to the German invasion of 1941, this most ambitious of Soviet operas was revised several times and was staged uncut only after the deaths of Stalin and Prokofiev (Moscow 1959).
During the Stalinist era an effort was made to establish national operatic traditions in the various Soviet republics. Russian composers were sent to the republics to collaborate with local composers on operas based on local folklore (and sometimes on local history) that generally sound like Rimsky-Korsakov.
In the post-Stalinist decades, major composers rarely tried their hand at opera. In the late 1980s Alfred Schnittke wrote Life with an Idiot, a surrealist lampoon on Vladimir Lenin after a story by Viktor Yerofeyev. It was premiered abroad (Amsterdam 1992), but in Russian and with a cast including “People’s Artists of the USSR.” Since the fall of the Soviet Union the musical has superseded opera as the leading theatrical genre. It even serves as a medium for patriotic representations of Russian history, such as Nord-Ost, the show staged in Moscow whose performers and audience were taken hostage by Chechen terrorists in 2002.
Outside Russia, Russian history has rarely served as the subject matter for opera. The earliest example is Johann Mattheson’s Boris Goudenow (sic, Hamburg 1710), while the best-known is Albert Lortzing’s Tsar and Carpenter (Leipzig 1837). Lortz-ing’s comic opera exploits the sojourn of Peter I in the Netherlands disguised as a carpenter’s appren1109
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tice. Because of its depiction of a tsar from the Romanov dynasty, it did not reach the Russian stage until 1908. See also: GLINKA, MIKHAIL IVANOVICH; MIGHTY HANDFUL; MUSIC; NATIONAL
ISM IN THE ARTS; RIMSKY-KORSAKOV, NIKOLAI ANDREYEVICH; TCHAIKOVSKY, PETER ILYICH; THEATER
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Buckler, Julie A. (2000). The Literary Lorgnette: Attending Opera in Imperial Russia. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Campbell, Stuart, ed. (1994). Russians on Russian Music, 1830-1880: An Anthology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Campbell, Stuart, ed. (2003). Russians on Russian Music, 1880-1917: An Anthology. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Morrison, Simon Alexander. (2002). Russian Opera and the Symbolist Movement. Berkeley: University of California Press. Sadie, Stanley, ed. (1992). The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. London: Macmillan. Taruskin, Richard. (1993). Opera and Drama in Russia: As Preached and Practiced in the 1860s, 2nd ed. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. Taruskin, Richard. (1997). Defining Russia Musically. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
ALBRECHT GAUB
OPERATION BARBAROSSA
“Operation Barbarossa” was the name given by the Germans to their invasion of the Soviet Union, starting June 22, 1941. The operation was named after the medieval Holy Roman emperor Frederick Barbarossa, whom legend claimed would return to restore Germany’s greatness.
In the last half of 1941 Germany and its allies conquered the Baltic states, Belarus, almost all of Ukraine, and western Russia. They surrounded Leningrad and advanced to the gates of Moscow. The Red Army lost millions of soldiers and thousands of tanks and aircraft as it reeled back from the German onslaught. Nevertheless the Soviet government was able to evacuate entire factories from threatened areas to Siberia and Central Asia. It was able to raise and arm new armies to face the Germans and finally halt their advance. Helped by Germany’s ruthless policy in conquered Slavic areas, the Soviet government was able to rally the population against the invader. By December 1941 the Red Army was able to mount a successful coun-teroffensive against the overextended Germans.