Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  From September 1781 to August 1782, Paul and his wife made an eleven-month tour that brought them to all the European courts and allowed the future tsar to discover European political models and ways of life.

  After returning to Russia, still deprived of their older sons and of any power, Paul and Maria Fiodor1148

  PAUL I

  ovna lived at Gatchina, a large estate given to them by Catherine. At Gatchina, the tsarevitch had his own court and a personal small army, composed of 2,400 soldiers and 140 officers. Isolated, fascinated by the Prussian model, Paul began to show an abnormal obsession for military parades and processions and started to tyrannize his soldiers. But at the same time, he established a hospital where peasants could receive free medical care, founded a school for the children of his serfs, and was tolerant of the Lutheran faith of his Finnish serfs.

  On November 5, 1796, the death of Catherine made him tsar at the age of forty-two. He made many decisions-more than two thousand ukases in five years-that revealed the rejection of his mother’s heritage, but they were not always consistent. In domestic policy, he first issued on April 1797 a decree establishing the principle of male primogeniture for succession to the throne, so as to eliminate any political turmoil. He proclaimed a general amnesty, freed all of Catherine’s political prisoners, including the thinker Nikolai Novikov, and liberated the twelve thousand Poles kept in Russian jails since the last Polish war of independence led by Tadeusz Kociuszko. His hate for Catherine’s immoral behavior and way of governing brought him to exile his mother’s lovers and to cut down court expenses. His piety led him to forbid landowners from forcing serfs to work on Sundays and on religious feasts, while his mistrust of the nobility led him to impose a new tax on nobles’ estates. All these measures, as well as the reorganization of the Russian military service according to the Prussian model and the reintroduc-tion of corporal punishment for nobles, made him very unpopular quickly among the aristocracy.

  At the same time, deeply hostile to the French Revolution and anxious about its potential impact on the Russian Empire, he heavily censored intellectual and political productions, rejecting the symbols of a French liberal influence in all spheres, even in the more superficial ones such as fashion. Relying on a growing bureaucracy, he reinforced the autocratic regime, condemning random innocents to Siberia or jail to show his unlimited power. He also systematically repressed peasant riots and extended serfdom to the Southern colonies. His domestic policy was therefore a mixture of generous and tyrannical measures.

  In foreign policy, his choices were much more consistent. He pursued his mother’s policy of ex Emperor Paul I by Vladimir Lukic Borovikovsky. © THE STATE RUSSIAN MUSEUM/CORBIS pansionism in the Far East and Caucasus: in 1799, he chartered a Russian-American Company to favor Russian economic and commercial expansion in the North Pacific; and in December 1800 he annexed the kingdom of Georgia. As to war in Europe, he first chose to abstain but finally decided in 1798-1799 to join the Second Coalition against Napoleon I, together with Great Britain, Naples, Portugal, Austria, and the Ottoman Empire. Russian troops obtained brilliant successes: in winter 1798-1799, Admiral Fyodor Ushakov took the Ionian Islands from the French armies and established a republic occupied by the Russians. Meanwhile, General Alexander Suvarov won impressive battles in Italy (Cassano and Novi) and Switzerland in 1798-1800. And in November 1798, opposing Napoleon’s claim to the Island of Malta, Paul agreed to become the protector and Great-Master of the Order of Malta. But in 1800, irritated by the suspicious behavior of his Austrian and British allies and convinced that an alliance with Napoleon could favor the Russian national interests, Paul abruptly

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  PAVLIUCHENKO, LYUDMILA MIKHAILOVNA

  changed his mind. He led Russia into a rapprochement with France and a war against Britain; to this end, in January 1801 he launched a military expedition toward India. These last decisions were perceived as dangerous and even foolish by a faction of the court. Encouraged by Charles Whit-worth, the British ambassador in St. Petersburg, and with the passive complicity of Tsarevitch Alexander, several figures close to the tsar, such as Nikita Panin the young, Count Peter von Pahlen, general governor of St. Petersburg, and Leontii Ben-nigsen, led a conspiracy that culminated with Paul’s brutal assassination in March 1801. See also: CATHERINE II; NOVIKOV, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH Pavliuchenko volunteered for military service during the summer of 1941 and became an expert sniper for the Independent Maritime Army in Odessa and Sevastopol. Invited by Eleanor Roosevelt, she toured North America in August 1942 and was presented with a Winchester rifle in Toronto. In 1943 she completed the Vystrel Courses for Officers. On graduating from Kiev University in 1945, she became a military historian and journalist. Affected with a concussion and wounded four times, Pavliuchenko died prematurely and was buried at the prestigious Novode-vichye Cemetery in Moscow. See also: AVIATION; WORLD WAR II

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  McGrew, Roderick Erle. (1992). Paul I of Russia, 1754-1801. Oxford: Clarendon Press; New York: Oxford University Press. Ragsdale, Hugh. (1998). Tsar Paul and the Question of Madness: An Essay in History and Psychology. New York: Greenwood Press.

  MARIE-PIERRE REY

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Cottam, Kazimiera J. (1998). Women in War and Resistance: Selected Biographies. Nepean, Canada: New Military Publishing. Pavlichenko, Liudmila Mikhailovna. (1977). “I was a sniper.” In The Road of Battle and Glory, ed. I.M. Dan-ishevsky, tr. David Skvirsky. Moscow: Politizdat.

  KAZIMIERA J. COTTAM

  PAVLIUCHENKO, LYUDMILA MIKHAILOVNA

  (1916-1974), soldier, historian, and journalist.

  A World War II heroine who a became champion sniper with 309 kills to her credit, including thirty-six enemy snipers, Pavlyuchenko was the first Soviet citizen received at the White House. She retired at the rank of major after serving in the No. 2 Company, Second Battalion, 54th Razin Regiment, 25th “V.I. Chapayev” Division of the Independent Maritime Army, and was awarded the status of Hero of the Soviet Union on 25 October 1943.

  Born in Belaya Tserkov, Pavliuchenko completed high school while working in the Arsenal factory in Kiev, where she mastered small arms in a military club. She also trained as a sniper at the paramilitary Osoaviakhim (loosely translated as “Society for the Promotion of Aviation and Chemical Defense”) and took up hang-gliding and parachuting. After enrolling at the State University of Kiev, she successfully defended her master’s thesis on Bohdan Khmelnitsky.

  PAVLOVA, ANNA MATVEYEVNA

  (1881-1931), the most famous of Russian ballerinas.

  Anna Matveyevna Pavlova (patronymic later changed to Pavlovna) began her career in the St. Petersburg Imperial Theaters in 1898, which ended amidst her usual flurry of performing in 1930, only weeks before her death. Pavlova’s rise to the rank of ballerina in the Imperial Theaters (by 1906) was rapid, though her artistic breakthrough came the following year, when she appeared in several short works choreographed by Michel Fokine. Two of these works (Les Sylphides and Le Pavillon d’Armide) would join the roster of Serge Diagilev’s Ballets Russes (as would their star performers, Pavlova and Vaslav Nijinsky). Both the ballets and dancers achieved unprecedented fame in that company’s Paris season of 1909. Pavlova debuted another Fokine composition in St. Petersburg in 1908, a solo that would become her signature work and that remains strongly identified with her: The Swan, to music of Camille Saint-Sa?ns. Popularly known as the dying swan, this evanescent figure suited Pavlova’s physical type and stage temperament. Pavlova excelled in ethereal, romantic roles such as

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  PAVLOV, IVAN PETROVICH

  Prima ballerina Anna Pavlova is considered one of the premier dancers of the twentieth century. © CORBIS. REPRODUCED BY PERMISSION. “Giselle,” and would later create for herself a multitude of roles in which she portrayed butterflies, roses, snowflakes, dragonflies, poppies, leaves, and various other delicate creatures. After achieving international stardom with Diagilev’s Ballets Russes, Pavlova struck out on
her own, first negotiating an enviable contract with the Imperial Theaters, and subsequently abandoning the Russian stage to settle in London. In twenty years of touring the globe, Pavlova came to personify the peripatetic Russian ballerina, the touring star whose only home was the stage. See also: BALLET; NIJINKSY, VASLAV FOMICH

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Money, Keith. (1982). Pavlova: Her Art and Life. New York: Knopf.

  TIM SCHOLL

  PAVLOV, IVAN PETROVICH

  (1849-1936), Russian physiologist and Nobel Prize winner.

  Ivan Pavlov was born in Ryazan. His father, a local priest, wanted him to attend the theological seminary, but Pavlov’s interest in natural sciences led him to enroll in St. Petersburg University in 1870. In 1883 he completed his doctoral dissertation and in 1890 became professor and head of the physiology division of the St. Petersburg Institute of Experimental Medicine, where he remained until 1925. Pavlov’s work on the functioning of the digestive system earned him the Nobel Prize in 1904. His originality lay in his approach to physiology, which considered the coordinated functioning of the organism as a whole, as well as his innovative surgical technique, which allowed him to observe digestion in live animals.

  Pavlov’s most well known research involved the study of conditioned reflexes. In his famous experiment, he placed a dog in a room free of all distractions. He found that the dog, accustomed to hearing a bell ring when being fed, would eventually salivate at the sound of the bell alone. Pavlov also applied his findings to the human nervous system. His work advanced the understanding of physiology and influenced international developments in medicine, psychology, and pedagogy.

  Pavlov did not support the Bolshevik Revolution and in 1920 asked for permission to leave with his family. Vladimir Lenin, aware of the international prestige Pavlov brought to science in the Soviet Union, personally intervened to guarantee the resources for Pavlov to continue his research. In 1935, the International Congress of Physiologists awarded Pavlov the distinction of world senior physiologist. He died of pneumonia in Leningrad at the age of eighty-seven. See also: EDUCATION

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Joravsky, David. (1989). Russian Psychology: A Critical History. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Porter, Roy, ed. (1994). The Biographical Dictionary of Scientists, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press.

  SHARON A. KOWALSKY

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  PAVLOV, VALENTIN SERGEYEVICH

  PAVLOV, VALENTIN SERGEYEVICH

  (1937-2003), prime minister.

  Valentin Sergeyevich Pavlov was Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s minister of finance when per-estroika was in full swing during the 1980s and the last prime minister of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics before its collapse. Discharged on August 22, 1991 by President Gorbachev’s decree for his role in the coup attempt that month, Pavlov was arrested a week later, imprisoned for sixteen months, and finally amnestied in May 1994. He died on March 30, 2003, at the age of sixty-five.

  For most of his career, Pavlov occupied positions in the Russian SFSR and USSR related to finance. Having joined the Communist Party in 1962, he headed the Finance Department in the State Planning Committee (Gosplan) in 1979. After working briefly as first deputy finance minister in Nikolai Ryzhkov’s government in 1986, Pavlov became chairman of the State Committee for Prices from August 1986 to June 1989. With approval of the party leadership, Pavlov reformed prices, withdrawing high-denomination notes from circulation overnight. This act caused a financial crisis and a great measure of unpopularity for him. Frustrated by his inability to maintain a grip on the ruble’s value, while allowing the Soviet economy some small exposure to the free market, Pavlov blamed a plot by western banks for his decision to withdraw the bank notes. As the Soviet economy grew increasingly unstable and inflation skyrocketed, Pavlov tried other unpopular economic measures, but soon realized that the political and economic crisis was out of his control. The contradictions between Gorbachev’s desire to reform the Soviet Union and keep it intact came to a head in August 1991. While the president was resting on the Black Sea, KGB chief Vladimir Kryuchkov formed the “State Committee for the State of Emergency” and placed Gorbachev under house arrest.

  Along with eleven other men, Pavlov joined the emergency committee on August 19, 1991. This was no doubt Pavlov’s least distinguished moment. Rather than conducting himself as a viable substitute for the supposedly ill president, Pavlov stayed in bed, claiming that he was too sick. His co-conspirators later said that he spent much of the three days of the attempted coup drunk. See also: AUGUST 1991 PUTSCH; PERESTROIKA

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Copson, Raymond W. (1991). Soviet Coup Attempt: Background and Implications. Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service. Goldman, Marshall I. (1987). Gorbachev’s Challenge: Economic Reform in the Age of High Technology. New York: Norton. Matlock, Jack F. (1995). Autopsy on an Empire: the American Ambassador’s Account of the Collapse of the Soviet Union. New York: Random House.

  JOHANNA GRANVILLE

  PEASANT ECONOMY

  The term peasant economy refers to modes of rural economic activity with certain defined characteristics. The first characteristic is that the basic unit of production is the household; therefore, the demographic composition of the household was of paramount importance in determining the volume of output, the percentage of output consumed by the household, and, thus, the net remainder to be used for investment or savings. Second, the majority of household income is derived from agricultural production, that is, the household is dependent upon its own labor. Third, because the household depended upon agricultural production for survival, peasant households were assumed to be conservative and resistant to changes that would threaten their survival. In particular, a school of thought called the “moral economy” arose, which argued that peasant households would resist the commercialization of agriculture because it violated their values and beliefs-their moral economy-and attempted to replace the patterns of interaction among personal networks in the villages with impersonal transactions based on market principles.

  Perhaps the greatest theorist of the peasant economy was a Russian economist named Alexander Chayanov, who lived from 1888 to 1939. Chayanov published a book entitled Peasant Farm Organization, which postulated a theory of peasant economy with application for peasant economies beyond Russia. He argued that the laws of classical economics do not fit the peasant economy; in other words, production in a household was not based upon the profit motive or the ownership of the means of production, but rather by calculations made by households as consumers and workers. In modern terminology, the family satisfied rather than maximized profit.

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  PEASANTRY

  According to Chayanov, the basic principle for understanding the peasant economy was the balance between the household member as a laborer and as a consumer. Peasant households and their members could either increase the number of hours they worked, or work more intensively, or sometimes both. The calculation made by households whether to work more or not was subjective, based upon an estimate of how much production was needed for survival (consumption) and how much was desired for investment to increase the family’s productive potential. Those estimates were balanced against the unattractiveness of agricultural labor. Households sought to reach an equilibrium between production increases and the disutility of increased labor. In short, households increased their production as long as production gains outweighed the negative aspects of increased labor. This principle of labor production in the peasant economy led Chayanov to argue that the optimal size of the agricultural production unit varied according to the sector of production at a time the official policy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was pushing for large collective farms. As a result of this disagreement with Marxist economists and the Party line, Chayanov was arrested in 1930 and executed in 1939.

  Josef Stalin’s collectivization, begun in 1929, fundamentally changed the basis of the Russian peasant economy by forcibly incorporatin
g households into large farms, the latter becoming the basic production unit of Soviet agriculture. Moreover, production decisions were removed from the household and were no longer based upon the demographic composition of the household.

  Even during the Stalin period, however, peasant resistance to mass collectivization and food shortages forced a compromise that allowed continued small-scale agricultural production by households in kitchen gardens or so-called private plots, and the sale of a portion of their produce at farm markets, which were free from state control. Consequently, peasant agriculture did not disappear with collectivization and continues to survive in Russia during the early twenty-first century, but on a much reduced scale. See also: CHAYANOV, ALEXANDER VASILIEVICH; COLLECTIVIZATION OF AGRICULTURE; PEASANTRY; STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Chayanov, A. V. (1966). The Theory of Peasant Economy, ed. Daniel Thorner, Basile Kerblay, and R. E. F. Smith. Homewood, IL: Irwin. Danilov, Viktor P. (1988). Rural Russia under the New Regime. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Scott, James C. (1976). The Moral Economy of the Peasant: Rebellion and Subsistence in Southeast Asia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.