Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  JOHANNA GRANVILLE

  RUSSIAN STATE LIBRARY

  The Russian State Library is the largest library in Russia; the second largest library in the world after the Library of Congress, with holdings of more than forty-two million volumes. It is also a major scientific research center for library studies, bibliography, and book studies.

  Founded in the center of Moscow in 1862 as the Moscow Public Museum and Rumyantsev Museum, the Russian State Library had its origins in the library of Count Nikolai Rumyantsev (1754-1826), whose outstanding collection of books, manuscripts, and cartographic materials, including 710 manuscripts and 28,500 books, was donated to the Russian state to form the Rumyant-sev Museum in St. Petersburg in 1831. The library was administered by the Imperial Public Library from 1845 to 1861, when it was transferred to Moscow. The new library grew rapidly by means of its status as a legal depository of all publications issued in the Russian empire, a privilege granted until 1862 to only three libraries: the Imperial Public Library, the Library of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Helsinki University Library. It also benefited from collections donated by some of Russian’s most prominent public figures, scholars, scientists, and writers, and by their families.

  In the prerevolutionary period, the library received more than three hundred private book collections, including those of statesman Avraam Norov; bibliographer and bibliophile Sergei Poltorat-sky; philosopher Pyotr Chaadayev; writer Prince Vladimir Odoyevsky, who served as deputy director of the Imperial Public Library and director of the Rumyantsev Museum from 1846 until it moved to Moscow; and Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, wife of Tsar Nicholas II. The library also acquired book and manuscript collections of writers Gavriil Derzhavin, Vasily Zhukovsky, Alexander Pushkin, Alexander Veltman, Fyodor Tyutchev, Nikolai Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov, Afanasy Fet, Alexander Herzen, Nikolai Nekrasov, Alexander Ostrovsky, Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov, Vasily Rozanov, Valery Bryusov, Alexander Blok, Mikhail Bulgakov, Kornei Chukovsky, Isaac Babel, and Sergei Yesenin; literary scholars Alexander Pypin, Izmail Sreznevsky, Alexei Sobolevsky, Boris Toma-shevsky, Pavel Sakulin, and Nikolai Gudzy; historians Vasily Klyuchevsky, Nikolai Karamzin, Mikhail Pogodin, and Sergei Soloviev; and librarians and bibliographers Vasily Sobolshchikov, Vladimir Mezhov, and Nikolai Lisovsky, among others. Within fifty years of its founding, it had become one of the preeminent cultural and educational institutions of Russia, combing the roles of public library, treasury of manuscripts and decorative art, and archeological and ethnographic museum.

  With the nationalization of libraries and cultural institutions after the October 1917 Revolution and the move of the capital from St. Petersburg to Moscow in 1918, it became the main library of

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  the country. Its name, which had changed in 1869 to Moscow Public and Rumyantsev Museum and in 1913 to Imperial Moscow and Rumyantsev Museum, changed again in 1917 to State Rumyantsev Museum. In 1921 the library was reorganized to become separate from the museum: It was assigned the function of a state repository, and granted the status of national library. In 1924 its name was changed to V. I. Lenin All-Russian Public Library, in 1925 to V. I. Lenin State Library of the USSR, in accordance with its new status as the national library of the USSR, and in 1992, with the dissolution of the USSR, to Russian State Library.

  The Manuscript Division holds works dating from the earliest years of Slavonic script. These include the Arkhangelsk Gospel of 1092, the Mariin-skoe Gospel of the eleventh century, and the Khitrovo Gospel of the late fourteenth to early fifteenth century. It possesses a valuable collection of West European manuscripts, dating as early as the twelfth century, as well as Greek, Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese manuscripts. The library has holdings estimated at 80 percent of all known books printed in Cyrillic script from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, including examples of early Russian printing associated with printer Ivan Fyodorov and typographer Pyotr Mstislavets, and a vast collection of eighteenth-century books printed in the civil script developed for secular works. Highlights include first and lifetime editions of Renaissance thinkers and scientists, including Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo, Giordano Bruno, Ren? Descartes, Johannes Kepler, and Sir Thomas More. The library prides itself on its rare editions of outstanding Russian and foreign representatives of culture and science, including Dmitry Mendeleyev, Nikolai Lobachevsky, Ivan Pavlov, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Albert Einstein, William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes Saave-dra, Voltaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, George Gordon Byron, Heinrich Heine, Honor? de Balzac, Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, ?mile Zola, and Bernard Shaw.

  The library was originally housed in the former residence of retired military officer Pyotr Pashkov, in a building known as Pashkov House, built by architect Vasily Bazhenov from 1784 to 1786 in the Russian classical style. The building had a reading room for twenty people and was expanded over many decades to accommodate readers and collections. In 1958 construction was completed on a new library building adjacent to the original building, with reading rooms for more than 2,000 readers. In addition, a branch opened in 1975 in Khimki on the outskirts of Moscow to house newspapers and dissertations. While focused on collection, preservation, and service relating to Russia’s cultural heritage, the library’s mission reflects its status as one of the world’s finest repositories of the creative and intellectual output of humankind. See also: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF RUSSIA

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Davis, Robert H., Jr., and Kasinec, Edward. (2001). “Russian State Library, Moscow.” In International Dictionary of Library Histories, vol. 2, ed. David H. Stam. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn. The State Lenin Library of the USSR, 1862-1987. (1987). Moscow: State Library of the USSR.

  JANICE T. PILCH

  RUSSIA’S DEMOCRATIC CHOICE

  Russia’s Democratic Choice (Demokratichesky Vy-bor Rossii, or DVR) was a party with a liberal-democratic orientation, in favor of deeper market restructuring combined with minimal government involvement and feasible social programs. It was formed in the spring of 1994 out of the Duma fraction of the reformist pro-government bloc that was known as “Russia’s Choice.” The voters’ list of the latter, led by Vice-Premier Yegor Gaidar, defender of rights Sergei Kovalev, and Minister of Social Security Ella Pamfilova, received 8.3 million votes (15.5%, second place), and forty Duma seats. Moreover, twenty-four candidates were elected in single-mandate districts, allowing them to form the largest fraction, amounting to seventy-six delegates. The political ambitions of numerous “Russia’s Choice” leaders, disagreement over the Chechnya war, and the party’s and fraction’s loss of status and power led to the loss of many members, and at the end of the term only fifty-two delegates remained.

  Russia’s Democratic Choice entered the 1995 elections with an array of smaller, democratically oriented parties, in the bloc “Russia’s Democratic Choice-United Democrats.” Of the first three names on the list, Gaidar and Kovalev remained, but the

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  actress Lidia Fedoseyeva Shushkina replaced Ella Pamfilova, who had established her own nominal bloc. The 1993 campaign slogan “Freedom, property, lawfulness” was exchanged for “Peace, welfare, justice.” However, without administrative resources, and with the splintering of the democratic electorate among several electoral associations, the bloc collapsed, winning only 2.7 million votes (3.9%). Nine delegates from single-mandate districts constituted an unregistered delegate group, working with Yabloko. The DVR governmental positions were temporarily weakened, but with the arrival of Anatoly Chubais, first as leader of Boris Yeltsin’s election campaign in 1996, then in the presidential administration and government, they were strengthened again. The Institute of Transitional Economy, founded by Yegor Gaidar after his exit from government in 1992 and closely aligned with the government’s economic branch, played an integral role in DVR policy formation and training. In the 1999 elections, the party en
joyed success as part of the bloc “Union of Right Forces,” (SPS), which Gaidar co-chaired. In May 2001, on the threshold of new elections, the SPS became a party with its own membership, at which point the DVR dissolved, along with other “forces of the right.” See also: CHUBAIS, ANATOLY BORISOVICH; GAIDAR, YEGOR TIMUROVICH; KOVALEV, SERGEI ADAMOVICH; UNION OF RIGHT FORCES; YABLOKO; YELTSIN, BORIS NIKOLEYE-VICH

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  McFaul, Michael. (2001). Russia’s Unfinished Revolution: Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. McFaul, Michael, and Markov, Sergei. (1993). The Troubled Birth of Russian Democracy: Parties, Personalities, and Programs. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution Press. McFaul, Michael and Petrov, Nikolai, eds. (1995). Previewing Russia’s 1995 Parliamentary Elections. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. McFaul, Michael; Petrov, Nikolai; and Ryabov, Andrei, eds. (1999). Primer on Russia’s 1999 Duma Elections. Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Reddaway, Peter, and Glinski, Dmitri. (2001). The Tragedy of Russia’s Reforms: Market Bolshevism against Democracy. Washington, DC: U. S. Institute of Peace Press.

  NIKOLAI PETROV

  RUSSIFICATION

  The term Russification refers to policies designed to spread Russian culture and language among non-Russians. These programs date from the late eighteenth century, but gained importance from the 1860s. Recent historiography has discredited earlier accounts that posited a consistent plan by the tsarist government to assimilate non-Russians. Still, St. Petersburg certainly viewed Russian as the empire’s predominant language, considering it natural for non-Russians to learn Russian as a means of inter-ethnic communication. While the USSR officially rejected Russification, in fact the Soviet government was vastly more successful in spreading the Russian language than its tsarist predecessors. In the post-Soviet era, nationalities such as the Tatars and Chechens often complain bitterly that the pressure of Russification has not diminished since 1992.

  TYPES OF RUSSIFICATION

  An American historian, Edward C. Thaden, proposed a useful distinction between three types of Russification: unplanned, administrative, and cultural. By unplanned Russification, Thaden meant natural processes of cultural assimilation by which certain individuals or groups took on the Russian language, and often the Russian Orthodox religion, as well. Administrative Russification refers to official policies such as those requiring the use of Russian throughout all branches of the government, and is often difficult to distinguish from centralization. Cultural Russification, finally, is the effort to assimilate entire populations, replacing their original culture with Russian. Cultural Russifica-tion was uncommon in the imperial period, though rather more frequent under the Soviets. Both unplanned and administrative Russification, however, played an important role in Russian nationality policy.

  RUSSIFICATION UNDER THE TSARS

  Unplanned Russification on an individual basis began early in the Muscovite period. As Muscovite power increased, in particular after the conquest of the Tatar capital of Kazan in 1552, the prestige of Russian culture grew and, with it, its attractiveness to non-Russians. Moscow encouraged its new subjects to adopt Russian Orthodoxy, but these efforts were neither particularly energetic nor consistent. Only in the mid-eighteenth century was a

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  concerted program attempted, aimed at converting animists and Muslims in the Volga region. Under this program, many Tatars and nearly all Mord-vins, Chuvash, and Votyaks converted.

  Catherine the Great pressed forward with administrative Russification, particularly in the lands gained for Russia in the Polish partitions and by her wars against the Turks. Catherine did not, however, envision Russifying the population of this territory culturally. She aimed rather at rationalizing the administration of these newly acquired lands, tying them more closely to St. Petersburg. Even here her successes were rather modest.

  Policies resembling cultural Russification appear for the first time during the reign of Tsar Nicholas I. Of key importance here is the concept of official nationality. Nicholas’s Minister of Education, Sergei Uvarov, formulated this ideology, easily encapsulated in the phrase “orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality.” Uvarov aimed to create a modern Russian nation, united in its loyalty to the tsar, sharing the moral fundament of Russian Orthodoxy, and speaking the Russian language. Official nationalism would appear to be a blatant case of cultural Russification, aimed at the total assimilation of non-Russian cultures. Actually, Uvarov was primarily concerned with encouraging dynastic patriotism and morality: “Nationality” was, after all, the third and last element of his tripartite formula. Uvarov did hope that, over time, the tsar’s German, Asian, and Baltic subjects would adopt Russian culture, but he did little on a practical level to affect such a change.

  Two of the most problematic ethnic groups for Imperial Russia were the Poles and Jews. From 1815 to 1830, the Poles enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy in the Kingdom of Poland. After the Polish insurrection of 1831, this autonomy was considerably reduced, but only after a second uprising, in 1863, did St. Petersburg adopt policies of cultural Russification. Though Polish was not entirely banned from education, imported Russian teachers set the tone. In any case, private education in Polish was forbidden. Despite all prohibitions, Polish culture continued to flourish during these decades, though Russian policies contributed to the high illiteracy rate among Poles.

  For official Russia, Jews appeared to be both religiously and culturally alien. Various programs throughout the nineteenth century aimed to modernize the Jewish community, in other words to make Jews more like educated Russians. These measures had little impact, partly because Jews widely regarded them as mere fronts for religious conversion. Only toward the end of the century did there arise a significant and rapidly growing group of Russian Jews. Indeed, the adoption of Russian culture by these Jews may be seen as one of Rus-sification’s few successes.

  Few Russians considered Ukrainians and Be-larusians to be separate national groups before the twentieth century. These two East Slavic groups, mainly Orthodox in religion, spoke languages that were generally seen as mere dialects of Russian. When Ukrainian nationalism gained strength from the 1860s, St. Petersburg responded with a prohibition on publishing in the Ukrainian language. Schools in Ukrainian and Belarusian areas taught in Russian, which the pupils could not always understand. Only after 1905 did Belarusians and Ukrainians gain the right to use their languages in publications and education.

  During the nineteenth century, the Russian Empire acquired enormous lands in Central Asia. Administrative Russification was practiced here, and some schools for indigenous children were set up. Interest in the Russian language spread among the younger generation of educated Muslims, especially Tatars, toward the end of the century. On the whole, however, St. Petersburg lacked the funds and interest to target these groups for intensive cultural integration.

  RUSSIFICATION UNDER THE SOVIETS

  Officially, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir I. Ulyanov (Lenin), explicitly repudiated all forms of national chauvinism, including Russification. In practice, the situation was more complicated. Lenin’s insistence on a highly centralized party had already led to clashes with Jewish socialists (the Bund). The Bolsheviks supported national self-determination and condemned repressive policies toward non-Russians. Yet, as Marxists, they were primarily interested in creating a proletarian socialist culture. They were therefore quick to denounce bourgeois nationalism. After 1917, despite various programs to encourage the development of national (that is, non-Russian) cultures, party centralization meant that anyone wishing to reach the top of the Soviet hierarchy needed to be fluent in Russian and adopt many aspects of Russian-Soviet culture. One example of this is the Russian-style patronymics and surnames adopted by communist activists in Muslim republics of Central Asia.

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  Upon seizing power in late 1917, the Bolsheviks quickly issued a �
��Declaration to the Peoples of Russia,” pledging an end to any national or religious discrimination, guaranteeing free cultural development, and even endorsing national self-determination. The actions of the Bolsheviks in the ensuing civil war years, however, made clear that while cultural development could be accepted and even encouraged, political autonomy, much less secession, would not be tolerated. The civil war brought Ukraine, the Caucasus, and Belarus back under Moscow’s control. The Soviet Constitution of 1924 set down an ostensibly federal, but in fact highly centralized, state structure. The USSR, as its name implied, consisted of individual Soviet Socialist Republics (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian; later Kazakh, Georgian, and so on), all of which officially had the right to secede from the Union. This possibility remained a dead letter until the late 1980s when the Baltic republics, seized by Stalin in the early 1940s, dared to make real use of this hitherto only theoretical right.

  During the Soviet period administrative Russi-fication was nearly total; all official documents from stamps to passports to postal forms were printed in Russian or, in union republics, in Russian and the republic language, say, Latvian. Communications within the enormous bureaucracy took place in Russian, and even a Central Asian factory director or Armenian professor needed to know Russian fluently. The material and prestige value of Russian within the USSR meant that a considerable amount of unplanned Russification or simple cultural assimilation took place. Mixed marriages between Russians and members of other nationalities, for instance, most often produced Russian-speaking offspring. Many smaller nationalities, in particular within the Russian Republic (RSFSR), witnessed considerable rates of Russifica-tion, prompting national leaders in the post-Soviet period, for example in Tatarstan, to complain of the widespread de-nationalization of their people during Soviet rule.