Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  Culturally, matters were more complicated. While non-Russian republics did have their own schools using local languages, everyone from Tallinn to Vladivostok studied Russian in school from an early age. Radio and television programs appeared in various languages but, to give only one example, even Estonian television broadcast the Russian-language Moscow news program “Vremia” every evening. Publications appeared in dozens and even hundreds of so-called Soviet languages, and students could study even at the university level in their union republic’s language. However, all dissertations at the kandidat (roughly, Ph.D.) or doktor level were written in Russian, even by students in Vilnius, Baku, or Kiev. In the Belarusian and Ukrainian republics, even obtaining an elementary education in the local language was not always simple, and parents who insisted too much ran the risk of being branded as nationalist or anti-Soviet.

  The legacy of Soviet Russification in the twenty-first century remains strong but highly differentiated. When Central Asian or Belarusian leaders speak at international fora, it is nearly always in Russian. Arguably, Russian will remain the lingua franca in that region for some time. In the Baltic region, however, one hears little Russian (except by native speakers) and the bilingual street signs of the Soviet era have entirely vanished. For the future, Russification will remain a problem for the Russian Federation, where 20 percent of the total population is not ethnically Russian. Some of these national groups, in particular Tatars and Chechens, seem particularly resistant to further measures of Russification. For its part, the Russian Federation has officially disavowed any desire to Russify its citizens; the future will tell just how seriously one should take this official stance. See also: NATIONALISM IN THE SOVIET UNION; NATIONALISM IN THE TSARIST EMPIRE; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; SLAVOPHILES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Carr?re d’Encausse, H?l?ne. (1979). Decline of an Empire: The Soviet Socialist Republics in Revolt, tr. Martin Sokolinsky and Henry A. La Farge. New York: Newsweek Books. Haltzel, Michael H., et al. (1981). Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855-1914. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hosking, Geoffrey. (1997). Russia: People and Empire. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Kappeler, Andreas. (2001). The Russian Empire: A Multiethnic History, tr. Alfred Clayton. New York: Pearson Education. Martin, Terry. (2001). The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923-1939. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Pipes, Richard. (1964). The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism 1917-1923. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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  Riasanovsky, Nicholas. (1967). Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855. Berkeley: University of California Press. Slezkine, Yuri. (1994). Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Weeks, Theodore R. (1996). Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia: Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1863-1914. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.

  THEODORE R. WEEKS

  RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR

  After brokering the end of the Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895) with the Treaty of Shimonoseki, Russia placed itself on a collision course with Japan over the issue of spheres of influence in Manchuria. Relations between the two countries further deteriorated in 1898, when Russia occupied the Chinese fortress of Port Arthur (now Lu-shun), and again in 1903, when Russian economic interest focused on Korea. Japan’s response to Russia’s aggressive eastern policy became apparent on February 8, 1904 when Admiral Heihachiro Togo launched a surprise attack on Port Arthur. Having won control of the sea, the Japanese began landing land troops at Chemulpo (now Inchon), as far north as possible on the Korean Peninsula to avoid the bad roads. Nonetheless, the weather did not cooperate, and it was six weeks before General Tamemoto Kuroki’s First Army was ready to march around the northern tip of the Bay of Korea and invade the Liao Tung Peninsula.

  Russia, meanwhile, had entered the war unprepared for conflict in Asia. Its military planners had given priority to the empire’s European frontiers and had not dedicated sufficient resources to the defense of its Asian interests. While the Japanese considered mainland northeastern Asia vital to their national security, the Russians viewed the region merely as a colonial interest for potential economic development and wealth. No one understood Russia’s predicament as clearly as War Minister Alexei N. Kuropatkin, who, upon the outbreak of war, resigned his ministerial portfolio, assumed command of the Russian army, and proceeded to Manchuria, where he arrived in March 1904. Since his forces were being transferred from one end of the empire to the other on the single-track and still incomplete Trans-Siberian Railroad, Kuropatkin set up defenses that he hoped would give Russia at least three months to build up its military presence in the Far East.

  Kuropatkin began concentrating troops between Harbin and Liao Yang, but the Japanese thwarted his plan by beginning operations in the middle of March. The Japanese movements unnerved the commander of Port Arthur, General A. M. Stoessel, who immediately appealed to Nicholas II’s personally appointed viceroy for the Far East, Admiral E. I. Alexiev, for help. Alexiev ordered Kuropatkin to attack the Japanese, but the commander-in-chief, holding that he was answerable only to the tsar, refused. Thinking that Port Arthur had supplies enough to withstand a long siege, Kuropatkin had no intention of deviating from his plan. Before this dispute could be resolved, the Japanese forced Kuropatkin’s hand by defeating the Russians in the hotly contested Battle of Nanshan in April.

  With Port Arthur’s supply lines cut after Nan-shan, Kuropatkin no longer had the luxury of waiting until an overwhelming force was assembled. The major battles of the war followed: Va Fan Gou (May), Liao Yang (August), and the river Sha Ho (October), effectively concluding with Mukden in February 1905. The Russians were soundly defeated in each of these battles by an enemy that first out-thought and then outmaneuvered them. Having concentrated three armies under the overall command of Marshal Iwao Oyama, the Japanese were able to fight the war on their own terms. Ironically, by the Battle of Mukden, Kuropatkin had finally achieved numerical superiority just as the Japanese reached the end of their material and human resources, but he, his staff, and the Russian intelligence services never became aware of this advantage and were intimidated by the Japanese army’s maneuverability. Further aggravating the Russian predicament was the inexplicable capitulation of Port Arthur on January 2, 1905. The situation was best described by the numerous military observers representing most of the world’s nations, who noted how unmotivated Russia’s army seemed in comparison to the patriotic Japanese soldiers with their strong sense of national mission.

  A final event that captured the attention of the world was the saga of Russia’s Baltic Fleet. By the autumn of 1904, Russia’s Pacific Fleet lay in ruins, and to regain control of the sea, Nicholas II ordered the Baltic fleet to the Far East. Under the command of Admiral Z. P. Rozhestvensky, the Baltic Fleet sortied on October 15, 1904. Its round-the-world

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  Allegory on Russo-Japanese peace treaty, concluded in Portsmouth, NH. © THE ART ARCHIVE/DOMENICA DEL CORRIERE/DAGLI ORTI (A)

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  voyage attracted the interest of the international press, which reported its attack on British fishing vessels on the Dogger Bank (the Russians mistakenly imagined that they were Japanese warships), its search to find places to refuel and refit ships that had not been designed for such an arduous journey; and its rendezvous with reinforcements at Madagascar. By the time the fleet arrived in Asia, Togo was lying in wait and had little difficulty defeating it in the Battle of the Tsushima Straits on May 27, 1905, which dashed Russia’s last hopes.

  The Russo-Japanese War was the first global conflict of the modern era and the first war in which an emerging Asian nation defeated a European great power. The Japanese victory inflamed Asian nationalism and contributed to the struggle
against colonialism throughout the region. The military debacle exposed the weakness of the tsarist regime and is usually considered the prime cause of the Revolution of 1905. After the complete defeat of Russia’s land and naval forces, the tsar sued for peace. U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt brokered the Treaty of Portsmouth (August 23, 1905), but the Japanese believed that they had lost the peace and did not trust Western diplomacy again until after World War II. Finally, from the technical standpoint, the Russo-Japanese War was a precursor to World War I. Both sides mobilized mass armies and used trenches, machine guns, and rapid-fire artillery-weapons that help define the early twentieth century battlefield. See also: BALTIC FLEET; JAPAN, RELATIONS WITH; KOREA, RELATIONS WITH; KUROPATKIN, ALEXEI NIKO-LAYEVICH; MILITARY, IMPERIAL ERA; PORT ARTHUR, SEIGE OF; PORTSMOUTH, TREATY OF; REVOLUTION OF 1905; TSUSHIMA, BATTLE OF

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Committee of Imperial Defence, Historical Section. (1910-1920). Official History, Naval and Military, of the Russo Japanese War. 3 vols. London: Committee of Imperial Defence. Connaughton, Richard M. (1988). The War of the Rising Sun and Tumbling Bear: A Military History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05. London: Routledge. Corbett, Julian S. (1994). Maritime Operations in the Russo-Japanese War, 1904-05. 2 vols. Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. German General Staff, Historical Section (1909). The Russo-Japanese War, tr. Karl von Donat. 9 vols. London: H. Rees. Kinai, M., ed. (1907). The Russo-Japanese War: Official Reports. 2 vols. Tokyo: Shimashido. United States, War Department, General Staff. (1907). Reports of Military Observers Attached to the Armies in Manchuria during the Russo-Japanese War. 5 parts. Washington, DC, Government Printing Office. Walder, David. (1973). The Short Victorious War: The Russo-Japanese Conflict, 1904-1905. New York: Harper amp; Row. Westwood, J. N. (1986). Russia against Japan, 1904-05: A New Look at the Russo-Japanese War. Albany: State University of New York Press.

  JOHN W. STEINBERG

  RUSSO-PERSIAN WARS

  Disputes over territories along the southwestern coast of the Caspian Sea and in the eastern Tran-scaucasus led to war between Russia and Persia from 1804 to 1813 and again from 1826 to 1828. The military conflict between the two empires was nothing new, but it entered a more decisive stage with the dawning of the nineteenth century. At the root of the first Russo-Persian War was the desire of Shah Fath Ali to secure his northwestern territories in the name of the Qajar dynasty. At the time, Persia’s claims to Karabakh, Shirvan, Talesh, and Shakki seemed precarious in the wake of Russia’s annexation in 1801 of the former kingdom of Georgia, also claimed by Persia. Meanwhile, Russia consolidated this acquisition and resumed its military penetration of border territories constituting parts of modern Azerbaijan and Armenia, with the objective of extending its imperial frontiers to the Aras and Kura rivers.

  War broke out when Prince Paul Tsitsianov marched to Echmiadzin at the head of a column of Russian, Georgian, and Armenian troops. The outnumbered Russian army was unable to overcome the town’s stubborn defense and several weeks later also unsuccessfully besieged Yerevan. Throughout the war, the Russians generally had the strategic initiative but lacked the strength to crush the Persian resistance. Able to commit only about ten thousand troops, a fraction of their total force in the Caucasus, the Russian commanders relied on superior tactics and weapons to overcome a numerical disadvantage of as much as five to one. Overlapping wars with Napoleonic France, Turkey (1806-1812), and Sweden (1808-1809), as well as sporadic tribal uprisings in the Caucasus, distracted the tsar’s attention. Yet state-supported, centralized military organization provided Russian

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  columns with considerable combat power. In contrast, the Persian forces were largely irregular cavalry raised and organized on a tribal basis. Abbas Mirza, heir to the throne, sought French and British instructors to modernize his army, and resorted to a guerrilla strategy that delayed the Persian defeat.

  In 1810, the Persians proclaimed a holy war, but this had little effect on the eventual outcome. The Russian victories at Aslandaz in 1812 and Lankarin in 1813 sealed the verdict in Russia’s favor. Under the Treaty of Golestan, Russia obtained most of the disputed territories, including Dagestan and northern Azerbaijan, and reduced the local khans to the status of vassals.

  Another war between Russia and Persia broke out in 1826 following the death of Alexander I and the subsequent Decembrist revolt. Sensing opportunity, the Persians invaded in July at the instigation of Abbas Mirza, and even won some early victories against the outnumbered forces of General Alexei Yermolov, whose appeals to St. Petersburg for reinforcements went unfulfilled. With only twelve regular battalions, the Russians effectively delayed the Persian advance. A contingent of about eighteen hundred, for instance, held the strategic fortress at Shusha against a greatly superior force. On September 12, a Persian army under the personal command of Abbas Mirza was defeated at Yelizabetpol. In the spring of 1827, the Russian command passed to General Ivan Paske-vich. He captured Yerevan at the end of September and crossed the Aras River to seize Tabriz. In November, Abbas Mirza reluctantly submitted. Under the Treaty of Torkamanchay (February 1828), Persia ceded Yerevan and all the territory up to the Aras River and paid a twenty million ruble indemnity. See also: CAUCASUS; GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS; IRAN, RELATIONS WITH; MILITARY, IMPERIAL ERA

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Atkin, Muriel. (1980). Russia and Iran, 1780-1828. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Curtiss, John S. (1965). The Russian Army under Nicholas I, 1825-1855. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Kazemzadeh, Firuz. (1974). “Russian Penetration of the Caucasus.” In Russian Imperialism: From Ivan the Great to the Revolution, ed. Taras Hunczak. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

  ROBERT F. BAUMANN

  RUSSO-TURKISH WARS

  Between Peter the Great’s outright accession in 1689 and the end of Romanov dynastic rule in 1917, Russia fought eight wars (1695-1696, 1711, 1735-1739, 1768-1774, 1787-1792, 1806-1812, 1828-1829, and 1877-1878) either singly or with allies against the Ottomans. In addition, Turkey joined anti-Russian coalitions during the Crimean War (1854-1856) and World War I (1914-1918). Although these conflicts often bore religious overtones, the fighting was primarily about power and possessions. Early on, Russian incursions into Poland, the Baltics, the Crimea, and the southern steppe threatened useful Ottoman allies. By the second half of the eighteenth century, however, the issue between St. Petersburg and Constantinople had become one of titanic struggle for hegemony over the northern Black Sea and its northern and northwestern littoral. In the nineteenth century, the issue came to involve Russian aspirations for influence in the Balkans and the Middle East, access to the Mediterranean through the Turkish Straits, and hegemony over the Black Sea’s Caucasian and Transcaucasian littoral. As the rivalry became increasingly one-sided in Russia’s favor, St. Petersburg generally advocated maintenance of an enfeebled Turkey that would resist outside interference and influences while supporting Russia’s interests.

  Russia scored its most important successes in the Black Sea basin during Catherine II’s First (1769-1774) and Second (1787-1792) Turkish Wars. In particular, three of her commanders, Peter Alexandrovich Rumyantsev, Alexander Vasile-vich Suvorov, and Grigory Alexandrovich Potemkin, introduced into the fight a winning combination of resolve, assets, tactical mastery, logistics, colonists, and military-administrative support. Subsequently, with Imperial Russian attention and assets diverted elsewhere, and with the increasing interference of the European powers on Turkey’s behalf, St. Petersburg proved unable to repeat Catherine’s successes. Outside interference was no more evident than in the aftermath of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, when considerable Russian gains in the Balkans were virtually erased in June-July 1878 by the Congress of Berlin. See also: MILITARY, IMPERIAL ERA; TURKEY, RELATIONS WITH

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Aksan, Virginia H. (2002). “Ottoman Military Matters.” Journal of Early Modern History 6 (1):52-62.

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  RUTSKO
I, ALEXANDER VLADIMIROVICH

  Kagan, Frederick W., and Higham, Robin, eds. (2002). The Military History of Tsarist Russia. New York: Pal-grave. Menning, Bruce W. (1984). “Russian Military Innovation in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century.” War amp; Society 2 (1):23-41.

  BRUCE W. MENNING

  RUTSKOI, ALEXANDER VLADIMIROVICH

  (b. 1947), vice president of the Russian Federation, governor of Kursk Oblast, general-major of aviation, Hero of the Soviet Union.

  Alexander Rutskoi was born on September 16, 1947 in Kmelnitsky, Ukraine, to a professional military family. He graduated from a pilot training school in 1966 and joined the Soviet Air Forces. In the 1980s he served in Afghanistan as deputy commander, commander of the air regiment, and deputy commander of aviation for the Fortieth Army. He was shot down twice; the second time, his Su-25 crashed in Pakistan, where he was interned and then repatriated. In late 1988 he received the award Hero of the Soviet Union. In 1988 and 1989 he attended the Voroshilov Military Academy of the General Staff. In 1990 he was elected to the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR (Russian Federation) and to the Central Committee of the newly organized Communist Party of the RSFSR. He displayed a strong Russian nationalist bias and in 1991 helped to found Communists for Democracy and supported Boris Yeltsin.

  Yeltsin named Rutskoi as his vice presidential running mate in his successful campaign for the presidency of Russia. During the August Coup (against Gorbachev), Rutskoi organized the defense of the Russian White House. Yeltsin promoted him to the rank of general-major and entrusted him with a number of delicate issues, such as border issue negotiations with Ukraine and Kazakhstan and Chechen independence. When Yeltsin embarked upon radical economic reforms, Rutskoi publicly expressed his doubts concerning the direction of