by James Millar
PETER ROLLBERG
THIN JOURNALS
Whereas “thick” journals circulated among the intelligentsia and established a critical forum for political discussion among Russia’s elites, “thin” journals were marketed toward those developing a civic consciousness and awareness of the outside world in post-Great Reform society. Combining the journalistic tradition of specialized, entertaining journals such as the humorous Oskolki (Splinters) or Teatr i zhizn’ (The Theater and Life) for theatergoers with informative and educational features, thin journals helped to give the reading public a broad worldview.
The most successful of these journals was A. F. Marx’s Niva (The Cornfield), founded in 1870. Though Marx was aiming for a family audience, he quickly tapped into the expanding provincial audience, especially schoolteachers and those whom they educated, Russia’s burgeoning middle classes. Offering Russia’s literary classics as supplements, Niva enjoyed a circulation of 200,000 by the turn of the twentieth century. Readers who could not afford even its modest price could still find this and other thin journals in their village libraries.
Eventually, Niva faced competition from other journals that adapted its formula of combining di1541
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dactic and entertaining features. A. A. Kaspari’s Rodina (The Motherland), for example, founded in 1879, appealed specifically to members of the lower classes who desired self-improvement. Two preeminent newspaper publishers also entered the thin journal market, S. M. Propper and I. D. Sytin, both of whom lowered prices and increased the news component. Propper’s Ogonek (The Flame), founded in 1908, ultimately became the most widely circulated of these journals, reaching 700,000 subscribers by 1914. Sytin purchased Vokrug sveta (Around the World) in 1891, and though circulation never topped 50,000, the journal offered a vision of life beyond Russia’s borders. Both of these journals continued publication into the Soviet era, with modified editorial content.
Thin journals stimulated the voracious Russian reading appetite, which the subsequent Soviet government fed with its own variety of thin journals, from the satirical Krokodil (The Crocodile) to the informational Za Rubezhem (Abroad). Despite censorship, the tradition of thin journals helped many Russians develop interest and glean information about the world. See also: GLASNOST; INTELLIGENTSIA; JOURNALISM; NEW ECONOMIC POLICY; PERESTROIKA; THICK JOURNALS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brooks, Jeffrey. (1985). When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Lovell, Stephen. (2000). The Russian Reading Revolution: Print Culture in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Eras. London: Macmillan.
LOUISE MCREYNOLDS
THIRD PARTY PROGRAM See KHRUSHCHEV,
NIKITA SERGEYEVICH.
THIRD ROME
Third Rome refers to the doctrine that Russia or, specifically, Moscow succeeded Rome and Byzantium Rome as the ultimate center of true Christianity and of the Roman Empire. This is the most generally misunderstood and abused of the several expressions of Russia’s new place in the world re1542 sulting from domestic and international events of the 1430s and 1520s. The monk Filofei of the Pskov-Eliazarov monastery formulated it in one or two epistles, written between 1523 and 1526, which were then reworked during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Neither epistle survives in its original form or a manuscript assuredly from Filofei’s time. The first, probably written in 1523 to 1524 to the state-secretary administrator of Pskov, Mikhail Misiur-Munekhin, attacks astrology, the Roman Catholic Church, and the claims of the Holy Roman Empire, and in this connection asserts that Russia, with Moscow’s Dormition Cathedral at its center, is the third and final Roman Empire according to the prophetic books. Filofei’s unnamed opponent was Basil III’s German physician Nicholas B?lew, who promoted astrology and Church union with Rome. The second epistle, addressed to an unnamed tsar- perhaps Basil III (1524-1526) or possibly Ivan IV (1533-1584)-and conceivably not by Filofei at all, calls upon the addressee to enforce the proper application of the sign of the cross by his subjects; protect church wealth; suppress homosexuality; be an ethical, just, and pious ruler; and, in oblique form, fill hierarchical vacancies.
Third Rome thinking served to elevate Russia’s conception of its place within the Orthodox Christian world and the requirement to preserve the faith and its rituals in unadulterated form. If this potentially messianic doctrine played a role in the establishment of the Russian patriarchate in 1589, and may have helped Russians acquire a sense of responsibility toward the Orthodox and later Uni-ate subjects of Poland-Lithuania and the Ottoman Empire, at no time did it figure in aggressive policies toward non-Orthodox or non-Uniate peoples. Modern attempts to enshrine it as an essential element of Russian consciousness since the early 1500s have no basis.
The Christian notion of migrating sacrosanct goes back to the foundation of Constantinople as New Rome (still in the official title of the patriarch of Constantinople) and its subsequent claims to be a New Jerusalem, the center of a messianic kingdom. In the course of competing with Byzantium, even before the Eastern and Western Churches separated (over the course of the 860s to 1054), the German (Holy Roman) emperors also claimed to represent the true Rome. Similarly, while the Byzantine Empire still existed, among the Orthodox Slavs, Bulgarians claimed that their capital, in
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
THIRTEEN YEARS’ WAR
this case, Trnovo, was the New Imperial City (Constantinople) in the 1300s.
Russians did not seriously dispute Byzantium’s pretenses until after the Council of Ferrera-Florence, from 1438 to 1439, when factions of the Greek and Russian Orthodox church accepted union with Rome. By defending Orthodoxy against Roman Catholicism, the Moscow metropolitans treated first Basil II and then Ivan III as new Constantine. With the fall of Constantinople to the Ottomans in 1453, Muscovy/Russia became the Orthodox monarchy. As Ivan III discarded the legal and ceremonial remnants of subordination to the Qipchak (Golden Horde) khans during the period of 1476 to 1480, Archbishop Vassian Rylo of Rostov argued the absurdity of an inviolable oath from a genuine tsar to a false one of brigand descent. In presenting new Eastern tables for the years following the year 1492 C.E., which Orthodox calendars considered to be the millennial year 7000 since Creation, Metropolitan Zosima declared Moscow to be the new Constantinople, which itself was the New Rome in one early copy and New Jerusalem in several others. Ivan’s diplomacy vis-?-vis Imperial German pretenses on the 1480s to 1490s and the coronation ceremony of his grandson Dmitry in 1498 emphasized the historic equality of Russia and Byzantium’s rulers. In the 1510s Joseph of Volok, while claiming that the Orthodox Tsar is in power like unto God, asserted that any wavering from Orthodoxy would lead to the fall of Russia, as other Orthodox kingdoms had ended due to apostasy. Historical works produced in the 1520s by this school of thought (Russian Chronograph, Nikon Chronicle) underscored the preeminence of Russia among Orthodox realms, while genealogical inventions used for state diplomacy asserted Roman dynastic origins of Russia’s ruling house.
Filofei was not the only Russian churchman of his time to oppose B?lew’s ideas; so did Metropolitan Daniel and Maksim Grek. Others also asserted a new world-historic claim for Russia. See also: BASIL II; BASIL III; CATHEDRAL OF THE DORMI-TION; IVAN III; IVAN IV; PATRIARCHATE; POSSESSORS AND NON-POSSESSORS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ostrowski, Donald. (1998). Muscovy and the Mongols: Cross-Cultural Influences on the Steppe Frontier, 1304-1589. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
Poe, Marshall. (2001). “Moscow, the Third Rome: The Origins and Transformation of a ‘Pivotal Moment.’” Jahrb?cher f?r Geschichte Osteuropas 49:412-29.
DAVID M. GOLDFRANK
THIRTEEN YEARS’ WAR
The Thirteen Years’ War (1654-1667) consisted of three phases of conflict between Muscovy, Poland-Lithuania, and Sweden. Its roots can be found in Bogdan Khmelnitsky’s Cossack revolt
against Poland-Lithuania, which began in 1648. The Russians supported the Cossacks initially with favorable trade contacts and military supplies, and then eventually, following the 1653 Polish invasion of Ukraine, the Russians allied themselves formally with the Cossacks and entered the war in 1654.
Muscovy’s Tsar Alexei led around 100,000 men, including his Zaporozhian Cossack allies, into Polish-Lithuanian territory and thus began the first phase of the war. The Russians enjoyed initial success, overwhelming the Polish forces and taking several important towns, such as Smolensk, Mogilev, and Vitebsk. Russian and Cossack forces regained much of the Ukrainian territories and even invaded Poland as far as the town of Brest. The Polish-Lithuanians counterattacked but could not dislodge the Russians. Poland’s King John II Casimir, who had fled the country, managed to negotiate a truce with the Russians, and hostilities temporarily ended between the two nations with a three-year truce (1656).
At this point, while Sweden was involved in the First Northern War (1655-1660) against Poland and Denmark, Muscovy sought to regain territory it had formerly lost to the Swedes and moved to capture several towns, including Dinaburg, Dor-pat, and Keksholm. The Russians failed, however, to take Riga, which they besieged during the summer of 1656, because they had no naval force and could not cut Riga off from its lines of supply. The Swedes launched a powerful counterattack, scattering the Russian army and forcing the tsar to flee for his life. When the war with Denmark took a turn for the worse in 1657, the Swedes sought peace with Muscovy (Truce of Valiesari, 1658).
The third and final phase of the war began when the truce between Muscovy and Poland-Lithuania ended in 1658. The Russians fought a se1543
THREE EMPERORS’ LEAGUE
ries of fierce battles with the Poles in Lithuania and Belarus, defeating them at Vilnius, Kaunas, and Grodno, but losing twice at Mogilev (1661, 1666), and Vitebsk (1664). In the Ukrainian lands, the Russians suffered significant defeats at Konotop (1659), Lubar (1660), and Kushliki (1661). Complicating factors in the south included the defection of the Russians’ Cossack allies under Vyhovsky, which isolated the Russians against the Poles, and Lubomirsky’s Rebellion, which weakened the government of King John II Casimir at a critical moment and forced the Poles to accept peace with Muscovy. Early in 1664, the tsar approached the Poles to begin negotiations, but it was not until 1667 that a provisional peace agreement was signed at Andrusovo. Despite its losses, Muscovy came out of the war with sizeable gains in territory, not least of which included the key cities of Smolensk and Kiev. See also: NEW-FORMATION REGIMENTS; SMOLENSK WAR
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Longworth, Philip. (1984). Alexis, Tsar of All the Russias. New York: Franklin Watts. O’Brien, Carl Bickford. (1963). Muscovy and the Ukraine, 1654-1667. Berkeley: University of California Press. Rady, Martyn. (1990). Russia, Poland, and the Ukraine, 1462-1725. London: Hodder and Stoughton.
W. M. REGER IV
THREE EMPERORS’ LEAGUE
The Three Emperors’ League, or Dreikaiserbund, was part of the diplomatic web created by Otto Bismarck (1815-1898) to keep France isolated. An initial agreement between Alexander II of Russia, William I of Prussia, and Francis-Joseph of Austria-Hungary was reached in September 1873. This phase of the Three Emperors’ League is sometimes referred to as the Three Emperors’ Treaty. The agreement was renewed in June 1881, with the same signatories for Prussia and Austria-Hungary, but with the new tsar, Alexander III, representing Russia.
The dual goals of the league were to prevent intervention by Austria-Hungary or Russia in the event of an outbreak of hostilities between France
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and Germany and to prevent friction between Austria-Hungary and Russia over territorial claims in the Balkans. Both of these goals are apparent in the terms of the agreement. Article 1 addresses the potential of a Franco-German conflict by stating, “In case one of the High Contracting Parties should find itself at war with a fourth Great Power, the two others shall maintain towards it a benevolent neutrality and shall devote their efforts to the localization of the conflict.” The issue of potential conflict over the Balkan territories of the Ottoman Empire is dealt with in Article 2. It states, “The three Courts, desirous of avoiding all discord between them, engage to take account of their respective interests in the Balkan Peninsula. They further promise one another that any new modifications in the territorial status quo of Turkey in Europe can be accomplished only in virtue of a common agreement between them.”
Ultimately, this alliance foundered over the issue of Balkan territorial claims. The Austro-Hun-garian Empire contained a sizeable number of Slavs who were sympathetic to the plight and aspirations of their Balkan brothers in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Simultaneously, the Russian tsar was under pressure from the Pan-Slavs to intervene in the Balkans because the Pan-Slavic movement regarded Russia as the protector of the Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Empire.
A series of uprisings against the Ottoman Empire and reprisals by the Turkish forces occurred in the Balkans in the mid-1870s. These events led to the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. Although the Russians decisively defeated the Turkish forces, opposition from Austria-Hungary and Great Britain led to the final settlement being decided at the Congress of Berlin in 1878. Under the auspices of the honest broker Bismarck, much of the fruit of the Russian military victory was plucked from their hands. The Russians felt that they had won the war but lost the diplomatic negotiations. Both the Balkan nationalists and the Russian Pan-Slavists felt a lingering resentment toward Austria-Hungary and Germany for depriving them of the fruits of the Russian military victory.
The Three Emperors’ League was not renewed when it expired in 1884. Instead, Russia moved closer diplomatically to France. This shift culminated in the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1894. The dissolution of the Three Emperors’ League took Europe a step closer to the outbreak of World War I.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
TIFLIS
See also: AUSTRIA, RELATIONS WITH; GERMANY, RELATIONS WITH; PANSLAVISM; RUSSO-TURKISH WARS; WORLD WAR I
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Avalon Project at Yale Law School. (2003). “The Three Emperors’ League.” «http://www.yale.edu/ lawweb/avalon/empleagu.htm». Eyck, Erich. (1968). Bismarck and the German Empire. New York: Norton. Glenny, Misha. (2001). The Balkans: Nationalism, War, and the Great Powers, 1804-1999. New York: Penguin.
JEAN K. BERGER
THREE-FIELD SYSTEM
The three-field system predominated in Russian peasant agriculture until the Stalin era. Plowland was divided into three sections: each year one section was sown in the winter, a second was sown to another grain in the spring, and a third was left fallow to restore its fertility. The following year the section that had been sown in the winter was sown in the spring, the section sown in the spring was left fallow, and the previous year’s fallow was sown in the winter. Land not sown to grain was kept outside the three-field system.
Similar forms of rotation prevailed across Europe well into the eighteenth century. These forms were displaced by systems that promised higher productivity and money profits. In Russia, however, the Agricultural Revolution did not make significant inroads on the three-field system, though it prompted learned landowners to reproach peasants for superstitiously clinging to an outmoded system.
In fact, the three-field system remained an appropriate adaptation to Russian conditions for a long time. It assumed a relative abundance of land and took into account the harshness of the climate and (often) the poor fertility of the soil. In contrast to profit-seeking farmers, Russian peasants sought, above all, to avert the threat of starvation. The forms of rotation practiced in the West entailed the intensive application of fertilizers, in the form of manure and of crops such as clover. The animals that provided the manure and ate the clover produced dairy and meat products for the market. RusENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY sia’s vast spaces and poor system of transportation meant that most peasants did not have the access to markets required for relativ
ely perishable products (as opposed to grain, which peasants did market). As railroads improved access to markets, many peasants did adapt. As late as 1920, however, for most peasants, abandoning the three-field system meant pursuing illusory gains and running unacceptable risks. It was not yearning for profits but the pressure of population on land that brought the three-field system into crisis. What peasants perceived as a problem of land shortage fueled the revolutions of 1905 and 1917. See also: AGRICULTURE; PEASANT ECONOMY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Moon, David. (1999). The Russian Peasantry, 1600-1930: The World the Peasants Made. London: Addison Wesley Longman. Robinson, Geroid Tanquary. (1932). Rural Russia under the Old R?gime. London: Macmillan.
DANIEL FIELD
TIFLIS
Tiflis (Tbilisi in Georgian) is the capital of the Republic of Georgia. Its legendary origins begin with the early medieval king of eastern Georgia (Kartli), Vakhtang Gorgasali (c. 447-522), who is said to have shot a deer that fell into a pool of hot spring water on the spot where he then decreed his capital to be built. The city’s name derives from the Georgian word for “warm” (tbili). From its origins, Tiflis was in the Iranian sphere of cultural influence, as was much of eastern Georgia, and even today the oldest parts of the city, around Maidan (square) and stretching up the Holy Mountain (Mtatsminda) have a Middle Eastern appearance with their narrow winding streets and elaborately carved balconies. From the arrival of the Arab conquerors in the seventh century, the city was often in the hands of Muslim rulers. Indeed, in 853 the caliph of Baghdad sent an army to put down the rebellious Muslim emir of Tiflis and had the city burned to the ground, thus ending any pretension of the town becoming the center of a rival Islamic state.
After nearly four hundred years in Muslim hands, Tiflis was taken by the Georgian king David