Encyclopedia of Russian History
Page 361
Trotsky was a brilliant writer and a charismatic revolutionary leader. As a politician, however, he was by all accounts arrogant and arbitrary, and he antagonized most of his communist associates in the years when personal opinions still counted. His military methods during the civil war are often regarded as an anticipation of Stalinism, though in later years he protested the violation of democratic procedures and the growth of bureaucratic privilege in the Soviet Union. He is often viewed as an apostle of world revolution, in contrast with Stalin’s nationalism. In any case, Stalin became obsessed with destroying Trotsky and anyone connected with him, including family members. See also: BOLSHEVISM; LENIN, VLADIMIR ILICH; MENSHE-VIKS; PERMANENT REVOLUTION; STALIN, JOSEF VIS-SARIONOVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Breitman, George, and Reed, Evelyn, eds. (1969-) Writings of Leon Trotsky. 14 vols. New York. Brotherstone, Terry, and Dukes, Paul, eds. (1992). The Trotsky Reappraisal. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
The Case of Leon Trotsky: Report of Hearings on the Charges Made against Him in the Moscow Trials. (1937). New York. Daniels, Robert V. (1960). The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Daniels, Robert V. (1991). Trotsky, Stalin, and Socialism. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Deutscher, Isaac. (1954). The Prophet Armed: Trotsky, 1879-1921. London: Oxford University Press. Deutscher, Isaac. (1959). The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky, 1921-1929. London: Oxford University Press. Deutscher, Isaac. (1963). The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky, 1929-1940. London: Oxford University Press. Howe, Irving. (1978). Leon Trotsky. New York: Viking Press. Knei-Paz, Baruch. (1978). The Social and Political Thought of Leon Trotsky. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Molyneux, John. (1981). Leon Trotsky’s Theory of Revolution. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Trotsky, Leon. (1930). My Life: An Attempt at an Autobiography. New York: Scribners. Trotsky, Leon. (1975). The Challenge of the Left Opposition (1923-1925), ed. Naomi Allen. New York: Pathfinder Press. Volkogonov, Dmitri A. (1996). Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary. New York: Free Press. Wolfe, Bertram D. (1948). Three Who Made a Revolution: A Biographical History. New York: Dial Press. Wolfenstein, E. Victor. (1967). The Revolutionary Personality: Lenin, Trotsky, Gandhi. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
ROBERT V. DANIELS
TRUDODEN See LABOR DAY. TRUMAN DOCTRINE See COLD WAR.
TRUSTS, SOVIET
At the behest of Vladimir Lenin, war communism, which was introduced during the civil war and sought to achieve full state ownership and operation of the economy immediately, was abandoned as unwieldy, unworkable, and premature. It was replaced by the NEP, under which state industry
1577
TSARSKOYE SELO
was divided into two categories: the commanding heights and a decentralized sector. The former industries, which included fuel, metallurgy, the war industries, transportation, banking, and foreign trade, remained under direct supervision of the government in the form of the Supreme Council of the National Economy (VSNKh). These industries continued as part of the central budget and were subject to centralized allocations of supplies and outputs.
The decentralized industries, consisting mainly of firms serving ordinary consumers, were encouraged to form into trusts. VSNKh created sixteen new departments, which replaced the fifty or so glavki, to supervise the largest and most important trusts. About a quarter of the trusts, mainly involved in light industry, were supervised at the decentralized level of the sovnarkhozy. By mid-1923 there were 478 trusts composed of 3,561 enterprises and employing about 75 percent of the total industrial workforce. Subsequently, many trusts were amalgamated into even larger units, known as syndicates.
The consolidation of industries into trusts and of trusts into syndicates was obviously intended to make control and coordination of the economy simpler and more effective. These large-scale organizations posed certain problems, especially when their managers sought to use the monopoly power they provided against consumers or other sectors of the economy. The Soviet trust disappeared with the beginning of rapid industrialization and the five-year plan era of the 1930s. See also: COMMITTEE FOR THE MANAGEMENT OF THE NATIONAL ECONOMY; NEW ECONOMIC POLICY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Maurice Dobb. (1948). Soviet Economic Development since 1917. New York: International Publishers. Gregory, Paul R., and Robert C. Stuart, Soviet Economic Structure and Performance, 4th ed. New York: HarperCollins.
JAMES R. MILLAR
TSARSKOYE SELO
Tsarskoye Selo (known as Detskoye Selo between 1918 and 1937, Pushkin thereafter) is a suburb of St. Petersburg best known for its imperial palaces and its lyceum. The town was established in 1708
1578
on the site of a conquered Finnish village, not long after the founding of St. Petersburg. The first railroad in Russia, opened in 1837, connected Tsarskoye Selo to the capital, about twenty-five kilometers (fourteen miles) away. In 1887 Tsarskoye Selo also became the first European town to be illuminated by electricity.
Tsarskoye Selo (literally “the Tsar’s Village”) was among the residences of the imperial family from the time of its founding until 1917. Celebrated as the Russian Versailles, the town’s layout and culture owed much to the admiration that the Emperor Peter the Great and his successors felt for the French original and other European models. Initially, between 1708 and 1724, Tsarskoye Selo served as the residence of Peter’s wife, the Empress Catherine I. The original Catherine Palace, named after her, was constructed at that time. Substantial rebuilding of the complex was undertaken during the reign of the Empress Elizabeth (1741-1762), with many famed architects and artists taking part in the project. The most famous example is the architect Francesco Bartolomeo Rastrelli’s work on the imperial palace. It is acknowledged as a masterpiece of Russian baroque. The stucco decorations of the facade of the immense palace were gilded so lavishly that, according to contemporaries, in sunlight one could not bear to look at the building directly. To correct this defect and reduce maintenance costs, the gilding was soon replaced by ochre paint. The contrast between the azure paint of the walls and the ochre color of the decorations continues to define the palace’s look. Further notable changes and additions were made during the reign of Empress Catherine II (1762-1796). Among them was the construction of the classicist Alexander Palace, commissioned by the empress to honor her favorite grandson and future monarch, Alexander I. Aside from the elaborate palaces decorated with impressive art works, Tsarskoye Selo also featured lavish parks and the quarters for various regiments of the imperial guard. In the words of the poet Nikolai Gu-milev, “barracks, parks, and palaces” defined the appearance of the town.
Numerous grand dukes lived in Tsarskoye Selo throughout its existence, but the town gained greater official stature after 1905, when Nicholas II made it his permanent residence. It was in Tsarskoye Selo that the last emperor of Russia was arrested by the Provisional Government during the February Revolution of 1917, and it was from there that he was exiled with his family to Siberia in July of that year.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
TSARSKOYE
SELO
View of the Catherine Palace at Tsarkoye Selo, from an 1807 publication by Georg Reinbeck in which he describes his 1805 travels from St. Petersburg through Moscow and other Eastern European destinations to Germany in a series of letters. THE ART
ARCHIVE/BIBLIOTECA NAZIONALE MARCIANA VENICE/DAGLI ORTI (A)
The Lyceum, a school for the offspring of the nobility, opened in Tsarskoye Selo in 1811. The stated mission of this prestigious school was to train young men for service to the state. Between 1817 and 1895 the Lyceum produced fifty-one classes, shaping the cr?me de la cr?me of the empire’s political and cultural elite. The most famous graduate was the poet Alexander Pushkin, whose poetry featured repeated allusions to his alma mater and immortalized Tsarskoye Selo as a literary image. Among the numerous other prominent alumni were literary figures Anton Delvig, Lev Mei,
and Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin; scholars Grigory Danilevsky, Yakov Grot, and Alexander Veselovsky; Decembrists Wilhelm K?chelbecker and Ivan Pushchin; and counselor Alexander Gorchakov.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, the poets Anna Akhmatova, Gumilev, and Innokenty Annensky made Tsarskoye Selo their home. Numerous painters, attracted by the allure of the Russian Versailles, were also drawn to the town. Among them were Alexandre Benois, Mstislav Dobozhinsky, Alexander Golovin, Yevgeny Lansere, and Konstantin Somov.
During the Soviet period, Tsarskoye Selo was the subject of both passive neglect and active destruction. The town’s central church (St. Catherine’s Cathedral, erected in 1840, designed by Konstantin Ton) was detonated in 1939. A large statue of Lenin, erected in 1960, still stands in its place. During World War II, the town was captured and looted by the Nazis. Much of its artistic heritage was destroyed and only partially reconstructed in the postwar period. Despite all this, Tsarskoye Selo remains an important tourist destination. Retaining an aristocratic aura, the town constitutes a cultural preserve of literary and artistic traditions.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
1579
TSAR, TSARINA
See also: ARCHITECTURE; NICHOLAS II; PUSHKIN, ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kurth, Peter. (1995). Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra. Boston: Little, Brown. Wortman, Richard S. (1995). Scenarios of Power: Myth and Ceremony in Russian Monarchy, Vol. 1: From Peter the Great to the Death of Nicholas I. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
ANNA PETROVA ILYA VINKOVETSKY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Iskenderov, A. A., and Raleigh, Donald J., eds. (1996). The Emperors and Empresses of Russia: Rediscovering the Romanovs. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Lincoln, W. Bruce. (1981). The Romanovs: Autocrats of All the Russias. New York: Dial Press.
ANN E. ROBERTSON
TSAR, TSARINA
The term tsar and its variants derive from the Latin word caesar, or emperor. During the fifteenth century, Muscovite grand prince Ivan III began using the term to introduce an added level power and majesty to his rule. In 1547 his son, sixteen-year old prince Ivan IV, crowned himself tsar of all Russia. Indicating the increased significance of Orthodoxy, Ivan adopted other conventions from the Byzantine Empire at the same time, including a variety of court rituals and the double-headed eagle emblem. The eagle signified the uniting of eastern and western Christianity through Ivan III’s marriage to Sophia Paleologue, a niece of the last Byzantine emperor, Constantine XI.
Russian leaders continued to be tsars until 1721, when Peter the Great styled himself as “Emperor of All Russia.” Peter chose the more Western style because he wanted to reflect Russia’s observance of the rule of law and entry into the Age of Reason. However, the term tsar remained in common usage to designate the Russian ruler.
Tsar is used for the male sovereign; his consort is the tsarina. In the event of a female sovereign, such as Catherine the Great, she is crowned tsar-itsa. The heir to the throne is designated the tsare-vich a word derived from tsar plus the male patronymic suffix “evich.”
The term itself has outlived the Russian monarchy. Russian leaders who exhibit autocratic tendencies, most notably Boris Yeltsin, have been derided or lampooned as tsars (e.g., Tsar Boris). Even in the United States, individuals with considerable personal authority have been dubbed tsar. For example, the leader of U.S. drug policy was informally known as the drug tsar. See also: AUTOCRACY
1580
TSIOLKOVSKY, KONSTANTIN EDUARDOVICH
(1857-1935), Russian space technology expert.
Born in Izhevskoye, Tsiolkovsky was a pioneer of rocket technology and astronautics, known in Russia as cosmonautics. Tsiolkovsky might be termed the “Robert Goddard of Russia,” after the American rocket expert, who, like Tsiolkovsky, began testing rockets in the first decade of the twentieth century.
Tsiolkovsky is generally credited with deducing for the first time the laws of motion of a rocket as a body of a variable mass in space without gravity. This, in turn, demonstrated the possibility of using rockets for interplanetary exploration. He also investigated the effect of air drag on rocket motion. Such theories and research became subjects of his writings, which included Space Rocket Trains, published in 1929, which explored the theory of multistage rockets.
Among Tsiolkovsky’s major influences on future space flight, and in particular on the successful orbiting of the world’s first sputnik (in October 1957), was his work on liquid-propellant engines. In such research and writing he developed the specifications for rocket-engine design. Modern rocket engines still incorporate many of his basic ideas.
Much attention is given in Tsiolkovsky’s writings to problems of organizing interplanetary travel and its prospects. He argued that beginning with artificial earth satellites (sputniks), interplanetary stations and flights to the planets could become a way of establishing communities in outer space and adapting space for human needs.
With the advent of Soviet power in Russia, Tsiolkovsky’s work received the full support of the state. In 1918 he was elected to the Socialist Academy of Science. Later honors included membership
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
TSVETAEVA, MARINA IVANOVNA
in Russia’s main cosmonautics society and the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy. His collected scientific writings appeared in the USSR from 1951 through 1964. See also: ACADEMY OF SCIENCES; SPACE PROGRAM
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Petrovich, G. V. (2002). The Soviet Encyclopedia of Space Flight. Seattle, WA: University Press of the Pacific.
ALBERT L. WEEKS
TSSU See CENTRAL STATISTICAL AGENCY.
TSUSHIMA, BATTLE OF
In the early twentieth century Russia expanded its economic and military presence in the Far East, inspired by Minister of Finance Sergei Witte and Russian nationalists close to Nicholas II. Three events were interpreted by Japan as a direct assault on its own continental expansion: the construction of the Trans-Siberian Railroad, begun in 1892; its subsequent shortcut, the Chinese Eastern Railway, built across Manchuria at the turn of the century; and the Russian acquisition of Port Arthur to the south as a naval base. After diplomatic efforts yielded little satisfaction, the modern Japanese navy suddenly struck at the two major Russian bases, Vladivostok and Port Arthur, in February of 1904. By this action they destroyed most of the Russian Far Eastern fleet, and blockaded what remained of it. Russia fared badly in the ensuing Russo-Japanese War on land, because of poor leadership and geography, and because of the domestic unrest that resulted in the Revolution of 1905.
Belatedly, and as a classic example of poor planning, Russia dispatched the much larger Baltic fleet, under the command of Admiral Rozhdestvenski, to sail around Africa to the Pacific with the goal of regaining naval dominance in its Far Eastern waters. Large, unwieldy, and exhausted after the long voyage, the Russian fleet entered the Straits of Tsushima (between Japan and Korea) on its way to Vladivostok in May 1905. The new, modern Japanese navy, under the command of Admiral Togo, was waiting for it. The result was one of the worst disasters in naval history, with most of the
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
Russian ships quickly sunk or immobilized, and with little loss on the other side. Only a few Russian ships, including the cruiser Aurora, of 1917 revolutionary fame, managing to escape.
The consequences of this defeat were enormous. The battle signaled the end of the war and a search for peace, negotiated through the arbitration of President Theodore Roosevelt at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The loss was a major blow to Russian military prestige, lowering morale especially in the navy. Moreover, it prepared the background for the June 1905 mutiny of the battleship Potemkin when it was rumored to be among the next ships to be sent to the Pacific. The defeat also fomented antigovernment agitation that crystallized in the October Uprising and the Moscow Uprising in November. The navy, often referred to, subsequently, as the Tsushima department, never r
ecovered, and was prone to radical revolutionary activism in 1917. See also: POTEMKIN MUTINY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hough, Richard. (1958). The Fleet that Had to Die. London: H. Hamilton. Pleshakov, Konstantin. (2002). The Tsar’s Last Armada: The Epic Journey to the Battle of Tsushima. New York: Basic Books.
NORMAN E. SAUL
TSVETAEVA, MARINA IVANOVNA
(1892-1941), twentieth-century poet, playwright, translator, and essayist.
Marina Tsvetaeva, one of the most original and complex poets of the twentieth century, led a life of fierce passion, material hardship, and ostracism. Her “poetry of whirling and staccato rhythms” (Obolensky, 1965) stands outside the trends of her time, though it shares some of the mysticism of the Symbolists, the bold experimentation of the Futurists, and the directness of the Acmeists.
Tsvetaeva was born in Moscow. Her father was a professor of art history; her mother, a talented but frustrated pianist who wanted Marina to follow in her footsteps. Tsvetaeva began writing verse at age six. In 1902 the family moved to Europe to
1581
TSVETAEVA, MARINA IVANOVNA
Poet Marina Tsvetaeva lived in Switzerland, Germany, Prague, and France before returning to Russia. © SOVFOTO seek tuberculosis treatment for Tsvetaeva’s mother. They returned to Russia in 1905 and settled in Yalta (Crimea), where Tsvetaeva’s mother died in 1906. At age eighteen Tsvetaeva wrote her first collection of poems, Evening Album (Vecherny albom), which drew praise from critics such as Valery Bryusov and Maximilian Voloshin.
In 1912 Tsvetaeva married Sergei Efron and bore her first child, Ariadna (Alya). Her second collection, Magic Lantern (Volshebny fonar), and a collection of her early poetry, From Two Books (Iz dvukh knig), received lukewarm response. In her next collection, Juvenilia (Yunosheskie stikhi)-not published during her lifetime-she embarked on new forms and treated unconventional themes, including her affair with Sophia Parnok, a literary critic and lesbian. (Tsvetaeva’s affairs and passionate friendships played a key role in her poetry, as did her feverish devotion to her husband.) Juvenilia was followed by Mileposts I (Versty I), which celebrates her complex friendship with poet Osip Mandelsh-tam and abounds with innovation.