Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Allworth, Edward, ed. (1994). Central Asia: 130 Years of Russia Dominance, A Historical Overview. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Bennigsen, Alexandre and Wimbush, S. Enders. (1985). Muslims of the Soviet Empire: A Guide. London: C. Hurst. Capisani, Giampaolo R. (2000). The Handbook of Central Asia: A Comprehensive Survey of the New Republics. New York, I. B. Tauris. Cummings, Sally, ed. (2002). Power and Change in Central Asia. London: Routledge. Kangas, Roger. (2002). “Memories of the Past: Politics in Turkmenistan.” Analysis of Current Events 14(4): 16-19. Niyazov, Saparmurat. (1994). Unity, Peace, Consensus, 2 vols. New York: Noy Publishers. Niyazov, Saparmurat. (2002). Rukhnama. Ashbagat, Turkmenistan: Government of Turkmenistan.

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  TUR, YEVGENIA

  Ochs, Michael. (1997). “Turkmenistan: The Quest for Stability and Control.” In Conflict, Cleavage, and Change in Central Asia and the Caucasus, ed. Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

  ROGER KANGAS

  TUR, YEVGENIA

  (1815-1892), Russian journalist, writer, critic, and author of children’s books.

  Born Elizaveta Vasilievna Sukhovo-Kobylina, Tur was a well-known salon hostess, prose writer, journalist, critic, and author of children’s fiction. The sister of the playwright Alexander Sukhovo-Kobylin and the artist Sofia Sukhovo-Kobylina, she was the first woman to win a gold medal from the Imperial Academy of Arts. Her son, Yevgeny Salias, became a popular author of historical fiction.

  Tur began her career in Russian letters as a translator and proofreader for Teleskop (Telescope), a prominent journal in the 1830s. She was romantically involved with its editor, and her tutor, Nikolai Nadezhdin, but her family forbade the match because they did not want her to marry a seminarian. In 1837 she reluctantly married Count Andrei Salias de Tournemire, a French citizen. After spending her dowry, Salias was exiled to France in 1844 for fighting a duel. Tur became a writer, in part, to support their three children. She was one of the first women in Russia to earn a living by writing.

  Tur’s salon in Moscow included some of the most important intellectuals of the day: the authors Konstantin Leontiev and Ivan Turgenev, the poet Nikolai Ogarev, the historians Timofei Gra-novsky and Peter Kudriavtsev, and the journalist Mikhail Katkov. Salons were fruitful ground for cultural production, and Tur’s was no exception. Her first published fiction was a novella, Oshibka (A Mistake) in 1849. She then published several novellas and novels, the most famous of which is Antonina (1851). These stories had a large readership. They were published in the most widely circulated journals of the day (Otechestvennye zapiski, Russkii vestnik, and Sovremennik), as well as in separate editions, and her works were reviewed by such luminaries as Ivan Turgenev and Nikolai Chernyshevsky.

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  Tur edited the fiction section of Katkov’s Russky vestnik from 1856 to 1860 and then published and edited a journal, Russkaya rech (Russian Speech), in 1861. The journal’s subtitle indicates its scope: “A Review of Literature, History, Art, and Civic Life in the West and in Russia.” Tur stopped publication in 1862 and, to avoid investigation by the Third Section, moved to Paris, where she lived for ten years and again hosted a salon. In these years she worked closely with Alexander Herzen; she also published a regular column, “Paris Review,” in Andrei Kraevsky’s newspaper Golos (The Voice). As a critic, Tur’s intellectual range was broad-she wrote articles on Jules Michelet, George Sand, Mme. de Recamier, Charlotte Bront?, and Elizabeth Fry, as well as Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Leo Tolstoy. Each of her essays is a rich engagement with aesthetic and social issues.

  In her fiction, criticism, and journalism Tur addressed the “woman question,” one of the foremost social issues of the day. In her fiction she often reversed common cultural stereotypes about women (such as making the unmarried woman the arbiter of moral goodness in Oshibka and creating a superfluous man who is not noble in Antonina). In her journal Tur often published fiction by women writers. In her criticism she addressed the issue of the position of women in society, both through ironic, incisive assessments of Michelet, Proudhon, and others and in a debate with the educator Natalia Grot.

  In 1866 Tur began writing exclusively for children. These works were extraordinarily well received and went into many editions. Tur’s children’s fiction, too, became an important cultural influence, mentioned as formative by Zinaida Gippius, Marina Tsvetaeva, and others. See also: JOURNALISM

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Costlow, Jane. (1991). “Speaking the Sorrow of Women: Turgenev’s ‘Neschastnaia’ and Evgeniia Tur’s ‘Antonina.’” Slavic Review 50 (2): 328-35. Gheith, Jehanne. (2003). Finding the Middle Ground: Krestovskii, Tur, and the Power of Ambivalence in Nineteenth-Century Russian Women’s Prose. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Gheith, Jehanne. (1996 ). “The Superfluous Man and the Necessary Woman: A ‘Re-vision’.” Russian Review 55 (2): 226-44.

  JEHANNE M. GHEITH

  ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

  TUVA AND TUVINIANS

  TUVA AND TUVINIANS

  The Tuva Republic in southern Siberia is one of the twenty-one nationality-based republics within the Russian Federation that was recognized in the Russian constitution of 1993. Previously called the Tuva Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (ASSR), the constitution recognized it as Tyva, the regional form of the name. With an area of 65,810 square miles (170,448 square miles), Tuva lies northwest of Mongolia and directly east of Gorno-Altai. Tuva’s capital is Kizyl, and its other key cities are Turan, Chadan, and Shagonar. Drained by the headstreams of the Yenisey River, the western part of Tuva lies in a mountain basin, walled off by the Sayan and Tannu Olga ranges, which rise to 10,000 feet. The eastern portion is dominated by a wooded plateau. The climate is extreme, with summer temperatures reaching 43? C (110? F) and winter temperatures dropping to -61?C (-78?F). However, the region’s three hundred sunny, arid days per year help the people withstand the summers and winters. Tuva is inhabited by a majority of Tuvinians (more than 64%); the remainder are primarily ethnic Russians (32%). More than 200,000 Tuvinians live in the Russian Federation, and smaller communities live in Mongolia and China. The Tuvinians are hardy Mongol natives, related to the Kyrgyz ethnic branch. Because it is difficult to specify physical features that are common to all the Turkic peoples, it is the shared cultural feature of language that identifies members of a particular group. The Turkic languages strongly resemble one another, most of them being to some extent mutually intelligible. The peoples of Siberia fall into three major ethno-linguistic groups: Altaic, Uralic, and Paleo-Siberian. The Tuvinians are one of the Altaic peoples, and the Tuvin language belongs to the Uighur-Oguz group of the Altaic language family. Together with the ancient Uighur and Oguz languages, these linguistic groups form the subgroup of Uighur-T?k?i. Even if a special Decree on Languages in the Tuva ASSR had not been ratified in 1991 stipulating that all academic subjects be taught in Tuvinian, the Tuvinian language would

  Camel herd and herder. © NOVOSTI/SOVFOTO

  ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

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  TWENTY-FIVE THOUSANDERS

  not be forgotten. The indigenous language is most widely spoken in rural areas, where 67-70 percent of Tuvinians live. The official lingua franca (Russian) is spoken mainly in Tuva’s four major towns.

  For roughly 150 years Tuva formed part of the Chinese Empire, and later was subject to Mongol rule. An independent state, called Tannu Tuva, was established on August 14, 1921. Tuva nevertheless voluntarily joined the USSR in 1944 as an autonomous oblast. In 1961 Tuva became an autonomous republic.

  Tuvinians are mostly engaged in agricultural activities, such as cattle raising and fur farming. Oats, barley, wheat, and millet are the principal crops raised. Recently, farmers from northern China have introduced the Tuvinians to vegetable farming. Many Tuvinians still live as nomadic shepherds, migrating seasonally with their herds. Those who inhabit the plains traditionally live in large round tents, called gers (yurts), mad
e from bark. The main industrial activity in the Tuvinian Republic is mining, especially for asbestos, cobalt, coal, gold, and uranium. Other Tuvinians are engaged in processing food, manufacturing building materials, and crafting leather and wooden items.

  Most Tuvinians were illiterate until the advent of the Russians. Thus, the Tuvinian culture is noted for its rich, oral epic poetry and its music (throat singing). The Tuvinian use more than fifty different musical instruments, and traveling ensembles often perform outdoors. The Tuvinians in East Asia have never been affected by Islam. In the early twenty-first century, one-third of the Tuvinians are Buddhists, one-third are shamanists (believing in an unseen world of gods, demons, and ancestral spirits), and the remaining one-third are non-religious. See also: CENTRAL ASIA; KYRGYZSTAN AND KYRGYZ; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam. (1995). Culture Incarnate: Native Anthropology from Russia. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Di?szegi, Vilmos, and Hopp?l, Mih?ly. (1998). Shamanism: Selected Writings of Vilmos Di?szegi. Budapest: Akad?miai Kiad?. Drobizheva , L. M. (1996). Ethnic Conflict in the Post-Soviet World: Case Studies and Analysis. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Leighton, Ralph. (1991). Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman’s Last Journey. New York: W. W. Norton.

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  Vainshtein, S. I. (1980). Nomads of South Siberia: the Pastoral Economies of Tuva. New York: Cambridge University Press. Wangyal, Tenzin, and Dahlby, Mark. (2002). Healing with Form, Energy and Light: The Five Elements in Tibetan Shamanism, Tantra, and Dzogchen. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications.

  JOHANNA GRANVILLE

  TWENTY-FIVE THOUSANDERS

  At the November 1929 plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, it was decided to mobilize 25,000 industrial workers to help with collectivization and provide the countryside with thousands of loyal cadres.

  Over 70,000 workers volunteered to serve as Twenty-Five Thousanders (Dvadsatipiatitysiach-niki). The All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions (VTsSPS) directed and organized the mobilization campaign, set selection criteria, and established regional quotas. Of the 27,519 workers selected, nearly 70 percent were members or candidate-members of the party, and over half were under thirty years old.

  Following short preparatory courses, the Twenty-Five Thousanders arrived in the countryside during the first phase of forced collectivization in early 1930. Most were assigned to work as chairmen of large collective farms. Others were to work in state farms, machine tractor stations (MTS), village soviets, or various local Party organizations. However, owing to the hostility of local officials, a great many Twenty-Five Thousanders were put to other tasks or ignored, and often not given adequate food or housing. Some were assaulted or murdered by angry peasants. Despite the obstacles, many farms headed by Twenty-Five Thousanders earned awards from party and collective-farm organs for being model collective farms.

  The Twenty-Five Thousanders were expected to remain in the countryside until the end of the First Five-Year Plan in 1932. However, only 40 percent finished out their terms. Nonetheless, the Twenty-Five Thousanders were hailed as heroes of socialist construction. Many were promoted into rural party and government work, and several earned the distinguished honor of Heroes of Socialist Labor. See also: COLLECTIVE FARM; COLLECTIVIZATION; COLLECTIVIZATION OF AGRICULTURE

  ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

  TYUTCHEV, FYODOR IVANOVICH

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Viola, Lynn. (1987). The Best Sons of the Fatherland: Workers in the Vanguard of Soviet Collectivization. New York: Oxford University Press.

  KATE TRANSCHEL

  TYUTCHEV, FYODOR IVANOVICH

  (1803-1873), Russian poet.

  Widely considered one of the greatest poets in world literature, Tyutchev can be classified as a late romantic, but, like other persons of surpassing genius, he was strikingly unique. Tyutchev’s literary legacy consists of some three hundred poems (about fifty of them translations), usually brief, and several articles. Although recognition came slow to Tyutchev, in fact, he never had a regular literary career, eventually books of his poetry came to be the treasured possessions of every educated Russian.

  Many of Tyutchev’s poems deal with nature. Some of them offer luminous images of a thunderstorm early in May or of warm days at the beginning of autumn. Others express the pantheistic beliefs of romanticism (“Thought after thought / Wave after wave / Two manifestations / Of one element”), particularly its preoccupation with chaos. Indeed, the philosopher Vladimir Soloviev considered Tyutchev’s treatment of chaos, which he represented as the dark foundation of all existence, whether of nature or human beings, to be the central motif of the poet’s creativity, more powerfully expressed than by anyone else in all literature. Tyutchev’s poem Silentium can be cited as the ultimate culmination of the desperate romantic effort to, in the words of William Wordsworth, “evoke the inexpressible.” A somewhat different, small, but unforgettable group of Tyutchev’s poems deals with the hopelessness of late love (“thou art both blessedness and hopelessness”), reflecting the poet’s tragic liaison with a woman named Mademoiselle Denisova.

  An aristocrat who received an excellent education at home and at Moscow University, Tyutchev was a prime example of cosmopolitan, especially French, culture in Russia. Choosing diplomatic service, he spent some twenty-two years in central and western Europe, particularly in Munich. The service operated in French, and Tyutchev’s French was so perfect that, allegedly, other diplomats, including French diplomats, were advised to use Tyutchev’s reports as models. Tyutchev was prominent in Munich society and came to know Friedrich Schelling and other luminaries. He married in succession two German women, neither of whom spoke Russian.

  Politically, Tyutchev belonged to the Right. Not really a Slavophile in the precise meaning of that term, he stood with the Petrine imperial government, where he served as a censor (a tolerant one, to be sure) as well as a diplomat. He may be best described as a member of the romantic wing of supporters of the state doctrine of Official Nationality and, later, as a Panslav. Tyutchev’s most prominent articles, as well as a number of his poems, were written in support of the patriotic, nationalist, or Panslav causes. They lacked originality and even high quality, at least by the poet’s own standards. Yet Tyutchev’s power of expression was so great that occasionally these items became indelible parts of Russian consciousness and culture: One cannot understand Russia by reason, Cannot measure her by a common measure: She is under a special dispensation- One can only believe in Russia. See also: GOLDEN AGE OF RUSSIAN LITERATURE

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Mirsky, D. S. (1949). A History of Russian Literature. New York: Knopf. Nabokov, Vladimir. (1944). Three Russian Poets: Selections from Pushkin, Lermontov and Tyutchev in New Translations by Vladimir Nabokov. Norfolk, CT: New Directions. Pratt, Sarah. (1984). Russian Metaphysical Romanticism: The Poetry of Tiutchev and Boratynskii. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. (1992). The Emergence of Romanticism. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press.

  NICHOLAS V. RIASANOVSKY

  ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

  1595

  U-2 SPY PLANE INCIDENT

  On May 1, 1960, an American high-altitude U-2 spy plane departed from Pakistan on a flight that was supposed to take it across the USSR to Norway. Shot down near Sverdlovsk, with its pilot, Francis Gary Powers, captured, the flight triggered a Cold War crisis, aborted a scheduled four-power summit meeting, and poisoned Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev’s relations with U.S. president Dwight D. Eisenhower.

  Aware that U-2 spy flights constituted a grave violation of Soviet sovereignty, Eisenhower reluctantly approved them beginning in 1956 to check on the Soviet missile program. Even after the May Day 1960 flight was shot down, Khrushchev hoped to proceed with the summit scheduled for May 16 in Paris. But by not revealing he had shot down the plane and captured its pilot, and by waiting for Washington to invent a cover story and then unmasking it, Khru
shchev provoked Eisenhower to take personal responsibility for the flight. After that, Khrushchev felt he had no choice but to wreck the summit, cut off relations with Eisenhower, and await the election of Eisenhower’s successor.

  It is highly uncertain whether the Paris summit could have produced progress on Berlin and a nuclear test ban. Russian observers such as Fyodor Burlatsky and Georgy Arbatov contend that Khrushchev used the U-2 incident as an excuse to scuttle what he anticipated would be an unproductive summit. More likely, Khrushchev was lured by the flight and its fate into a sequence of unintended consequences that undermined not only his foreign policy but his position at home. See also: COLD WAR; KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Beschloss, Michael R. (1986). Mayday: Eisenhower, Khrushchev, and the U-2 Affair. New York: Harper and Row. Taubman, William. (2003). Khrushchev: The Man and His Era. New York: W. W. Norton.

  WILLIAM TAUBMAN

  UDMURTS

  Of the 747,000 Udmurts (1989 census), formerly called Votiaks, approximately 497,000 live in the Udmurt Republic, north of Tatarstan, but many live in Bashkortostan. Their language belongs to

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  UEZD

  the Finno-Ugric family and is mutually semi-intelligible with Komi, further north. Most are Caucasian, with a remarkable number of redheads, but Asian features also occur.

  Southern Udmurts were subjected to the Bol-gar Empire from 1000 C.E. on, and later to the Kazan Khanate. After annexing the multinational Viatka Republic (1489), Moscow laid formal claim to all Udmurt lands but controlled only the north. The south was occupied after the destruction of Kazan (1552), yet massive uprisings continued up to 1615. Most Udmurts were forcibly baptized in the mid-1700s, but spectacular anti-animist trials flared as late as 1894-1896, and 7 percent of Udmurts declared themselves animist in the 1897 census. An Udmurt-language calendar started in 1904 and the first newspaper in 1913.