Encyclopedia of Russian History
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KATE TRANSCHEL
VOLKOGONOV, DMITRY ANTONOVICH
(1928-1995), Soviet and Russian military and political figure, historian, and philosopher.
Colonel General Volkogonov was born in Chita province, the son of a minor civil servant who was shot in 1937. Without knowledge of his father’s true fate, Volkogonov entered military service in 1949 and rose rapidly in rank. As a political officer after 1971, he held various posts within the Soviet MinENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY istry of Defense, eventually becoming deputy chief (1984-1988) of the Main Political Administration.
Although known as an ideological hardliner, Volkogonov’s foreign experiences gave rise to grave doubts about the Soviet system. Travels in the Third World taught him that revolutionary leaders sought only cynical advantage from the Soviets. An academic visit to the West convinced him that capitalist societies had produced greater equalities than their supposedly egalitarian socialist counterparts. He was already reading suppressed writers when he learned the truth about his father’s death-that he had been executed as an enemy of the people. Hence sprang the desire to expose the truth about Stalin and his times.
Estrangement from the military-political leadership precipitated Volkogonov’s transfer to the USSR Institute of Military History. There, while chief from 1988 to 1991, his subordinates’ revisionist draft history of the Great Patriotic War, coupled with his growing adherence to democratic ideals and an unorthodox evaluation of the Stalinist legacy, provoked clashes with the Mnistry of Defense. Following the Soviet collapse, he served from 1991 to 1995 as security adviser to President Boris Yeltsin, while simultaneously championing democratic causes and chairing several parliamentary commissions as a Duma deputy associated with the Left-Centrist Bloc. Before his turn against Soviet convention, Volkogonov’s more significant works, including Marxist-Leninist Teachings about War and the Army (1984) and The Psychology of War (1984) reflected orthodox zeal. However, his subsequent conviction that the Soviet system had been flawed from the beginning permeated his historical works, including a revisionist biography of Stalin, Triumph and Tragedy (1990), and later volumes on Trotsky, Lenin, and other significant early Soviet leaders. See also: STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Menning, Bruce W. (2003). “Of Outcomes Happy and Unhappy.” In Adventures in Russian Historical Research, eds. Catherine Freirson and Samuel Baron. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Volkogonov, Dmitri. (1991). Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, tr. and ed. Harold Shukman. New York: Grove Wei-denfeld. Volkogonov, Dmitri. (1994). Lenin: A New Biography, tr. and ed. Harold Shukman. New York: Free Press.
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VOLSKY, ARKADY IVANOVICH
Volkogonov, Dmitri. (1998). Autopsy for an Empire: The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime, tr. and ed. Harold Shukman. New York: Free Press.
BRUCE W. MENNING
VOLSKY, ARKADY IVANOVICH
(b. 1932), political leader and industrial lobbyist in the 1990s.
Arkady Ivanovich Volsky began his career in the military-industrial sector as deputy chief of the Department of Machines from 1978 to 1984. He became active in politics by serving on several high-profile committees dealing with industry and gained national recognition as Mikhail Gorbachev’s special representative in Nagorno-Karabakh during the crises there from 1988 to 1990. Volsky is best known for founding the Union of Science and Industry in 1990, which he renamed the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs after the failed 1991 coup. He used this position to establish the perception that he spoke for the interests of managers and business entrepreneurs during the crucial era of privatization and transition to capitalism. In mid-June 1992 he was a central figure in the formation of the Civic Union, a broad alliance of political parties and parliamentary factions that played an important role in forcing alterations to the program of rapid priva tization and economic reform presented by Prime Minister Yegor Gaidar. Volsky was widely seen as one of the key forces behind the June 1993 replace ment of Gaidar with Viktor Chernomyrdin and oth ers who favored a slower transition with a greater role for incumbent managers. Although Volsky con tinued to head the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, its influence, and his, peaked in 1993 and rapidly declined thereafter. By the late 1990s privatization had transformed the economic and political landscape, bringing power and influence to a small and shifting group of wealthy, wellconnected oligarchs, deeply undermining his claim to speak for the business class. See also: CIVIC UNION; PRIVATIZATION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Lohr, Eric. (1993). “Arkadii Volsky’s Political Base.” Europe-Asia Studies 45:811-829.
ERIC LOHR
1648
VORONTSOV, MIKHAIL SEMENOVICH
(“Minga”) (1782-1856), leading statesman during the reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I.
Although Mkhail Vorontsov was considered a military hero (his portrait hangs in the Hero’s Hall of the Hermitage), mainly for his generalship at the Battle of Borodino (1812) and his command of the Russian occupation army in France (1815-1818), his historical significance is due to his rule as governor-general and viceroy in New Russia and Caucasia from 1823 to 1854. Born a count in an illustrious and wealthy family of imperial servitors, he was awarded the titles of field marshal and most illustrious (Svetleyshy) prince of the Russian Empire for his service.
Vorontsov was an unshakably loyal servitor to the emperors, yet thanks to his upbringing in England (his father, Semen Vorontsov, was the Russian ambassador) and an excellent education, as well as his high social status and fabulous wealth, in attitude and action he was more Western, liberal, and business-minded than his conservative Russian colleagues. The poet Pushkin out of spite called him “half lord and half merchant.” He was one of Russia’s largest serf-owners. Although he supported emancipation in principle, he spurned overtures to join the Decembrist plotters, many of whom received their inspiration in France under his command. The serfs, he said, could be freed only when the Emperor decided to do so. Indeed, he was named by Nicholas I to serve on the commission set up in 1826 to investigate the Decembrist conspiracy.
Vorontsov excelled in the field of imperial administration. In New Russia, from its capital Odessa, and in Caucasia from Tbilisi, his government brought vast improvements to the economic life and sheer physical appearance of these southern regions. He attempted, with limited success, to improve the operation of the notoriously corrupt and inefficient imperial bureaucracy. He decentralized decision making in these peripheral territories of the empire, partly by bringing educated locals into the civil service. He also fought constantly, with limited success, for some autonomy from the jealous central ministries in St. Petersburg. He encouraged local businesses. He brought steamboats from England to improve transportation up the rivers and on the Black Sea. He established and supported educational and cultural institutions. He personally supervised the design and construction of parks and public buildings in the major cities.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
VORONTSOV-DASHKOV, ILLARION IVANOVICH
An engraving of Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov that appeared in the London News. © MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY
A bitter opponent of the Crimean War and the unexpected enmity with his beloved England, Vorontsov retired in 1854 in failing health, after a third of a century of service, and died two years later. In an unusual expression of public admiration for Imperial Russia, public subscriptions paid for commemorative statues of him in Odessa and Tbilisi. A beautiful museum dedicated to his good works and lasting memory, currently open to the public, is located in one of his former palaces, the famous Bloor-designed palace in Alupka, not far from Yalta on the “Russian Riviera,” the beautiful Crimean coast. See also: CAUCASUS; DECEMBRIST MOVEMENT AND REBELLION; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rhinelander, Anthony. (1990). Prince Michael Vorontsov: Viceroy to the Tsar. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.
ANTHONY RHINELANDER
ENC
YCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
VORONTSOV-DASHKOV, ILLARION IVANOVICH
(1837-1916), viceroy of the Caucasus.
At a moment of great danger to the regime Tsar Nicholas II appointed his friend and councilor, Illar-ion Ivanovich Vorontsov-Dashkov, viceroy (namest-nik) of the Caucasus in 1905. A loyal courtier, Count Vorontsov-Dashkov faced open rebellion, with most of western Georgia in the hands of insurgent peasants led by the Marxist Social Democrats. Harsh policies toward the Armenian Church (in 1903 their properties had been seized by the government), repression of the workers and peasants, and general disillusionment with the autocracy as the Russo-Japanese War went badly, led to the collapse of tsarist authority south of the Caucasian mountains. The new viceroy agreed to ameliorate the state’s policies, return the Armenian church properties, and negotiate with the rebels. The tsar did not approve of these moderate policies and thought the best place for rebels was hanging from a tree. “The example would be beneficial to many,” he wrote. But the viceroy prevailed, using both conciliatory and repressive measures to pacify the region.
The liberal methods of the viceroy improved relations among the various nationalities in the Caucasus. He was thought by many to be pro-Armenian, and did favor that nationality as it was well represented in local representative institutions and possessed great wealth and property. Vorontsov-Dashkov wrote to the tsar that the government had itself created the “Armenian problem by carelessly ignoring the religious and national views of the Armenians.” But he also attempted to placate the Georgians and the Muslims and permitted education in the local languages. By the time Russia went to war with Turkey in 1915, Armenians formed volunteer units to fight alongside the Russian army against the Turks. Although there was resistance to the draft among Caucasian Muslims, and Georgians were unenthusiastic about the war effort, no major opposition was expressed. In 1915 Vorontsov-Dashkov left the Caucasus and was replaced by Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. As Vorontsov-Dashkov departed Tiflis, he was made an honorary citizen of the city by the Armenian-dominated city duma, but neither the Georgian nobility nor Azerbaijani representatives appeared to bid him farewell. See also: CAUCASUS; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST
1649
VOROSHILOV, KLIMENT EFREMOVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kazemzadeh, Firuz. (1951). The Struggle for Transcaucasia (1917-1921). New York: Philosophical Library. Suny, Ronald Grigor. (1988). The Making of the Georgian Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
RONALD GRIGOR SUNY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Erickson, John. (1962). The Soviet High Command. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
BRUCE W. MENNING
VOROSHILOV, KLIMENT EFREMOVICH
(1881-1969), leading Soviet political and military figure, member of Stalin’s inner circle.
A machinist’s apprentice who joined the Bolsheviks in 1903, Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov spent nearly a decade underground and in exile, then emerged in late 1917 to become the commissar of Petrograd. In 1918 he assisted Felix Dz-erzhinsky in founding the Cheka, then fought on various civil war fronts, including Tsaritsyn in 1918, where he sided with Josef V. Stalin against Leon Trotsky over the utilization of former tsarist officers in the new Red Army. A talented grassroots organizer, Voroshilov was adept at assembling ad hoc field units, especially cavalry. Following the death of Mikhail V. Frunze in late 1925, Voroshilov served until mid-1934 as commissar of military and naval affairs, and subsequently until May 1940 as defense commissar. Known more as a political toady than a serious commander, he served in important command and advisory capacities during World War II, often with baleful results. During the postwar era he aided in the Sovietization of Hungary, but at home was relegated to largely honorific governmental positions. To his credit Voroshilov objected to using the Red Army against the peasantry during collectivization, and, despite complicity in Stalin’s purges, he occasionally intervened to rescue military officers. Notwithstanding a cavalry bias, he oversaw an impressive campaign for the mechanization of the Red Army during the 1930s, including support for the T-34 tank over Stalin’s initial objections. After Stalin’s death in 1953 Voroshilov was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, a post he held until he was forced to resign in 1960 after participating in the anti-Party group opposed to Nikita Khrushchev. See also: MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET; STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH
1650
VOTCHINA
Literally, “patrimony” (the noun derives from Slavonic otchy, i.e. belonging to one’s father); in medieval Russia, inherited landed property that could be legally sold, donated or disposed in another way by the owner (votchinnik).
In the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, the term mainly indicated the hereditary rights of princes to their principalities or appanages. Thus, according to Nestor’s chronicle, the princes who gathered at Lyubech in 1097 proclaimed: “Let everybody hold his own patrimony (otchina).” It was in this sense that Ivan III later applied the word votchina to all the Russian lands claiming the legacy of his ancestors, the Kievan princes.
In the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, as land transactions became more frequent, the word votchina acquired a new basic meaning, referring to estates (villages, arable lands, forests, and so forth) owned by hereditary right. Up to the end of fifteenth century, votchina remained the only form of landed property in Muscovy. The reforms of Ivan III in the 1480s created another type of ownership of land, the pomestie, which made new landowners (pomeshchiki) entirely dependent on the grand prince who granted estates to them on condition of loyal service. In the sixteenth century, Muscovite rulers favored the growth of the pomestie system, simultaneously keeping a check on the circulation of patrimonial estates. Decrees of 1551, 1562, and 1572 regulated conditions under which alienated patrimonies could be redeemed by the seller’s kinsfolk. The same legislation stipulated that each case of donation of one’s patrimony to a monastery must be sanctioned by the government. (In 1580, the sale or donation of estates to monasteries was totally prohibited.)
Historians have stressed the growing similarity between votchina and pomestie. On the one hand, as Vladimir Kobrin points out, pomestie from the very beginning tended to become hereditary property; on the other hand, the owners of patrimonies were obliged to serve in the tsarist army (legally, since 1556), just as pomestie holders did.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
VOYEVODA
S. B. Veselovskii cites some cases from the 1580s, when the authorities ordered the confiscation of both pomestia (pl.) and votchiny (pl.) of those servicemen who had ignored the military summons.
But some difference between the two forms of landed property remained: In the eyes of landowners, votchina preserved its significance as the preferable right to one’s land. As O. A. Shvatchenko put it, votchiny formed the material basis of the Russian aristocracy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
In spite of governmental regulations and limitations and severe blows of the Oprichnina, the votchina system survived the sixteenth century, and after the Time of Troubles experienced new growth. Beginning with Vasily Shuisky (1610), the tsars began to remunerate their supporters by granting them the right to turn part of their po-mestie estates into votchiny. Thus, new types of votchina appeared in the seventeenth century. The Law Code of 1649 also stipulated the possibility of exchanging pomestie for votchina, or vice versa. Finally, pomestie and votchina merged during the reforms of Peter the Great: specifically, in the 1714 decree on majorats. See also: GRAND PRINCE; IVAN III; LAW CODE OF 1649; OPRICHNINA; PETER I; POMESTIE
MIKHAIL M. KROM
VOTIAKS See UDMURTS.
VOYEVODA
In texts from the era of Kievan Rus, the term voyevoda designated the commander of a military host of any significant size, be it an entire field army, a division, or a regiment. It might also be used to refer to the administrator or governor of some territory. Researchers therefore frequently encounter the term as a translation of the Greek ar-
chon and satrapis as well as strategos.
By the 1530s, the practice of annually stationing regimental commanders (godovye voyevody) on the Oka River defense line to protect Moscow from Tatar raids had begun to blur the distinction between the military command responsibilities of the regimental commanders and the administrative reENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY sponsibility of the vicegerents and fortifications stewards of the towns: first siege defense, then fortifications labor and fiscal administration were gradually shifted to the former. By the 1560s and 1570s, general fiscal and judicial as well as military authority in certain southern and western frontier districts was entirely in the hands of these godovye voyevody; the vicegerents and fortifications stewards were eliminated or subordinated to them. Godovye voyevody had evolved into town governors (gorodovye voyevody). During the Time of Troubles, the breakdown of central chancellery authority left responsibility for mobilizing military resources and coordinating the struggle against the Pretenders and foreign interventionists largely up to the town governors of the upper Volga and North. The town governor system of local administration was therefore universalized after the liberation of Moscow and the foundation of the new Romanov dynasty. By the 1620s most districts were under a town governor, usually appointed for two to three years from the lower ranks of the upper service class (stolniki, Moscow dvoryane) and given a working order (nakaz) from the appropriate chancellery.