Encyclopedia of Russian History

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metropolitanate, which had been separate since

1441. Starting in the 1470s, the renovation and

enlargement of Moscow’s Kremlin and its major

churches and palaces gave Muscovy a capital wor-

thy of its pretensions, and in 1547 Ivan IV was

crowned officially as tsar as well as grand prince.

While remaining under the guise of being devo-

tionally and ritually distinct, Muscovy borrowed

elements of material and intellectual culture from

western Europe and around 1648 initiated some

Western-influenced education.

ECONOMY

Muscovy’s economy was based primarily on agri-

culture, including flax and cloth made from it; for-

est products, especially furs, but also wax and

honey; fishing; and the production of salt and sim-

ple metal goods. The opening of direct English and

then Dutch trade with the Russian far north, start-

ing in the 1550s, led to the production of hemp

and cordage. Arkhangelsk (founded in 1583) and

Astrakhan served as major ports of entry and ex-

port, but much of Muscovy’s foreign trade went

overland. The rise of gun powder technology stim-

ulated both the manufacture of cannon in the

1500s and a native potash industry, especially in

the 1600s. In the 1630s Dutch concessionaires

opened up Russia’s first European-style mining op-

erations. In 1649 Russia ended nearly a century of

special trading privileges for the English. Unifying

the monetary system in the 1530s, but lacking

good sources of specie, Muscovy resorted to re-

stamping or melting down and reminting foreign

silver coins and therefore required a trade surplus.

SOCIETY

From the start, Moscow’s princes, boyars, and

higher military servitors were at the top of the so-

cial hierarchy. As Muscovy expanded, the reliable

incorporated princely elites joined the Moscow bo-

yars, while incorporated provincial boyars and elite

warriors became regionally based military servitors

with some opportunity to advance on the social

ladder. Among the major changes over time were

the rise of economically active, estate- and enter-

prise-owning rural monasteries, starting in the late

1300s and continuing through the 1600s; the cen-

tralizing of the general obligation to serve via the

pomestie system, starting in the late 1400s; the rise

of cossacks on the southern frontiers of the realm

in the 1500s; the binding down of urban and rural

plebeians to their communities by the late 1500s;

and the conversion of peasants on church, court,

boyar, and servitor estates into serfs by 1649. By

about 1580, boyars and military servitors had their

own special courts and constituted, for Europe, a

unique, obligatory-service nobility. The gosti, a

privileged elite of merchants, undertook commerce

on behalf of the state as well as themselves, and

sometimes made forced contributions to the cen-

tral treasury. Cossacks both served the state well

and sometimes rebelled, as under Stenka Razin in

1670 to 1671.

STATE

Muscovy’s state polity developed under profes-

sional state secretaries (diak) from the sovereign’s

household administration, starting especially in the

latter 1400s. Ivan III issued the first national law

code (Sudebnik) in 1497. By the 1530s Moscow be-

gan to assign local fiscal and policing tasks to

local elites. By the 1550s there were separate

departments (izba, later prikaz) for foreign affairs,

military assignments, military estates, banditry,

and taxation, and such offices continued to expand.

Ivan IV summoned Muscovy’s first ad hoc national

assembly (Zemsky Sobor) in 1566. During the pe-

riod of political instability and crises from 1565 to

1619, the governing elites learned the value of

managing the central state offices, and in the sev-

enteenth century directly controlled most of them.

Provincial bodies, for their part, proved their worth

in the national revival of 1611 to 1613 (during the

Time of Troubles) in spearheading the expulsion of

the Poles and the establishment of a new dynasty.

The vastly expanded law code (Ulozhenie) of 1649

became the foundation of Russian law down to

1833. How the sovereigns, the boyar council, the

major boyar clans and generals, the state secre-

taries, and the leading prelates and merchants

actually made policy remains a mystery, due to

want of reliable documentation, but most foreign

observers considered Muscovy to be a tyranny or

despotism, not a legally limited European-style

monarchy.

See also: ALEXEI MIKHAILOVICH; ASSEMBLY OF LAND;

BASIL I; BASIL III; BOYAR; DANIEL METROPOLITAN;

DONSKOY, DMITRY IVANOVICH; FYODOR IVANOVICH;

GOSTI; GRAND PRINCE; IVAN I; IVAN IV; LAW CODE OF

1649; PETER I; SUDEBNIK OF 1497; TIME OF TROUBLES;

YURI DANILOVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Crummey, Robert O. (1987). The Formation of Muscovy,

1304-1613. London: Longman.

MUSCOVY

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Vernadsky, George. (1969).A History of Russia. Vol. 5:

The Tsardom of Moscow, 1547–1682. New Haven:

Yale University Press.

AVID

M. G

OLDFRANK

MUSEUM, HERMITAGE

Sitting on the bank of the Neva River in St. Pe-

tersburg, the Hermitage Museum houses one of the

world’s preeminent collections of artwork. Among

its three million treasures are works by Leonardo

da Vinci, Rembrandt, Cézanne, and Picasso. The

holdings range from Scythian gold to Impression-

ist paintings. The word Hermitage is often used in-

terchangeably with Winter Palace, but historically

they are distinct facilities. Built during the reign of

Empress Elizabeth, between 1754 and 1762, the

Winter Palace was the official residence of the tsars.

The Palace contains the imperial throne room and

grand staterooms such as the Hall of St. George.

During the late eighteenth century Empress Cather-

ine II oversaw the construction of four additional

buildings. Between 1765 and 1766 Yuri Velten be-

gan the Small Hermitage, a pavilion near Palace

Square, as Catherine’s intimate retreat from court

life. Vallin de la Mothe expanded the Small Her-

mitage from 1767 until 1769 with a second pavil-

ion connected by Hanging Gardens. Beyond the

Small Hermitage to the east lies the New Hermitage

(1839–1851) on Palace Square. Along the Neva

riverbank is the neoclassical Large Hermitage, de-

signed by Yuri Velten and built between 1771 and

1787 to house Catherine’s paintings, library, and

copies of the Vatican’s Raphael Loggias. The Win-

ter Canal runs along the east side of the Large Her-

mitage and a gallery spans the canal and connects

the Neoclassical Theater (built 1785–1787 and de-

signed by Giacomo Quarenghi) to the rest of the

complex.

Nicholas I ordered the New and Large Her-

mitages to be opened to the public and a new en-

trance was constructed away from the Palace in

MUSEUM, HERMITAGE

984

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

The Hermitage Museum complex includes the magnificent former Winter Palace and its art collection. © Y

OGI

, I

./CORBIS

1852. Following the demise of the Romanov dynasty

in 1917, the Bolshevik government combined the

Hermitage and Winter Palace into one large complex

that was designated as a public museum. The Bol-

sheviks nationalized the private collections of many

wealthy Russians, further enhancing the collection.

During the nine-hundred-day Nazi siege of

Leningrad (the city’s Soviet-era name), the museum

was bombed nineteen times. Many holdings were

evacuated to the Urals for safety, while curators

moved into the facility to protect the remaining

treasures. Twelve air-raid shelters were constructed

in the basement, and at one point twelve thousand

people were living in the museum complex. They

planted vegetables in the Hanging Gardens in order

to feed themselves.

The eventual Soviet victory over Germany al-

lowed many priceless works of art to fall into So-

viet hands, because Hitler had ordered the seizure

of artwork from museums and private collections

in occupied lands. Some paintings were immedi-

ately placed on display in the USSR, while others

were hidden away and only revealed after the fall

of the Soviet Union. Restitution of these trophies

of war became a contentious issue in Russian pol-

itics. While some political leaders thought restitu-

tion would be morally and legally correct as well

as positive for Russian–European relations, other

politicians insisted that they are legitimate repara-

tion for the immense damage and suffering the So-

viet people experienced during World War II.

See also: CATHERINE II; LENINGRAD, SIEGE OF; NATIONAL-

ISM IN THE TSARIST EMPIRE; RASTRELLI, BARTOLOMEO;

WINTER PALACE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Eisler, Colin T. (1990). Paintings in the Hermitage. New

York: Stewart, Tabori, and Chang.

Forbes, Isabella, and Underhill, William. (1990). Cather-

ine the Great: Treasures of Imperial Russia from the

State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad. London: Booth-

Clibborn Editions.

Gosudarstvennyi Ermitazh. (1994). Treasures of the Her-

mitage Museum, St. Petersburg. New York: Harry N.

Abrams.

Norman, Geraldine. (1997). The Hermitage: The Biography

of a Great Museum. London: J. Cape.

Varshavsky, Sergei and Rest, Boris. (1986). Hermitage:

The Siege of Leningrad, 1941–1944. New York: Harry

N. Abrams.

E. R

OBERTSON

MUSIC

The history of music in Russia is closely connected

with political and social developments and is char-

acterized by a fruitful tension between reception of

and dissociation from the West. As elsewhere, the

historical development of music in Russia is densely

interwoven with the general history of the country.

Political, social, and cultural structures and processes

in the imperial and Soviet eras wielded a strong in-

fluence on musical forms. Even though aesthetic

and creative forces always developed a dynamic of

their own, they remained inextricable from the

power lines of the political and social system.

The beginning of Russian art music is insepa-

rably linked to a politically induced cultural event

in Kievan Rus: the Christianization of the East Slavs

under Grand Duke Vladimir I in 988. With religion

came sacred music from Byzantium. It was to set

the framework for art music in Russia up to the

seventeenth century. Condemned by the church as

the work of Satan, secular music could hold its own

in Old Russia only in certain areas. Whereas the

general population mainly cultivated traditional

forms of folk music, the tsars, dukes, and nobility

were entertained by professional singers and mu-

sicians.

The forceful orientation toward Western ways

of life under Peter I introduced a new era of Russ-

ian history of music following European patterns.

After Peter had opened the “window to the West,”

the sounds of the music of Western Europe, together

with its producers, irresistibly found their way into

the tsarist court and Russian aristocracy. In the

eighteenth century the Italian opera held a key po-

sition in Europe. The ambitious court in St. Peters-

burg brought in the big names of Italian musical

culture, including numerous composers and musi-

cians. Since the time of Catherine II the repertory of

the newly founded theaters included the first mu-

sic theater works of Russian composers as well as

Italian and French operas. In spite of their native-

language librettos, the Russian works were, of

course, modelled on the general European style of

the Italians. As in many other European countries,

the forming of an independent, original, Russian

music culture took place in the nineteenth century,

which was characterized by “national awakening.”

Through an intensive integration of European mu-

sical forms and contents on the one hand and the

adaptation of Russian and partly Oriental folk mu-

sic on the other, Russian composers created an im-

pressive, specifically Russian art music.

MUSIC

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

The rich ambivalence of dependence on and dis-

tance from Middle and Western Europe can already

be found in the operas of Mikhail Glinka, who, re-

gardless of some predecessors, is considered the

founder of Russian national music. Among his fol-

lowers a dispute arose concerning how far a gen-

uine Russian composer should distance himself

from Western culture. The circle of the Mighty

Handful of Mily Balakirev and his followers—still

consisting of highly talented amateurs—decidedly

adhered to the creation of Russian national music.

Other composers like the cosmopolitan virtuoso

Anton Rubinstein or Peter Tchaikovsky, who re-

ceived his professional training in Russia at the Pe-

tersburg conservatory founded in 1862, had fewer

reservations about being inspired by the West,

though Tchaikovsky, too, wrote genuine Russian

music. The work of these pioneers was continued

well into the early twentieth century by such com-

posers as Alexander Glazunov, Sergei Rachmani-

nov, and Alexander Skryabin. The latter, however,

in his later compositions made a radical turn from

the nineteenth-century mode of musical expression

and became a leading figure of multifaceted Russ-

ian modernism.

In 1917 a political event again marked a turn-

ing point in Russian music life: the Bolshevik Oc-

tober Revolution. Although in the 1920s the Soviet

state made considerable room for the most varied

aesthetic conceptions, by the mid-1930s the doc-

trine of “Socialist Realism” silenced the musical

avant-garde. Optimistic works easy to understand

were the overriding demand of the officials; alleged

stylistic departures from the norm could entail

sanctions. Nevertheless, composers like Dmitry

Shostakovich, Sergei Prokofiev, and others achieved

artistic greatness through a synthesis of confor-

mity and self-determination. Although the oppor-

tunities for development remained limited until the

end of the Soviet Union, Russian musical life al-

ways met a high standard, which markedly man-

ifested itself not only in the compositions, but

in the outstanding performing artists of the twen-

tieth century (e.g., David Oystrakh, Svyatoslav

Richter).

Soviet popular music also succeeded, against

ideological constraints, in finding its own, highly

appreciated forms of expression. While the 1920s

were still dominated by traditional Russian and

gypsy romances as well as Western operetta songs,

in the 1930s a genuine Soviet style of light music

developed. Isaak Dunayevsky created the so-called

mass song, which combined cheerful, optimistic

music with politically useful texts. His style set the

tone of popular music in Stalin’s time, even if the

sufferings of war furthered the reemergence of

more dark and somber romances. Jazz could not

establish itself in Soviet musical life until the late

1950s. Russians had welcomed early trends of jazz

with great enthusiasm, but the official classifica-

tion of American-influenced music as capitalist and

hostile hindered its development in the Soviet Union

until Stalin’s death. Later, rock music faced simi-

lar problems. Only the years of perestroika allowed

Russian rock to emancipate itself from the under-

ground. Until then, the officially promoted hits,

widely received by Soviet society, were a blend of

mass song, folk music elements, and contemporary

pop. In contrast to the unsuspected shallowness

of these songs, the so-called bards (e.g., Bulat

Okudzhava or Vladimir Vysotsky) did not hesitate

to address human problems and difficulties of

everyday life in their guitar songs. Probably these

poet-singers left behind the most original legacy in

Soviet popular music, whereas the other currents

of musical entertainment distinguished themselves

through their interesting synthesis of Western im-

pulses and Russian characteristics, a central thread

in Russian music culture of the modern age.

See also: BALALAIKA; DUNAYEVSKY, ISAAKOSIPOVICH;

FOLK MUSIC; GLINKA, MIKHAIL IVANOVICH; MIGHTY

HANDFUL; NATIONALISM IN ARTS; PROKOFIEV, SERGE

SERGEYEVICH; RACHMANINOV, SERGE VASILIEVICH;

SHOSTAKOVICH, DMITRI DIMTRIEVICH; STRAVINSKY,

IGOR FYODOROVICH; TCHAIKOVSKY, PETER ILYICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hakobian, Levon. (1998). Music of the Soviet Age,

1917–1987. Stockholm: Melos Music Literature.

Maes, Francis. (2002). A History of Russian Music: From

Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar. Berkeley: University of

California Press.

Schwarz, Boris. (1983). Music and Musical Life in the So-

viet Union, 1917–1981. Bloomington: Indiana Uni-

versity Press.

Starr, S. Frederick. (1994). Red and Hot: The Fate of Jazz

in the Soviet Union, 1917–1991. New York: Limelight

Ed.

Stites, Richard. (1992). Russian Popular Culture. Cam-

bridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Taruskin, Richard. (1997). Defining Russia Musically: His-

torical and Hermeneutical Essays. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press.

ATTHIAS

TADELMANN

MUSIC

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

MUSKETEERS See STRELTSY.

MYASOEDOV AFFAIR

On March 20, 1915, the Russian Army Headquar-

ters announced the execution of Sergei A. Myasoe-

dov, a gendarme officer, for espionage only days

after his arrest and hasty conviction by military

court. The event was a major scandal in the press

and is significant for a number of reasons. First, it

occurred in the midst of a series of Russian losses

on the German section of the front, losses that

marked the beginning of what would become

known as the Russian Great Retreat that led Rus-

sia out of all the Polish provinces and parts of what

are now Lithuania, Latvia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

Myasoedov, who had plenty of enemies in the army

command, security services, and elsewhere, was

likely set up as a convenient scapegoat for the ex-

tensive Russian losses at the front. After his exe-

cution, a wave of arrests targeted anyone who had

been associated with him.

If the execution was meant to calm public opin-

ion, it probably had the opposite effect. A series of

raids, arrests, and deportations led by the unofficial

head of the domestic military counterintelligence

service, Mikhail Dmitriyevich Bonch Bruyevich,

and especially the hysterical accusations of spying

that the Army Chief of Staff Nikolai Yanushkevich

leveled against Jews, Germans, and foreigners in

the front zones added to what became a wave of

popular spy mania that became a constant and im-

portant feature of domestic politics for the rest of

the war.

Only two months after the arrest of Myasoe-

dov, Moscow erupted into one of the largest riots

in Russian history—directed against Germans and

foreigners. The scandal also undermined the posi-

tion of the minister of war, Vladimir A. Sukhom-

linov, who had been a close associate of Myasoedov.

In fact, the entire episode may also have been part

of political intrigues to try to undermine Sukhom-

linov, who was forced to resign in June 1915 un-

der a cloud of rumors of his own treasonous acts.

Perhaps most importantly, the scandal lent cre-

dence to rumors of treason among members of the

Russian elite. Such rumors continued to grow

through the rest of the war, and came to center on

the empress Alexandra, Rasputin, and various indi-

viduals with German names in the Russian court,

government, and army command. These rumors

did a great deal to undermine respect for the monar-

chy and contributed to the idea that the monarchy

stood in the way of an effective war effort—in short,

that it would be a patriotic act to overthrow the

monarchy.

See also: FEBRUARY REVOLUTION; OCTOBER REVOLUTION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Katkov, George. (1967). Russia, 1917: The February Rev-

olution. London: Longman.

RIC

OHR

MYASOEDOV AFFAIR

987

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

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NAGORNO-KARABAKH

A mountainous region at the eastern end of the

Armenian plateau in the south Caucasus and orig-

inally part of the Artsakh province of historic

Armenia, the Nagorno-Karabakh (“Mountainous

Karabakh”) region kept its autonomy following the

loss of Armenian statehood in the eleventh century.

Its right to self-government was formally recog-

nized from 1603 onward by the Persian shahs, giv-

ing it a special place in Armenian history.

Nagorno-Karabakh was incorporated into the

Russian Empire in 1806, following the first Russo-

Persian war. While this meant the dissolution of

the region’s autonomy, Russia was able to portray

itself as the savior of Christians in the region, fa-

cilitating Russia’s full occupation of the eastern

Transcaucasus by 1828.

During the tsarist era, Nagorno-Karabakh was

made part of the Elisavetbol province, which in-

cluded the plains of Karabakh to the east, linking

the region to the economy as well as history of the

Azeri population and giving it a special place in the

development of modern Azerbaijani culture. Fol-

lowing the withdrawal of Russian troops from the

southern Caucasus during World War I and the

proclamation of independence by Azerbaijan and

Armenia in 1918, the two republics fought over

the region, which was then considered a disputed

territory by the League of Nations. Great Britain,

briefly in charge of the region following the defeat

of Turkey, facilitated its incorporation in Azerbai-

jan. Following the Sovietization of the two re-

publics, Nagorno-Karabakh was made part of

Azerbaijan as the Autonomous Region of Nagorno-

Karabakh (NKAO, 4,800 square kilometers), despite

the wishes of its majority Armenian population.

While the NKAO enjoyed relative stability

until 1988—the Soviets placed an army base in

Stepanakert, the capital of the region—there were

intermittent protests by Armenians against Azer-

baijani policies of cultural, economic, and ethnic

discrimination. Armenians continued to consider

the inclusion of the region in Azerbaijan as an un-

just concession to Azerbaijan, and Azerbaijanis con-

sidered the special status an unfair concession to

Armenians.

According to the last Soviet census taken in

1989, NKAO had a population of 182,000, of

which 140,000 were Armenian and 40,000 Azeris.

In 1988, following glasnost and perestroika,

Soviet Armenians joined NKAO Armenians in de-

989

manding the unification of the region with Arme-

nia, leading to pogroms against Armenians in Azer-

baijan and the expulsion of about 170,000 Azeris

from Armenia and of 300,000 Armenians from

Azerbaijan in 1989 and 1990. Following the decla-

ration of independence of Azerbaijan from the USSR

in 1991, NKAO declared its own independence from

Azerbaijan, while Azerbaijan dissolved the au-

tonomous status of the region. The Azerbaijani de-

cision in 1991 to use military means and blockades

to force the region into submission led to a war

from 1992 to 1994 that ultimately involved Ar-

menia. Azerbaijan lost the NKAO as well as seven

Azeri-populated provinces around the region. The

conflict created close to 400,000 Armenian and

700,000 Azeri refugees and internally displaced

persons, including those evicted from their homes

in both republics.

A cease-fire mediated in 1994 has been main-

tained since. But negotiations, including those con-

ducted by the Minsk Group of the Organization for

Security and Cooperation in Europe, have failed to

resolve the problem of the future status of the re-

gion. Russia, suspected by Azerbaijanis as the party

responsible for the conflict and the lack of progress

in its resolution, has been involved in the negotia-

tions both as a major regional actor and as a mem-

ber and subsequently co-chair of the Minsk Group.

See also: ARMENIA AND ARMENIANS; AZERBAIJAN AND

AZERIS; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Coppetiers, Bruno, ed. (1996). Contested Borders in the

Caucasus. Brussels: VUB Press.

Cornell, Svante. (2001). Small Nations and Great Powers.

Surrey, UK: Curzon.

Croissant, Michael P. (1998). The Armenia-Azerbaijan

Conflict. Westport, CT: Praeger.

Hunter, Shireen. (1994). The Transcaucasus in Transition:

Nation-Building and Conflict. Washington DC: Cen-

ter for Strategic and International Studies.

ERARD

J. L

IBARIDIAN

NAGRODSKAYA, EVDOKIA

APOLLONOVNA

(1866–1930), fiction writer.

Evdokia Apollonovna Nagrodskaya was a re-

markably candid and avant-garde fiction writer

in turn-of-the-century Russia. She was the daugh-

ter of Avdotia Yakovlevna Panayeva (1819–1893),

a journalist, prominent salon hostess, and mis-

tress of the poet Nikolai Alexeyevich Nekrasov

(1821–1877), a coworker of Evdokia’s father, Apol-

lon Golovachev, who worked for the “thick jour-

nal” Sovremennik. Thus raised in an intellectual

environment, Nagrodskaya wrote poetry and sev-

eral novels, including The White Colonnade (Belaya

Kolonnada) in 1900, The Bronze Door (Bronzovaya

dver) in 1911, Evil Spirits (Zlye dukhi) in 1916, and

The River of Times (Reka vremen) in 1924.

Nagrodskaya is best known, however, for her

novel The Wrath of Dionysus (Gnev Dionisa), which

became a bestseller in 1910, although it shocked

readers unaccustomed to taboo topics like illicit

love, female sexuality, and homosexuality. The

novel was published in ten editions and was trans-

lated into French, Italian, German, and English. Ul-

timately the novel became a silent movie in theaters

across two continents. The heroine of the story is

Tatiana Kuznetsova, a painter who cheats on her

supportive but boring fiancé when she meets a

dashing, brilliant Englishman named Edgar Stark

during a train ride. She begins an affair, but when

Stark becomes too possessive, jealous even of her

art, she pulls away. Accidentally impregnated by

Stark, however, she later decides to stay with him

and the baby. Another key character is her homo-

sexual friend Latchinov. The highlight of the story

is a dialog between Tatiana and Latchinov, in which

the latter confronts Tatiana with her own homo-

sexuality, explaining that she (a masculine woman)

and Stark (an effeminate man) are inverted mem-

bers of their respective genders, and thus comple-

ment each other as “normal” men and women do.

Suffering from a terminal disease, Latchinov reveals

to her his own sexual (but unconsummated) love

for Stark, and bids her farewell.

See also: NEKRASOV, NIKOLAI ALEXEYEVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barker, Adele Marie. (2002). A History of Women’s Writ-

ing in Russia. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Nagrodskaia, Evdokia, and McReynolds, Louise. (1997).

The Wrath of Dionysus: A Novel. Bloomington: Indi-

ana University Press.

Von Geldern, James, and McReynolds, Louise. (1998). En-

tertaining Tsarist Russia: Tales, Songs, Plays, Movies,

Jokes, Ads, and Images from Russian Urban Life,

1779–1917. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

OHANNA

RANVILLE

NAGRODSKAYA, EVDOKIA APOLLONOVNA

990

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

NAKHICHEVAN

As part of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Nakhi-

chevan Republic is located in South Asia, west of

Azerbaijan proper and separated from this main

territory by the narrow strip of Armenia. The land-

mass of Nakhichevan is 5,500 square kilometers,

occupying the southern slopes of the Darlagez

range and the southwestern slopes of the Zangezur

Mountains. The Araz river valley extends between

these two ranges. Almost 75 percent of the terri-

tory is located at an elevation of 1,000 meters.

Gapydjik, located in the Zangezur range, is the

highest peak in the region at 3,904 meters. The re-

gion is also known for its volcanic domes and its

frequent, severe earthquakes.

The republic is rich in mineral deposits includ-

ing marble, gypsum, lime, and sulfur. There are

abundant mineral springs including Badamli, Sirab,

Nagajir, and Kiziljir.

Nakhichevan’s climate is continental, its tem-

perature ranging from 26 degrees Celsius in sum-

mer months to -6 degrees Celsius in winter. The

pre-Arazian plains region can be described as semi-

arid. The higher elevations of the mountainous ar-

eas are characterized as tundra, typically cold and

dry. Precipitation is considerably light throughout

the region, with 200 to 300 millimeters annually

recorded in the plains region. Periodic flash flood-

ing occurs due to topography and sparse vegeta-

tion. Aside from the Araz, there are about forty

smaller rivers in the country fed by rain and the

mountain runoff of melting snows.

According to legend, Noah’s ark is said to have

first touched land along the submerged peaks of

the Zangezur Mountains before reaching Mount

Ararat. The Republic’s name is derived from this

legend, as “Nakhichevan” is a corruption of

Nukkhtchikhan, the colony of Noah. Like the sur-

rounding region, Nakhichevan sits at a strategic

crossroads and has been subject to military inter-

vention throughout much of its history. In the

mid-eighteenth century, after successive battles for

supremacy between Iran and Russia, Nakhichevan

came under Russian control, in accordance with the

treaty of Turkmanchai in 1828. In 1924 Josef

Stalin designated Nakhichevan an autonomous re-

public, a status it maintains today within Azerbai-

jan.

The economy, based on agriculture, food pro-

cessing, and mining, has suffered substantially

since 1988 with loss of markets and imports due

to the Karabakh conflict. While trade corridors are

being restored to neighboring Iran and Turkey, eco-

nomic recovery is slow. Since 2000 almost three-

quarters of the state budget has been provided by

the central government in Baku.

See also: AZERBAIJAN AND AZERIS; CAUCASUS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

“Azerbaijan and Iran deal in LNG.” Alexander’s Gas &

Oil Connections. July 5, 2002. <http://www

.gasandoil.com/goc/news/ntc22239.htm>.

Swietochowski,Tadeusz, and Brian Collins. (1999). His-

torical Dictionary of Azerbaijan. Lanham, MD: Scare-

crow Press.

Twyman, Gregory. (2001). “Geography and Climate.” In

USACC Investment Guide to Azerbaijan, 2001. Wash-

ington, D.C.: USACC.

REGORY

WYMAN

NAKHIMOV, PAVEL STEPANOVICH

(1802–1855), commander of Black Sea Fleet in

Crimean war.

Pavel Stepanovich Nakhimov was born into a

naval family in Gorodok, Smolensk province. In

1818 he completed his studies in the Naval Cadet

Corps and served aboard ships in the Baltic fleet.

From 1822 to 1825 Nakhimov participated in a

round-the-world cruise abroad the frigate Kreiser-

36. Nakhimov served aboard Vice-Admiral Geiden’s

flagship Azov-74 at the battle of Navarino on Oc-

tober 21, 1827. During the subsequent 1828–1829

Russo-Turkish War, Nakhimov served in the Russ-

ian Mediterranean squadron blockading the Dard-

anelles, commanding a corvette. Following the end

of the war Nakhimov returned to the Baltic fleet

base at Kronshtadt. In 1834 Nakhimov was trans-

ferred to the Black Sea Fleet, where he was given

command of a ship of the line. During the 1840s

Nakhimov participated in numerous amphibious

landings on the eastern Black Sea Caucasian coast,

where the Russian military constructed a chain of

coastal forts to interdict arms smuggling to Mus-

lim rebels. Nakhimov was promoted to rear admi-

ral in 1845. Seven years later Nakhimov was

promoted to vice admiral and given command of a

fleet division. As relations between the Russian and

Ottoman empires worsened in the early 1850s,

Nakhimov argued for an aggressive naval policy to-

ward the Ottoman Empire. On November 30, 1853,

NAKHIMOV, PAVEL STEPANOVICH

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Nakhimov led a squadron into Sinope harbor on the

southern Black Sea coast. Using shell-firing artillery

instead of smoothbore cannons, his ships annihi-

lated the Ottoman squadron moored there, produc-

ing outrage in Europe. Following the outbreak of

the Crimean War in 1854, Nahkimov was ap-

pointed commander of the Black Sea Feet and mil-

itary governor of Sevastopol port in February 1855.

Nakhimov supervised the offloading of artillery

from the fleet’s warships to be integrated in a se-

ries of land fortifications under the direction of en-

gineer E. I. Totleben. Nakhimov was mortally

wounded by enemy fire on the Malakhov redoubt

on July 10, 1855, and interred in the Vladimir

church. A monument was raised to Nakhimov in

1898 in Sevastopol on the forty-fifth anniversary

of the Sinope battle. The Imperial Navy honored his

memory by naming ships in his honor; an Admi-

ral Nakhimov cruiser was sunk by her crew after

the Tsushima battle on May 27, 1905. Despite the

USSR’s disavowal of much of its imperial history,

the Soviet government on March 3, 1944, estab-

lished a first- and second-class Nakhimov military

order for valor for officers; a Nakhimov medal for

lower ranks was also established, and naval cadets

attended Nakhimov naval academies. The post-

Soviet navy also has a Kirov-class Admiral Nakhi-

mov cruiser (formerly Kalinin, renamed in 1992).

See also: BLACK SEA FLEET; CRIMEAN WAR; MILITARY, IM-

PERIAL ERA; SINOPE, BATTLE OF

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Daly, Robert Welter. (1958). “Russia’s Maritime Past.”

In The Soviet Navy, ed. Colonel M. G. Saunders. New

York: Praeger.

OHN

C. K. D

ALY

NAPOLEON I

The Russian people first discovered Napoleon as the

young and bright general who stood out during

the military campaigns of Italy in 1796–1797 and

of Egypt in 1798–1799. By that time, he was

deeply admired in Russia for his military genius by

both civilians and soldiers such as Alexander Su-

vorov, who saw in him a “new Hannibal.” Later

on, Napoleon’s victories over European armies re-

inforced the myth of his military invincibility, un-

til the retreat of Berezina in October–November

1812.

Politically, the coup d’état by which Napoleon

came to power in October 1799 (Eighteenth Bru-

maire) at first reassured the tsar Paul and the con-

servative and liberal elites, who saw in this new

authoritarian regime the end of disorders and ex-

cesses brought by the French Revolution. But this

feeling did not last: Napoleon’s proclamation of his

First Consulate for life on August 4,1802, followed

by the establishment of the Empire on May 18,

1804, triggered strong negative reactions. For lib-

erals, including the young tsar Alexander I, who

acceded to the throne in March 1801, Napoleon be-

came a tyrant who betrayed the Enlightenment

ideas through personal interest. For the conserva-

tives, the self-crowned man lacked legitimacy, and

his huge political ambitions were dangerous for the

European balance.

Alexander first chose to ignore the Napoleonic

threat. In 1801 the young tsar decided to maintain

Russia outside the European conflict and adopted a

pacifist diplomacy: On October 8, 1801, a peace

treaty was officially signed with France. But this po-

sition became increasingly difficult to maintain

when France started to pose a serious threat to Rus-

sian interests in the Mediterranean and in the

Balkans. So in 1805, Alexander decided to join Aus-

tria and Britain in the Third Coalition. The tsar

wanted to play a major role in the international the-

ater, lead the fight against Napoleon, and, after the

victory, promote a new European order, liberated

from the tyrant. However, the military operations

were a disaster for Russia, and on December 2, 1805,

the battle of Austerlitz was a personal humiliation

for Alexander, who, as commander of the Russian

forces, ignored General Mikhail Kutuzov’s advice not

to enter battle before the arrival of more troops.

After the defeat of Friedland on June 14, 1806,

judging that his forces were unable to continue

fighting, the tsar decided to pursue peace with

Napoleon. Napoleon was in favor of an agreement

with Russia, as his focus had shifted to political con-

trol of Central Europe and the war against Britain.

On July 7–9, 1807, several treaties were signed at

Tilsit between the two emperors. The terms were

difficult for Prussia, which was partitioned. The Pol-

ish provinces forming the Duchy of Warsaw under

Saxony and the provinces west of the Elbe were com-

bined to make the Kingdom of Westphalia, which

had to pay an indemnity. Russia suffered no terri-

torial losses but had to recognise Napoleon’s domi-

nant position in Europe and take part in the

continental blockade of British trade. In compensa-

tion Russia obtained peace, freedom of action in East-

NAPOLEON I

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