Encyclopedia of Russian History

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offered shelter to the Russian emperor. Nicholas

was placed under arrest by the new Provisional

Government at Tsarskoe Selo, but in August 1917,

he and his family were moved to the town of To-

bolsk in the Urals, 1,200 miles east of Moscow. Af-

ter the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917, the

position of the imperial family became much more

precarious. The outbreak of the civil war raised the

possibility that the emperor might be rescued by

opponents of the Bolshevik government. At the end

of April 1918, Nicholas II and his family were

moved to Yekaterinburg, the center of Bolshevik

power in the Ural region, and in mid-July orders

came from Moscow to kill them. Early in the morn-

ing of July 17, they were all shot. Their bodies

were thrown into a disused mine-shaft and re-

mained there until after the collapse of the Soviet

Union. In 1998, their remains were brought back

to St. Petersburg and interred in the Peter-Paul

fortress, the traditional burial place of Russia’s im-

perial family.

See also: FEBRUARY REVOLUTION; OCTOBER REVOLUTION;

PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT; REVOLUTION OF 1905;

RUSSO-JAPANESE WAR

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ananich, Boris Vasilevich, and Ganelin, R. S. (1996).

“Emperor Nicholas II, 1894–1917.” In The Emperors

and Empresses of Russia: Rediscovering the Romanovs,

ed. Donald J. Raleigh. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

Lieven, Dominic D. (1993). Nicholas II: Emperor of All the

Russias. London: John Murray.

Verner, Andrew M. (1995). The Crisis of Russian Autoc-

racy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution. Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press.

ETER

ALDRON

NIHILISM AND NIHILISTS

Nihilism was a tendency of thought among the

Russian intelligentsia around the 1850s and 1860s;

nihilists, a label that was applied loosely to radicals

in the intelligentsia from the 1860s to the 1880s.

Although the term intelligentsia came into

widespread use only in the 1860s, the numbers of

educated young Russians of upper- or middle-class

origins had been growing for some decades before

that time, and under the influence of the latest

Western philosophical and social theories, the Russ-

ian intelligentsia had included members with in-

creasingly radical ideas in each new generation after

the 1840s. “Nihilism” was a term that was first

popularized by the novelist Ivan Turgenev in 1862

(though it had been used in Russia and abroad for

several decades before that time) to characterize the

rebellious and highly unconventional youths who

had appeared in Russia by the late 1850s. The ni-

hilists rejected the idealism and relative optimism

of the heroes of a previous generation of the Russ-

ian intelligentsia, who had been led by the

essayist Alexander Herzen and the literary critic

Vissarion Belinsky. Nihilism, with its “critical re-

alism,” gave intellectual respectability to a rebellion

against the established values and conventions of

polite society that defended the institutions of fam-

ily, nobility, church, and state. Many of the young

nihilists belonged to the growing numbers of the

raznochintsy, or the people of various ranks in so-

ciety, such as the sons and daughters of priests,

lower officials, and others of strata below the aris-

tocracy.

One of the models for the nihilists was Dmitry

Pisarev, a literary critic who attacked the world’s

most famous products of art and literature and

took an extreme position in favor of naturalistic

realism and scientific utiltarianism. The most fa-

mous prototype of the nihilist was the character of

Bazarov in Turgenev’s novel Fathers and Sons (Otsy

i deti), who repudiated all conventional values and

standards. That novel aroused a storm of contro-

versy with its depiction of a schism between the

idealistic Russian liberals of the preceding genera-

tion and the apparently amoral nihilists of the

younger generation. While leading figures of the

previous generation who had endorsed liberal prin-

ciples and socialist ideals had held out the hope of

gradual reform in society and improvements in the

moral consciousness of individuals, the nihilists

called for revolutionary changes, with the complete

destruction of established institutions. It is often

said that the rise of nihilism in the intelligentsia re-

flected the weakness of social roots and affiliation

with the traditions of the past among many young

members of the intelligentsia. Turgenev himself

continued to be sympathetic toward gradual re-

forms, but Pisarev welcomed the label of nihilist as

a form of praise.

The nihilists flaunted their unconventionality

and supposedly hardheaded realism. As Adam

Yarmolinsky describes in Road to Revolution: A Cen-

tury of Russian Radicalism (1962), “to the conserv-

NIHILISM AND NIHILISTS

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

atives frightened by the threatening effects of the

new freedom, nihilism connoted atheism, free love,

sedition, the outraging of every decency and ac-

cepted belief by men, and as often, by the un-

womanly ‘emancipated’ woman.” And yet the term

“nihilism” was a misnomer from the start. Though

the nihilists were often described as people who no

longer believed in anything, in actuality they be-

lieved in their own ideas with passionate and in-

deed fanatical intensity. The nihilists believed that

“the emancipation of the person,” or the emergence

of independent, critically thinking individuals,

whose outlook had replaced sentimental idealism

with scientific rigor and realism, was the means of

leading the way to a new society, since it was pos-

sible for only an exceptional minority to achieve

enlightenment. The nihilists were influenced by

theories that had come from Western Europe, in-

cluding German philosophy and French socialist

thought, but they were most impressed by new

discoveries and theories in the realm of the natural

sciences, so that they virtually worshiped science,

which they saw as guiding individuals of the new

type who would usher in a new society.

Nihilism was soon succeeded by populism

among the radical intelligentsia. The distinction be-

tween nihilism and populism is blurred in many

accounts, as indeed it was in the writings of many

observers from the 1860s to the 1880s, who re-

ferred to Nikolai Chernyshevsky, the great hero of

the populists, as a nihilist. In reality, although the

populists were deeply influenced by the nihilists,

there were sharp differences between the two

schools of thought. While the nihilists had glori-

fied the minority of supposedly brilliant, bold, and

unconventional intellectuals, and felt disdain for the

unenlightened majority in society, the populists

idealized the Russian peasants as morally superior,

and were theoretically committed to learning from

the peasants, who for a new generation of radicals

constituted the narod (the people). While the pop-

ulists agreed that revolutionary change was neces-

sary, they believed that the peasant commune could

be the basis for a uniquely Russian form of social-

ism. The nihilists had never developed any coher-

ent program for political change. This may explain

in part why they were succeeded by the populists,

even though the populist strategy for transforma-

tion had some gaps of its own.

See also: BAZAROV, VLADIMIR ALEXANDROVICH; INTELLI-

GENTSIA; PISAREV, DMITRY IVANOVICH; POPULISM;

TURGENEV, IVAN SERGEYEVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kelly, Aileen M. (1998). Toward Another Shore: Russian

Thinkers Between Necessity and Chance. New Haven,

CT: Yale University Press.

Tompkins, Stuart Ramsay. (1957). The Russian Intelli-

gentsia: Makers of the Revolutionary State. Norman:

University of Oklahoma Press.

Venturi, Franco. (1960). Roots of Revolution: A History of

the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth-

Century Russia, tr. Francis Haskell. New York: Wei-

denfeld and Nicolson.

LFRED

B. E

VANS

NIJINSKY, VASLAV FOMICH

(1889–1950), Russian dancer and choreographer.

The most famous Russian male dancer, Vaslav

Fomich Nijinsky was also a choreographer, though

madness cut short his career. Nijinsky, like his col-

league Anna Pavlova, achieved international fame

through his appearances with Sergei Diagilev’s

Ballets Russes in Paris, beginning in 1909. Trained

at the Imperial Theater School in St. Petersburg,

Nijinsky joined the Imperial Ballet in 1907, but

left the troupe in 1911, his international career al-

ready well established. Onstage, Nijinsky’s some-

what sturdy frame became a lithe instrument of

unprecedented lightness and elevation. Noted for

seemingly effortless leaps, Nijinsky’s photographs

also reveal the dancer’s uncanny ability to trans-

form himself from role to role. Nijinsky’s first

choreography, for L’Après-midi d’un Faune (1912),

to Debussy’s music, scandalized Paris with its

eroticism, though the ballet’s true innovation lay

in its turn from the virtuosity for which Nijinsky

had become famous. Niji nsky’s choreography for

Igor Stravinsky’s Le Sacre du printemps (1913)

went even farther in demonstrating the choreogra-

pher’s disdain for the niceties of ballet convention

and his embrace of primitivism. Asymmetrical and

unlovely, the work was dropped from the Ballets

Russes repertory after some nine performances.

Nijinsky, once the lover of Diagilev, married in

1913 and was dismissed from Diagilev’s company.

After itinerant and often unsuccessful perfor-

mances during World War I, Nijinsky was diag-

nosed a schizophrenic in 1919. The remaining years

of the great dancer’s life were spent mostly in san-

itoriums.

See also: BALLET; BOLSHOI THEATER; DIAGILEV, SERGEI:

PAVLOVICH; PAVLOVA, ANNA MATVEYEVNA

NIJINSKY, VASLAV FOMICH

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Buckle, Richard. (1971). Nijinsky. New York: Simon and

Schuster.

Nijinsky, Vaslav. (1999). The Diary of Vaslav Nijinsky, tr.

Kyril FitzLyon; ed. Joan Acocella. New York: Farrar,

Strauss and Giroux.

Ostwald, Peter. (1991). Vaslav Nijinsky: A Leap into Mad-

ness. New York: Carol.

CHOLL

NIKITIN, AFANASY

Famed Russian merchant and autobiographer; ex-

act dates of birth and death unknown.

Afanasy Nikitin was a Russian merchant from

Tver who left a diary of his travels to Iran and In-

dia during a four-year period between 1466 and

1475. The traveler’s own account remains the pri-

mary source of information on his personal his-

tory and the purpose of his long journey. Under

the title The Journey Beyond Three Seas, Afanasy’s

travel record is a document of great interest, both

to historians studying the interactions of medieval

Russians with the Muslim East, and in general as

one of the first autobiographical accounts in the

literature. It has been repeatedly published in the

original Russian with annotations and translated

into many languages.

Afanasy’s notes describe how he left Tver, in-

tending to join a trade expedition headed for the

Caucasian principality of Shirvan. On the way, his

party was robbed of their goods. He was rescued

by the Shah of Shirvan, but, despite the high risk,

decided to continue his journey to Derbent, a mar-

ket familiar to him, and then to Baku, rather than

return to Tver empty-handed. He went on to cross

the Caspian Sea, continued his travels across Iran,

and then crossed the Indian Ocean to the Deccan.

After surveying the markets, customs, and courts

of the Bahmani and Vijayanagar empires, he made

his way back to Russia, crossing the Black Sea.

Somewhere in the region of Smolensk, he met an

untimely death. Merchants brought his notes to

Vasily Mamyrev, secretary to Grand Prince Ivan III

of Moscow. The L’vov chronicler reports that he

received Afanasy’s notes in 1475 and incorporated

them into his annalistic record, but was unable to

locate any further information on the traveler.

The first historians to study his notes saw

Afanasy as a daring explorer and patriot. Looking

at the journey in commercial perspective, however,

historian Janet Martin concludes that although

Afanasy did travel farther than other Russian trav-

elers of his era, and visitied places they did not, his

notes reveal him as a cautious, even conservative

merchant who made a series of discrete, limited de-

cisions to continue his journey on the basis of in-

formation about markets conveyed by merchants

that he met. He initially planned to take advantage

of a lull in hostilities between Muscovy and the

Great Horde to bring furs to the Caucasus and the

lower Volga, a venture which had good prospects

for high profits. His journey to Iran followed a

well-established trade route, with extended stops at

towns known for their bazaars. Afanasy indicates

that his decision to continue to India was based on

information from Muslim merchants whom he

met in Iran. His notes on India, a market unfamil-

iar to Russian merchants, contain the most detailed

information on goods and markets, as well as ad-

vice on finding shelter and warnings about the high

customs fees exacted against Christians and the pres-

sures to convert to Islam. This information would

have been of great value to merchants considering

such a venture. Only when he concluded that fur-

ther travel would not bring new opportunities for

commerce did he decide to return to Russia.

Long passages in creolized Arabic containing

prayers and expression of fears about the traveler’s

inability to practice Christianity in India have in-

spired a variety of hypotheses. Nikolai Trubetskoy

characterized Afanasy’s notes as a lyrical tale of a

committed Orthodox Christian who suffered from

his religious isolation, but kept the faith of his

homeland; the foreign terms and phrases added lo-

cal color to the narrative, shaping its unique artis-

tic structure, while concealing the traveler’s most

intimate thoughts from all but a handful of

readers. Others questioned Afanasy’s faith. Yuri

Zavadovsky noted Afanasy’s extensive knowledge

of Muslim prayers and of the requirements for

conversion to Islam. Afanasy’s reports of his own

behavior suggested to historian Gail Lenhoff that

he was a social convert to Islam. This decision to

convert appears to have been initially dictated by

commercial interests, since Muslims did not have

to pay taxes or customs duties and could trade

more freely in the Deccan markets. His conversion

obligated him to pray in Arabic and to observe

Muslim customs in public. The increasing propor-

tion of Arabic prayers in the autobiography and

the existence of a final prayer of thanks to Allah

for surviving a storm, uttered as he approached

Christian soil and duly recorded in his diary, could

NIKITIN, AFANASY

1055

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

indicate that by the end of his journey Afanasy had

assimilated the Muslim faith.

See also: FOREIGN TRADE; ISLAM; MERCHANTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lenhoff, Gail and Martin, Janet. (1989). “The Commer-

cial and Cultural Context of Afanasij Nikitin’s Jour-

ney Beyond Three Seas.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte

Osteuropas 37 (3):321–344.

Major, Richard H., ed. (1857). “The Travels of Athana-

sius Nikitin,” tr. Mikhail M. Wielhorsky. In India in

the Fifteenth Century. Hakluyt Society, ser. 1. volume

22. London: Hakluyt Society.

Martin, Janet. (1985). “Muscovite Travelling Merchants:

The Trade with the Muslim East (Fifteenth and

Sixteenth Centuries).” Central Asian Studies 4

(3):21–38.

Trubetskoy, Nikolay S. (1978). “Afanasij Nikitin’s Jour-

ney Beyond Three Seas as a Work of Literature.” In

Readings in Russian Poetics: Formalist and Structural-

ist Views, ed. Ladislav Matejka and Krystyna Po-

morska. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Slavic

Publications.

AIL

ENHOFF

NIKON, PATRIARCH

(1605–1681), patriarch of Moscow and all Russia;

implemented a program of church reform that in-

spired vociferous opposition, ultimately culminat-

ing in the schism and the emergence of Old Belief.

Nikita Minich or Minov (as a monk, Nikon)

was born to a peasant couple in the village of Velde-

manov near Nizhny Novgorod. His mother died

shortly after his birth, and the child was sent to a

local tutor who taught him to read. As a youth,

he continued his studies at the Makariev Zhel-

tovodsky monastery, not far from Nizhny Nov-

gorod. The author of Nikon’s Life reports that the

young man was an avid student and attracted to

the monastic life. Nonetheless, in 1625 he obeyed

his dying father’s request to return home. He mar-

ried a year later and obtained a position as a dea-

con at a nearby village church. Soon he was

ordained a priest, and he and his wife moved to

Moscow.

In 1636 Minich persuaded his wife to enter a

convent. He himself departed for the Anzersky skete

in the far north. Upon arrival he took monastic

vows and the name Nikon. In 1649 a disagreement

with the elder Eliazar prompted Nikon to transfer

to the Kozheozersky monastery. Within three years

he was made abbot. In 1646 Nikon traveled to

Moscow on monastery business. There he attracted

the attention of the young Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich.

The tsar ordered him to remain in Moscow and

made him abbot of the New Savior monastery. En-

ergetic and talented, Nikon soon became a confi-

dant and spiritual advisor of the tsar. He also

became an important figure in the Zealots of Piety,

the circle of reformers gathered around the tsar’s

confessor, Stefan Vonifatiev.

In March 1649, Nikon was named metropoli-

tan of the important of see of Novgorod. He main-

tained contact with the reformers in Moscow and

sought to implement their program in Novgorod.

Mnogoglasie, the practice of simultaneously per-

forming different parts of the liturgy in order to

complete it more quickly, was abolished. Greek and

Kievan chants replaced the traditional style of

singing. Metropolitan Nikon’s sermons at the epis-

copal cathedral attracted great crowds. In 1650 se-

vere grain shortages caused famine and inflation in

Novgorod. The people responded with violence, and

Nikon played an important role in bringing the sit-

uation under control without bloodshed.

In the spring of 1652, Metropolitan Nikon was

entrusted with the task of traveling to the Solovet-

sky monastery, collecting the relics of St. Philip,

and returning with them to Moscow. The transla-

tion of St. Philip’s relics exemplified the views of

the Zealots of Piety. As metropolitan of Moscow,

St. Philip had died a martyr’s death for publicly re-

buking the cruel and unchristian acts of Tsar Ivan

IV (“the Terrible”). St. Philip’s example highlighted

the duty of the clergy to remind the laity, includ-

ing tsars, of their Christian duties. The translation

of his relics emphasized the dignity and importance

of the church. Nikon was on the return path to

Moscow when he received a letter from Tsar Alexei

Mikhailovich, informing him that Patriarch Joasif

had died and assuring him that he would be se-

lected as the next patriarch. A church council con-

vened and duly elected Nikon. On July 25, 1652,

Nikon was consecrated patriarch of Moscow and

all Russia.

Nikon was chosen patriarch to direct a reform

program advocated by the Zealots of Piety and sup-

ported by the tsar. If all reformers concurred on

the need to elevate popular piety and reform pop-

ular religious practices, the revision of the liturgi-

cal books to bring them into conformity with

NIKON, PATRIARCH

1056

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

contemporary Greek practice and the exercise of

power within the church were more sensitive is-

sues. Consecrated patriarch, Nikon moved deci-

sively to advance the liturgical reform with all

possible speed. In February 1653 a revised edition

of the Psalter was printed, minus two articles pre-

sent in earlier editions. An instruction calling for

sixteen full prostrations during a Lenten prayer

was modified, and a section teaching that the sign

of the cross should be made with two fingers was

removed. Correctors (spravshchiki) at the govern-

ment Printing Office, men long associated with the

work of the Zealots of Piety, protested the changes.

They promptly were removed from their posts and

replaced by supporters of Nikon. By the end of the

year, Patriarch Nikon assumed direct control of the

Printing Office.

In addition, according to later accounts of

Nikon’s opponents, shortly after the appearance of

the new Psalter, the patriarch sent a communica-

tion to Ivan Neronov, archpriest of the Kazan

Cathedral, calling attention to the revisions and or-

dering that they be introduced into the liturgy.

Confronted with what he perceived to be an error,

Neronov prayed for guidance and then discussed

the order with his associates, including Archbishop

Paul of Kolomna and the archpriests Avvakum,

Daniil, and Login. Avvakum and Daniil gathered

evidence against the revisions in the newly printed

Psalter and presented a petition to the tsar. The tsar

ignored it. By the end of 1653 the archpriests Lo-

gin and Neronov had been defrocked and exiled. Av-

vakum escaped defrocking through the personal

intervention of the tsar but was transferred to the

distant post of Tobolsk.

Patriarch Nikon’s reform activities were not

limited to liturgical reform. During the six years of

his active patriarchate, he worked to bring the

church under episcopal control, freeing the clergy

and church affairs from the interference of secular

authorities and creating a hierarchy of authority

flowing from the patriarch to the laity. As con-

temporaries noted, however, Nikon freed the

prelates and other clergy from secular powers only

to subordinate them to his own. Too often he ne-

glected to consult a church council before he acted,

provoking resentment and resistance where he

needed support. Nikon also was energetic in the

area of monastic reform, sternly punishing those

who flouted the monastic rule. Perhaps Nikon’s

more important contributions in this area were the

three monasteries he founded: the Monastery of the

Cross, the Monstery of the Iveron Mother of God,

and the Monastery of the Resurrection (or New

Jerusalem). Richly endowed, both materially and

spiritually, the latter two were centers of learning

as well as piety. All were subordinated directly to

Nikon. Finally, Nikon did not ignore the short-

comings in the popular practice and celebration of

religion. He initiated campaigns against the wan-

dering minstrels and jesters, with their profane mu-

sic and ribald jokes, and also against icons he

deemed painted in an improper manner. Such cam-

paigns manifested his zeal to dignify popular piety

and reform popular religious practices, but they of-

ten offended the powerful as well as the humble.

Scholars have disagreed as to whether Nikon’s

goal was to assert the superiority of church over

state, or simply to achieve the symphony between

church and state that is the Byzantine ideal. In re-

ality, Nikon’s power depended on the tsar’s favor.

As long as Nikon enjoyed the confidence and sup-

port of the tsar, those whom he offended in his zeal

were powerless against him. By 1658, however,

the tsar’s attitude towards Nikon had cooled. On

July 10, 1658, feeling snubbed by the tsar’s fail-

ure to invite him to an important state reception,

Nikon celebrated the liturgy in the Cathedral of the

Dormition, donned simple monastic garb, an-

nounced to those assembled that he would no

longer be patriarch, and walked away.

Nikon’s action was without precedent. After

two years, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich convened a

church council to address the situation. All agreed

that a new patriarch should be chosen, but no con-

sensus could be achieved on what to do with Nikon.

Nikon complicated the matter by asserting that he

had renounced the patriarchal throne but not his

calling, and that he alone had the power to estab-

lish a new patriarch.

In 1666, after lengthy exchanges, the patri-

archs of Alexandria and Antioch agreed to travel to

Moscow to participate in a church council to re-

solve the affair. Before the eastern patriarchs

arrived, delegates assembled and reaffirmed the cor-

rectness of the reform program itself. Those who

opposed the reform were condemned as heretics.

Thus officially began the church schism. The east-

ern patriarchs arrived, and on November 7 another

church council convened for the purpose of decid-

ing the case of Nikon. On December 12, 1666,

Nikon was found guilty of abandoning the patri-

archal throne; of slandering the tsar, the Russian

Church, and all the Russian people as heretics; of

insulting the eastern patriarchs; and of deposing

NIKON, PATRIARCH

1057

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

and exiling bishops without a church council. He

was removed officially as patriarch, stripped of his

priestly functions, demoted to the rank of a sim-

ple monk, and exiled to the Ferapontov monastery

in the far north. In 1676 he was transferred to the

Kirillov monastery, also in the north. In 1681, as

a result of the intercession of Tsar Fyodor Alex-

eyevich, Nikon was given permission to return to

Moscow. He died on the return journey, on August

17, 1681, and was buried in the Monastery of the

Resurrection.

See also: ALEXEI MIKHAILOVICH; AVVAKUM PETROVICH;

OLD BELIEVERS; RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH;

ZEALOTS OF PIETY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Lobachev, S.V. (2001). “Patriarch Nikon’s Rise to Power.”

Slavonic and East European Review 79(2):290–307.

Lupinin, Nickolas. (1984). Religious Revolt in the Eigh-

teenth Century: The Schism of the Russian Church.

Princeton, NJ: Kingston Press.

Meyendorff, Paul. (1991). Russia, Ritual, and Reform: The

Liturgical Reforms of Nikon in the Seventeenth Century.

Crestwood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Press..

Michels, Georg B. (1999). At War with the Church: Reli-

gious Dissent in Seventeenth-Century Russia. Stanford,

CA: Stanford University Press.

Palmer, William. (1871). The Patriarch and the Tsar. 6

vols. London: Trübner.

Soloviev, Sergei M. (2000). History of Russia, Vol. 21: The

Tsar and the Patriarch: Stenka Razin Revolts on the

Don, 1662–1675, tr. and ed. T. Allan Smith. Gulf

Breeze, FL: Academic International Press.

ATHY

J. P

OTTER

NIL SORSKY, ST.

(c. 1433–1508), ascetic master and editor-copyist.

Brother of the state secretary Andrei Maykov

(active 1450s–1490s), Nil entered the Kirillov-

Belozersk monastery in the 1440s or 1450s, went

to Mt. Athos at some time for special training, and

in 1470 was a leading Kirillov elder. Dissatisfied

with materialism and secular interests there, he

founded the Sorsky Hermitage on a Kirillov prop-

erty, where he enforced a strict, self-supporting

regimen and taught the Athonite, hesychastic mode

of prayer. By favoring monastic dispensation of

only spiritual alms, he avoided the amassing of

goods and dependent labor required for material

charity. In 1489, Archbishop Gennady of Novgorod

sought out Nil, who helped produce Joseph of

Volok’s anti-heretical, theological polemics.

Nil’s disciples included his traveling companion

Innokenty Okhlyabinin, founder of another her-

mitage based on Nil’s precepts; the Kirillov elders

Gury Tushin and German Podolny, one a biblio-

phile, the other an opponent of condemning

heretics; the disgraced prince-boyar Vassian Pa-

trikeyev, the most strident “Non-possessor”

during 1511–1531; and two of Joseph’s leading

acolytes.

Nil’s expert book-copying, most notably an au-

thoritative collection of saints lives, was distin-

guished by use of Greek originals to make

corrections. His polished corpus of well-respected

writings include the regulatory Tradition (Predanie)

for his hermitage; an eleven-discourse, patristic-

based Rule (Ustav) for “spiritual activity”; and di-

dactic epistles to German, Gury, and Vassian. The

leitmotifs are nonattachment, stillness with myti-

cal prayer, and combating the eight pernicious

“thoughts” (the Catholic seven deadly sins plus de-

spondency). Contemporary writings do not show

that Nil himself opposed and protested the execu-

tion of heretics or advocated confiscation of monas-

tic villages, as later claimed and still widely believed.

Locally venerated, Nil has been seen as Russia’s

great elder and as relatively liberal for his day. He

was added as a saint to official church calendars

only in modern times.

See also: CHURCH COUNCIL; KIRILL-BELOOZERO MONAS-

TERY; POSSESSORS AND NON-POSSESSORS; MONASTI-

CISM; ORTHODOXY; SAINTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Maloney, George A. (2000). Nil Sorsky. Costa Mesa, CA:

Paulist Press.

Ostrowski, Donald. (1988). “Toward Establishing the

Canon of Nil Sorsky’s Works.” Oxford Slavonic Pa-

pers 31:35–50.

Ostrowski, Donald. (1995). “Loving Silence and Avoid-

ing Pleasant Conversations. The Political Views of

Nil Sorskii.” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 19: 476-96.

AVID

M. G

OLDFRANK

NKVD See STATE SECURITY, ORGANS OF.

NKVD

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

NOGAI

The Nogai, known as Mangit ulus in contemporary

sources, was a loosely forged tribal union of no-

madic Turkic (Kipchak-Uzbek) pastoralists claim-

ing descent from Nogai (d. 1299), the founder of

the Golden Horde. Sunni Muslim, Nogai khanate

was formed in 1391, when the Tatar general Edigü,

the leader of the Mangit Mongol tribe, seceded from

the political orbit of the Golden Horde. Initially, No-

gai lands stretched from the left bank of the lower

Volga to the Ural River. The capital Saraichik, the

only town in the khanate, was situated on the

lower Ural in Central Asia. With Muscovite incor-

poration of the khanates of Kazan (1552) and As-

trakhan (1556), the Nogai Horde divided into three

parts: the Great Nogai Horde, occupying the orig-

inal core of the khanate’s lands, apparently became

Muscovite vassals; the Lesser Nogai Horde, located

along the right bank of the Volga-Kuban-Azov re-

gion, submitted to the Crimean Khanate; and the

Altiul Horde, which occupied the Emba basin. Due

to famine and pressures from nomadic Kalmyks to

the east in the 1570s through the early 1600s, the

Great and Lesser Nogai Hoards reunited and joined

the Ottoman-Crimean alliance. During Catherine

II’s (r. 1762–1796) wars with the Ottomans, most

of the remnants of the Nogai were incorporated

into the Russian Empire.

Because of its decentralized government, di-

verse trading partners, and conflicting allegiances

with the other Mongol khanates, Muscovy, and the

Ottomans, the Nogai had contradictory foreign

policies that complicated their relations with other

states in the region. However, since they wielded

great military power, good diplomatic relations

with the Nogai were sought after by the rival pow-

ers in the area. Aside from being occasional allies

of the Muscovites, they were also key suppliers of

horses, forwarding up to fifty thousand per deliv-

ery. In exchange, the Muscovites provided the No-

gai with weapons, grain, textiles, and other goods

that nomadic economies could not produce them-

selves. From the 1550s, the Nogai also acted as

Muscovy’s intermediaries in relations with Central

Asia.

See also: ASTRAKHAN, KHANATE OF; CATHERINE II;

GOLDEN HORDE; KALMYKS; NATIONALITIES POLICIES,

TSARIST; RUSSO-TURKISH WARS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Golden, Peter B. (1992). An Introduction to the History of

the Turkic Peoples. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag.

Lantzeff, George A., and Pierce, Richard A. (1973). East-

ward to Empire: Exploration and Conquest on the Russ-

ian Open Frontier to 1750. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s

University Press.

OMAN

K. K

OVALEV

NOMENKLATURA

The term nomenklatura was often used in the USSR

throughout the Stalin and post-Stalin periods to

designate members of Soviet officialdom. The term

was not generally known in the West until the

1960s. Members of the nomenklatura included

Communist Party officials (particularly Party sec-

retaries at any level of the Party organization), gov-

ernment officials, and senior officers in the Soviet

armed forces who were Party members. Almost all

members were, in fact, Communist Party mem-

bers. At a minimum, the Party controlled access to

nomenklatura jobs. Most often the term was used

to describe full-time professional Party officials,

also known as apparatchiki, since mere rank-and-

file Party members did not hold important execu-

tive posts.

No definite tally of the number of the nomen-

klatura was ever published officially. But Russian

and Western scholars generally agree that their

numbers exceeded 500,000. Yet the entire mem-

bership of the Communist Party amounted on

average to only about 7 percent of the Soviet pop-

ulation.

Wherever they served throughout the multi-

national Soviet Union, most of the nomenklatura

were Russians, Ukrainians, or Belorussians. Almost

always, native nomenklatura members posted in

any of the non-Slavic Republics among the fifteen

constituent republics of the USSR were supervised

ultimately by ethnic Russians, Ukrainians, or Be-

lorussians.

See also: COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Weeks, Albert L., ed. (1991). Soviet Nomenklatura: A Com-

prehensive Roster of Soviet Civilian and Military Offi-

cials, 3rd ed. Washington, DC: Washington Institute

Press.

Voslensky, Michael. (1984). Nomenklatura: The Soviet

Ruling Class, tr. Eric Mosbacher. New York: Dou-

bleday.

LBERT

L. W

EEKS

NOMENKLATURA

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

NORMANIST CONTROVERSY

The Normanist Controversy is the most tendentious

issue in early Russian history. It centers on the de-

gree of influence Scandinavians had on the founda-

tion of Kievan Rus and early Rus law, government,

language, paganism, and trade. Normanist scholars

argue for varying degrees of Scandinavian influence,

and their opponents are anti-Normanists.

The controversy’s origins date to the mid-eigh-

teenth century, when historians, many of ethnic

German background, began to publish the medieval

Russian sources. It initially focused on the ethnic

attribution of the Rus tribe (Greek Ros, Arabic ar-

Rus), the name for Rurik and his clan, who were

allegedly invited by a confederation of Slavic and

Finnic tribes to rule over them in 862. The first

Normanist scholars (Bayer, Müller, Schlötzer) ar-

gued that the Rus were a tribe deriving their name

either from their homeland, Roslagen in central

Sweden, or from the Finnic word for Swedes,

Ruotsi. Further, they noted the Norse personal

names in the 911 and 940 treaties between the Rus

and Byzantium, Constantine Porphyrogenitus’s

listing of both Slavic and Norse names for the

Dnieper cataracts, and more than fifty Norse words

in the Russian language. Norse origins were also

ascribed to early Rus law and the pagan Slavic pan-

theon. Mikhail Lomonosov and other early anti-

Normanists argued that the Rus were Slavs who

were named after a right-bank tributary of the

Dnieper, the Ros River.

Nineteenth-century debates were shaped by

German and Russian nationalism and the publica-

tion of more sources on the Rus, such as the me-

dieval Arab and Persian geographical accounts (Ibn

Khurdadbheh, Ibn Rusta, Ibn Fadlan), which men-

tion a people called the ar-Rus who traded along

the Russian river systems. The ar-Rus differed from

other fair-skinned peoples of the north, including

the Slavs (Saqalib). Although this theory is com-

pelling, the medieval Islamic authors appeared to

use ar-Rus as an occupational descriptive rather

than an ethnic indicator, since they had not been

to Rus themselves and could therefore not distin-

guish a Scandinavian from other peoples of the

north. Nineteenth-century research also showed no

more than sixteen Norse words in Russian, the in-

dependent development of Rus law and Scandina-

vian law, and a common Indo-European origin of

both the Scandinavian and Slavic gods and lan-

guages.

Having exhausted the written texts, the Nor-

manist and anti-Normanist schools stood firmly

entrenched in the early twentieth century. The

new scientific archaeology and innovations in the

methodology of historical numismatics, however,

revealed fresh source material, and henceforth the

Normanist Controversy became an archaeological

and numismatic question. In 1914, Swedish ar-

chaeologist T. J. Arne argued for a mass Viking-

age Scandinavian colonization of Eastern Europe.

Arne’s theories remained largely unchallenged un-

til the 1940s, when anti-Normanism, in part a re-

action to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union,

was proclaimed official Soviet state dogma. Post-

war USSR witnessed a golden age for Soviet ar-

chaeology, with the state sponsorship of thousands

of archaeological excavations. Key to the anti-

Normanist position were the excavations at Gnez-

dovo and Staraya Ladoga, near Smolensk and Nov-

gorod respectively. Normanists considered both to

be Scandinavian settlements, but Soviet archaeolo-

gists (Artsikhovsky, Avdusin, Ravdonikas) claimed

minimal evidence for Scandinavian residence at

these sites. Soviet scholars did not deny the passage

of Scandinavians through Russia for purposes of

international trade between northern Europe and

the Islamic caliphate; they simply rejected that a

mass Scandinavian colonization took place or that

the colonists founded the Kievan state.

The 1970s onward has witnessed a convergence

between the extremes of the Normanist and anti-

Normanist positions. More recent excavations at

sites with Scandinavian material and long-distance

trade goods (Islamic silver dirhams, Eastern beads),

indicate that Scandinavians maintained an active

exchange network in the late eighth and ninth cen-

turies with the Near East and, in the tenth century,

mainly with Central Asia. Based on the current

state of research, therefore, it is possible to recon-

struct the following chronology of Scandinavian

activity in eastern Europe. From the 760s, Scandi-

navians lived part of the year at Staraya Ladoga on

the lower Volkhov River, where goods were re-

loaded from large seagoing vessels to smaller craft

more appropriate for the journey along eastern Eu-

rope’s often-treacherous rivers. By the early ninth

century, when trade with the Near East was fully

underway, other settlements formed to the south

of Ladoga along the entire Volkhov River, which

serviced the north-south trade. In the 860s,

Rurikovo gorodishche, the Volkhov’s largest settle-

ment, with strong Scandinavian and West Slavic

elements and precursor to Novgorod, was founded.

NORMANIST CONTROVERSY

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

To the west, a second albeit less archaeologically

discernible trade route with a few Scandinavian

finds begins to the south of Lake Peipus at Izborsk,

Kamno, and Pskov, possibly from the beginning of

the ninth century. Both routes connect to the south

and east, to the watersheds of the Western Dvina,

Dnieper, and Volga rivers.

Archaeological and numismatic evidence im-

plies that the 860s and 870s were a turbulent pe-

riod: the burning down of Staraya Ladoga and

Pskov, a smaller fire at Rurikovo gorodishche, and

a marked increase in the deposition of coin hoards,

suggesting times of danger. At the same time, the

written sources speak of the invitation to Rurik and

the unsuccessful Viking attack on Constantinople

in 860. Finally, in the 880s and 890s there occurred

a major decline in the import of silver and beads

from the Near East. However, in around 900 new

routes were opened with Central Asia, which pro-

vided an unprecedented new source of silver and

other goods. Additionally, at this time Staraya

Ladoga and Rurikovo underwent expansion, Scan-

dinavian-style graves appeared to the southeast of

Lake Ladoga, and the Lake Peipus trade was con-

centrated at a reconstructed Pskov.

A strong Scandinavian presence has become ev-

ident to the south, with the beginning of settlement

and the cemeteries at Gnezdovo, and further south

at Shestovitsa on the middle Dnieper River. Such

phenomena are contemporary with the Russian

Primary Chronicle’s account of the Rus expansion

to Kiev beginning in the late ninth century and Rus

attacks on Byzantine territories including Con-

stantinople in 907/911 and 940. The revival of the

Rus trade with the Islamic East is seen also in the

hundreds of hoards of mostly Central Asian dirhams

deposited in eastern Europe’s soil during the tenth

century. Thomas Noonan estimates that during the

tenth century more than 125 million dirhams from

Central Asia alone were exported to northern Eu-

rope, which were exchanged for products of the

northern forests, such as furs, honey, wax, sword

blades, walrus ivory, and slaves. From the 950s,

however, a silver crisis in Central Asia and the sub-

sequent decline in the export of silver initiated a re-

orientation in Rus trade, with silver thenceforward

coming to Kievan Rus from western and central Eu-

rope. By the late tenth century, archaeological signs

of Scandinavian activity diminish, even though the

Russian Primary Chronicle and Icelandic sagas

speak of Scandinavians enlisting as mercenaries in

the courts of Kievan Rus and Byzantium through-

out the eleventh century. One must bear in mind,

however, that there were never many Scandina-

vians on the territory of eastern Europe at any

given time, with no more than two hundred Scan-

dinavian graves found there for a more than two-

hundred year period.

Taken as a whole, the archaeological, numis-

matic, and textual evidence clearly shows Scandi-

navian influence during the pre-Kievan and Kievan

periods. The main question, however, remains:

What role did the Scandinavians actually play in

the Kievan state-building process? Prior to the ar-

rival of Scandinavians and Slavs to northwestern

Russia in the eighth and ninth centuries, the region

was sparsely populated by small groups of Finno-

Ugric hunters and gatherers. There were simply no

wealthy peoples to colonize or raid, in contrast

with the burgeoning Anglo-Saxon or Carolingian

states. In this light, it is more prudent to place Scan-

dinavian activity in an inclusive model of inter-

ethnic economic cooperation, such as one of regional

survival strategies developed by Noonan. Early me-

dieval European Russia was home to many ethnic

groups, all practicing different survival strategies,

all of which were essential to the development of

the Kievan Rus economy and state. The Finno-

Ugrian tribes of the northern Russian forests were

consummate hunters who supplied the furs sought

after by foreign and domestic markets. The Slavic

agriculturalists, migrating from the fertile lands of

southwestern Ukraine, brought advanced farming

techniques and tribal administrative experience.

Nomadic Turkic pastoralists residing in the Rus

steppe zone introduced mounted-fighting tactics to

the Slavic population. Finally, the Scandinavians

contributed the long-distance shipping, commercial

practices, and a military organization (including

weapons) that facilitated the Islamic and Byzantine

trade. Using older, more localized routes, the Scan-

dinavians helped to create a commercial system

that united all of European Russia for the first time

in its history. Thus, the joining of these diverse eco-

nomic strategies created conditions for the emer-

gence of a powerful state in a territory that was

both geographically and climatically daunting to

maintain given the rudimentary communication

and transportation systems of the early Middle

Ages.

The Scandinavians, therefore, played an im-

portant role in the creation of the Kievan state, but

they were only part of a complex ethno-cultural

process. Normanists and anti-Normanists have

benefited progressively from nineteenth-century

advances in Indo-European linguistics, studies in

NORMANIST CONTROVERSY

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

comparative religion, and modern archaeological

and numismatic research. The Normanist Contro-

versy is placed into proper perspective by moving

away from the emphasis placed on this one group

by the medieval chroniclers and, instead, viewing

it in the light of modern research that examines the

development of eastern Europe as a whole.

See also: GNEZDOVO; KIEVAN RUS; NOVGOROD THE

GREAT; PRIMARY CHRONICLE; VIKINGS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brisbane, Mark A., ed. (1992). The Archaeology of Nov-

gorod, Russia: Recent Results from the Town and its

Hinterland. Lincoln, UK: Society for Medieval Ar-

chaeology.

Cross, Samuel H., and Sherbowitz-Wetzor, Olgerd P. eds.

(1953). The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian

Text. Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of Amer-

ica.

Franklin, Simon, and Shepared, Jonathan. (1996). The

Emergence of Rus, 750–1200. London: Longman.

Noonan, Thomas S. (1991). “The Vikings in Russia: Some

New Directions and Approaches to an Old Problem.”

In Social Approaches to Viking Studies, ed. Ross Sam-

son. Glasgow: Cruithne Press.

Noonan, Thomas S. (1994). “The Vikings in the East: Coins

and Commerce.” In Developments around the Baltic and

the North Sea in the Viking Age, ed. Björn Ambrosiani

and Helen Clarke. Stockholm: Birka Project.

Noonan, Thomas S. (1998). The Islamic World, Russia,

and the Vikings, 750–900: The Numismatic Evidence.

Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Variorum.

Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. (1947). “The Norman Theory

of the Origin of the Russian State.” Russian Review

7(1):96–110.

EIDI

M. S

HERMAN

NORTH ATLANTIC

TREATY ORGANIZATION

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is

a collective defense/collective security organization

based on security guarantees and mutual commit-

ments between North America and Europe. It was

created in response to the growing Soviet threat in

Europe after World War II, including the commu-

nist takeovers in eastern and central Europe, pres-

sure on Norway, Greece, and Turkey, and the 1948

blockade of Berlin. The Washington Treaty estab-

lishing NATO was signed on April 4, 1949, by

Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy,

Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,

the United Kingdom, and the United States. NATO’s

membership was subsequently enlarged, bringing

in Greece and Turkey in 1952, the Federal Repub-

lic of Germany (West Germany) in 1955, Spain in

1982, and Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Re-

public in 1999. In 2002 NATO invited Bulgaria, Es-

tonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, and

Slovenia to join the alliance in 2004.

At the core of NATO’s mutual defense com-

mitment is Article 5 of the Washington Treaty,

which states that an attack on one or more mem-

bers of the alliance will be considered an attack on

all. Also central are Article 2, which speaks of the

members’ commitment to their shared values and

free institutions; Article 4, which provides for con-

sultations if a member’s security is threatened; and

Article 10, which gives the members the option to

invite additional states to join the alliance.

Headquartered in Brussels, NATO is an inter-

governmental organization. Its decisions require

consensus. The permanent ambassadors of the

member-states meet in the North Atlantic Council

(NAC), chaired by the secretary general. The NAC

and other senior policy committees, such as the De-

fense Planning Committee (DPC) and the Nuclear

Planning Group (NPG), meet at regular intervals.

At least twice per year NATO holds foreign minis-

ters’ meetings. Meetings also occur at the level of

defense ministers, and when key decisions are to be

taken NATO holds summits of the heads of state.

The military structures of NATO are headed by

the Military Committee, which meets regularly at

the level of the chiefs of defense of the member-

states. The committee’s daily work is conducted by

their permanent military representatives. NATO’s

two principal strategic commands are the Supreme

Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) with head-

quarters (SHAPE) in Mons, Belgium, and the

Supreme Allied Commander Atlantic (SACLANT)

with headquarters in Norfolk, Virginia. These key

commands are supported by a number of regional

commands. Allies who are members of the military

structures contribute forces to NATO’s integrated

military structures, but some of the members do

not participate in them. France withdrew from

NATO’s military structures in 1966 (it remains a

full member of its political structures); Spain joined

NATO in 1982 but remained outside its military

component until 1997; Iceland has no armed forces

and is represented at the military level by a civilian.

NORTH ATLANTIC TREATY ORGANIZATION

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY