Encyclopedia of Russian History

Подождите немного. Документ загружается.

the central residential buildings on the estates,

shopkeepers, craftsmen, and other dependents lived

and worked in smaller houses in the courts, which

also included nonresidential buildings and were

surrounded by wooden fences. Although the city

boasted a drainage system, the accumulation of

refuse required repeated repaving of the roads; fre-

quent fires similarly required the reconstruction of

buildings. Many of the town’s craftsmen were cor-

respondingly engaged in logging, carpentry, and

other trades involving wood.

Some buildings, especially churches, were of

masonry construction. The Cathedral of St. Sophia,

built in 1045–1050 from undressed stone set in

pink-colored mortar and adorned with five domes,

was the first such structure built in Novgorod.

Sponsored by Prince Vladimir Yaroslavich, it be-

came the bishop’s cathedral, the centerpiece of the

Sophia side of the city. From the beginning of the

twelfth century, princes, bishops, and wealthy bo-

yars and merchants were patrons of dozens of

masonry churches. Generally smaller than the

Cathedral of St. Sophia, they were located on both

sides of the river and also in monasteries outside

the city. Novgorodian and visiting artists and ar-

tisans designed and built these churches and also

painted icons and frescoes that decorated their in-

teriors. By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries

they had developed distinctive Novgorodian schools

of architecture and icon painting.

The boyars and wealthy merchants of the city

also owned landed estates outside the city. Although

women generally did not participate in public and

political affairs, they did own and manage prop-

erty, including real estate. Among the best known

of them was Marfa Boretskaya, who was one of

the wealthiest individuals in Novgorod on the eve

of its loss of independence. On those provincial

estates, peasants and nonagricultural workers en-

gaged in farming, animal husbandry, fishing,

hunting, iron and salt manufacture, beekeeping,

and related activities. Although it was not uncom-

mon for the region’s unfavorable agricultural

conditions to produce poor harvests, which occa-

sionally caused famine conditions, the produce

from these estates was usually not only sufficient

to feed and supply the population of the city and

its hinterlands, but was cycled into the city’s com-

mercial network. After Ivan III subjugated Nov-

gorod, he confiscated the landed estates and arrested

or exiled the boyars and merchants who had owned

them. He seized landed properties belonging to the

archbishop and monasteries as well.

See also: BIRCHBARK CHARTERS; KIEVAN RUS; NOVGOROD,

ARCHBISHIOP OF; NOVGOROD JUDICIAL CHARTER;

POSADNIK; ROUTE TO GREEKS; RURIKID DYNASTY;

VIKINGS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Birnbaum, Henrik. (1981). Lord Novgorod the Great: Es-

says in the History and Culture of a Medieval City-

State, Part I: Historical Background. Columbus, OH:

Slavica.

Dejevsky, N. J. (1977). “Novgorod: The Origins of a

Russian Town.” In European Towns: Their Archaeol-

ogy and Early History, ed. M. W. Barley. London:

Council for British Archaeology by Academic Press.

Karger, Mikhail K. (1975). Novgorod: Architectural Mon-

uments, 11th–17th Centuries. Leningrad: Aurora Art

Publishers.

Langer, Lawrence N. (1976). “The Medieval Russian

Town.” In The City in Russian History, ed. Michael

Hamm. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press.

Michell, Robert and Forbes, Nevill, trs. (1914). The Chron-

icle of Novgorod 1016–1471.London: Royal Historical

Society.

Raba, Joel. (1967). “Novgorod in the Fifteenth Century: A

Re-examination.” Canadian Slavic Studies 1:348–364.

Thompson, Michael W. (1967). Novgorod the Great. New

York: Praeger.

ANET

ARTIN

NOVIKOV, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH

(1744–1818), writer, journalist, satirist, publisher,

and social worker.

Nikolai Ivanovich Novikov was a prominent

writer, journalist, publisher, and social worker who

began the vogue of the satirical magazine. Cather-

ine II’s efforts to proliferate ideas of the Enlighten-

ment had injected new vigor in Russian writers in

the early 1760s. Hoping to demonstrate to the West

that Russia was not a despotic state, she established

a “commission for the compilation of a new code

of laws” in 1767 and published “instructions” for

the commission in major European languages—a

treatise entitled Nakaz dlya komissii po sochineniyu

novogo ulozheniya. She also began the publication

in early 1769 of a satirical weekly modeled on the

English Spectator entitled All Sorts and Sundries

(Vsyakaya vsyachina) and urged intellectuals to fol-

low her example. For a brief period, all editors were

freed from preliminary censorship.

NOVIKOV, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH

1073

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

An enthusiastic believer in the Enlightenment,

Nikolai Novikov accepted the challenge and pub-

lished a succession of successful journals—Truten

(The Drone, 1769–1770), Pustomelya (The Tattler) in

1770, Zhivopisets (The Painter) in 1772, and others.

Novikov became a pioneer in the journalistic move-

ment in the 1770s and 1780s, and the works of

prose appearing in his journals amounted to both

a new literary phenomenon for Russian culture

and a new form for the expression of public opin-

ion. He took Catherine’s “instructions” seriously

and cultivated works that delved deeply into ques-

tions of political life and social phenomena that for-

merly lay within the sole jurisdiction of the tsarist

bureaucracy—topics that could be considered be-

fore only in secret and with official approval. In

addition to editing and publishing four periodicals

and a historical dictionary, The Library of Old Russ-

ian Authors (1772–1775) in thirty volumes,

Novikov also took over the Moscow University

Press in 1778. His publishing houses operated first

in St. Petersburg and then in Moscow, offering a

prodigious quantity of books designed to spread

Enlightenment ideas at a modest price. Novikov

dedicated himself and his fortune to the advance-

ment of elementary education as well, publishing

textbooks and even the first Russian magazine for

children.

Novikov can be viewed as a tragic figure in

Russian history. Abruptly in 1774 Catherine II

blocked publication of his journals because of their

sharp attacks on serious social injustice. By impe-

rial order she stopped further books from being

produced. In 1791 she closed his printing presses.

Regarding education as her own bailiwick, she was

probably irked by Novikov’s successful activities.

Novikov’s association with the Freemasons also

alienated her. A middle-of-the-road theorist rather

than a purist, Novikov was sometimes caught in

a paradox between his keen appreciation of Euro-

pean Enlightenment and his high regard for the an-

cient Russian virtues. Freemasonry seemed to offer

a way out of the paradox to a firm moral stand-

point.

Catherine II, however, had always opposed se-

cret societies, which had been outlawed in 1782 (al-

though Freemasonry had been exempted). Her

predecessor Peter III, whom she had skillfully de-

throned, had been favorably disposed towards

Freemasonry. Equally, her political rival and per-

sonal enemy, the Grand Duke Paul, was a promi-

nent Freemason. Further, since the break with

England, Russian Freemasonry had come under the

influence of German Freemasonry, of which Fred-

erick the Great, the archenemy of Catherine, was a

dominant figure. To Catherine, it must have seemed

that everyone she disliked intensely was a Freema-

son.

Novikov was arrested but never tried and was

sentenced by imperial decree to detention in the

fortress of Schlüsselburg for fifteen years. He was

released when Paul became emperor in 1796, but

retired from public life in disillusionment to study

mysticism. He never could engage fully in Moscow’s

literary world again.

See also: CATHERINE II; ENLIGHTENMENT, IMPACT OF;

JOURNALISM

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jones, W. Gareth. (1984). Nikolay Novikov, Enlightener of

Russia. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Levitt, Marcus C. (1995). Early Modern Russian Writers:

Late Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Detroit:

Gale Research.

OHANNA

RANVILLE

NOVOCHERKASSK UPRISING

On June 1, 1962, in response to a sharp increase

in the price of butter and meat, a strike erupted

at the Novocherkassk Electric-Locomotive Works,

which employed 13,000 workers. The stoppage

immediately spread to neighboring industrial en-

terprises. Efforts of the local authorities to halt the

strike proved fruitless. So alarmed was the central

government headed by Nikita Khrushchev that six

of the top party leaders were sent to deal with the

situation. Although a negotiated settlement was

not ruled out, several thousand troops, as well as

tank units, were deployed.

The following day, thousands of workers

marched into town to present their demands for

price rollbacks and wage increases. During the con-

frontation between the strikers and the government

forces, shooting broke out that resulted in twenty-

four deaths and several score serious injuries. Hun-

dreds were arrested, and a series of trials followed.

Seven strikers were condemned to death, and many

more were imprisoned for long terms. The regime

effectively covered up what had occurred. Outside

the USSR, little was known about the events until

NOVOCHERKASSK UPRISING

1074

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Alexander Solzhenitsyn devoted several pages to

them in The Gulag Archipelago. In the last years of

the Gorbachev era, information was published in

Soviet media for the first time.

The Novocherkassk events, which became

known as “Bloody Saturday,” contributed to the

demise of the USSR. Never daring to raise food

prices again, the leadership was compelled to sub-

sidize agriculture even more heavily, thus severely

unbalancing the economy. Moreover, as informa-

tion about the massacre of strikers became known,

the legitimacy of what has long been proclaimed

“the workers’ state” was decidedly undermined.

See also: KHRUSHCHEV, NIKITA SERGEYEVICH; SOLZHEN-

ITSYN, ALEXANDER ISAYEVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Baron, Samuel H. (2001). Bloody Saturday in the Soviet

Union: Novocherkassk, 1962. Stanford, CA: Stanford

University Press.

Kozlov, Vladimir A. (2002). Mass Uprisings in the USSR.

Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

AMUEL

H. B

ARON

NOVOSIBIRSK REPORT

The Novosibirsk Report was a document that helped

provide the technical background for Gorbachev’s

perestroika policy.

The document that became known as the

“Novosibirsk report” was written by Tatiana Za-

slavskaya for a conference that was held in the

western Siberian city of Novosibirsk in 1985. The

organizers of that conference had a limited number

of copies of her report made for participants in the

conference. Within a short time, however, copies of

the report were handed over to Western journalists

in Moscow, ensuring that the document would be-

come widely known and hotly debated. Communist

Party officials sharply reprimanded Zaslavskaya and

Abel Aganbegian, the chief organizer of the confer-

ence, for the unorthodox conclusions that she had

offered. After Mikhail Gorbachev came to power, the

kind of thinking found in Zaslavkaya’s writings was

endorsed by the highest leadership of the Party–state

regime. Zaslavskaya became one of Gorbachev’s ad-

visers, the head of the Soviet Sociological Associa-

tion, and a member of the Congress of People’s

Deputies of the USSR. She has become a legendary

figure among Russian sociologists.

Zaslavskaya’s report for the conference in

Novosibirsk in 1983 was of great significance in

Soviet intellectual history because it challenged

principles that had been fundamental to the social

sciences since they were imposed by Josef Stalin in

the 1930s. Stalin had asserted that in a socialist so-

ciety, in contrast to capitalist society, there was a

basic consistency between the forces of production

(including natural resources, labor, and technol-

ogy) and the relations of production (the mecha-

nisms of managing the economy). Zaslavskaya

argued that in the Soviet Union, the level of tech-

nology and the skills and attitudes of the work-

force had undergone enormous change since the

1930s, while the centralized institutions that man-

aged the economy had changed very little, setting

the system up for crisis unless basic changes were

made. Stalin had also authored the doctrine of the

moral and political unity of Soviet society, based

on the assumption that there were no fundamen-

tal conflicts among classes or groups in the USSR.

Zaslavskaya pointed out that there were groups

with a vested interest in resisting changes in the

system of management of the economy, and that

reform would arouse conflicts among groups with

mutually opposed interests. She also repudiated the

habit of regarding workers as “labor resources”

analagous to machines, and called for greater at-

tention to the “human factor” in production, which

would require consideration of the values and at-

titudes of workers, including their desire for a form

of management that would give them greater in-

dependence. Zaslavskaya’s reasoning provided the

background for the drive for radical restructuring

of the Soviet system, though she assumed that re-

form would take place within the framework of a

socialist economy.

See also: PERESTROIKA; ZASLAVSKAYA, TATIANA IVANOVNA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Zaslavskaia, Tat’iana I. (1984). “The Novosibirsk Re-

port.” Survey 28(1):88–108.

Zaslavskaia, Tat’iana I. (1989). A Voice of Reform: Essays

by Tat’iana I. Zaslavskaia, ed. and intro. Murray

Yanowitch. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

Zaslavskaia, Tat’iana I. (1990). The Second Socialist Rev-

olution: An Alternative Soviet Strategy, tr. Susan M.

Davies and Jenny Warren. Bloomington: Indiana

University Press.

LFRED

B. E

VANS

NOVOSIBIRSK REPORT

1075

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

NOVOSILTSEV, NIKOLAI NIKOLAYEVICH

(1761–1836), friend and adviser to Emperor

Alexander I.

Nikolai Nikolayevich Novosiltsev was the ille-

gitimate son of a woman whose brother, Alexan-

der Sergeyevich Stroganov, was an important

government official. Stroganov took the boy in and

raised him in a household known for its hospital-

ity and refinement, although, according to a con-

temporary, he was “brought up by his generous

uncle like a poor relation” (Saunders, p. 5).

Novosiltsev served in the army from 1783 to

1795, and during this time apparently made the

acquaintance of the future emperor Alexander I. In

1796, when Alexander’s father, Paul I, ascended to

the throne, Alexander asked Novosiltsev to draw

up a “programmatic introduction” to the constitu-

tional reforms Alexander was then considering. The

document has been lost, but it appears to have fo-

cused on the education of those who would some-

day represent the empire’s vast population. In

1798 Novosiltsev helped Alexander found the St.

Petersburg Journal and became a frequent contrib-

utor. Paul, meanwhile, was becoming suspicious of

Novosiltsev’s liberalism and his influence on

Alexander, so in 1797 the young man left Russia

for Britain. He spent four years there attending uni-

versity lectures and meeting such notables as Je-

remy Bentham.

In 1801, when Paul was murdered and Alexan-

der became emperor, Novosiltsev returned to Rus-

sia, where he became a member of Alexander’s

Unofficial or Secret Committee, which regularly

met with the emperor over the next two years to

discuss plans for reform. Novosiltsev persuaded the

committee to review the domestic situation and

various departmental reforms and then draft a con-

stitution. Within a matter of weeks Alexander be-

gan to voice doubts about the project. In an August

1801 memorandum to Alexander, Novosiltsev re-

vealed the limits to his proposed reform program,

stating that the Senate, an appointed body estab-

lished by Peter the Great to govern the empire while

the tsar was away, would be unable to implement

and manage reform. Only the ruler could bring

about the “Natural Rights, the Lawful Freedom and

the security of each member of society.” In a sim-

ilar vein Novosiltsev urged Alexander to reject a

proposal to introduce the right of habeas corpus,

arguing that since a future situation may require

it to be suspended, it would be best to not enact it

at all.

In 1801 Novosiltsev was appointed chairman

of a new commission on laws, and from 1802 to

1808, as assistant to the minister of justice, he

helped draw up the Statute on Free Cultivators, a

singularly ineffective effort to emancipate some of

the serfs. From 1803 to 1810 he was president of

the Imperial Academy of Sciences. In 1804 he un-

dertook a diplomatic mission to Britain to obtain

an alliance against Napoleon. The British were of-

fended by his vanity and arrogance and viewed

with bewilderment or hostility his proposals deal-

ing with the Ottoman Empire and a German Con-

federation. The talks failed to produce a treaty until

Napoleon’s annexation of Genoa in 1805 forced

Russia and Britain into an alliance.

After the defeat of Napoleon, Novosiltsev served

as Russia’s imperial-royal commissioner for Poland,

which was then a constitutional monarchy under

Alexander. In 1820, at the emperor’s request,

Novosiltsev prepared a constitutional charter for

Russia. Its key feature was decentralization and a

genuinely federal structure. The empire was to be

divided into twelve “vice-regencies” with elected as-

semblies at the local and national levels. The doc-

ument, which also emphasized personal and civil

liberties, was never implemented, and its effect on

Alexander, if any, is unclear. His successor, Nicholas

I, found the charter “most objectionable” and or-

dered all copies destroyed.

Novosiltsev has been described as an aggres-

sively ambitious but poorly educated man. He was

covetous of a place in Russian society, but he felt

excluded from it. He was without doubt a talented

and intelligent person, but he was unable to bridle

his arrogance and cynicism, especially as adminis-

trator of Poland and as a diplomat.

See also: ALEXANDER I; NAPOLEON I; PAUL I; POLAND

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Grimstead, Patricia Kennedy. (1969). The Foreign Minis-

ters of Alexander I. Berkeley: University of California

Press.

Hartley, Janet M. (1994). Alexander I. New York: Long-

man.

Saunders, David. (1992). Russia in the Age of Reaction and

Reform, 1801–1881. London: Longman.

UGH

HILLIPS

NOVOSILTSEV, NIKOLAI NIKOLAYEVICH

1076

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

NOVOZHILOV, VIKTOR VALENTINOVICH

(1892–1970), Soviet economist who made impor-

tant contributions to the revival of modern eco-

nomics in the Soviet Union, especially via the

concept of opportunity cost.

Novozhilov was educated at Kiev University,

finishing in 1915. While still a student, he wrote

two serious economic works, one of which was

awarded a gold medal in 1913. Among his teach-

ers were two famous economists, Yevgeny Yevge-

nievich Slutsky and Mikhail Ivanovich Tugan-

Baranovsky. He taught at universities in Ukraine

until 1922, when he went to Leningrad. There he

taught and worked for the rest of his life. He was

often in political trouble for his economic views,

and had a very difficult time getting his work pub-

lished. In the post-Stalin years, however, he gained

authority and influence, and in 1965 he received

the Lenin Prize (along with Vasily Sergeyevich

Nemchinov and Leonid Vitaliyevich Kantorovich).

In November 1965, he moved to the Leningrad

branch of the Central Economic-Mathematical In-

stitute. He was elected a full member of the Acad-

emy of Sciences of the USSR.

Novozhilov was one of the most creatively sig-

nificant of the Soviet economists. His most notable

scientific contribution concerned the capital inten-

sity issue, which grew out of his participation over

many years in the work of institutes designing new

plants and technologies. It was on the basis of this

experience that he wrote his doctoral dissertation,

titled Methods of Measuring the National Economic

Effectiveness of Project Variants, a theme which ul-

timately led him to a general opportunity-cost the-

ory of value and allocation.

Novozhilov was a rarity in Soviet economics,

a representative of the prerevolutionary intelli-

gentsia who managed to preserve its values in the

Soviet environment. He was a man of sterling char-

acter and attractive personality, an erudite scholar

with a cosmopolitan view of the world, and an ac-

complished violinist and painter. He understood

English, though he did not feel comfortable speak-

ing it.

See also: SLUTSKY, YEVGENY YEVGENIEVICH; TUGAN-

BARANOVSKY, MIKHAIL IVANOVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Robert Campbell. (1961). “Marx, Kantorovich, and

Novozhilov: Stoimost Versus Reality,” Slavic Review

20: 402–418.

Novozhilov, Valentin. (1970). Problems of Cost-Benefit

Analysis in Optimal Planning. White Plains, NY: In-

ternational Arts and Sciences Press.

OBERT

W. C

AMPBELL

NOVY MIR

Novy Mir (New World), a literary, critical, and po-

litical journal based in Moscow, was founded in

1925 as part of an official initiative to revivify the

Russian tradition of the thick journal in the wake

of the Bolshevik Revolution. True to that tradition,

Novy Mir published political and social commen-

taries along with its staple of fiction, poetry, and

literary criticism. Having come into being during

the mid–1920s, during the last few years of rela-

tive cultural openness in the young Soviet Union,

the journal published works by the most promi-

nent writers of the day. The major works of liter-

ature published in the journal during this period

were Maxim Gorky’s novel The Life of Klim Samgin

(Zhizn Klima Samgina) and Alexei Tolstoy’s Road to

Calvary (Khozhdenie po mukam).

Like Soviet culture as a whole, from the early

1930s until Stalin’s death in 1953, what Novy Mir

could publish was severely limited by the strictures

of the official doctrine of Socialist Realism, which

dictated that all publications must actively support

the building of socialism in the Soviet Union. Fol-

lowing the death of Stalin in 1953, however, Novy

Mir soon established itself as the most prestigious

literary journal of the post-Stalin period. Under the

editorship of the poet Alexander Tvardovsky, the

journal ushered in the ensuing period of cultural

liberalism with the publication of the ground-

breaking article by the critic Vladimir Pomerant-

sev, “On Sincerity in Literature” (Ob iskrennosti v

literature), which called for the “unvarnished” por-

trayal of reality in Soviet literary works. Tvar-

dovsky’s first tenure as editor of the journal ended

when, in reprisal for his publication of politically

questionable works, he was replaced by the prose

writer Konstantin Simonov in 1954. Simonov him-

self, however, fell victim to the uncertain cultural

“thaw” of the times and was deposed as editor in

the wake of his 1956 publication of Vladimir Dud-

intsev’s controversial novel, Not by Bread Alone (Ne

khlebom edinym). Tvardovsky was reappointed ed-

itor in 1958 and led the journal through its most

illustrious period.

NOVY MIR

1077

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

The journal, with its distinctive pale blue cover,

became the leading literary periodical of the cul-

tural relaxation under Khrushchev. Its most his-

torically resonant publication of this period was

Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novella, One Day in the

Life of Ivan Denisovich (Odin den Ivana Denisovicha),

in 1962. During the years of cultural stagnation

under Brezhnev, the limits of the allowable in So-

viet literature and culture again tightened. Tvar-

dovsky struggled to maintain Novy Mir’s liberal

profile until he was forced by increasing political

pressure to resign from the editorship in 1970. The

journal came into its own again during the glas-

nost period. The prose writer Sergei Zalygin as-

sumed the editorship of the journal in 1986 and,

like Tvardovsky before him, steered the journal to

a leading role in the liberalization of Soviet culture

under Gorbachev. The landmark Novy Mir publica-

tions of the glasnost period included the appear-

ance in 1988 of Pasternak’s novel Doctor Zhivago,

which had been rejected for publication in the jour-

nal in 1950s. Novy Mir also served as the primary

outlet for Sozhenitsyn’s previously banned publi-

cations during this period. Since the collapse of the

Soviet Union and the emergence of a market econ-

omy in Russia, Novy Mir, like other major Soviet

publications, has struggled to adjust to the chang-

ing economic and cultural situation.

See also: GLASNOST; GORKY, MAXIM; INTELLIGENTSIA;

PASTERNAK, BORIS LEONIDOVICH; SIMONOV, KON-

STANTIN MIKHAILOVICH; SOCIALIST REALISM; THAW,

THE; THICK JOURNALS; TOLSTOY, LEO NIKOLAYEVICH;

SOLZHENITSYN, ALEXANDER ISAYEVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Glenny, Michael, ed. (1967). Novy Mir: A Selection,

1925–1967. London: Jonathan Cape Ltd.

Spechler, Dina R. (1982). Permitted Dissent in the USSR:

Novy Mir and the Soviet Regime. New York: Praeger.

ATHARINE

EPOMNYASHCHY

NYSTADT, TREATY OF

The Treaty of Nystadt was signed on August 30

(September 10, O.S.), 1721, in the Finnish town of

Nystadt. It ended the twenty-one year Great North-

ern War between Russia and Sweden. The treaty

was the result of several years of negotiations be-

tween the warring parties. The clauses were:

1. “Eternal peace” was established on land and sea

2. All hostilities were committed to oblivion, ex-

cept for the crimes of the Russian Cossacks who

had aided the Swedes

3. All military action ceased

4. Sweden agreed to cede to Russia Livonia

(Lifliandia), Estonia (Estliandia), Ingermanland

(Ingria), part of Karelia with Vyborg district,

with the towns of Riga, Dünamünde, Pernau,

Reval (Tallinn), Dorpat, Narva, Vyborg, Kex-

holm, and the islands of Oesel, Dago, and Meno

5. Russia agreed to evacuate Finland (invaded in

1713–1714) and to pay Sweden two million

thalers compensation

6. Sweden was granted entitlement to trade in

Riga, Reval, and Arensburg, and to purchase

grain duty-free

7. Russia agreed not to interfere in Swedish do-

mestic affairs

8. The border was defined in detail

9. The former Swedish provinces annexed to Rus-

sia were to retain all their privileges and rights

unwaveringly

10. The Protestant faith was to enjoy the same

freedoms as Orthodoxy

11. Claims to landed estates in Livonia and Estonia

were to be settled, and

12. Swedish citizens with claims to land could re-

tain their estates only if they swore allegiance

to the Russian crown

13. Russian troops still in Livonia were to be pro-

visioned, but they were required to take all their

weapons and supplies when they left, and to

return archives and documents

14. Prisoners of war were to be returned (unless

they wished to stay)

15. The kingdom of Poland, as an ally of both sig-

natories, was included in the treaty, but Swe-

den was free to conclude a separate treaty with

Poland

16. There was to be free trade between Sweden and

Russia

17. Swedish merchants were allowed to maintain

warehouses in Russian towns and ports

18. The parties agreed to help each other in case of

shipwrecks and

19. To greet ships of both nations with the usual

friendly shots

20. Ambassadors and envoys were to pay their

own expenses, but the host power would pro-

vide escorts

21. Other European powers were given the option

to enter the treaty within three months

NYSTADT, TREATY OF

1078

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

22. Quarrels and disputes were to be settled equi-

tably, without breaching the peace

23. Traitors, murderers, and criminals would be

extradited

24. The treaty was to be ratified in three weeks in

Nystadt

The treaty was published in Russian in large

print runs of five thousand copies in 1721 and

twenty thousand copies in 1723, following the au-

thorization of the map showing the new borders.

It sealed both Russia’s rising status as a leading

player in European politics and Sweden’s decline as

a major military power, marking its disappearance

from the southern shores of the Baltic, to the ad-

vantage of Denmark, Prussia, and Russia. It also

underlined Poland’s status as a client state. At the

official celebrations in St. Petersburg in October

1721, Peter accepted the titles Great, Emperor, and

Father of the Fatherland from the Senate, further

arousing the belief in some European countries that

Russian influence was to be feared “more than the

Turks.” Except for the changes related to Finland,

the treaty defined Russia’s Baltic presence for the

rest of the imperial era. The acquisition of ports

brought Russia both economic and strategic ad-

vantages as well as an influx of highly educated

Baltic German personnel to work in the imperial

civil service.

See also: GREAT NORTHERN WAR; PETER I; SWEDEN, RE-

LATIONS WITH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bagger, H. (1993). “The Role of the Baltic in Russian For-

eign Policy 1721–1773.” In Imperial Russian Foreign

Policy, ed. Hugh Ragsdale. Cambridge, UK: Cam-

bridge University Press.

Hughes, Lindsey. (1990). Russia in the Age of Peter the

Great. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

INDSEY

UGHES

NYSTADT, TREATY OF

1079

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

This page intentionally left blank

OBROK

Rent in kind or money (quitrent).

Obrok was land rent paid by a peasant to his

lord either in kind or in money. Although there is

disagreement about its status prior to the Mongol

conquest, scholars agree that from the mid 1200s

to the end of the 1400s, rents in kind dominated

the economy after the Mongol invasion destroyed

the urban market and caused a precipitous popu-

lation decline.

As a market reemerged in the late 1400s and

1500s, dues paid in money increased significantly.

But by the end of the fifteenth century, the new

money dues were forcibly converted into more

profitable labor dues (barshchina). The latter be-

came predominant on seigniorial estates into the

early eighteenth century.

By the last third of the 1700s, market devel-

opment and major agricultural expansion into the

black soil region produced regional economic spe-

cialization. Rent in cash and in kind came to pre-

dominate in the non-black soil region, which

extended north from Moscow. Fifty-five percent of

the serfs in the region were on obrok. Increasingly

the payments were in cash, which was earned

largely from nonagricultural wages. This overall

proportion remained relatively stable down to the

emancipation, even though there was a strong shift

from labor dues to cash payments near the capital

as wages rose.

There has been a major controversy over what

happened to the level of cash payments in the last

hundred years of serfdom. Clearly, the nominal

value of the payments increased rather sharply. But

when adjustments are made for inflation and price

increases, Western, Soviet, and post-Soviet schol-

ars agree the increase was fairly moderate.