Encyclopedia of Russian History

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and, according to Andrej Kodjak (1979), contain-

ing an encoded message concerning the Decembrist

uprising. Other works during this period include

his “Little Tragedies” (“The Avaricious Knight,”

“Mozart and Salieri,” “The Stone Guest,” and “Feast

in the Time of the Plague”), as well as “The Little

House in Kolomna,” “The Tale of the Priest and his

Workman Balda,” the last chapter of Eugene One-

gin, and some of his finest lyrics, including “The

Devils.” He married Goncharova in February 1831,

shortly after the unexpected death of Delvig, his

closest friend after Pushchin.

Pushkin’s marriage to Goncharova proved un-

happy. She had little appreciation for his work, and

he was unable to finance her extravagant lifestyle.

Pushkin was beset with financial worries, and

wrote little (including “Tale of the Golden Cockerel”

(1834), the cycle of poems “Stone Island” (Kamenny

ostrov, 1836) and his novel The Captain’s Daughter

(1836). He published a quarterly journal The Con-

temporary, which added to his troubles and did not

fare well.

Natalia Goncharova loved mingling with the

high aristocracy and playing society coquette; her

many admirers included the tsar. The flirtation

took on more serious tones when Baron Georges

Charles d’Anthès, a French exile living in St. Pe-

tersburg under the protection of the Dutch am-

bassador, began to pursue her in earnest. A duel

between d’Anthès and Pushkin took place on Feb-

ruary 10, 1837. Pushkin, severely wounded, died

two days later.

Of Pushkin’s works, Eugene Onegin is the best

known in the West, though by no means his sole

masterpiece. Written over the course of eight years,

it consists of eight chapters, each chapter broken

into numbered stanzas in iambic tetrameter. Nar-

rated by a stylized version of Pushkin himself, it

portrays a Byronic antihero, Eugene Onegin, a

bored society dandy who rejects the sincere and

somber Tatiana. Onegin then flirts casually with

Tatiana’s sister Olga, provokes a duel with his

friend Vladimir Lensky, a second-rate poet infatu-

ated with Olga, and kills Lensky in the duel. After

some travels, Onegin returns to Petersburg to find

out that Tatiana has married a wealthy general. He

falls in love with her, but she rejects him out of

loyalty to her husband. The work holds immense

popular and scholarly appeal thanks to the play-

fulness and perfection of the verse, the layers of

confession and commentary, the appeal of the

heroine, and the complex element of prophecy of

Pushkin’s own death.

See also: DECEMBRIST MOVEMENT AND REBELLION;

DERZHAVIN, GAVRYL ROMANOVICH; GOLDEN AGE OF

RUSSIAN LITERATURE; PUSHKIN HOUSE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bethea, David M. (1998). Realizing Metaphors: Alexander

Pushkin and the Life of the Poet. Madison: University

of Wisconsin Press.

Binyon, T. J. (2002). Pushkin: A Biography. London:

HarperCollins.

Evdokimova, Svetlana. Pushkin’s Historical Imagination.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Greenleaf, Monika. (1994). Pushkin and Romantic Fash-

ion: Fragment, Elegy, Orient, Irony. Stanford, CA:

Stanford University Press.

Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich. (1983). Complete Prose

Fiction, tr. Walter W. Arndt and Paul Debreczeny.

Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

Pushkin, Alexander Sergeyevich. (1991). Eugene Onegin,

reprint ed., tr. Vladimir Nabokov. Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press.

Vitale, Serena. (1999). Pushkin’s Button, tr. Ann Gold-

stein and Jon Rothschild. New York: Farrar, Straus

and Giroux.

IANA

ENECHAL

PUSHKIN HOUSE

Pushkin House (Pushkinsky Dom), the Institute of

Russian Literature of the Russian Academy of Sci-

ences (abbreviated in Russian IRLI RAN), was

founded in St. Petersburg, in 1905 and named af-

ter Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799–1837).

The idea of creating a new monument to Rus-

sia’s premiere poet came about during the celebra-

tion of his centenary in 1899 and the Pushkin

Exhibit organized by the Academy in May of that

year. By 1907 the task of this monument supported

by literary societies, theaters, and other groups

from around Russia had evolved into gathering

manuscripts, artifacts, and collections of works of

prominent Russian authors. The acquisition of

Pushkin’s personal library in 1906 with govern-

ment funds laid the foundation for the institute’s

library. At this time Pushkin House occupied tem-

porary space at the Academy’s main building while

the search for a permanent location continued.

World War I and the February and October Revo-

lutions delayed the process but also increased the

institute’s holdings, especially those of the manu-

PUSHKIN HOUSE

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

script department. Among important additions were

the archives, saved from the burning building of the

gendarmes’ headquarters in February 1917, of the

tsar’s secret police, documenting police surveillance

of Pushkin and other nineteenth-century writers;

Pushkin and Lermontov museum collections trans-

ferred in 1917 from the Lyceum in Tsarskoye Selo

for safekeeping; and the Paris museum collection of

A. F. Onegin contracted for in 1909 and transferred

to Pushkin House in 1927, after the owner’s death.

Pushkin House became a member institute of the

Academy in 1918 and eventually received its own

building in 1927, the old customs house at 2

Tuchkov Embankment (now Makarov Embank-

ment). Thanks in part to the protection of Soviet

writer Maxim Gorky, Pushkin House was able to

continue acquiring manuscripts and literary mem-

orabilia in the 1920s and 1930s. Publishing of

scholarly works on Russian literature, source texts,

textology, bibliography and the study of literary

history, catalogs, and periodicals got underway in

the 1920s. Since then, the academic editions of com-

plete works by authors such as Pushkin, Dosto-

evsky, Tolstoy, Gogol, and Lermontov produced by

the institute have been considered authoritative and

are used and cited by scholars around the world.

Pushkin House continued to operate during the

siege of Leningrad during World War II, although

most of the manuscripts and staff were evacuated

to cities in the country’s interior. The institute re-

turned to the job of preparing specialists after the

war and continues to train graduate and post-

graduate students in Russian literature, awarding

degrees in Russian literature (Ph.D. equivalent and

professorship). The structure of the institute is di-

vided into ten departments, including medieval

Russian literature, oral poetry and audio archive,

modern Russian literature (eighteenth and nine-

teenth centuries), Pushkin department, new Russ-

ian literature (twentieth century), Russian and

foreign literary ties, manuscript department and

medieval manuscript repository, library, and liter-

ary museum. After the fall of the Soviet Union in

1991, Pushkin House, like most government insti-

tutions, experienced serious funding deficits but

rapid expansion of cooperation with foreign schol-

ars and universities that led to foreign grants, joint

publishing projects, exchanges, and international

conferences.

See also: ACADEMY OF SCIENCES; EDUCATION; PUSHKIN,

ALEXANDER SERGEYEVICH; UNIVERSITIES

ANESSA

ITTNER

PUTIN, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH

(b. 1952), second president of the Russian Federa-

tion.

Vladimir Putin was appointed acting president

of the Russian Federation on December 31, 1999,

and on March 26, 2000, he was elected to the pres-

idency. Putin was born in Leningrad (now St. Pe-

tersburg). He attended school there and practiced

judo, eventually becoming the city champion. As a

boy, Putin dreamed of joining the secret police

(KGB). When he was seventeen he went to KGB

headquarters and asked a startled officer what he

should do to “join up.” He was told to attend the

university and major in law. Putin took his advice

and attended Leningrad State University. In his sec-

ond semester one of his teachers was Anatoly

Sobchak, a man who would play a major role in

his life. In 1974 Putin was offered a job in the KGB

but told he had to wait a full year before entering

the organization. In 1976 Putin was assigned to

the First Directorate, the section engaged in spying

outside of the USSR. In 1983 he married Ludmila

Schkrebneva, a former airline hostess. Putin had

hoped to be stationed in West Germany, but in-

stead, in 1985, he was assigned to Dresden, in East

Germany. While it is unclear what he did there, all

indications are that he focused on recruiting visit-

ing West German businessmen to spy for the USSR.

In any case, he left as a lieutenant colonel, sug-

gesting that his spying career was less than spec-

tacular.

In May 1990 Putin’s former professor Anatoly

Sobchak was elected mayor of St. Petersburg, and

he asked Putin, who was well aware that both the

USSR and the KGB were falling apart, to come work

for him. Putin agreed, left the KGB, and by all ac-

counts impressed everyone he met with his ability

to “get things done.” He was efficient, effective,

honest, and decent to the people he interacted with,

characteristics that were in short supply at that

time. When Sobchak lost the mayoralty in the

election of July 1996, Putin quit, but unknown to

him he had been noticed by Anatoly Chubais, who

helped him obtain a job with Paul Borodin, who

ran the presidential staff in the Kremlin. As a re-

sult, he moved to Moscow.

Few people would have given the rather face-

less and bland Putin much chance of being noticed

by President Boris Yeltsin. Yet he did stand out, per-

haps because he was so efficient. Equally impor-

tant, he did not appear to be seeking higher office.

PUTIN, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Yeltsin took note of Putin and in 1998 appointed

him head of the Federal Security Service, formerly

the KGB. Then, on August 16, 1999, Yeltsin sur-

prised the world by making Putin prime minister

and designating him as his successor. If that was

not enough, Yeltsin once again surprised the world

on December 31, 1999 by resigning and making

Putin acting president. On March 26, 2000, Putin

stood for election and won a majority in the first

round.

Putin was a new kind of president. While Boris

Yeltsin had presided over the collapse of commu-

nism and in that sense was a revolutionary leader,

Putin saw the job differently. Russia had been

through enough turmoil and conflict since the col-

lapse of the USSR. Besides, the country was in a

mess. The economy had come close to collapse, cor-

ruption and social problems were rampant, cyni-

cism toward the central government was at an

all-time high, and on the international level, Rus-

sia was almost irrelevant with U.S.-Russian rela-

tions at an all-time low. It is not an exaggeration

to suggest that Russia was considered by many to

be “the sick man of Europe.”

Putin’s approach to these many problems con-

trasted markedly with Yeltsin’s. He was very or-

ganized and structured, and as his Millennium

Speech (January 1, 2000) made clear, he stood in

stark contrast to his Soviet predecessors. He told

the Russian people the truth about the depth and

seriousness of the country’s problem. In addition

to taking this straightforward approach, Putin be-

lieved that the only way Russia could survive as a

viable nation was to rebuild the Russian state. So

he immediately began to reestablish Moscow’s con-

trol over the country’s governors, many of whom

were paying little attention to the central govern-

ment. First, he took on the Federation Council, the

parliament’s upper house, where the regional gov-

ernors held considerable power. By the time Putin

was through, considerable power had been shifted

to Moscow. Then he set up seven “super” districts,

headed by personally selected “super” governors, to

oversee the regional officials. He even succeeded in

firing one of the country’s most corrupt and

strongest governors, Yegeny Nazdratenko of Pri-

morski Krai.

The Putin style of governance avoided spectac-

ular, high-profile actions. Instead, he preferred to

work behind the scenes whenever possible. In his

view, there had already been too much of the kind

of high-profile activity associated with Yeltsin.

Russia was tired of that sort of thing, which in the

end generally made very little difference in the life

of the average citizen. Military reform provides an

example of Putin’s approach. How to restructure

Russia’s armed forces had been a subject of discus-

sion ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union—

and even before then. When Putin appointed Sergei

Ivanov, one of his closest associates, as defense min-

ister, there was some expectation that he would

immediately try to institute major changes. In fact,

that did not happen. Instead, Putin pushed the De-

fense Ministry to make changes, and it has grad-

ually responded.

Putin’s style of governance was not repressive,

but neither was it democratic in the way the term

was understood in the West. Instead, he followed

a course of what might be called “managed democ-

racy.” He set the parameters of what was permit-

ted and what was prohibited. As long as citizens

remained within the parameters, they would have

all the freedom they wanted. But if they went be-

yond the parameters, they would be in trouble. For

PUTIN, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin became Russia’s second president.

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example, when Putin took on the media, he made

it clear that the “chaotic” press and television of the

Yeltsin period was unacceptable. While the media

remained free in comparison to the Soviet era, the

situation was a far cry from the independent news

coverage of the 1990s.

Putin did not have a grand plan for the re-

structuring of society. He was a problem-solver.

Rather than instituting a full-scale reform of the

judicial system, for instance, he raised the salaries

of judges and increased the money available to the

police. The same was true of an even more serious

problem, the tax system. The government was

bankrupt because no one was paying taxes. Putin

dealt with the problem by introducing a 13 per-

cent flat tax to be paid by everyone, and the sys-

tem seemed to work relatively well. There were still

major problems in both areas, but as was typical

of Putin, important if partial changes had been im-

plemented.

Putin was also an effective diplomat. When

George W. Bush became president of the United

States, it looked as if U.S.-Russian relations were

going nowhere. Putin showed he had patience.

When the terrorist attack on the World Trade Cen-

ter in New York occurred on September 11, 2001,

he was the first foreign leader to call President Bush

and express his condolences. He also stood by the

United States during the subsequent war in

Afghanistan. Most surprising, however, was his

ability to remain a close friend and ally of the

United States even though he opposed the American

invasion of Iraq. In contrast to the Washington–

Paris relationship, Washington and Moscow re-

mained close allies despite their differences over

Iraq.

Putin also demonstrated that he knew how to

make use of events. For example, he used the Sep-

tember 11 attacks to force Russia’s anti-American

general staff to change its approach to dealing with

the United States. On September 24, 2001, just

prior to his visit to the United States, he met with

the country’s generals and admirals, and made it

clear that cooperation was the order of the day. The

military quickly fell into line and cooperation be-

tween the two sides was as close as it had ever been.

Many observers wondered whether Putin’s

partial but determined approach would provide the

political, military, social, and economic stability

Russia needed to reenter the ranks of the world’s

major powers. When his presidency began, Putin

was unknown, and few believed he could do any-

thing other than be a KGB thug. Within a short

time, without taking the repressive actions that

many expected, he had begun to reestablish the

Russian state and to restore its status as an im-

portant player in the international arena. The econ-

omy had begun to turn around, even if it continued

to be too heavily based on oil.

See also: SOBCHAK, ANATOLY ALEXANDROVICH; STATE SE-

CURITY, ORGANS OF; YELTSIN, BORIS NIKOLAYEVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Herspring, Dale R., ed. (2003). Putin’s Russia: Past Im-

perfect, Future Uncertain. Boulder, CO: Rowman &

Littlefield.

Putin, Vladimir. (2000). First Person: An Astonishingly

Frank Self-Portrait of Russia’s President, Vladimir

Putin, tr. Catherine A. Fitzpatrick. New York: Pub-

lic Affairs.

Shevtsova, Lilia. (2003). Putin’s Russia. Washington, DC:

Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

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PUTIN, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

President Vladimir Putin speaks during a 2002 meeting with

Kyrgyzstan president Askar Akayev. P

HOTOGRAPH BY

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EMLIANICHENKO

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PYTATAKOV, GEORGY LEONIDOVICH

(1890–1937), a leading Bolshevik in Ukraine who

opposed Vladimir Lenin’s policy on a nation’s right

to self-determination.

An extraordinary economic administrator,

Georgy Pytatakov held numerous important polit-

ical positions including deputy chairman of Gos-

plan (1922); deputy chairman of the Supreme

Council of the National Economy (VSNKh) (1923);

chairman of the State Bank (1929); deputy chair-

man of the Commissariat of Heavy Industry (1930);

and member of the Supreme Economic Council

(1930).

In the 1920s Pytatkov allied with Leon Trot-

sky and ultimately became a leading figure in the

Left Opposition (the so-called Trotskyite opposi-

tion). From 1922 to 1926 Pytatakov advocated

rapid industrialization and supported Yevgeny Pre-

obrazhensky’s theory of “primitive socialist accu-

mulation.” In a public bid for rank-and-file support

for the Left’s position, Pytatakov took part in a

demonstration at a Moscow factory Party meeting

in 1926. He was subsequently removed from his

position at VSNKh for being an oppositionist and

sent abroad. The following year he was expelled

from the Party.

In 1928 Pytatkov recanted his position and ap-

plied for readmission into the Party. It was granted

the following year, along with an appointment to

head the State Bank. Beginning in 1929 he pub-

lished articles hailing Josef Stalin’s genius and con-

demning oppositionists. However, this could not

erase the stigma of his association with the Left

Opposition. In 1936 he was arrested as a Trotskyite

and, along with Karl Radek, was a central figure in

the second Moscow Show Trial in 1937. Under tor-

ture and drugs, he confessed, was found guilty, and

shot immediately after the trial.

See also: LEFT OPPOSITION; TROTSKY, LEON DAVIDOVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Conquest, Robert. (1990). The Great Terror: A Reassess-

ment. New York: Oxford University Press.

Khlevniuk, Oleg. (1995). In Stalin’s Shadow: The Career of

“Sergo” Ordzhonikidze. New York: M. E. Sharpe.

ATE

RANSCHEL

PUTIN, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH

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QUADRUPLE ALLIANCE AND

QUINTUPLE ALLIANCE

The Quadruple Alliance was signed in November

1815 by Russia, Britain, Austria, and Prussia, fol-

lowing the long series of wars that began in the

aftermath of the French Revolution and concluded

with the defeat of Napoleon. It was essentially a

continuation of the Treaty of Chaumont of 1814,

in which the four powers vowed to defeat France

and remain allied for twenty years to keep France

in check. At the time Russia was the preeminent

military power in Europe. From 1813 to 1814, Eu-

ropeans had watched with a mixture of amazement

and horror as Russian soldiers drove Napoleon’s

Grand Army out of their country and, joined by

Prussia, Britain, and finally Austria, all the way to

Paris. Britain ruled the seas, but no army rivaled

Russia’s, and fear of this new power was keen in

Austria and Britain until its disastrous defeat in the

Crimean War.

The individual most responsible for the com-

plete destruction of Napoleon’s power was Emperor

Alexander I (r. 1801–1825). The other continental

powers had been willing to negotiate a settlement

with Napoleon, but Alexander had insisted on to-

tal victory. Since at least 1805 he had been con-

vinced that only Russia and Britain had the

resources to vanquish Napoleon and reestablish or-

der in Europe based on a new treaty system.

With the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, the

victorious powers faced two related problems: how

to contain France, and how to prevent revolution.

In November, the British foreign secretary, Vis-

count Castlereagh, proposed a continuation of the

alliance system, bolstered by a system of great-

power congresses to deal with crises as they arose.

Alexander’s vague response was a “Holy Alliance”

of Christian monarchs who would treat one an-

other with Christian brotherhood and charity. This

proposal had no practical effect.

Castlereagh had his way, and in the Quadru-

ple Alliance the victorious powers pledged to main-

tain the political system established at the Congress

of Vienna for the next twenty years, by force if

necessary, and to meet periodically to consult on

the maintenance of order and stability. The foreign

secretary declared that Britain would never inter-

vene militarily in the internal affairs of another

state. When Alexander pressed him to promise sup-

port for the restored Bourbon monarchy in France,

1259

Castlereagh refused. This did much to fuel Alexan-

der’s suspicions of British policy.

As Alexander’s anti-British feelings grew, he

came to regard France in a more favorable light.

Prodded by his advisers, particularly Corfiote

Capodistrias, he concluded that if France were ad-

mitted into the Quadruple Alliance, it could become

a counterweight to Britain and, to a lesser extent,

Austria, especially if Prussia continued to follow

Russia’s diplomatic lead.

The result was the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle

in 1818. Ostensibly convened to end the military

occupation of France, it really had the goal of

restoring France into the great-power system. Its

outcome was twofold: France joined the alliance,

which became the Quintuple Alliance, but the

Quadruple Alliance was reconfirmed because the

victors, despite their mutual distrust, were still

fearful of a resurgent France. Over the next few

decades, however, fear of Russian power and ex-

pansionism would seize all the great powers except

Prussia, until they united to defeat Russia in the

Crimean War.

See also: CRIMEAN WAR; HOLY ALLIANCE; NAPOLEON I;

VIENNA, CONGRESS OF

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Albrecht-Carrie, Rene. (1958). A Diplomatic History of Eu-

rope Since the Congress of Vienna. New York: Harper.

Bridge, F.R., and Bullen, Roger. (1980). The Great Powers

and the European States System: 1815–1914. New

York: Longman.

Jelavich, Barbara. (1974). St. Petersburg and Moscow:

Tsarist and Soviet Foreign Policy: 1814–1974. Bloom-

ington: Indiana University Press.

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RABBINICAL COMMISSION

The Rabbinic Commission (1848–1910) was a con-

sultative body under the Ministry of Internal Af-

fairs (specifically the Department of Spiritual

Affairs for Foreign Faiths), organized to deal with

matters of the Jewish faith. Its creation conformed

to the general state policy of centralizing the reli-

gious administration of foreign confessions in a

single department. Its primary duties were to an-

swer inquiries from the state about Jewish laws

and customs, to supervise the activities of rabbis,

and to examine controversial Jewish divorce suits.

While the state had created this institution to gather

information about internal Jewish life, the Com-

mission gradually transformed into a higher court

of appeals for private divorce cases (which remained

under rabbinical jurisdiction until 1917) and a ve-

hicle for preserving traditional religious and fam-

ily values.

The changing profile of the Commission’s mem-

bers reflected the transformation in its mission and

identity. The first session (1852) included obscure

individuals who were well versed neither in the Russ-

ian language nor Jewish law: the merchant Bern-

shtein (Odessa), D. Orshansky (Poltava), Shimel

Merkel (Kovno province), and Dr. Cherolzon (Os-

zeisky province). They examined queries about the

censorship of Jewish books, Hasidic sects, the Jew-

ish oath, registration, and marriage of Jewish sol-

diers. The second meeting (1857) involved more

prominent Jews: Dr. Abraham Neumann (Riga), the

merchant Yekutiel-Zisl Rapoport (Minsk), the mer-

chant Chlenov, (Kremenchug), and Rabbi Yakov

Barit (Vilna). Among other topics, they discussed the

establishment of state schools for Jewish girls.

In addition to the previous members, the third

session (1861–1862) included Itskhok Eliiagu

(Eliyahu) Landau (Kiev), German Barats (Vilna),

and A. Maidevsky (Poltava), Iosef Evzel Gintsburg,

and two learned Jews from the Ministry of the Peo-

ple’s Education—Iosif Zeiberling (St. Petersburg)

and Samuel Iosif Fin (Vilna). The Commission ex-

amined ten cases on Jewish religious life and its

first divorce case.

The fourth session (1879) was an “assembly of

rabbis without rabbis.” Apart from state rabbi Ger-

man Faddeyevich Blyumenfeld (Odessa) and Dr.

Avraham Harkavy (an Orientalist), the others were

secular professionals: Hirsh Shapiro (Kovno), Zelman

Lyubich (Minsk), Meier Levin (Pinsk), Baron Goratsy

Gintsburg (Kiev), and I. I. Kaufman (Odessa). They

examined eight cases of divorce and bigamy.

1261

The fifth session (1893–1894) reflected the ag-

gressive campaign of the Jewish Orthodox leadership

to reassert their authority and preserve tradition.

It involved four enlightened Jews (German Barats,

Iakov Gottesman, Samuil Simkhovich, Avraam

Katlovker) and three prominent Orthodox leaders:

rabbis Tsvi Rabinovich (Vilna), Samuel Mogilever

(Grodno), and theologian Yuriya Mileikovsky

(Mogilev). They examined twenty-seven cases on

marriage, divorce, and religious rituals.

The final sixth session (1910) was a victory for

the Orthodox camp, which promised to wean Jews

from revolutionary activities. Save for one jurist,

Moisie Mazor (Kiev), the others were rabbis: Yehuda

Leib Tsirelson (Kishinev), Khaim Soloveichik (Brest-

Litovsk), Oizer Grodzensky (Vilna), Sholom Shneer-

son (Liubavich), Shmuel Polinkovsky (Odessa), and

Mendel Khein (Nezhin). They examined twenty-

three cases on marriage and divorce, as well as ques-

tions about burials, cemeteries, spelling of Jewish

names, oaths, and censorship of books.

Although the Rabbinic Commission only met

six times, it addressed key religious and family is-

sues that plagued Russian Jewry. The shift in in-

fluence from the enlightened to Orthodox camp

brought a reassertion of traditional values, includ-

ing the refusal to modify Jewish law to suit mod-

ern expectations. The state ceased to convene the

Rabbinic Commission as the empire descended into

war and revolution.