Encyclopedia of Russian History

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and many women pushed the boundaries of their

social options.

After the 1917 revolution, communist ideology

promoted the liberation of women and families

from oppressive norms and structures. Women en-

gaged in what had been male-only work in agri-

culture, construction, and manufacturing. During

the Soviet period, they played increasingly signifi-

cant roles in medicine, engineering, the sciences,

and other fields. By the 1980s, one-third of the

deputies in the Supreme Soviet were female, and

women accounted for more than 50 percent of the

students in higher education. But though “liber-

ated” to work in the public sphere, women often

retained the burden of household labor. Moreover,

their equal employment status was not fully re-

flected in the workplace, where gender discrimina-

tion was common.

Some of the hard-earned status of women

eroded after 1991. Unemployment increased in the

1990s, and women were frequently the first dis-

charged. Managerial jobs in the new commercial

sectors were largely held by men, and a tradition-

alist view of work and family reasserted itself

throughout society. The devaluation of women’s

labor contributions has been devastating for women

who need to work. Some women became entrepre-

neurs, but they faced stiff gender prejudice in start-

ing businesses. The percentage of women holding

political office has declined, and women’s partici-

pation in high levels of industry, the sciences, the

arts, and the government has shrunk. Some young

women turn to prostitution, or work in bars and

nightclubs, which may seem to be a way to escape

poverty.

Despite Soviet indoctrination, traditional gen-

der ideologies never vanished: Men are not sup-

posed to be able to cook, clean, or perform child

care, whereas women are seen as driving cars, su-

pervising others, and engaging in politics poorly.

Women are held in high regard as mothers, nur-

turers, and bearers of culture. Although feminists

have challenged these dichotomous gender norms,

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A Russian mother and her children, dressed in their finest winter clothes, take a sled to the nearest village to watch television.

TAFFAN

IDSTRAND

/CORBIS

and few families can afford to divide labor along

strict gender lines, such ideas are widespread. Stu-

dents receive equal education, but some school ac-

tivities and expectations are divided by gender.

Romantic love is the standard motivation for

marriage, and cultural tradition idealizes the pas-

sion of lovers, often in a tragic form. People meet

partners at school or university, at work, or at

clubs or music venues. Premarital sex is generally

tolerated. With little variation over the decades,

twenty-three has been the average age at marriage.

Almost half of all marriages end in divorce, with

economic hardship and alcohol abuse being con-

tributing factors. Ethnic intermarriage became

fairly common in Soviet times.

The nuclear family is the fundamental domes-

tic unit, and married couples crave apartments of

their own. Since the housing shortage and the high

price of new apartments make this difficult, fam-

ily units are often multigenerational. Many cou-

ples with children live with a widowed parent, often

a grandmother, who provides child care and cook-

ing. A grandparent’s monthly pension may be a

crucial part of family income.

Kinship is reckoned bilaterally (counting both

parents’ sides), but naming is patrilineal. Until the

mid-nineteenth century, kin terms for more than

sixty relations were in use; since then the number

of terms has greatly decreased. Even across dis-

tances, people maintain strong relations with their

siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins,

and nieces and nephews, and many are close with

even more distant relatives. Among the social fac-

tors that support such ties are the low level of ge-

ographic mobility, the importance of networks of

mutual aid, and regular visits to relatives in an-

cestral villages for summer rest and gardening.

Childbirth practices reflect traditional ideas.

Women stay in the hospital for at least a week af-

ter a birth, during which time fathers are allowed

to see mother and baby only briefly. Infants used

to be swaddled at birth and continue to be bundled

tightly, especially when venturing outside. Many

customary beliefs about medical or supernatural

dangers surround pregnancy, birthing, and new

babies.

Academic standards are high, and students are

well trained in world history, foreign languages,

music, mathematics, and science. Although the fig-

ures have gradually dropped since the Soviet years,

more than 90 percent of the population completes

secondary education, and around 12 percent go on

for higher education. The literacy rate is one of the

world’s highest. Post-secondary education confers

social prestige and is more and more essential for

economic success.

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AND PRACTICES

Most Russians identify themselves as Orthodox

Christians. Not all are active church members, but

observance of major holidays is increasing. The

state has returned thousands of churches, icons,

and religious objects appropriated during the So-

viet period to local religious communities. Ortho-

dox practice hinges on the emotive experience of

liturgy and the veneration of icons, and the faith-

ful light candles, pray, and bow before sacred im-

ages of the Virgin Mary and the saints. Rural

houses feature a special corner where the family’s

icon hangs, and many apartments have an icon

shelf. Religious practices were proscribed during the

Soviet era but continued anyway.

Pre-Christian practices and beliefs have per-

sisted over a millennium of Orthodoxy. Traditional

beliefs about forest and house spirits, the evil eye,

and metaphysical healing are found everywhere—

and are especially strong in rural areas. Certain pro-

hibitions stem from them; for example, evil

intentions are attracted by bragging about good

fortune or health, and can be cured only by meta-

physical intervention of some kind.

Folk medicine is highly developed. Herbal reme-

dies are used for everyday maladies. Professional

practitioners advertise their services for treating se-

rious illnesses and life problems. Homeopathy, the

application of leeches, mineral baths, light therapy,

and other treatments are popular. Physicians may

also prescribe herbal teas, tinctures, and plasters.

Proper treatment and remembrance of the dead

is important. The dead are prevented from staying

among the living by covering mirrors with black

cloth, laying out the body in ways that help usher

out the spirit, and accompanying the deceased from

home to church and from church to cemetery in

elaborate processions. In the church or hall where

the body is displayed, mourners circle the open cof-

fin counterclockwise and kiss the body or put flow-

ers on it. After burial, mourners gather to share

vodka and food while remembering the deceased

with stories and anecdotes. The soul remains on

earth for forty days, when a second gathering is

held to bid it farewell as it departs for heaven. The

anniversary of a death is memorialized every year;

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some people travel long distances to visit the graves

of their loved ones.

CALENDRICAL RITUAL

Holidays fill the calendar. Some are Orthodox or

pre-Christian, some mark historical events, some

are secular, and a few, like Valentine’s Day, are post-

Soviet imports. March 8, International Women’s

Day, is a legal holiday. Men bring flowers to the

women in their lives and congratulate female

friends, coworkers, and relatives. May Day, com-

memorating international labor solidarity, heralds

the coming of spring. Victory Day on May 9 cel-

ebrates the Soviet capture of Berlin and the end of

World War II in Europe. This holiday is sacred to

older people, who gather to remember family,

friends, and comrades lost in the war. Russia Day,

June 12, marks independence from the Soviet

Union in 1991 with parades and fireworks. Octo-

ber Revolution Day, November 7, is celebrated

mostly by communists nostalgic for Soviet power.

New Year’s Eve is the most lavish secular holiday.

Grandfather Frost and the Snow Maiden leave gifts

under a decorated New Year’s Tree, and people

gather for song, feasting, vodka, and champagne.

The party may last all night. The observance of

Christmas and Easter and other Orthodox holidays

has grown since the end of Soviet religious repres-

sion.

FOOD

Bead and potatoes are the basic everyday foods.

Cabbage, carrots, and beets are staple vegetables;

onions and garlic are used liberally. Russians gen-

erally love meat. Sausage, salami, pork, beef, mut-

ton, chicken, and dried or salted fish are widely

available and inexpensive.

Breakfast is a quick snack of coffee or tea with

bread and sausage or cheese. Lunch is a hot meal,

with soup, potatoes, macaroni, rice or buckwheat

kasha, ground meat cutlets, and peas or grated cab-

bage (or, for business people, a quick meal in one

of the increasing number of fast-food cafés). A later

supper may consist of boiled potatoes, soured cab-

bage, and bread or simply bread and sausage or

cheese. There is a huge array of cakes, pies, and

chocolates.

Russian cuisine features many dairy products,

such as tvorog, a local version of cottage cheese, and

many hard cheeses and fermented milk products.

These items can be purchased from large shops or

farmers’ markets or made at home. In provincial

towns, fresh milk is sold from trucks, although

bottles and cartons of pasteurized milk are avail-

able everywhere. Russians are great tea drinkers.

Fruits are widely cultivated in home gardens.

Fruits and berries are made into preserves, com-

potes, cordials, and concentrates for the winter

months. Mushroom picking is an art, and many

people salt, dry, or pickle them. Cabbage, cucum-

bers, garlic, and tomatoes are salted or pickled. The

chronic shortages of the Soviet era led many peo-

ple to produce food for themselves. The impover-

ishment of the post-socialist era means that a

significant portion of the population continues to

depend on their own produce. Some estimates hold

that 80 percent of the vegetables consumed in Rus-

sia are grown in small family plots.

Coffee has grown in popularity and is often

served thick and strong. Although wine, beer, co-

gnac, and champagne are popular, vodka reigns

among alcoholic beverages.

Ceremonial occasions highlight food customs.

Communal feasting marks birthdays, weddings,

anniversaries, the achievement of a goal, important

purchases, and major holidays. Tables are laden

with salads, appetizers, sausage and cheese, and

pickled foods, followed by meat and potatoes, and

meat or cabbage pies. Vodka and wine are drunk

throughout the meal, which may continue for

many hours. Toasting is elaborate and can be sen-

timental, humorous, poetic, ribald, or reverential.

Vodka is always drunk straight, accompanied by

a pickled or salty food.

A growing number of people observe Lenten

fasts during which they consume no meat, butter,

eggs, or vodka. Easter provides an opportunity for

a fast-breaking celebration with special foods.

EVERYDAY ETIQUETTE

Language rules play a significant part in good man-

ners. When addressing elders, except for parents and

grandparents, persons of higher status, strangers,

and acquaintances, people use the second-person

plural pronoun. The informal second-person sin-

gular is used only among friends, within the fam-

ily, and among close coworkers of equal status.

Addressing someone formally entails using the per-

son’s full name and patronymic. Misuse of the in-

formal mode is insulting.

Table rituals are also important. Hosts and host-

esses try to show unfailing generosity, and guests

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must accept hospitality with a willingness to be

served, pampered, and stuffed full of food and drink.

Sitting on the floor or putting one’s shoes on

a table is prohibited. Proper femininity requires that

clothes be immaculately clean and pressed, groom-

ing fastidious, and comportment elegant and re-

served. By contrast, in crowds, on lines, and on

public transport, active shoving and pushing are

the norm. In Soviet times, demure, nonflashy dress

was valued, but this norm has changed with the

explosion of fashion and the growth of subcultural

identity.

The word uncultured is used by older people

against family or strangers as a reprimand for in-

appropriate behavior. The public use of this repri-

mand diminished as the social status of elders fell

after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and as ag-

gressive behavior in the cities became a mark of the

coolness of youth.

CULTURAL SYMBOLS AND ARTS

The cupolas of Moscow’s St. Basil’s Cathedral are

a popular visual symbol of Russia both within the

country and abroad. Photographs of St. Basil’s and

many other churches and cathedrals adorn homes,

offices, and media images.

Bread symbolizes central aspects of the national

self-image. It is the mark of hospitality, as in the

ritual of khleb-sol (“bread and salt”), welcoming

visitors with a round loaf with a salt cellar on top.

In broader terms, bread is the symbol of life. Other

foods are also cultural symbols: black caviar, which

signifies luxury; mushrooms and berries, the gifts

of forest and dacha; pancakes served before Lent;

the potato, symbol of survival in hard times, and

vodka, symbolizing camaraderie and mischief-

making.

Forest plants, animals, and objects are also im-

portant symbols. Birches conjure up the romance

of the countryside; wolf, bear, and fox, are ubiq-

uitous in folktales and modern cartoons; the peas-

ant cottage signifies the intimate world of the past.

Inside the cottage are other cultural symbols: the

huge clay stove, the samovar, and the Orthodox

icon in its corner. Although most Russians live in

urban apartments, images of traditional rural life

are still meaningful.

Conversation is rich with metaphors and

proverbs, summarizing a complex view of shared

identity. Russians think of the soul (dusha) as an

internal spiritual conjunction of heart, mind, and

culture. Friendship depends on a meeting of souls,

accomplished through shared suffering or joy—or

by feasting and drinking. Soul is said to be one of

the metaphysical mechanisms that unite Russians

into a people (narod). Stemming from the ancient

Slavic for “kin” and “birth,” and meaning “citizens

of a nation,” “ethnic group,” or “crowd,” narod

refers to the composite identity of the people

through history and is often invoked by politicians.

People speak in terms of belonging by “blood”; a

person is thought of as having Russian blood, Jew-

ish blood, Armenian blood, or some other ethnic

blood, and culture is supposedly transmitted through

the blood.

Cultural symbols abound in folk art. Animal,

bird, plant, solar, and goddess motifs, and a palette

of reds and golden yellows with traces of black and

green prevail in painted wooden objects and em-

broidered textiles. Soviet state studios kept many

folk media alive, and the postsocialist period has

seen independent craftspersons return to traditional

mythological motifs. Folk art objects are popular

and are found in homes everywhere.

The end of Soviet power meant an explosive

opening of Russia to the world, with all of the

changes for better and worse that come with glob-

alization. Popular culture in Russia has become

characterized by the vibrant and fertile mixing of

local and international styles in music, art, litera-

ture, and film. Obsessions with mafia criminals,

the new wealthy (so-called New Russians), biznis-

meny, and modern technology fill the media. Yet

alongside this, indigenous artistic genres, shared

symbols and values, and social practices hold their

own and continue to shape the world of meaning

and identity.

See also: FEMINISM; FOLKLORE; MARRIAGE AND FAMILY

LIFE; NATIONALISM IN THE ARTS; NATIONALITIES

POLICY, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICY, TSARIST; NA-

TION AND NATIONALITY; ORTHODOXY; PEASANTRY;

SLAVOPHILES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam. (1992). Russian Traditional

Culture: Religion, Gender, and Customary Law. Ar-

monk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

Billington, James H. (1970). The Icon and the Axe: An In-

terpretive History of Russian Culture. New York: Vin-

tage Books.

Boutenko, Irene A., and Razlogov, Kirill E., eds. (1997).

Recent Social Trends in Russia, 1960–1995. Montreal:

McGill–Queen’s University Press.

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Boym, Svetlana. (1994). Common Places: Mythologies of

Everyday Life in Russia. Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press.

Dunn, Stephen P., and Dunn, Ethel. (1988). The Peasants

of Central Russia. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland

Press.

Hilton, Alison. (1995). Russian Folk Art. Bloomington:

Indiana University Press.

Hubbs, Joanna. (1988). Mother Russia: The Feminine Myth

in Russian Culture. Bloomington: Indiana University

Press.

Ivanits, Linda. (1989). Russian Folk Belief. Armonk, NY:

M. E. Sharpe.

Kingston-Mann, Esther, and Mixter, Timothy, eds.

(1991). Peasant Economy, Culture and Politics of Eu-

ropean Russia, 1800–1921. Princeton, NJ: Princeton

University Press.

Laitin, David D. (1998). Identity in Formation: The Russian-

Speaking Populations in the Near Abroad. Ithaca, NY:

Cornell University Press.

Ledeneva, Alena V. (1998). Russia’s Economy of Favours:

Blat, Networking, and Informal Exchange. Cambridge,

UK: Cambridge University Press.

Millar, James R., and Wolchik, Sharon L., eds. (1994).

The Social Legacy of Communism. Washington, DC:

Woodrow Wilson Center Press.

Pesmen, Dale. (2000). Russia and Soul: An Exploration.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Pilkington, Hilary. (1998). Migration, Displacement, and

Identity in Post-Soviet Russia. London: Routledge.

Ries, Nancy. (1997). Russian Talk: Culture and Conversa-

tion During Perestroika. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univer-

sity Press.

Rzhevsky, Nicholas, ed. (1998). The Cambridge Compan-

ion to Modern Russian Culture. Cambridge, UK: Cam-

bridge University Press.

Shalin, Dmitri N., ed. (1996). Russian Culture at the Cross-

roads: Paradoxes of Post-Communist Consciousness.

Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

Sokolov, Yuri M. (1971). Russian Folklore, tr. Catherine

Ruth Smith. Detroit: Folklore Associates.

ANCY

IES

RUSSIAN SOVIET FEDERATED

SOCIALIST REPUBLIC

The Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, or

RSFSR, formed on November 7, 1917, was one of

the four original republics in the Union of Soviet

Socialist Republics (USSR) when the latter was

founded by treaty in December 1922. The RSFSR’s

establishment was later confirmed in the 1924 con-

stitution. The other three were Ukraine, Belorussia

(now called Belarus), and Transcaucasia (divided in

1940 into Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Georgia). Even

after ten more republics were added, for a total of

fifteen republics, the RSFSR remained the largest,

with more than half the population and three-

quarters of the USSR’s territory (6,591,000 square

miles). Moscow was the capital of both the RSFSR

and the USSR as a whole. Situated in Eastern Eu-

rope and North Asia, the RSFSR was surrounded

on the east, north, and northwest by the Pacific,

Arctic, and Atlantic Oceans. It had frontiers in the

northwest with Norway and Finland, in the west

with Poland and the three Baltic republics (Latvia,

Lithuania, and Estonia), and in the south with

China and Outer Mongolia and the Soviet republics

of Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ukraine.

In the new Soviet Union, which geographically re-

placed the old Russian Empire, the name Russia was

not officially used. Lenin and other Bolshevik au-

thorities intended to blend the national and the

international to recognize each nationality by

granting autonomy to national groups, while bind-

ing these groups together in a higher union and al-

lowing new groups to enter regardless of historic

frontiers. In 1922 the expectation of world revolu-

tion was still alive. Thus, the founding of the

USSR—and the RSFSR within it—was a decisive step

toward uniting the workers of all countries into

one World Soviet Socialist Republic.

Although Lenin supported national self-

determination as a force to undermine the tsarist

empire, he adopted federalism rather late, as a re-

sponse to Ukrainian and Georgian attempts to es-

tablish truly independent republics. The Red Army

crushed these attempts in 1920–1921, but such use

of brute force and the specter of Great Russian

chauvinism troubled Lenin. He and others pressed

for the federalization not only of the sovereign re-

publics within the USSR, but also the federalization

of the RSFSR. By 1960 the RSFSR consisted of fif-

teen “autonomous soviet socialist republics” (ASSRs),

six territories (krai), forty-nine regions (oblast), six

autonomous oblasts, and ten national districts

(okrug). The federal structure undoubtedly gave

some dignity, self-respect, and sense of equal co-

operation to many of the numerous nationalities.

In the late 1980s, partly due to the perestroika,

glasnost, and new thinking (novomyshlenie) policies

of the incumbent general secretary, Mikhail Gor-

bachev, the Soviet republics—including and espe-

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

cially the RSFSR—began to challenge the legislative

authority of the Soviet Communist Party and the

“Moscow center.” By October 1990, fourteen re-

publics had passed declarations of either indepen-

dence or sovereignty over USSR laws. The RSFSR’s

declaration of sovereignty and the rising popular-

ity of Boris Yeltsin (elected chairman of the

Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR in May 1990 and then

president of the RSFSR in June 1991) were key fac-

tors in prompting Gorbachev to attempt to replace

the original 1922 union treaty with a new docu-

ment giving the republics more power. This in turn

prompted hardliners in the Kremlin to stage a coup

in August 1991. When it failed, Yeltsin’s power

and influence eclipsed Gorbachev’s. Yeltsin con-

vened with leaders of Belarus, Ukraine, and Ka-

zakhstan in Alma Ata in December 1991 to declare

the nullification of the 1922 union treaty and an-

nounce the official extinction of the Soviet Union.

Gorbachev publicly confirmed the latter on De-

cember 25, 1991. The RSFSR is now called the Russ-

ian Federation.

See also: RUSSIAN FEDERATION; UNION OF SOVIET SO-

CIALIST REPUBLICS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Fitzsimmons, Thomas, ed. (1974). RSFSR, Russian Soviet

Federated Socialist Republic. Westport, CT: Green-

wood Publishing Group.

Gilbert, Martin. (1993). Atlas of Russian History, 2nd ed.

New York: Oxford University Press.

Hosking, Geoffrey. (1993). The First Socialist Society: A

History of the Soviet Union from Within, 2nd ed. Cam-

bridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Sakwa, Richard. (2002). Russian Politics and Society, 3rd

ed. New York: Routledge.

OHANNA

RANVILLE

RUSSIAN STATE LIBRARY

The Russian State Library is the largest library in

Russia; the second largest library in the world af-

ter the Library of Congress, with holdings of more

than forty-two million volumes. It is also a major

scientific research center for library studies, bibli-

ography, and book studies.

Founded in the center of Moscow in 1862 as

the Moscow Public Museum and Rumyantsev

Museum, the Russian State Library had its origins

in the library of Count Nikolai Rumyantsev

(1754–1826), whose outstanding collection of

books, manuscripts, and cartographic materials,

including 710 manuscripts and 28,500 books, was

donated to the Russian state to form the Rumyant-

sev Museum in St. Petersburg in 1831. The library

was administered by the Imperial Public Library

from 1845 to 1861, when it was transferred to

Moscow. The new library grew rapidly by means

of its status as a legal depository of all publications

issued in the Russian empire, a privilege granted

until 1862 to only three libraries: the Imperial Pub-

lic Library, the Library of the Russian Academy of

Sciences, and the Helsinki University Library. It also

benefited from collections donated by some of Russ-

ian’s most prominent public figures, scholars, sci-

entists, and writers, and by their families.

In the prerevolutionary period, the library re-

ceived more than three hundred private book col-

lections, including those of statesman Avraam

Norov; bibliographer and bibliophile Sergei Poltorat-

sky; philosopher Pyotr Chaadayev; writer Prince

Vladimir Odoyevsky, who served as deputy direc-

tor of the Imperial Public Library and director of

the Rumyantsev Museum from 1846 until it moved

to Moscow; and Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna,

wife of Tsar Nicholas II. The library also acquired

book and manuscript collections of writers Gavriil

Derzhavin, Vasily Zhukovsky, Alexander Pushkin,

Alexander Veltman, Fyodor Tyutchev, Nikolai

Gogol, Mikhail Lermontov, Afanasy Fet, Alexander

Herzen, Nikolai Nekrasov, Alexander Ostrovsky,

Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Anton Chekhov,

Vasily Rozanov, Valery Bryusov, Alexander Blok,

Mikhail Bulgakov, Kornei Chukovsky, Isaac Babel,

and Sergei Yesenin; literary scholars Alexander Pypin,

Izmail Sreznevsky, Alexei Sobolevsky, Boris Toma-

shevsky, Pavel Sakulin, and Nikolai Gudzy; histo-

rians Vasily Klyuchevsky, Nikolai Karamzin,

Mikhail Pogodin, and Sergei Soloviev; and librari-

ans and bibliographers Vasily Sobolshchikov,

Vladimir Mezhov, and Nikolai Lisovsky, among

others. Within fifty years of its founding, it had

become one of the preeminent cultural and educa-

tional institutions of Russia, combing the roles of

public library, treasury of manuscripts and deco-

rative art, and archeological and ethnographic mu-

seum.

With the nationalization of libraries and cul-

tural institutions after the October 1917 Revolu-

tion and the move of the capital from St. Petersburg

to Moscow in 1918, it became the main library of

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

the country. Its name, which had changed in 1869

to Moscow Public and Rumyantsev Museum and

in 1913 to Imperial Moscow and Rumyantsev Mu-

seum, changed again in 1917 to State Rumyantsev

Museum. In 1921 the library was reorganized to

become separate from the museum: It was assigned

the function of a state repository, and granted the

status of national library. In 1924 its name was

changed to V. I. Lenin All-Russian Public Library,

in 1925 to V. I. Lenin State Library of the USSR,

in accordance with its new status as the national

library of the USSR, and in 1992, with the disso-

lution of the USSR, to Russian State Library.

The Manuscript Division holds works dating

from the earliest years of Slavonic script. These in-

clude the Arkhangelsk Gospel of 1092, the Mariin-

skoe Gospel of the eleventh century, and the

Khitrovo Gospel of the late fourteenth to early fif-

teenth century. It possesses a valuable collection of

West European manuscripts, dating as early as

the twelfth century, as well as Greek, Arabic, Per-

sian, Turkish, Indian, Chinese, and Japanese man-

uscripts. The library has holdings estimated at 80

percent of all known books printed in Cyrillic script

from the fifteenth to the eighteenth century, in-

cluding examples of early Russian printing associ-

ated with printer Ivan Fyodorov and typographer

Pyotr Mstislavets, and a vast collection of eigh-

teenth-century books printed in the civil script de-

veloped for secular works. Highlights include first

and lifetime editions of Renaissance thinkers and

scientists, including Nicholas Copernicus, Galileo,

Giordano Bruno, René Descartes, Johannes Kepler,

and Sir Thomas More. The library prides itself on

its rare editions of outstanding Russian and foreign

representatives of culture and science, including

Dmitry Mendeleyev, Nikolai Lobachevsky, Ivan

Pavlov, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Isaac Newton,

Charles Darwin, Louis Pasteur, Albert Einstein,

William Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes Saave-

dra, Voltaire, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, George

Gordon Byron, Heinrich Heine, Honoré de Balzac,

Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens, Émile Zola, and

Bernard Shaw.

The library was originally housed in the for-

mer residence of retired military officer Pyotr

Pashkov, in a building known as Pashkov House,

built by architect Vasily Bazhenov from 1784 to

1786 in the Russian classical style. The building

had a reading room for twenty people and was

expanded over many decades to accommodate read-

ers and collections. In 1958 construction was com-

pleted on a new library building adjacent to the

original building, with reading rooms for more

than 2,000 readers. In addition, a branch opened in

1975 in Khimki on the outskirts of Moscow to

house newspapers and dissertations. While focused

on collection, preservation, and service relating to

Russia’s cultural heritage, the library’s mission re-

flects its status as one of the world’s finest repos-

itories of the creative and intellectual output of

humankind.

See also: NATIONAL LIBRARY OF RUSSIA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Davis, Robert H., Jr., and Kasinec, Edward. (2001).

“Russian State Library, Moscow.” In International

Dictionary of Library Histories, vol. 2, ed. David H.

Stam. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn.

The State Lenin Library of the USSR, 1862–1987. (1987).

Moscow: State Library of the USSR.

ANICE

T. P

ILCH

RUSSIA’S DEMOCRATIC CHOICE

Russia’s Democratic Choice (Demokratichesky Vy-

bor Rossii, or DVR) was a party with a liberal-de-

mocratic orientation, in favor of deeper market

restructuring combined with minimal government

involvement and feasible social programs. It was

formed in the spring of 1994 out of the Duma frac-

tion of the reformist pro-government bloc that was

known as “Russia’s Choice.” The voters’ list of the

latter, led by Vice-Premier Yegor Gaidar, defender

of rights Sergei Kovalev, and Minister of Social Se-

curity Ella Pamfilova, received 8.3 million votes

(15.5%, second place), and forty Duma seats. More-

over, twenty-four candidates were elected in sin-

gle-mandate districts, allowing them to form the

largest fraction, amounting to seventy-six dele-

gates. The political ambitions of numerous “Russia’s

Choice” leaders, disagreement over the Chechnya

war, and the party’s and fraction’s loss of status

and power led to the loss of many members, and

at the end of the term only fifty-two delegates re-

mained.

Russia’s Democratic Choice entered the 1995

elections with an array of smaller, democratically

oriented parties, in the bloc “Russia’s Democratic

Choice-United Democrats.” Of the first three names

on the list, Gaidar and Kovalev remained, but the

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

actress Lidia Fedoseyeva Shushkina replaced Ella

Pamfilova, who had established her own nominal

bloc. The 1993 campaign slogan “Freedom, prop-

erty, lawfulness” was exchanged for “Peace, wel-

fare, justice.” However, without administrative

resources, and with the splintering of the democ-

ratic electorate among several electoral associations,

the bloc collapsed, winning only 2.7 million votes

(3.9%). Nine delegates from single-mandate dis-

tricts constituted an unregistered delegate group,

working with Yabloko. The DVR governmental po-

sitions were temporarily weakened, but with the

arrival of Anatoly Chubais, first as leader of Boris

Yeltsin’s election campaign in 1996, then in the

presidential administration and government, they

were strengthened again. The Institute of Transi-

tional Economy, founded by Yegor Gaidar after his

exit from government in 1992 and closely aligned

with the government’s economic branch, played an

integral role in DVR policy formation and training.

In the 1999 elections, the party enjoyed success as

part of the bloc “Union of Right Forces,” (SPS),

which Gaidar co-chaired. In May 2001, on the

threshold of new elections, the SPS became a party

with its own membership, at which point the DVR

dissolved, along with other “forces of the right.”

See also: CHUBAIS, ANATOLY BORISOVICH; GAIDAR, YEGOR

TIMUROVICH; KOVALEV, SERGEI ADAMOVICH; UNION

OF RIGHT FORCES; YABLOKO; YELTSIN, BORIS NIKOLEYE-

VICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

McFaul, Michael. (2001). Russia’s Unfinished Revolution:

Political Change from Gorbachev to Putin. Ithaca: Cor-

nell University Press.

McFaul, Michael, and Markov, Sergei. (1993). The Trou-

bled Birth of Russian Democracy: Parties, Personalities,

and Programs. Stanford, CA: Hoover Institution

Press.

McFaul, Michael and Petrov, Nikolai, eds. (1995). Pre-

viewing Russia’s 1995 Parliamentary Elections. Wash-

ington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace.

McFaul, Michael; Petrov, Nikolai; and Ryabov, Andrei,

eds. (1999). Primer on Russia’s 1999 Duma Elections.

Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for Interna-

tional Peace.

Reddaway, Peter, and Glinski, Dmitri. (2001). The Tragedy

of Russia’s Reforms: Market Bolshevism against Democ-

racy. Washington, DC: U. S. Institute of Peace Press.

IKOLAI

ETROV

RUSSIFICATION

The term Russification refers to policies designed to

spread Russian culture and language among non-

Russians. These programs date from the late eigh-

teenth century, but gained importance from the

1860s. Recent historiography has discredited ear-

lier accounts that posited a consistent plan by the

tsarist government to assimilate non-Russians.

Still, St. Petersburg certainly viewed Russian as the

empire’s predominant language, considering it nat-

ural for non-Russians to learn Russian as a means

of inter-ethnic communication. While the USSR of-

ficially rejected Russification, in fact the Soviet gov-

ernment was vastly more successful in spreading

the Russian language than its tsarist predecessors.

In the post-Soviet era, nationalities such as the

Tatars and Chechens often complain bitterly that

the pressure of Russification has not diminished

since 1992.

TYPES OF RUSSIFICATION

An American historian, Edward C. Thaden, pro-

posed a useful distinction between three types of

Russification: unplanned, administrative, and cul-

tural. By unplanned Russification, Thaden meant

natural processes of cultural assimilation by which

certain individuals or groups took on the Russian

language, and often the Russian Orthodox religion,

as well. Administrative Russification refers to offi-

cial policies such as those requiring the use of Russ-

ian throughout all branches of the government,

and is often difficult to distinguish from central-

ization. Cultural Russification, finally, is the effort

to assimilate entire populations, replacing their

original culture with Russian. Cultural Russifica-

tion was uncommon in the imperial period, though

rather more frequent under the Soviets. Both un-

planned and administrative Russification, however,

played an important role in Russian nationality

policy.

RUSSIFICATION UNDER THE TSARS

Unplanned Russification on an individual basis be-

gan early in the Muscovite period. As Muscovite

power increased, in particular after the conquest of

the Tatar capital of Kazan in 1552, the prestige of

Russian culture grew and, with it, its attractive-

ness to non-Russians. Moscow encouraged its new

subjects to adopt Russian Orthodoxy, but these ef-

forts were neither particularly energetic nor con-

sistent. Only in the mid-eighteenth century was a

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

concerted program attempted, aimed at converting

animists and Muslims in the Volga region. Under

this program, many Tatars and nearly all Mord-

vins, Chuvash, and Votyaks converted.

Catherine the Great pressed forward with ad-

ministrative Russification, particularly in the lands

gained for Russia in the Polish partitions and by

her wars against the Turks. Catherine did not,

however, envision Russifying the population of this

territory culturally. She aimed rather at rational-

izing the administration of these newly acquired

lands, tying them more closely to St. Petersburg.

Even here her successes were rather modest.

Policies resembling cultural Russification appear

for the first time during the reign of Tsar Nicholas

I. Of key importance here is the concept of official

nationality. Nicholas’s Minister of Education,

Sergei Uvarov, formulated this ideology, easily en-

capsulated in the phrase “orthodoxy, autocracy,

and nationality.” Uvarov aimed to create a mod-

ern Russian nation, united in its loyalty to the tsar,

sharing the moral fundament of Russian Ortho-

doxy, and speaking the Russian language. Official

nationalism would appear to be a blatant case of

cultural Russification, aimed at the total assimila-

tion of non-Russian cultures. Actually, Uvarov was

primarily concerned with encouraging dynastic pa-

triotism and morality: “Nationality” was, after all,

the third and last element of his tripartite formula.

Uvarov did hope that, over time, the tsar’s Ger-

man, Asian, and Baltic subjects would adopt Russ-

ian culture, but he did little on a practical level to

affect such a change.

Two of the most problematic ethnic groups for

Imperial Russia were the Poles and Jews. From

1815 to 1830, the Poles enjoyed a considerable de-

gree of autonomy in the Kingdom of Poland. After

the Polish insurrection of 1831, this autonomy was

considerably reduced, but only after a second up-

rising, in 1863, did St. Petersburg adopt policies of

cultural Russification. Though Polish was not en-

tirely banned from education, imported Russian

teachers set the tone. In any case, private educa-

tion in Polish was forbidden. Despite all prohibi-

tions, Polish culture continued to flourish during

these decades, though Russian policies contributed

to the high illiteracy rate among Poles.

For official Russia, Jews appeared to be both

religiously and culturally alien. Various programs

throughout the nineteenth century aimed to mod-

ernize the Jewish community, in other words

to make Jews more like educated Russians. These

measures had little impact, partly because Jews

widely regarded them as mere fronts for religious

conversion. Only toward the end of the century did

there arise a significant and rapidly growing group

of Russian Jews. Indeed, the adoption of Russian

culture by these Jews may be seen as one of Rus-

sification’s few successes.

Few Russians considered Ukrainians and Be-

larusians to be separate national groups before the

twentieth century. These two East Slavic groups,

mainly Orthodox in religion, spoke languages that

were generally seen as mere dialects of Russian.

When Ukrainian nationalism gained strength from

the 1860s, St. Petersburg responded with a prohi-

bition on publishing in the Ukrainian language.

Schools in Ukrainian and Belarusian areas taught

in Russian, which the pupils could not always un-

derstand. Only after 1905 did Belarusians and

Ukrainians gain the right to use their languages in

publications and education.

During the nineteenth century, the Russian

Empire acquired enormous lands in Central Asia.

Administrative Russification was practiced here,

and some schools for indigenous children were set

up. Interest in the Russian language spread among

the younger generation of educated Muslims, es-

pecially Tatars, toward the end of the century. On

the whole, however, St. Petersburg lacked the funds

and interest to target these groups for intensive cul-

tural integration.

RUSSIFICATION UNDER THE SOVIETS

Officially, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir I. Ulyanov

(Lenin), explicitly repudiated all forms of national

chauvinism, including Russification. In practice, the

situation was more complicated. Lenin’s insistence

on a highly centralized party had already led to

clashes with Jewish socialists (the Bund). The

Bolsheviks supported national self-determination

and condemned repressive policies toward non-

Russians. Yet, as Marxists, they were primarily in-

terested in creating a proletarian socialist culture.

They were therefore quick to denounce bourgeois

nationalism. After 1917, despite various programs

to encourage the development of national (that is,

non-Russian) cultures, party centralization meant

that anyone wishing to reach the top of the Soviet

hierarchy needed to be fluent in Russian and adopt

many aspects of Russian-Soviet culture. One ex-

ample of this is the Russian-style patronymics and

surnames adopted by communist activists in Mus-

lim republics of Central Asia.

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Upon seizing power in late 1917, the Bolshe-

viks quickly issued a “Declaration to the Peoples

of Russia,” pledging an end to any national or re-

ligious discrimination, guaranteeing free cultural

development, and even endorsing national self-

determination. The actions of the Bolsheviks in the

ensuing civil war years, however, made clear that

while cultural development could be accepted and

even encouraged, political autonomy, much less se-

cession, would not be tolerated. The civil war

brought Ukraine, the Caucasus, and Belarus back

under Moscow’s control. The Soviet Constitution

of 1924 set down an ostensibly federal, but in fact

highly centralized, state structure. The USSR, as its

name implied, consisted of individual Soviet So-

cialist Republics (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian;

later Kazakh, Georgian, and so on), all of which of-

ficially had the right to secede from the Union. This

possibility remained a dead letter until the late

1980s when the Baltic republics, seized by Stalin in

the early 1940s, dared to make real use of this hith-

erto only theoretical right.

During the Soviet period administrative Russi-

fication was nearly total; all official documents

from stamps to passports to postal forms were

printed in Russian or, in union republics, in Russ-

ian and the republic language, say, Latvian. Com-

munications within the enormous bureaucracy

took place in Russian, and even a Central Asian fac-

tory director or Armenian professor needed to

know Russian fluently. The material and prestige

value of Russian within the USSR meant that a con-

siderable amount of unplanned Russification or

simple cultural assimilation took place. Mixed mar-

riages between Russians and members of other

nationalities, for instance, most often produced

Russian-speaking offspring. Many smaller nation-

alities, in particular within the Russian Republic

(RSFSR), witnessed considerable rates of Russifica-

tion, prompting national leaders in the post-Soviet

period, for example in Tatarstan, to complain of

the widespread de-nationalization of their people

during Soviet rule.

Culturally, matters were more complicated.

While non-Russian republics did have their own

schools using local languages, everyone from

Tallinn to Vladivostok studied Russian in school

from an early age. Radio and television programs

appeared in various languages but, to give only one

example, even Estonian television broadcast the

Russian-language Moscow news program “Vremia”

every evening. Publications appeared in dozens and

even hundreds of so-called Soviet languages, and

students could study even at the university level

in their union republic’s language. However, all

dissertations at the kandidat (roughly, Ph.D.) or

doktor level were written in Russian, even by stu-

dents in Vilnius, Baku, or Kiev. In the Belarusian

and Ukrainian republics, even obtaining an ele-

mentary education in the local language was not

always simple, and parents who insisted too much

ran the risk of being branded as nationalist or anti-

Soviet.

The legacy of Soviet Russification in the twenty-

first century remains strong but highly differenti-

ated. When Central Asian or Belarusian leaders

speak at international fora, it is nearly always in

Russian. Arguably, Russian will remain the lingua

franca in that region for some time. In the Baltic

region, however, one hears little Russian (except by

native speakers) and the bilingual street signs of the

Soviet era have entirely vanished. For the future,

Russification will remain a problem for the Rus-

sian Federation, where 20 percent of the total pop-

ulation is not ethnically Russian. Some of these

national groups, in particular Tatars and Chechens,

seem particularly resistant to further measures of

Russification. For its part, the Russian Federation

has officially disavowed any desire to Russify its

citizens; the future will tell just how seriously one

should take this official stance.

See also: NATIONALISM IN THE SOVIET UNION; NATION-

ALISM IN THE TSARIST EMPIRE; NATIONALITIES POLI-

CIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST;

SLAVOPHILES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Carrère d’Encausse, Hélène. (1979). Decline of an Empire:

The Soviet Socialist Republics in Revolt, tr. Martin

Sokolinsky and Henry A. La Farge. New York:

Newsweek Books.

Haltzel, Michael H., et al. (1981). Russification in the

Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855–1914. Princeton,

NJ: Princeton University Press.

Hosking, Geoffrey. (1997). Russia: People and Empire.

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kappeler, Andreas. (2001). The Russian Empire: A Multi-

ethnic History, tr. Alfred Clayton. New York: Pear-

son Education.

Martin, Terry. (2001). The Affirmative Action Empire: Na-

tions and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939.

Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Pipes, Richard. (1964). The Formation of the Soviet Union:

Communism and Nationalism 1917–1923. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press.

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