Encyclopedia of Russian History

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highway convoy to Berlin, his superiors in Wash-

ington decided to react to the Soviet pressure not

by force or by abandoning Berlin but by mount-

ing an attempt to supply the city by air. Nobody

saw this as more than a temporary effort to be

tried while Allied representatives negotiated with

the Russians to solve the overall problem. By July

20, however, the airlift was bringing in about six

times as much cargo daily as had been the case

three weeks earlier, and the people of the city, sup-

porting the effort, were drawing their belts tight.

When Josef Stalin told the Western ambas-

sadors in Moscow in a meeting in August that he

had no intention of forcing the Allies out of Berlin,

he was simply indulging in an exercise in disinfor-

mation. On March 26 he had told the Soviet Zone

Communist leader, Wilhelm Pieck, that the Soviets

and their German dependents should try to ensure

victory in the coming municipal election by ex-

pelling the Allies from the city. This discussion

made it plain that the currency issue was only one

of the motives behind the establishment of the

blockade.

By November the airlift, under the expert man-

agement of Maj. Gen. William H. Tunner, had be-

come an established success, bringing in 4,000 tons

a day regardless of the weather, and early in 1949

the Soviets began to backpedal. On April 26 the So-

viet press agency TASS announced that the gov-

ernment would lift the blockade if the Western

powers would simultaneously abandon their coun-

termeasures (one important economic factor among

these countermeasures had been the toll taken by

the embargo placed on a range of exports from the

East) and would agree to convene a meeting of the

Council of Foreign Ministers to discuss all issues

relating to Germany. At 12:01

. on May 12 the

blockade came to its end.

The status quo ante did not return to Berlin.

With the Communist coup in Prague in February,

the passage of the European Recovery Program (the

Marshall Plan) in March, and the Soviet blockade

of Berlin, the year 1948 proved to be the turning

point in the development of the Cold War. The year

1949 would see the creation of two Germanys, East

and West; until the end of the Cold War four

decades later, Berlin would exist as two cities, with

two governments.

See also: COLD WAR; GERMANY, RELATIONS WITH; WORLD

WAR II

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Parrish, Thomas. (1998). Berlin in the Balance: The Block-

ade, the Airlift, the First Major Battle of the Cold War.

Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

HOMAS

ARRISH

BERLIN, CONGRESS OF

The diplomatic conclusion to the Russo-Turkish

War of 1877–1878 and postwar crisis.

Before the war, Russian diplomats promised

Austria-Hungary that no “large, compact Slavic or

other state” would result from the expected reor-

ganization of the Balkans, and that Russia would

allow Austrian occupation of Bosnia-Herzegovina

and prevent Montenegro from acquiring a seaport

in return for Russia’s reacquisition of Southern

Bessarabia and annexation of Batum (Reichstadt,

July 1876; Budapest, April 1877). Russian coun-

cils, however, were divided. Court factions and gen-

erals backed the more ambitious ambassador to

Istanbul, Nikolai P. Ignatiev, over Foreign Minister

Alexander Gorchakov and Russia’s cautious envoys

in Vienna and London, Yevgeny Novikov and Pe-

ter Shuvalov.

The initial bilateral Treaty of San Stefano,

forced upon Istanbul in March 1878, followed Ig-

natiev’s line. It stipulated a large Bulgaria with an

Aegean coast and an indefinite occupation by fifty

thousand Russian troops until the Bulgarians es-

tablished their own army. In addition, it called for

an enlarged Montenegro with the three small Adri-

atic ports she had occupied; a less enlarged Serbia

with most of the Sanjak of Novi Bazar divided be-

tween the two Serbian states; and the Russian ac-

quisition of Batum and most of Turkish Armenia

east of Erzerum down to Bayazid, as well as South-

ern Bessarabia, in place of most of the huge in-

demnity assessed at 1.4 billion rubles.

As the Turks expected, both the British, who

had already sent a naval squadron inside the Sea of

Marmora, and the Austro-Hungarians objected, as

did the Serbians and Romanians, who felt cheated.

Russia’s weak financial situation (the ruble had

fallen 40%) rendered war with Britain unthinkable,

so Gorchakov agreed with the Austro-Hungarian

proposal for a Berlin congress under Otto von Bis-

marck’s leadership to settle outstanding issues. Shu-

valov worked out the essential compromises in

BERLIN, CONGRESS OF

143

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

London before the congress met, and joined Pavel P.

Oubril, the ambassador to Berlin, and the now se-

nile Gorchakov as Russia’s delegates there.

The congress was a resounding success for the

British led by Benjamin Disraeli, whose threats to

leave (“waiting train” tactics) forced a division of

Bulgaria intro three parts—only the northern one

being truly autonomous under Russian tutelage

with far fewer Russia troops there—and made Rus-

sia limit its acquisitions in Asiatic Turkey, while he

stood by London’s separate arrangements with Is-

tanbul regarding the Straits and Cyprus. Shuvalov

did salvage the port of Varna for autonomous Bul-

garia and one Adriatic port for Montenegro, as well

as Southern Bessarabia, Kars, Ardahan, and Batum

(nominally an open port) for Russia.

The Treaty of Berlin, signed by Britain, France,

and Germany, as well as Russia, Turkey, and Aus-

tria-Hungary, achieved a tenuous Balkan peace

lasting thirty-four years, but left Serbian and Russ-

ian nationalists seething—a catalyst for the secret

Austro-German Dual Alliance of 1879 and mount-

ing German distrust of Russia. Russia and Austria-

Hungary dared agree on the latter’s eventual

annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina only by a secret

agreement (1881), which caused a storm when im-

plemented in 1908. The southern Balkan settlement

collapsed in 1885, when Bulgarians on their own,

in defiance of the Russians, united the southern

third with the north.

See also: BALKAN WARS; GORCHAKOV, ALEXANDER

MIKHAILOVICH; RUSSO-TURKISH WARS; SAN STEFANO,

TREATY OF

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Medlicott, W. N. (1963). The Congress of Berlin and After:

A Diplomatic History of the Near East Settlement,

1878–1880, 2nd ed. London: Frank Cass.

Sumner, Benedict Humphrey. (1962). Russia and the

Balkans, 1870–1880, reprint ed. Hamden, CT: Ar-

chon.

AVID

M. G

OLDFRANK

BERLIN, CONVENTION OF

Concluded June 18, 1881, this Convention of Berlin

recreated the Three Emperors’ League between the

Great Powers: Austria-Hungary, Germany, and

Russia. Each power pledged to remain neutral if one

of the signatories were to become involved in a war

with another Great Power. The closing of the Straits

to all warships was reconfirmed. A separate pro-

tocol recognized Austria’s right to annex Bosnia-

Herzegovina (an option exercised in 1908) and

reiterated the Bulgarian territorial settlement im-

posed by the 1878 Congress of Berlin.

The treaty reflected Otto von Bismarck’s strat-

egy of keeping France isolated following the

Franco-Prussian war, in part by binding Russia to

Germany. The Russian government viewed the con-

vention as a necessary evil to give Russia a period

of peace on its western frontiers, to counter the

Austro-German alliance, and to avoid a repetition

of 1878, when a coalition of other Great Powers

had prevented Russia from fully exploiting its

victory over Turkey. A December 1879 Foreign

Ministry conference chaired by Minister Nikolai

Karlovich Giers concluded that a nonaggression

pact with Vienna and Berlin was absolutely essen-

tial to obtain “the repose of which [Russia] has the

most imperious need.” Faced with growing inter-

nal social unrest and the need to slash military

spending, Russia could not afford renewed military

competition.

Alexander III renewed the alliance in 1884, but

it expired in 1887. The convention failed to provide

any mechanism for regulating Austro-Russian ri-

valries in the Balkans, especially because Germany

was unable to function as an honest broker be-

tween Vienna and St. Petersburg. Nor was Russia

inclined to permanently accept a status quo pred-

icated on its post-1878 weakness. Bismarck con-

cluded a nonaggression pact (the Reinsurance

Treaty) when the convention lapsed, but Germany

abrogated this agreement in 1890 when Bismarck

was retired. This paved the way for the 1894

Franco-Russian alliance.

See also: GERMANY, RELATIONS WITH; THREE EMPERORS’

LEAGUE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dmytryshyn, Basil. (1974). Imperial Russia: A Sourcebook,

1700–1917. Hinsdale, IL: Dryden Press.

Fuller, William C., Jr. (1992). Strategy and Power in Rus-

sia, 1600–1914. New York: Free Press.

Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. (1984). A History of Russia. Ox-

ford: Oxford University Press.

IKOLAS

VOSDEV

BERLIN, CONVENTION OF

144

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

BESCHESTIE

The practice of compensation for a humiliating in-

sult or dishonor.

Beschestie meant “dishonor” in early modern

Russia and referred both to humiliating insult and

to the amount of compensation awarded to victims

of insult. There is ample evidence in law codes in

other East Slavic societies (Kievan Rus, Novgorod,

Pskov) before the fifteenth century for the princi-

ple of compensation for humiliating insult, but this

term and legal norms for defense of honor were

first systematized in the Grand Principality of Mus-

covy. The major Muscovite law codes of 1550,

1589, and 1649 cite beschestie specifically and pro-

vide schedules of compensation for dishonor.

Beschestie was socially inclusive (applying to

all social ranks) but also socially hierarchical (the

amount of compensation was determined by social

status). In the most detailed account in the Law

Code of 1649, compensation for insult between in-

dividuals in the lowest social ranks was a simple,

paltry fine. As the social rank of litigants rose, fines

rose; and for the very highly placed, physical pun-

ishment was levied on the offender in addition to

a high fine. At the same time, dishonor litigation

provided protection for all social ranks, from the

highest secular and clerical ranks to slaves, serfs,

and (in the 1589 sudebnik) witches and minstrels.

Muscovite laws do not define honor; its con-

tent has to be reconstructed from complaints in lit-

igations. Insult to honor in practice was primarily

verbal; most physical assault was litigated sepa-

rately. But those forms of physical assault consid-

ered humiliating (such as pulling a man’s beard, or

uncovering a woman’s hair by knocking off her

headdress) were deemed dishonor. Dishonoring

verbal insults included accusations of criminal be-

havior or of disloyalty to the tsar, aspersions on

sexual probity or religious faith, insults to an in-

dividual’s station in life, no matter how lowly, and

insults to their heritage and kinsmen. Women

played a pivotal role in this code of social values:

Their behavior reflected on family honor, and thus

their dishonor compensation was reckoned higher

than men’s. A wife, for example, received twice her

husband’s dishonor compensation, while an un-

married daughter received four times.

Litigations show that men and women in all

social ranks litigated for dishonor, even non-

Russians and non-Orthodox. Judges took dishonor

suits seriously, and were concerned primarily not

with the truth of an allegation, but whether an in-

sulting phrase was uttered or a humiliating assault

carried out. People could use dishonor litigation to

pursue quarrels and vendettas, but overall the prac-

tice of defense of honor probably worked to en-

hance social stability by protecting individual and

family dignity. Most broadly, the consciousness of

honor constituted a form of social integration

across the empire, although limited by the ethnic,

religious, and cultural diversity of Muscovy.

Case law on dishonor litigations survives only

sparsely from the late sixteenth century, but the

number of recorded suits rose steadily in the sev-

enteenth century, even accounting for accidents of

document survival. In the eighteenth century, ter-

minology changed (obida and oskorblenie came to

replace beschestie for “insult”), but the conscious-

ness of personal honor and the right to litigate to

defend it endured into the Imperial period.

See also: BOYAR; LAW CODE OF 1649; MESTNICHESTVO;

OKOLNICHY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dewey, Horace W. (1968). “Old Muscovite Concepts of

Injured Honor (Beschestie).” Slavic Review 27(4):

594–603.

Kollmann, Nancy Shields. (1999). By Honor Bound. State

and Society in Early Modern Russia. Ithaca, NY: Cor-

nell University Press.

ANCY

HIELDS

OLLMANN

BESPRIZORNYE See HOMELESS CHILDREN.

BESSARABIA

The region of Bessarabia lies between the Prut and

Dniester Rivers and constitutes the rump of what

is today the Republic of Moldavia. Although the

historical region of Bessarabia stretched to the

coast of the Black Sea, southeastern Bessarabia is

presently incorporated in Ukraine.

The region formed part of the broader Princi-

pality of Moldavia, which first emerged as a dis-

tinct area of rule in the fourteenth century. This

territory was brought into the Ottoman sphere of

influence in 1538, following conquests led by Sü-

leyman the Magnificent. The region was allowed

a measure of self-government until 1711, when

BESSARABIA

145

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Constantinople appointed Greek-speaking phanari-

ots to govern the region more directly.

The first clear, political separation between

Bessarabia and western Moldavia (now incorpo-

rated into Romania) came with the Russian occu-

pation of Bessarabia in 1806. This move precipitated

a six-year war, after which the victorious Russian

Tsar Alexander I was able to formally annex the

land between the Prut and Dniester Rivers from the

Ottoman Empire.

After a short period of relative autonomy from

Moscow, Bessarabia underwent a process of Rus-

sification, and the use of the Romanian language

was barred from official use. The 1871 shift in

Bessarabia’s status from that of imperial oblast to

Russian rayon saw further restrictions on cultural

and political autonomy in the region.

Due to significant immigration following the

annexation of 1812, Bessarabia had become cul-

turally cosmopolitan by the end of the nineteenth

century. However, the region was an economic

backwater; literacy remained very low and, despite

the presence of some small-scale industry in the re-

gion’s capital—Chis¸inau—the area remained largely

agricultural.

The collapse of tsarist rule during World War

I enabled elites drawn from the Bessarabian mili-

tary to act on growing nationalist sentiments by

declaring full autonomy for the region in Novem-

ber 1917. Romanian forces capitalized further on

the confused state of rule in Bessarabia and moved

in to occupy the territories lost to Russia in 1812.

A vote by the newly formed Bessarabian National

Council saw the region formally unite with Ro-

mania on March 27, 1918.

During the interwar period, Bessarabia formed

the eastern flank of Greater Romania. This period

was characterized by an acceleration of public

works, which combined with agricultural reform

to stabilize the region’s economy. However, the sig-

nificant minority populations (Russians, Ukraini-

ans, Bulgarians, Turks) suffered under Romanian

rule and were denied basic cultural rights, such as

education in their native tongues.

The clandestine carve-up of Europe planned un-

der the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of 1939 implied

that Germany had no interest in Bessarabia. This

afforded the Soviet Union an opportunity to retake

the region. In June 1940 the Soviet government is-

sued an ultimatum to Romanian King Carol II, de-

manding that Bessarabia and northern Bukovina be

brought under Soviet control. Although Carol II ac-

quiesced in this demand, Romania’s alliance with

Germany during World War II saw the land return

to Romanian hands. Control was again returned to

the Soviet Union following the collapse of the Axis.

The six counties of Bessarabia were then merged

with the Transnistrian region, east of the Dniester,

to form the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic.

Although Bessarabia dominated Soviet Mol-

davia geographically and demographically, com-

munist elites from the Transnistrian region enjoyed

the majority of political weight in the republic, due

to their membership in the Soviet community since

1917 and the presence of a significant pro-Russian,

Slavic minority. With Soviet industrial develop-

ment concentrated in Transnistria, a growing so-

cioeconomic divide emerged between this region

and Bessarabia.

The collapse of Soviet rule and declaration of

Moldavian independence in 1991 was followed

shortly thereafter by a declaration of Transnistrian

independence from the Republic of Moldavia. Al-

though unrecognized, Transnistria remains tacitly

independent in the early twenty-first century, leav-

ing Bessarabia as the sole region under the control

of the government of the Republic of Moldavia.

See also: MOLDOVA AND MOLDOVANS; UKRAINE AND

UKRAINIANS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

King, Charles. (2000). The Moldovans: Romania, Russia,

and the Politics of Culture. Stanford, CA: Hoover In-

stitution Press.

OHN

LEDHILL

BESTUZHEV-RYUMIN, ALEXEI PETROVICH

(1693-1766), count, chancellor, diplomat, states-

man.

Second son of a Muscovite noble family, Alexei

Bestuzhev-Ryumin went abroad in 1708 with his

older brother, Mikhail Petrovich (1688–1760), to

study at the Danish noble academy and transferred

to Berlin in 1710. Before diplomatic service in 1712

at the Congress of Utrecht, he concentrated on for-

eign languages, traveled in Europe, and presum-

ably had a Muscovite education befitting offspring

BESTUZHEV-RYUMIN, ALEXEI PETROVICH

146

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

of an eminent father, Count Pyotr Mikhailovich

Bestuzhev-Ryumin (1664–1743). With Tsar Peter’s

permission he joined Hanover’s foreign service in

1713, visited England in connection with George I’s

selection as king, and returned to Russia to an-

nounce the new British sovereign. Bestuzhev-

Ryumin then spent four years in England. From

1717 he served the court of dowager Duchess Anna

Ivanovna of Courland without pay for two years

under his father. In 1721 he became minister-

resident to the Danish court, where he followed Pe-

ter I’s rivalry with George I of England, Denmark’s

competition with Holstein, and celebration of the

peace ending Russo-Swedish hostilities, and re-

ceived a miniature of Peter with diamonds that he

proudly wore thereafter. He also helped develop a

nerve-tonic known as “Bestucheff’s drops”; the for-

mula sold several times until published by Cather-

ine II in 1780.

In the years after Peter I’s death, Bestuzhev-

Ryumin occupied diplomatic posts in northern Eu-

rope. At Kiel he discovered a copy of Catherine I’s

testament supporting the Duke of Holstein’s rights

to the Russian throne; for this he received the Or-

der of Saint Alexander Nevsky. He cultivated favor

with Anna Ivanovna’s new regime, the empress

serving as godmother to his three sons. He had

married Anna Yekaterina Böttiger (d. 1762),

daughter of the Russian envoy to Hamburg. As

Countess Bestuzheva-Ryumina she became court

mistress in 1748, accompanied her husband into

exile in 1758, and was buried at the old Lutheran

church in Moscow.

Bestuzhev-Ryumin returned to Petersburg in

1740 and was promoted to actual privy councilor,

named a cabinet minister, and awarded the Polish

Order of the White Eagle. He apparently supported

Ernst Johann Biron’s brief regency and, although

sentenced to be quartered after the regent’s over-

throw, he survived with the loss of all privileges

and property before exile. Reinstated five months

later, Bestuzhev-Ryumin assisted Elizabeth’s coup

of December 1741 by composing the manifesto that

proclaimed her reign. He was made senator and vice

chancellor of foreign affairs and received his pre-

decessor Andrei Osterman’s house in Moscow, back

salary, and 6,000 rubles per year. At Elizabeth’s

coronation in the spring of 1742 he joined father

and brother as counts of the Russian Empire.

Bestuzhev-Ryumin reached the pinnacle of power

with promotion to chancellor in 1744 and count

of the Holy Roman Empire, with an annual salary

of 7,000 rubles and estates with 4,225 male serfs.

He likewise received pensions and loans from for-

eign powers, Britain in particular.

Bestuzhev-Ryumin pursued a policy against

Prussia and France while cultivating the maritime

powers of Britain, Holland, and Denmark. He in-

tervened in dynastic politics, too, initially opposing

Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst as consort for crown

prince Peter Fyodorovich. When the Seven Years’

War scrambled European international politics,

Bestuzhev-Ryumin pressed a militantly anti-

Prussian policy while countering French intrigues

and secretly conspiring with Grand Princess

Catherine to seize power in the event of Elizabeth’s

sudden death. These involvements resulted in his

arrest for treason in February 1758. He managed

to warn Catherine and escaped death although ban-

ished to his estate of Goretovo, where his wife died

on January 5, 1762, the same day Elizabeth ex-

pired. Peter III did not pardon him, but Catherine

did, although she did not name any chancellor.

Bestuzhev-Ryumin returned to court in July

1762 and regained honors and property, the Hol-

stein Order of Saint Anna, and an annual pension

of 20,000 rubles. He twice proposed to proclaim

Catherine “the Great,” but she declined the honor

and soon cooled to his anti-Prussian views and

quarreled with his sole surviving son, Andrei,

whose death in 1768 ended the male line.

Bestuzhev-Ryumin’s long and tumultuous career

in high politics resulted in ambivalent assessments.

The German soldier Manstein praised his industry

while predicting his final downfall and denouncing

despotic power, arrogance, avarice, dissolute life-

style, treacherous character, and vindictiveness. In

final exile and late in life Bestuzhev-Ryumin turned

to religion.

See also: CATHERINE I; CATHERINE II; ELIZABETH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Anisimov, Evgeny V. (1995). Empress Elizabeth: Her Reign

and Her Russia, 1741–1761, tr. John T. Alexander.

Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International.

Curtiss, Mina. (1974). A Forgotten Empress: Anna Ivanovna

and Her Era, 1730–1740. New York: Frederick Un-

gar.

Manstein, C. H. (1968). Contemporary Memoirs of Russia

From the Year 1727 to 1744. London: Frank Cass.

Meehan-Waters, Brenda. (1982). Autocracy and Aristoc-

racy: The Russian Service Elite of 1730. New

Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

OHN

T. A

LEXANDER

BESTUZHEV-RYUMIN, ALEXEI PETROVICH

147

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

BIRCHBARK CHARTERS

Birchbark documents constitute the most signifi-

cant set of early Rus written sources to have been

discovered since 1950, when the first such docu-

ment was discovered by archaeologists in Nov-

gorod. As of the early twenty-first century, the

total number of Novgorodian documents was close

to one thousand. Smaller quantities of birchbark

documents have also been unearthed in Staraya

Russa, Smolensk, Pskov, Vitebsk, Mstislavl, Torzhok,

Tver, Zvenigorod in Galicia, and Moscow. Besides

being of fundamental importance to the study of

early Rus writing itself, and to the study of early

Rus language, the birchbark documents shed new

light on a wide range of historical issues, includ-

ing social and family relations, commerce and

trade, taxation, law, and administration. They pro-

vide direct insight into the lives and concerns of

groups of people who are underrepresented in tra-

ditional written sources: the non-princely, non-

ecclesiastical urban elites (though churchmen and

princes do figure in the birchbark documents as

well); women; and to some extent even sections of

the peasantry.

Birchbark was the available, cheap, disposable

writing material in the forests of Rus. Paper was

virtually unknown before the fourteenth century,

and manuscript books were written on parchment

(treated animal skins), which was relatively ex-

pensive to procure and cumbersome to prepare. The

typical birchbark document consists of a single

piece of the material (just one birchbark book—

made from three folded leaves—has been discov-

ered). The letters were not written in ink but incised

in the soft surface with a pointed stylus of metal,

wood, or bone. Hundreds of such styluses turn up

in excavations, suggesting that this type of writ-

ing was even more widespread than the extant doc-

uments might suggest. It has become conventional

to refer to them as Novgorod birchbark documents,

but there is no reason to suppose that their produc-

tion and use was in fact a specifically or predomi-

nantly Novgorodian speciality. The preponderance

of Novgorodian discoveries is due in part to the in-

tensity of Novgorodian archaeological investiga-

tion, but in part also to the favorable conditions

for birchbark survival, because organic materials

are preserved almost indefinitely in the saturated,

anaerobic (oxygen-free) Novgorodian mud.

Few, if any, of the birchbark documents can be

dated with absolute precision. However, approxi-

mate datings to within two or three decades can

often be supplied by means of dendrochronology

by fixing the location of their discovery in relation

to the chronological scale produced by the study of

the tree rings on the logs that formed Novgorod’s

roads. In addition, birchbark paleography (the

study of the shapes of letters) has now developed

to the extent that it, too, can be used to indicate

relative chronology. A small number of the birch-

bark documents probably date from the first half

of the eleventh century and are thus among the

oldest known specimens of East Slav writing, but

the vast majority of the documents date from the

twelfth to fifteenth centuries.

The language of the birchbark documents was

at first something of a puzzle. The spelling, gram-

mar, and, to some extent, the vocabulary differ in

some respects from the presumed norms of correct

writing on parchment. This discrepancy was ini-

tially attributed to the presumed insufficient edu-

cation and resulting semiliteracy of the writers.

However, it is now clear that birchbark linguistic

deviations from parchment norms are not random

errors. Indeed, in most cases they are not errors at

all. Birchbark literacy is consistent with its own

conventions, and the documents reflect a vibrant

and functional urban literacy with a strong local

vernacular accent. The birchbark documents there-

fore add a vital new dimension to our understand-

ing of the history of the Russian language.

The contents of the birchbark documents are

remarkably varied. Many of them are concerned

with money or (especially among the later letters)

property. These range from brief lists of private

debtors—just a sequence of names and the sums

they owe—to fairly systematic registers of tax or

tribute obligations from a village or region. Some-

times payment is a matter of dispute, and the doc-

uments reveal much about the processes of conflict

resolution, whether informal (through family and

associates) or formal (through judicial process and

administrative enforcement). Although birchbark

was mainly for ephemeral communication, not de-

signed for official use, a few of the documents ap-

pear to contain drafts of texts whose official

versions were destined for parchment, such as tes-

taments for the disposal of property. Among the

later documents are even found formal petitions

sent from outlying settlements to their urban-

dwelling lords. Yet it would be misleading to char-

acterize the birchbark documents as merely a form

of unsystematic unofficial business and financial

archive. Their delight, for the modern researcher,

BIRCHBARK CHARTERS

148

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

lies in their apparent randomness, in the serendip-

itous, unexpected nature of their contents: love

letters, fragments of folksy wisdom, amuletic in-

cantations, family squabbles, childish doodles,

drafts of designs for icons, a correspondence be-

tween nuns, practice alphabets, prayers. Each fresh

season produces novelties, and even after more than

half a century of discoveries there is no reason to

suppose that birchbark is close to exhausting its

capacity to surprise, and to add continually to the

understanding of early Rus history.

At the end of the fifteenth century the contin-

uous tradition of regular writing on birchbark

came to an end. No contemporary commentator

mentions this, so the reasons are subject to specu-

lation. Perhaps the birchbark simply lost out in

competition with paper, as a less fragile and more

adaptable material. Or perhaps there were also

structural factors, such as the spread of bureau-

cratic administration, which expanded the market

for paper and pushed down its price while high-

lighting the comparative crudity of the traditional

local alternative. Whatever the explanation for its

demise, the age of birchbark literacy, in a country

where written sources in general are notoriously

scarce, has provided researchers with an expanding

body of writing unique in medieval Europe.