Encyclopedia of Russian History

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against the Emperor Basil II (r. 976–1025) in Sep-

tember 987 in Asia Minor. Vladimir, in return for

providing six thousand troops directly to the em-

pire and for taking action in the Crimea against

those who supported the rebels, was promised by

the emperor his sister Anna in marriage, provided

Vladimir converted to Christianity. Some scholars

think it was at this point (in 987) that Vladimir

was baptized. The army of Bardas Phokas was de-

feated at Abydos on April 13, 989, and Vladimir’s

capture of Kherson most likely occurred following

that event, in the late spring or early summer of

the same year. If we accept the contention of the

compiler of the Rus Primary Chronicle, then Vladi-

mir’s conversion occurred in Kherson shortly after

Anna’s arrival. The baptism of the residents of Kiev

in the Dnieper River would then have happened

later that summer.

Arguing against a 989 date are three sources.

The first is the Prayer to Vladimir, which states

Vladimir captured Kherson in the third year, and

died in the twenty-eighth year, of his conversion,

thus dating his baptism to 987 and placing it pre-

sumably in Kiev. Interestingly, the Prayer is found

together with a composition, the Life of Vladimir,

that indicates he was baptized only after he took

Kherson. Neither composition is found in a manu-

script copy earlier than the fifteenth century, and

their authorship is unknown. The second source

dating Vladimir’s conversion to 987 is the Tale and

Passion and Encomium of the Holy Martyrs Boris and

Gleb, which, like the Prayer, states Vladimir died in

the twenty-eighth year after his baptism. The third

source (or, at least, three of its nineteen extant

manuscript copies), the Reading about the Life and

Murder of the Blessed Passion-sufferers Boris and Gleb,

attributed to an eleventh-century monk, Nestor,

provides the date 987 for Vladimir’s baptism. In

order to resolve this apparent contradiction in the

source evidence, some historians have suggested

that 987 represents the year Vladimir began his pe-

riod as a catechumen and 989 represents the year

he was formally baptized.

The status of the early Rus Church dating from

Vladimir’s acceptance of Christianity until 1037

has been a question in the historiography, whether

Rus constituted a metropolitanate on its own (with

the metropolitan residing either in Kiev or Pereslav)

or was subordinate to another metropolitanate

such as that of Ohrid, or whether it occupied an

autonomous status directly under the patriarch of

Constantinople with an archbishop as its head.

That question has been decided in favor of Rus hav-

ing its own metropolitan in Kiev from the begin-

ning. After the rapid conversion, well-established

existing pagan rituals and practices survived, espe-

cially in rural areas, for centuries. Such residual

paganism existing side-by-side with Christian rit-

uals and practices has been described as a special

phenomenon called dvoyeverie (“dual belief”), but

no solid evidence exists that paganism was any

more prevalent here than in other areas of Eurasia

that converted to Christianity so precipitously.

The conversion of Rus by Vladimir led to the

formulation of a Christian religious culture in Rus

based on that of the Eastern Church. It also saw

the introduction of writing (including an alphabet

based on the Greek alphabet), literature (most of it

being translations from the Greek), monastic com-

munities, Byzantine-style art and architecture, and

Byzantine Church law. Along with Scandinavian,

steppe, and indigenous Slavic elements, this Byzan-

tine influence contributed significantly to the cul-

tural, political, and social amalgamation that

constituted the early Rus principalities.

See also: KIEVAN RUS; OLGA; VLADIMIR, ST.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The Russian Primary Chronicle: Laurentian Text. (1953). Ed.

and tr. Samuel H. Cross and Olgerd P. Sherbowitz-

Wetzor. Cambridge, MA: Mediaeval Academy of

Sciences.

Fennell, John. (1995). A History of the Russian Church: To

1448. London: Longman.

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

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

Poppe, Andrzej. (1976). “The Political Background to the

Baptism of Rus’: Byzantine-Russian Relations be-

tween 986–89.” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 30:197–244.

Poppe, Andrzej. (1979). “The Original Status of the Old-

Russian Church.” Acta Poloniae Historica 39:5–45.

Sevcenko, Ihor. (1960). “The Christianization of Kievan

Rus’.” Polish Review 5(4):29–35.

ONALD

STROWSKI

CHRONICLE OF CURRENT EVENTS

The Chronicle of Current Events (Khronika tekushchikh

sobyty) was a clandestine periodical of Soviet dissent.

It reported on the activities of dissidents seeking to

CHRONICLE OF CURRENT EVENTS

253

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

expand the sphere of civil freedom and political ex-

pression. It appeared at irregular intervals from

1968 to 1983.

The Chronicle was put together in Moscow by

anonymous editors drawing on a network of in-

formants throughout the Soviet Union. It was pro-

duced by samizdat (“self–publishing”) techniques.

Typewritten texts with multiple carbon copies were

compiled, the recipients of which retyped additional

copies and passed them along in chain–letter fash-

ion. The Chronicle documented the views of the dis-

sidents, reported on their arrests and trials, and

described their treatment in prisons, labor camps,

and mental asylums.

The compilers of the Chronicle, like most of the

civil liberties activists, came from the educated, pro-

fessional stratum of Soviet society. The Chronicle

contained reports not only on their efforts, but on

the activities of national minorities and religious

groups as well. These included, among others, the

campaign of the Crimean Tatars to return to their

homeland in the Crimea, from which they had been

deported in World War II; the efforts of Soviet Jews

to emigrate to Israel; and the demands of Lithuan-

ian Catholics, Ukrainian Uniates, and Baptists for

religious freedom. Thus the Chronicle drew together

hitherto isolated individuals and groups in an in-

formal nationwide organization.

Though forced to publish by conspiratorial

methods, the Chronicle was committed to the rule

of law. It publicized repressive actions by the au-

thorities and called on the government to observe

the provisions of Soviet law and international

agreements that guaranteed freedom of speech and

association and other human rights. It served as an

information and communication center for the dis-

sident movement and linked its disparate strands.

The publication’s existence was always precarious,

however, and it was ultimately suppressed.

See also: DISSIDENT MOVEMENT; JOURNALISM; SAMIZ-

DAT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chronicle of Current Events. (1968–1984). London:

Amnesty International.

Hopkins, Mark. (1983). Russia’s Underground Press: The

Chronicle of Current Events. New York: Praeger.

Reddaway, Peter, ed. (1972). Uncensored Russia: Protest

and Dissent in the Soviet Union. New York: American

Heritage Press.

ARSHALL

S. S

HATZ

CHRONICLE OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN

THE USSR

The Chronicle of Human Rights in the USSR was a

journal devoted to the Soviet dissident movement.

It was published in New York in English and Rus-

sian editions. Forty-eight issues appeared from

1972 to 1983. It was similar in nature to the Chron-

icle of Current Events, a samizdat (“self-published,”

meaning clandestine) periodical compiled by dissi-

dents within the Soviet Union, which was subject

to suppression by the Soviet authorities.

The editor of the Chronicle of Human Rights was

Valery Chalidze, who had been a rights activist in

Moscow. Allowed to travel to the United States in

1972, he was deprived of his Soviet citizenship and

could not return home.

The Chronicle reflected a juridical approach to

Soviet dissent, reporting the Soviet government’s

violations of its own laws in suppressing free ex-

pression. It documented arrests and trials of dissi-

dents, conditions in the labor camps and mental

asylums where some dissidents were held, and re-

pression of movements defending the rights of na-

tional and religious minorities, among other topics.

Citing Soviet laws, the Constitution of the USSR,

and international covenants to which the Soviet

Union was a party, the Chronicle sought to per-

suade the Soviet government to uphold its own

guarantees of civil liberties.

For ten years the Chronicle of Human Rights gave

dissidents a voice the Soviet authorities could not

silence. By exposing repressive governmental ac-

tions that would otherwise not have come to light,

it anticipated the policy of glasnost, or openness,

which Mikhail Gorbachev introduced in the late

1980s.

See also: DISSIDENT MOVEMENT; SAMIZDAT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chalidze, Valery. (1974). To Defend These Rights: Human

Rights and the Soviet Union, tr. Guy Daniels. New

York: Random House.

Chronicle of Human Rights in the USSR. (November 1972-

March 1973–October 1982-April 1983). Nos. 1-48.

New York: Khronika Press.

ARSHALL

S. S

HATZ

CHRONICLE OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE USSR

254

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

CHRONICLES

Annalistic histories serve as important primary

sources for the pre-Petrine period. The earliest

chronicle written in Kiev begins with highlights of

world history based on the Old and New Testa-

ments (the divisions of the earth into tribes, the

story of Christ and his disciples), followed by tra-

ditional tales on the founding, first rulers, and

Christianization of the Rus lands. Chronologically

ordered records organized in yearly entries (hence

the Russian title letopis, commonly translated as

“annal” or “chronicle”) include documents, hagio-

graphical narratives, reports on occurrences of sig-

nificance for the state and the church; births,

illnesses, and deaths of prominent persons; ac-

counts of military and political conflicts; con-

struction of fortifications, palaces, and churches;

and notes on meteorological phenomena and won-

ders. As appanage principalities and ecclesiastical

establishments acquired the resources for scripto-

ria, they initiated new chronicle compilations that

borrowed from earlier annals, but devoted special

attention to concerns of their own time and local-

ity. Compendious chronicles produced in the cen-

tral Muscovite scriptorium of the metropolitans

include extended hagiographical narratives, corre-

spondence, reports of church councils, details of

protocol, and descriptions of important ceremonies

involving princes and high-ranking hierarchs.

The editor of a chronicle constructed his com-

pilation (svod) from an archive of earlier texts, edit-

ing and supplementing them as necessary. Because

some sources have not survived and compilations

are usually not clearly marked by titles, the ori-

gins, sources, and genealogical relationships of

chronicles must be reconstructed on the basis of in-

ternal evidence, paleographical analysis, and syn-

optic comparison. Alexei Shakhmatov created the

methodological foundations of chronicle scholar-

ship. Shakhmatov’s hypotheses, continually re-

vised during his lifetime and still indispensable,

were corrected and refined by his successors, chief

among them historians Mikhail D. Priselkov and

Arseny N. Nasonov. Iakov S. Lur’e greatly con-

tributed to our understanding of chronicle writing

in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. Boris

Kloss has done important codicological analysis on

Muscovite compilations. Alexei Gippius and

Alexander Bobrov have continued to research Nov-

gorodian compilations. The evolving views of these

chronicle scholars, and their ongoing differences,

are registered in the critical apparati of the contin-

uing series known as the Complete Collection of Rus-

sian Chronicles (Polnoye sobranie russkikh letopisei),

founded in 1846 by the Imperial Russian Academy

of Sciences, and in entries for individual chronicles

in the multivolume Slovar knizhnikov i knizhnosti

Drevnei Rusi.

Among the most important sources for histo-

rians of the period from the founding of Rus

through the fourteenth century are the Laurent-

ian Codex (containing the earliest surviving copy

of the Kievan Primary Chronicle), copied for Prince

Dmitry Konstantinovich of Suzdal in 1377; the

Hypatian Codex (containing a Kievan thirteenth-

century chronicle and a Galician Volynian com-

pilation, copied in the fifteenth century); and the

Novgorod First Chronicle, surviving in several ver-

sions: the oldest version (starshy izvod) covering up

to the mid-fourteenth century and a younger ver-

sion, preserved in fifteenth-century copies, adding

records from the second half of the fourteenth cen-

tury through the beginning of the fifteenth century.

Two fifteenth-century annals associated with

Novgorod’s St. Sophia Cathedral (Novgorodsko-

Sofysky svod) but relatively neutral toward the

Moscow princes (who were fighting dynastic wars

among themselves) were compiled during the

1430s and 1440s. The Sophia First Chronicle, sur-

viving in an early version (starshy izvod), preserved

in the Karamzin and Obolensky copies, ends in the

year 1418. A later version, whose earliest witness

is the Balzerov manuscript (late fifteenth century),

offers sporadic coverage of historical events up to

the year 1471; the Tsarsky copy, dating from the

beginning of the sixteenth century, extends to the

year 1508. The Novgorod Fourth Chronicle also

survives in several versions. The earliest version

ends in the year 1437. The later version covers

events to the year 1447 (the Frolov copy), extend-

ing to 1477 in the Stroyev and Synodal copies. Im-

portant primary sources on fifteenth-century

Muscovy are the Rogozhsky Chronicle, represented

in a single mid-fifteenth-century codex covering

the period to 1412; the Simeonov Chronicle, rep-

resented in a single sixteenth-century copy cover-

ing the period to 1493; and the Uvarov Codex, a

sixteenth-century manuscript, extending to the

year 1492. The Typography Chronicle contains

many entries representing the views of the influ-

ential Rostov bishops from the period between 1424

and 1481. The Yermolin Chronicle, connected by

Lur’e to the “politically independent” Kirillov-

Belozero Monastery, provides some unique details

CHRONICLES

255

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

passed over in mainstream chronicles for the pe-

riod from 1460 to 1472.

In the sixteenth century, chronicle writing pro-

liferated. The most important compilations were

composed in the scriptorium of the Moscow met-

ropolitans and convey their special interests as well

as certain biases of the Moscow grand princes. The

Sophia Second Chronicle, surviving in manuscripts

from the early- and mid-sixteenth century, covers

the period between 1398 and 1518. The Nikon

Chronicle, compiled in the scriptorium of Moscow

Metropolitan Daniel (r. 1522–1539) by 1529, cov-

ers the period up to 1520 and lays the foundation

for all subsequent chronicles of the sixteenth cen-

tury. The Voskresenk Chronicle, a key Muscovite

source surviving in thirteen copies, was compiled

between 1542 and 1544 and contains a number of

articles sympathetic to the Shuisky family. These

chronicles served as the primary annalistic sources

for the first Muscovite narrative history, the Book

of Degrees of the Royal Genealogy, compiled between

1556 and 1563. The Illustrated Compilation (lit-

sevoy letopisny svod), the most extensive medieval

Russian chronicle, consists of ten codices with over

16,000 miniature illustrations. Commissioned

(and, some believe, edited) by Ivan the Terrible, the

Illustrated Compilation was prepared in the capital

of his “state within a state” (oprichnina), Alexan-

drovskaya sloboda. Kloss dates its compilation be-

tween 1568 and 1576, Alexander Amosov from the

late 1570s to the beginning of the 1580s. Among

the most valuable seventeenth-century annals are

the Novy letopisets, surviving in many copies and

covering the period from the end of Ivan IV’s reign

to 1630; the Novgorod Third Chronicle, surviving

in two versions and providing unique coverage of

seventeenth-century Novgorodian affairs to 1676;

and the Piskarev Codex, which, compiled by an

annalist connected with the powerful Golitsyn

clan, covers the period up to the reign of Alexei

Mikhailovich (r. 1645–1676).

See also: BOOK OF DEGREES; PRIMARY CHRONICLE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Kloss, Boris M. (1980). Nikonovskii svod i russkie letopisi

XVI-XVII vv. Moscow: AN SSSR.

Lur’e, Iakov S. (1985). “Genealogicheskaia schema letopi-

sei XI-XVI vv.” In Trudy Otdela drevnerusskoi liter-

atury XL. St. Petersburg: Nauka.

AIL

ENHOFF

CHUBAIS, ANATOLY BORISOVICH

(b. 1955), reform economist and official in Yeltsin

government.

Anatoly Borisovich Chubais was born in 1955.

In 1977 he graduated from an engineering-eco-

nomic institute in Leningrad, and in 1983 he de-

fended a thesis on management problems. His early

career was linked to the democratic movement in

Leningrad. Following the failed coup in August

1991 (against Mikhail Gorbachev), he resigned his

membership in the Communist Party.

As one of the most prominent of Russia’s

“young reform economists,” in November 1991 he

was appointed to serve as chairman of the Russian

State Property Committee. From that post he

would lead and influence the Russian program of

mass privatization, personally favoring the use of

special privatization vouchers and privatization via

auctions. In 1993 he was also elected to the Russ-

ian Duma, representing the liberal party Russia’s

Choice.

Following a series of scandals in relation to var-

ious privatization deals, in January 1996 Chubais

was fired from his post. A month later, however,

he returned to the national stage to serve as cam-

paign manager for Boris Yeltsin’s reelection cam-

paign. From there he proceeded to the influential

post of head of the presidential administration.

In March 1997 Chubais capped his political ca-

reer by being appointed first deputy prime minis-

ter in charge of the economy, a post that he would

hold until March 1998, when Yeltsin chose to dis-

miss the entire government.

Throughout his various posts in government,

Chubais became known as one of the most compe-

tent but also one of the most controversial of the

reformers. While his popularity in Western business

and policy circles seemed to guarantee appointments

to prominent posts, his standing with the general

population and with the political opposition inside

his own country was very poor.

In April 1998 Chubais was appointed to serve

as chief executive officer of the Russian power gi-

ant Unified Energy Systems (UES). Like his role in

government, his way of running UES was sur-

rounded by controversy, earning him much praise

but also much criticism.

See also: GORBACHEV, MIKHAIL SERGEYEVICH; LIBERAL-

ISM; PRIVATIZATION; YELTSIN, BORIS NIKOLAYEVICH

CHUBAIS, ANATOLY BORISOVICH

256

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aslund, Anders. (1995). How Russia Became a Market

Economy. Washington, DC: Brookings.

Wedel, Janine R. (1998). Collision and Collusion. New

York: St. Martin’s.

TEFAN

EDLUND

CHUIKOV, VASILY IVANOVICH

(1900–1982), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1955),

twice Hero of the Soviet Union, and Red Army com-

mander renowned during World War II for his stoic

and ruthless defense of Stalingrad and vital role in

the capture of Berlin.

Josef Stalin routinely employed Vasily Chuikov

as a “shock commander” in the most difficult sec-

tors of the front. A regimental commander during

the Russian civil war, Chuikov graduated from the

Frunze Academy (1925) and the Red Army’s Acad-

emy of Motorization and Mechanization (1936).

Elevated to command the 9th Army after its

notorious defeat during the Soviet–Finnish War

(1939–1940), on Stalin’s orders Chuikov executed

all commanders, commissars, and officers involved

in the defeat. After serving as attaché to China

(1939–1942), Chuikov commanded the 64th Army

during the bitter fighting en route to Stalingrad

and, later, the 62nd Army in its bloody and tena-

cious defense of the ruined city, for which his army

earned the designation “8th Guards.” Chuikov

commanded the Eighth Guards Army from 1943

through the war’s end, fighting in all major bat-

tles in the Ukraine and Poland, and spearheading

the final Red Army drive on Berlin in April 1945.

After the war Chuikov served successively as com-

mander of the Group of Soviet Forces in Germany,

the Kiev Military District, and the Soviet Ground

Forces; Deputy Minister of Defense of the USSR;

and Chief of the USSR’s Civil Defense. After his re-

tirement in 1972, Chuikov authored seven mem-

oirs related to his military exploits.

See also: CHUKOVSKY, KORNEI IVANOVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Holmgren, Beth. (1993). Women’s Works in Stalin’s Time:

On Lidiia Chukovskaia and Nadezhda Mandelstam.

Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

ACQUELINE

M. O

LICH

CHUKOVSKY, KORNEI IVANOVICH

(1882–1969); pseudonym of Nikolai Vasilievich

Korneichukov; best known as author of children’s

fairy tales and poetry; also a journalist, translator,

editor, and literary critic and scholar.

Kornei Chukovsky grew up in Odessa, where

he began his career in 1901 as a correspondent for

Odesskie novosti (Odessa News). He spent 1903–1904

in London, where he immersed himself in British

and American literature. Returning to Russia, he

settled in St. Petersburg and wrote literary criticism

for the journal Vesy (Scales), although his satirical

publication Signal led to his arrest and brief deten-

tion. In 1907 he published a translation of Walt

Whitman’s verse and translated the works of many

other English-language writers after 1918. Until

the mid-1920s, Chukovsky also wrote numerous

books of literary criticism. In 1914 he completed

Poetry of the Coming Democracy, which for political

reasons was not published until 1918. Chukovsky

was also the foremost authority on Nikolai

Nekrasov, writing approximately eighty publica-

tions on the poet and editing the 1926 edition of

Nekrasov’s collected works.

CHUKOVSKAYA, LYDIA KORNEYEVNA

258

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

During the 1920s Chukovsky turned to writ-

ing children’s literature as a “safe” genre. His first

tale Krokodil (The Crocodile) had been published in

1917, and between 1923 and 1926 he wrote a

number of others. Although his tales were widely

published and very popular, the author came un-

der attack from writers and educators, including

Nadezhda Krupskaya, who called The Crocodile “a

bourgeois fog.” Chukovsky’s children’s stories

were forbidden and, with the exceptions of two new

stories in the 1930s, not republished until after

Stalin’s death. Chukovsky’s response to this cri-

tique was Malenkie deti (Little Children, 1928; From

Two to Five in later editions), a study of children’s

language, games, and creativity.

While Chukovsky himself did not directly ex-

perience persecution during the 1930s, he knew

many, such as his son-in-law, who did. Chukovsky

worked tirelessly to help those who suffered, writ-

ing letters and petitions on their behalf. In 1962,

toward the end of his life, he received the Lenin

Prize and was awarded an honorary doctor of let-

ters from Oxford University.

See also: CHUKOVSKAYA, LYDIA KORNEYEVNA; KRUP-

SKAYA, NADEZHDA KONSTANTINOVNA; NEKRASOV,

NIKOLAI ALEXEYEVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Chukovskaia, Lidiia Korneevna. (1978). “Chukovskii, Ko-

rnei Ivanovich.” In The Modern Encyclopedia of Rus-

sian and Soviet Literature, ed. Harry B. Weber, 4:

126–137. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International

Press.

Forrester, Sibelan (1998). “Kornei Ivanovich Chukovskii,

1882–1969.” In Reference Guide to Russian Literature,

ed. Neil Cornwell. London: Fitzroy Dearborn Pub-

lishers.

LIZABETH

ONES

EMENWAY

CHURCH COUNCIL

In the Orthodox Church, councils (in Greek, syno-

dos; in Russian, sobor) are the highest form of ec-

clesiastical authority, the most important of which

are the seven ecumenical councils that were held

between the years 325 and 787. Since 1500 the

Russian Church has convened several “local” or na-

tional councils (pomestnye sobory), which apply

specifically to the Russian Church itself. Ultimate

authority for decision-making at these councils has

rested in the hands of the bishops, although, in the

twentieth century, clergy and laity have partici-

pated in a consultative role with varying degrees

of power. Since the rise of Muscovite Russia, the

local councils have taken place in Moscow or just

northeast of it at the Trinity Monastery in Sergiev

Posad (known as Zagorsk during the Soviet period).

The Council of 1503 confronted the conflicting

positions of two monastics who were subsequently

both glorified by the Church as saints. Joseph of

Volotsk advocated the establishment of cenobitic

monasteries (in which monks lived in common,

sharing everything), church landholdings, and the

active involvement of monks in the world. Nil

Sorsky promoted a monasticism that separated it-

self from the world; monks, he thought, should

live as hermits and earn income from their own la-

bor. Although the debates between the possessors

and nonpossessors, as their two points of view are

known respectively, amounted to a difference in

emphasis, not of absolute opposition, the Council

of 1503 rejected Nil’s positions. As a result, six-

teenth-century monastic landholding and wealth

increased. The assembly also condemned the Ju-

daizer movement as a heresy.

The Council of 1666–1667 was convened

amidst Tsar Alexei’s efforts to deal with the reforms

of the outspoken Patriarch Nikon. With Patriarchs

Paissy of Alexandria and Macarius of Antioch in

attendance, the assembly endorsed Nikon’s reforms

of ritual and service books, yet deposed Nikon him-

self for his attempts to attain supreme authority

over the tsar. The Council called for increasing the

number of bishops, closing the state’s Monastery

Office, and restoring the bishops’ authority over

the clergy; the state resisted such changes in order

to preserve its own power. The Council sought to

curtail the unregulated recognition of saints and of

miracle-working relics, reduced the number of

saints’ days that were national feasts, and called

for a skeptical attitude when considering the va-

lidity of “holy fools.”

The Council of 1682, convened during the reign

of Tsar Theodore, considered questions and pro-

posals that had been raised at the Council of

1666–1667, including the addition of ten dioceses

to the existing thirteen. Since only one new diocese

had been added, the expansion of ecclesiastical ad-

ministration still remained an issue. Other decisions

concerned the behavior of clergy and the regula-

tion of church services and veneration of relics.

CHURCH COUNCIL

259

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

The Council of 1917–1918 represented the cul-

mination of an early-twentieth-century church re-

form movement. After the February Revolution, it

attempted to reconstruct church-state relations in

cooperation with and anticipation of the proposed

political transformation of Russia through the Con-

stituent Assembly. It also contended with the rise

of nationalist movements and Soviet power. The

Council had been much anticipated in 1906 but,

due to fears of political unrest, had been postponed

by Tsar Nicholas II. Its delegates consisted of 265

clerics (bishops, priests, and monks) and 299 lay-

men; although the assembly’s plenary sessions

were thereby dominated numerically by non-

episcopal members (a departure from tradition), no

decree was made official until approved by the

Council’s episcopal conference, which met in secret

session. The Council restored the Moscow Patriar-

chate to replace the Synodal higher church admin-

istration instituted by Peter the Great; decentralized

authority in diocesan administration to create an

ecclesiastical system more responsive to the needs

of clergy and laity; and reformed the parish, which

became a legal entity empowered to carry out

many decisions on its own. The Council also con-

sidered a host of issues concerning church disci-

pline. The Bolsheviks’ disestablishment of the

institutional church made it difficult or impossible

to carry out the Council’s decrees. In 1918 the del-

egates focused increasingly on preserving the

church rather than reforming it.

The Council of January 31–February 2, 1945,

was convened at the behest of the Soviet govern-

ment and broke with church tradition and the de-

crees of the 1917–1918 Council in many ways.

Held primarily to elect a new patriarch to succeed

Patriarch Sergius, the Council selected Alexei, the

sole candidate proposed for the position. Consist-

ing of 46 bishops, 87 priests, and 37 laymen, the

Council created a centralized authority in the hands

of the patriarch, at the expense of Synodal, dioce-

san, and parish authority.

The Council of May 30–June 2, 1971, was at-

tended by 236 delegates, including a bishop, priest,

and layman from each diocese and guests from out-

side Russia. The Council elected Metropolitan Pimen

as patriarch to replace Alexei, who had died in April

1970, and lifted the seventeenth-century excom-

munication of the Old Believers. It confirmed the

parish reforms of the 1961 Council of Bishops,

which had given power to executive committees to

control finances, thereby undermining the author-

ity of priests and bishops. The Council also ap-

proved the granting of autocephaly (independence)

to Orthodox Churches in America, Poland, and

Czechoslovakia, as well as autonomy (self-rule) to

Churches in Japan and Finland.

The Church convened the Council of June 6–9,

1988, during the millennium anniversary of the

baptism of Rus in 988. The assembly glorified (can-

onized) nine saints: Grand Prince Dmitry Donskoy,

Andrei Rublev, Maximus the Greek, Metropolitan

of Moscow Macarius (1482–1563), Paissy

Velichkovsky, Xenia of Petersburg, Bishop Ignatius

Brianchaninov, Amvrosy of Optina, and Bishop

Theofan the Recluse. The Council promulgated a

new statute on church administration, which called

for a local council to be convened every five years

and a bishops’ council every two years. It also over-

turned the parish decrees of the 1961 Bishops’

Council by strengthening the position of the priest

in the parish, making his signature necessary for

all parish council documents and establishing him

as chairman of the parish council.

See also: HOLY SYNOD; PATRIARCHATE; RUSSIAN ORTHO-

DOX CHURCH; SAINTS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bushkovitch, Paul. (1992). Religion and Society in Rus-

sia: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. New

York: Oxford University Press.

Cunningham, James. (1981). A Vanquished Hope: The

Movement for Church Reform in 1905–1906. Crest-

wood, NY: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Curtiss, John Shelton. (1940). Church and State in Rus-

sia: The Last Years of the Empire, 1900–1917. New

York: Columbia University Press.

Ellis, Jane. (1988). The Russian Orthodox Church: A

Contemporary History. London: Routledge.

Ellis, Jane. (1996). The Russian Orthodox Church: Tri-

umphalism and Defensiveness. New York: St. Mar-

tin’s Press.

Evtuhov, Catherine. (1991). “The Church in the Russian

Revolution: Arguments for and against Restoring the

Patriarchate at the Church Council of 1917–1918.”

Slavic Review 51(3):497–511.

Pospielovsky, Dimitry. (1984). The Russian Church Un-

der the Soviet Regime, 1917–1982. Crestwood, NY:

St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

Valliere, Paul R. (1978). “The Idea of a Council in Russ-

ian Orthodoxy in 1905.” In Russian Orthodoxy un-

der the Old Regime, ed. Robert L. Nichols and

Theofanis George Stavrou. Minneapolis: University

of Minnesota Press.

EORGE

T. K

OSAR

CHURCH COUNCIL

260

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

CHURCH COUNCIL,

HUNDRED CHAPTERS

The Hundred Chapters Church Council (known to

Russians as the Stoglav) was convened in Moscow

in February 1551 by Tsar Ivan IV and Metropoli-

tan Makary, and was attended by representatives

of the boyar council, nine bishops, and numerous

abbots, priors, and priests. The council’s purpose

was to regulate the church’s relationship to the

state, reform its internal life, strengthen the au-

thority of the bishops, and eradicate non-Christian

folk customs from among the populace. It would

not introduce anything new but would purify the

Russian church of irregularities.

No complete record of the council’s resolutions

has survived, but a partial account was preserved

in a book (the Stoglav) divided into one hundred

chapters, from which the council takes its name.

Ivan opened the proceedings with a speech in which

he confessed his sins and called for national repen-

tance, then asked the council to approve his new

law code of 1550 and the statute charters designed

to abolish corruption in provincial administration.

After this the tsar presented a list of questions, ap-

parently compiled with the help of Metropolitan

Makary and the priest Sylvester, relating to defi-

ciencies in church life and heresy among the peo-

ple, and called on the council to recommend

remedies.

By May 1551 the Hundred Chapters Council

had completed its deliberations. Ivan’s new law

code and statute charters were confirmed, but the

proposed secularization of church lands for mili-

tary tenure and subordination of clerics to secular

jurisdiction were categorically rejected. When the

tsar confirmed the inviolability of church posses-

sions, the bishops compromised by agreeing to lim-

its on the increase of ecclesiastical property.

Moreover, the financial privileges of monasteries

were reduced, and no new tax-free monastic set-

tlements were to be founded in towns without the

tsar’s approval, thereby increasing crown tax rev-

enues. The council called for many irregularities in

church life to be corrected. Among other things,

drunkenness among the clergy was to be eradi-

cated, parish priests were to be better educated, and

priests and laity alike were to be protected against

rapacious episcopal tax collectors. “Pagan” and for-

eign practices popular among the laity were pro-

hibited, such as minstrels playing at weddings and

the shaving of beards.

The council’s decisions made it possible to stan-

dardize religious books, rituals, and icon painting

and protected the church’s possessions and judicial

rights against state encroachment. The bishops in-

creased their judicial authority over the monaster-

ies, and likewise extended their supervision of the

parish clergy by appointing a network of priest el-

ders. Some of the council’s resolutions were not

implemented, however, and others proved to be un-

successful. The series of decrees issued in 1551

throughout the Russian state calling for the pu-

rification of religious life had to be regularly reis-

sued, which suggests that the corrections were not

enforced and abuses were not extirpated. Despite

council demands for upgraded clerical education,

there is no evidence of improvement until the sec-

ond half of the seventeenth century. Alcoholism

continued to be a problem, and extortion by tax

collectors was never fully eradicated. Attempts to

purify the Christianity of the people appear to have

failed, and many superstitious practices listed by

the council survived until the early twentieth cen-

tury. The attempt to reform the laity’s behavior

was impeded by the fact that parish priests were

responsible for carrying it out but were not given

the education, assistance, or means of enforcement

that would have made this possible.

The Hundred Chapters Council affirmed the

traditional Byzantine principle of “symphony” (i.e.,

cooperation) between church and state, yet the pro-

ceedings exemplify the ongoing power struggle be-

tween Russia’s religious and secular authorities. As

a historical document, the Stoglav casts a unique

light on the cultural life of early modern Russia

and on the character of Ivan IV. Alongside the

Nomocanon (a collection of Byzantine ecclesiastical

law), it became a fundamental manual of church

law until the mid-seventeenth century, when Pa-

triarch Nikon of Moscow reversed some of its de-

cisions on minor religious rituals. Nikon’s

opponents maintained that the old rituals were cor-

rect and that the decisions of the Hundred Chap-

ters council had canonical authority. The ensuing

disagreement became one of the chief causes of the

schism of the Russian Church.

See also: IVAN IV; NIKON, PATRIARCH; OLD BELIEVERS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bushkovitch, Paul. (1992). Religion and Society in Russia:

The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries. Oxford, UK:

Oxford University Press.

CHURCH COUNCIL, HUNDRED CHAPTERS

261

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Kollman, J. (1978). “The Moscow Stoglav Church Coun-

cil of 1551.” Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan.

Kollman, J. (1980). “The Stoglav Council and the Parish

Priests.” Russian History 7(1/2):65–91.

Soloviev, Sergei M. (1996). History of Russia, Vol. 12:

Russian Society Under Ivan the Terrible, ed. and trans.

T. Allan Smith. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic Interna-

tional Press.

Vernadsky, George. (1969). A History of Russia, Vol. 5,

Pt. 2: The Tsardom of Muscovy, 1547–1682. New

Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Vernadsky, George, ed. (1972). A Source Book for Russian

History from Early Times to 1917. New Haven: Yale

University Press.

EBRA

A. C

OULTER

CHUVASH

The Chuvash (self-name chavash) are an indigenous

people of the middle Volga basin. According to the

1989 census there were 1.8 million Chuvash in the

former Soviet Union. The greatest concentration

(906,922) lived in the Chuvash Republic on the

west bank of the Volga river between its tributaries

the Sura and Sviaga, with most of the remainder

living in adjacent republics and provinces. Chuvash

made up 67.8 percent of the population of Chu-

vashia in 1989, with Russians accounting for 26.7

percent.

The ethnonym chavash first appears in Russian

sources in 1508, so early Chuvash history is not

entirely clear. Scholars agree that today’s Chuvash

are descendants of at least three groups: Turkic Bul-

gar tribes who arrived on the Volga in the seventh

century from the Caucasus-Azov region; the

closely-related Suvars (suvaz, perhaps the origin of

chavash) who migrated from the Caucasus in the

eighth century; and Finno-Ugric tribes who in-

habited Chuvashia before the Turkic settlement.

The Bulgar state dominated the region from the

tenth century until conquest by the Mongols in

1236. Chuvash were ruled by the Golden Horde in

the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, then by the

Kazan Khanate from the 1440s, and were finally

incorporated in the Muscovite state in 1551.

The Chuvash speak a Turkic language that pre-

serves many archaic elements of Old Bulgar and is

largely incomprehensible to speakers of other Tur-

kic dialects. Early Chuvash was written with Tur-

kic runes, supplanted by the Arabic alphabet during

the time of the Bulgar state. A new Chuvash script

based on the Cyrillic alphabet emerged in the eight-

eenth century. The first Chuvash grammar, which

used this script, was published in 1769. The Chu-

vash educator Ivan Yakovlev developed a new

Chuvash alphabet in 1871. The first Chuvash

newspaper, Khypar (News), appeared in 1906.

Early Chuvash animism was influenced by

Zoroastrianism, Judaism (via the Khazars), and Is-

lam. Chuvash honored fire, water, sun, and earth,

and believed in a variety of good and evil spirits. By

the middle of the eighteenth century, most Chuvash

had converted to Russian Orthodox Christianity

under the influence of Russian settlers and mis-

sionaries. However, some who lived among Tatar

populations converted to Islam and assimilated to

Tatar culture and language. Today’s Chuvash are

predominantly Orthodox Christians, though pagan

beliefs survive in scattered settlements.

The second half of the nineteenth century

brought significant economic changes, as Chuvash

peasants left their villages for railway employment,

lumbering and factory work in the Urals, mining

in the Donbas, and migrant agricultural labor. Ur-

banization began in this period and accelerated in

the twentieth century, although in 1989 less than

half (49.8 percent) of the Chuvash in the Russian

Federation lived in cities.

During the Russian Revolution of 1917, Chu-

vash leaders demonstrated interest in joining the

Idel-Ural (Volga-Ural) state proposed by Tatar

politicians as a counterbalance to Russian hege-

mony in the region, and later (March 1918) agreed

to join the Tatar-Bashkir Soviet Republic. After this

project fell victim to the conflicts of the civil war,

the Soviet government formed a Chuvash Au-

tonomous Region (1920), later upgraded to an

Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1925). Chu-

vash leaders declared their republic an SSR (Soviet

Socialist Republic, or union republic) in 1990 and

renamed it the Chuvash Republic in 1992. Impor-

tant organizations active since the late Soviet years

include the Chuvash Party of National Rebirth, the

Chuvash National Congress, and the Chuvash So-

cial-Cultural Center. The Chuvash Republic is a sig-

natory to the March 31, 1992, treaty that created

the Russian Federation.

See also: NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES

POLICIES, TSARIST

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aygi, Gennady, ed. (1991). An Anthology of Chuvash Po-

etry, tr. Peter France. London: Forest Books; [S.l.]:

UNESCO.

CHUVASH

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY