Encyclopedia of Russian History

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Khanate of Kazan. Muscovy then used Kazan as an

advanced staging area for further expansion down

the Volga. In 1555 the archepiscopal see of Kazan

was established.

From the late sixteenth century on, Kazan was

the gateway to Siberia, as people and supplies were

funneled through the town en route to the east,

and furs and minerals were brought west. It was

made capital of the Volga region in 1708, and Pe-

ter I had the ships for his Persian campaign built

there. The Slavonic-Latin Academy, which became

the Kazan Theological Academy, was founded in

1723 but abolished after 1917. From 1723 to 1726

the Cathedral of Saints Peter and Paul was built in

Kazan. The first lay provincial secondary school

was founded there in 1758.

Kazan was sacked by Emelian Pugachev in

1774, but Catherine II rebuilt the city on a gridiron

design and named it a provincial capital in 1781.

During the eighteenth century, light industry and

food production developed, as well as a theater,

which led to a number of similar theaters being

founded in the nineteenth century. In 1804 the Uni-

versity of Kazan was founded, which helped to es-

tablish the city as an intellectual center. The first

provincial newspaper was published there in 1811.

Kazan was also considered a major manufacturing

center, the products of which included prepared

furs, leather manufacture, shoes, and soap. In the

1930s heavy industry developed, such as aircraft

production and transportation and agricultural

machinery. More recent industries include the pro-

duction of chemicals, electrical engineering, and pre-

cision equipment, as well as oil refining. In 1945

the Kazan branch of the Academy of Sciences was

established. Presently, Kazan has a philharmonic so-

ciety, a museum of Tatar culture, and a theater de-

voted to the production of Tatar operas and ballets.

See also: MUSCOVY; TATARSTAN AND TATARS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bukharaev, Ravil. (1995). Kazan: The Enchanted Capital.

London: Flint River.

Keenan, Edward L. (1979–1980). “Kazan—The Bend.”

Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3/4: 484–96.

Matthews, David J., and Ravil Bukharaev, eds. (2000).

Historical Anthology of Kazan Tatar Verse: Voices of

Eternity. Richmond, England: Curzon Press.

Pelenski, Jaroslaw. (1974). Russia and Kazan: Conquest and

Imperial Ideology (1438–1560s). The Hague: Mouton.

ONALD

STROWSKI

KELLOGG-BRIAND PACT

The Kellogg-Briand Pact, also known as the Pact of

Paris, was the creation of French Foreign Minister

Aristide Briand and U.S. Secretary of State Frank

B. Kellogg in 1928. Parties to this treaty pledged

themselves to “renounce the resort to war as an in-

strument of national policy in their mutual rela-

tions” and to resolve all international disputes by

“peaceful means alone.” This agreement was signed

in Paris on August 27, 1928, by France, the United

States, and thirteen other powers. Soon it was en-

dorsed by almost every country in the world, in-

cluding the Soviet Union, Britain, Germany, and

Japan. The treaty contained no enforcement mech-

anism and was, therefore, merely a pious promise

to avoid war.

Soviet ratification of the pact on August 29,

1928, was part of a “peace offensive” spearheaded

by Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs Maxim

M. Litvinov. Beyond attempts to improve bilateral

relations with the great powers and Russia’s

smaller neighbors, this campaign included efforts

to promote broad measures of disarmament and to

involve the USSR in the multilateral diplomacy of

Europe. The pact was also supplemented by the

Litvinov Protocol, signed on February 9, 1929, by

the USSR, Poland, Rumania, and Latvia (and sub-

sequently by Lithuania, Iran, and Turkey), pledg-

ing the peaceful resolution of all disputes among

the signatories. Soviet participation in the pact and

the protocol represented a victory for Litvinov’s

policy of constructive engagement with the domi-

nant Western powers and a defeat for his nominal

chief, Foreign Commissar Georgy Chicherin. It also

marked a temporary victory for Nikolai Bukharin

and other moderate Politburo members who sup-

ported the New Economic Policy and advocated se-

curity through peace and cooperation with the

great powers.

See also: BUKHARIN, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH; LITVINOV,

MAXIM MAXIMOVICH; NEW ECONOMIC POLICY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ferrell, Robert H. (1952). Peace in Their Time: The Origins

of the Kellogg-Brian Pact. New Haven, CT: Yale Uni-

versity Press.

Jacobson, Jon. (1994). When the Soviet Union Entered

World Politics. Berkeley: University of California

Press.

EDDY

J. U

LDRICKS

KELLOGG-BRIAND PACT

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KERENSKY, ALEXANDER FYODOROVICH

(1881–1970), leading figure of the Provisional Gov-

ernment in 1917.

Alexander Kerensky was born on May 4,

1881, in Simbirsk, Russia. He studied history and

law at St. Petersburg University. In 1906 he be-

came a defense lawyer in political cases and soon

became a well-known public figure. In 1912,

Kerensky was elected to the Fourth Duma. Al-

though he described himself as a socialist and as-

sociated with the Socialist Revolutionary Party

(SRs), he was the mildest of socialists, his views

constituting a blend of moderate socialism with

left-wing liberalism.

During the February Revolution he seemed to

be everywhere—giving a speech here, haranguing

soldiers there, scurrying in and out of meetings, is-

suing orders, dramatically arresting members of

the old regime and equally dramatically rescuing

others from mob violence. A young man of thirty-

five, he emerged as the popular hero of the Febru-

ary Revolution and the new government, the object

of public adulation; his face adorned postcards and

store windows. When the Petrograd Soviet was

formed on March 27, he was elected vice-chairman.

He was the only Socialist to enter the Provisional

Government when it was formed on March 2 and

more and more became its key figure, serving in

succession as minister of justice (March–May),

minister of war (May–September), and minister-

president (July–November), and adding the title of

commander in chief of the army in September. In-

deed, more than any other political figure of 1917

he identified completely with the Provisional Gov-

ernment and in turn came to be identified with it,

both in 1917 and after.

In May and June 1917 he became the govern-

ment’s focal point for preparing a major military

KERENSKY, ALEXANDER FYODOROVICH

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Prime Minister Alexander Kerensky salutes while inspecting his troops in 1917. © H

ULTON

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EUTSCH

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offensive, taking long tours of the front to stimu-

late fighting enthusiasm among soldiers. Despite

the unpopularity and disastrous outcome of the of-

fensive, Kerensky’s personal reputation survived,

and he became minister-president of the new, sec-

ond coalition government. Moreover, as other lead-

ing political figures left the government, Kerensky

became more and more dominant within it. Even

as Kerensky achieved complete leadership of the

government, however, both its and his own pop-

ularity eroded as the government failed to solve

problems and to fulfill popular aspirations (despite

its substantial achievements). The Kornilov Affair

in September, a conflict growing out of the com-

plex relation between Kerensky and General Lavr

Kornilov that many saw as a counterrevolutionary

attempt, earned Kerensky the enmity of both left

and right and completed the destruction of his rep-

utation. Crowds that earlier had cheered him as the

hero of the revolution now cursed him Kerensky

remained head of the government after the Kornilov

Affair, but his popularity was gone, and his per-

sonal authority swiftly declined. His fateful deci-

sion was to move against the Bolsheviks on the eve

of the Second Congress of Soviets; this sparked the

October Revolution, which swept him from power.

After the Bolshevik Revolution, Kerensky spent

several weeks underground, trying unsuccessfully

to organize an anti-Bolshevik movement. In May

1918, he made his way out of the country and

lived the rest of his life in exile, where he was ac-

tive in emigré politics, delivered lectures, and

wrote several accounts of the revolution and his

role in it. He died on June 11, 1970, in the United

States.

Kerensky was both the heroic and the tragic

figure of the Russian Revolution of 1917. Thin,

pale, with flashing eyes, theatrical gestures, and

vivid verbal imagery, he was a dramatic and mes-

merizing speaker with an incredible ability to move

his listeners. Huge crowds turned out to hear him.

As the year wore on, however, Kerensky’s oratory

could not compensate for the government’s fail-

ures. The same speech-making that had made him

a hero in the spring earned him scorn and a repu-

tation as an empty babbler by autumn’s end. The

new paper currencies issued by the Provisional

Government under his leadership were popularly

called “Kerenki,” and because inflation quickly

made them worthless, his name thus took on

something of that meaning as well. It was a tragic

fall for the hero of February.

See also: FEBRUARY REVOLUTION; KORNILOV AFFAIR; OC-

TOBER REVOLUTION; PROVISIONAL GOVERNMENT

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Abraham, Richard. (1987). Alexander Kerensky: The First

Love of the Revolution. New York: Columbia Univer-

sity Press.

Kerensky, Alexander. (1965). Russia and History’s Turn-

ing Point. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce.

Kolonitskii, Boris I. (1997). “Kerensky.” In Critical Com-

panion to the Russian Revolution, 1914–1921. Bloom-

ington: Indiana University Press.

A. W

ADE

K.G.B. See STATE SECURITY, ORGANS OF.

K.G.B.

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Alexander Kerensky, leader of the 1917 Provisional

Government. T

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ONDIALES

ARIS

AGLI

RTI

KHABAROV, YEROFEI PAVLOVICH

(c. 1610–1667), adventurer, explorer of Siberia.

Born in Vologda region, Yerofei Khabarov be-

gan his career managing a saltworks for the famed

Stroganov clan. He traveled throughout western

Siberia in the 1620s. He moved on to the Yenisei

River, then the Lena, in the 1630s. He invested in

farmlands and local saltworks. He also developed

useful ties to Vasily Poyarkov, the administrator

of Yakutsk and an early explorer of the Amur River

basin.

In 1649 Khabarov turned to exploration. His

goal was to follow up on Poyarkov’s earlier forays

into the Amur region, seeking an easier and more

reliable route than Poyarkov had been able to find.

In March, Khabarov left Yakutsk with 150 men,

following the Olekma River.

Over the winter of 1650, Khabarov crossed the

Yablonovy Range, reaching the Amur River soon

after. He ruthlessly pacified the local tribe, the

Daurs. He also established a garrison on the Amur.

In his reports to Yakutsk and Moscow, Khabarov

advocated conquest of the Amur, both for the

river’s strategic importance and the region’s eco-

nomic assets: grain, fish, and fur.

In 1650 and 1651, Khabarov launched further

assaults against the Daurs, expanding Russian con-

trol over the area, but with great violence.

Khabarov founded Achansk, captured Albazin, and

made his way down the Amur until the summer

of 1651. By this point, he was encroaching on ter-

ritory that China’s recently founded Manchu

(Qing) Dynasty considered to be its sphere of in-

fluence. When the Daurs appealed to China for as-

sistance, the Manchus attacked Achansk in the

spring of 1652. Khabarov’s garrison was forced to

withdraw, but for the moment, the Manchus did

not press their advantage. Nonetheless, Russia and

China would engage in many frontier struggles un-

til the signing of the Treaty of Nerchinsk (1689).

Meanwhile, word of Khabarov’s cruel treat-

ment of the Daurs reached Russian authorities, and

he was arrested in the fall of 1653. Khabarov was

put on trial, but his services were considered valu-

able enough to have outweighed the abuses he had

committed. He was exonerated and placed in com-

mand of the Siberian fortress of Ilimsk. In 1858

Russia’s new city at the juncture of the Amur and

Ussuri rivers, Khabarovsk, was given his name.

See also: CHINA, RELATIONS WITH; SIBERIA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bassin, Mark. (1999). Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imag-

ination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far

East, 1840–1865. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Uni-

versity Press.

Bobrick, Benson. (1992). East of the Sun: The Epic Con-

quest and Tragic History of Siberia. New York: Posei-

don.

Lincoln, W. Bruce. (1993). Conquest of a Continent: Siberia

and the Russians. New York: Random House.

OHN

ANNON

KHAKASS

The Khakass Republic or Khakassia (23,855 square

miles, 61,784 square kilometers) is an autonomous

republic within the Russian Federation. Located in

Krasnoyarsk Krai at the far northwestern end of

the Altay Range in south-central Siberia, it differs

from other Siberian republics in at least two ways.

First, the Khakass, while Turkic speaking, are

actually Orthodox Christians, not Muslims, Bud-

dhists, or shamanists. Second, ethnic Russians out-

number the Khakass. In 1959, 48,000 Khakass

were living in Khakassia, forming 12 percent of the

total population. By 1979 there were 57,300

Khakass, forming 11.4 percent of the population.

Ethnic Russians now constitute the remaining 80

to 90 percent of the population of Khakassia.

The Khakass Republic extends along the left

bank of the Yenisey River, upon the wooded slopes

of Kuznetsk Ala-Tau and the Sayans, in the west-

ern portion of the Minusinsk depression. Lake

Baikal lies 1,000 kilometers to the east. The Abakan

(a tributary of the Yenisey) and Chulym rivers

drain the area. The capital is Abakan and the next

largest city is Chernogorsk (a coal-mining center).

While the terrain in the southern and western re-

gions is hilly, the northern and eastern parts of the

region are flat, black-earth steppelands (the

Abakan-Minusinsk Basin). The climate is conti-

nental, with the average temperatures between –15

and 21 degrees Celsius in January, and between 17

and 19 degrees Celsius in July.

The origin of the name Khakass is in the word

hagias (hjagas), which was used by the Chinese

for an ancient tribe in the Sayan Mountains. His-

torically, the Khakass have gone by several differ-

ent names: the Tatars of Minusinsk, the Tatars of

Abakan, the Turks of Abakan, the Turks of the

KHABAROV, YEROFEI PAVLOVICH

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Yenisey. The Khakass themselves call themselves by

their own tribal names, including sagai, khas, pel-

tyr, shor, koybal, and hyzyl-kizhi.

The Khakass language belongs to the Uighur-

Oguz group in the Eastern Hun branch of the Tur-

kic languages. While the structure and the basic

vocabulary of the Khakass language are of Turkic-

Tatar origin, the language contains many loan

words from the Chinese, Mongolian, and Russian

languages.

The first Russians arrived in Khakassia in the

seventeenth century. The Khakass Autonomous Re-

gion was established in 1930. In 1992 the region

became an official autonomous republic in the

Russian Federation. Formerly nomadic herders, the

Khakass now farm, hunt, or breed livestock. The

republic produces timber, copper, iron ore, barite,

gold, molybdenum, and tungsten.

See also: NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; SIBERIA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Berdahl, Daphne, and Matti Bunzl. (2000). Altering States:

Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe and the

Former Soviet Union. Ann Arbor: University of Michi-

gan Press.

Gorenburg, Dmitry P. (2003). Minority Ethnic Mobiliza-

tion in the Russian Federation. New York: Cambridge

University Press.

Petroff, Serge. (2000). Remembering a Forgotten War: Civil

War in Eastern European Russia and Siberia,

1918–1920. New York: Columbia University Press.

Raleigh, Donald J. (2001). Provincial Landscapes: Local Di-

mensions of Soviet Power, 1917–1953. Pittsburgh:

University of Pittsburgh Press.

OHANNA

RANVILLE

KHALKIN-GOL, BATTLE OF

In the late 1930s, as events pushed the world in-

exorably toward war, the Soviet Union and Japan

clashed several times over the precise location of

their borders. The most serious of these incidents,

occurring from May to September of 1939, took

place in Mongolia, by a river named Khalkhin-Gol.

Soviet forces crossed the river to assert their sov-

ereignty over a disputed tract of land and ran into

serious resistance from the Japanese Sixth Army.

The Japanese believed that the river marked the

border and had just been ordered to treat any in-

cursions with the utmost severity. They launched

a series of attacks against the Mongolian and So-

viet troops and eventually managed to push back

the initial advance. Stalin and his advisors, already

convinced that the Japanese army wanted to seize

Siberia for its natural resources, decided that this

was the great attack they feared. In response, they

gave the commander on the scene, Georgy Kon-

stantinovich Zhukov, all the tanks, aircraft, and

manpower he would need to deal with the threat.

Zhukov put together a major offensive that

would not only drive the Japanese from Mongo-

lia, but also take the disputed land irrevocably for

the Soviet satellite. By the time he was ready for

his attack, at the end of August, his forces out-

numbered the Japanese two to one, and he had far

more tanks and artillery than the Japanese could

muster. His strategy, which called for the envel-

opment and destruction of the enemy, worked as

planned, and the Japanese army suffered heavy ca-

sualties. The Japanese commander, Michitaro Ko-

matsubara, refused to accept the outcome of the

battle, however, and had prepared a counteroffen-

sive. This was canceled when a cease-fire was

signed in Moscow. War had broken out in Europe,

and neither country could afford to be distracted

by minor clashes on their borders. The battle at

Khalkhin-Gol convinced the Japanese army that a

fight with the Soviets would be a long, drawn-out

affair, and helped the Japanese empire make the de-

cision to turn southward in 1941, rather than at-

tack Siberia.

See also: JAPAN, RELATIONS WITH; ZHUKOV, GEORGY

KONSTANTINOVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Coox, Alvin. (1985). Nomonhan. Japan against Russia,

1939. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Zhukov, Georgy. (1971). The Memoirs of Marshal Zhukov.

New York: Delacorte Press.

ARY

R. H

ABECK

KHANTY

The Khanty people live in western Siberia from the

Arctic Circle in the north to the conflux of the

Irtysh and Tavda rivers in the south. The Khanty

are mainly concentrated in the Khanty-Mansiysk

autonomous okrug, with the administrative center

Khanty-Mansiysk (population 34,300 in 1995).

KHANTY

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

The Khanty also live in the Yamal-Nenets au-

tonomous okrug and in Tomsk oblast. According

to the Soviet 1989 census, the total population of

the Khanty numbered 22,521.

In the beginning of the eighteenth century,

Khanty were baptized by Russian Orthodox mis-

sionaries. However, Khanty have followed their na-

tive religion until the present time. According to

Khanty cosmology, there exist several layers of

Heaven and Underworld and seven main gods, the

most powerful of whom is Numi Torum. Shamans

are mediators between gods and humans.

The Khanty language belongs to the Ob-Ugrian

branch of the Finno-Ugric language family of

Uralic language stock. Standardized written lan-

guage based on the Latin alphabet was introduced

in the 1930s. In 1940 it was transferred into the

Cyrillic system. According to the All-Union census

data as of 1989, the knowledge of native language

among the Khanty was 60.5 percent.

Traditionally, the Khanty were divided between

two phratries and several clans. Political leaders of

the Khanty were clan elders and princes who col-

lected taxes for Tsarist authorities and were re-

sponsible for native administration and court.

During the Soviet period this native political struc-

ture was abolished.

The Khanty are seminomadic hunters, fishers,

and reindeer breeders. During the Soviet period, an-

imal husbandry, fur farming, and agriculture were

introduced as small-scale enterprises.

From the eleventh century, the Khanty traded

and had armed conflicts with Russians from Nov-

gorod. Between the thirteenth and sixteenth cen-

turies, the Khanty payed tribute to the Siberian

Khanate. At the end of the sixteenth century the

Khanty were conquered by Russia. The most seri-

ous change in Khanty recent history was the col-

lectivization campaign in the 1930s. Between 1933

and 1934, the Khanty rebelled against the Soviets

in what is known as the Kazym War. After the

1980s the native political movement expanded,

mainly concentrating around the Association for

the Salvation of the Ugra (founded in 1989).

See also: NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES

POLICIES, TSARIST; NORTHERN PEOPLES; SIBERIA

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam. (1999). The Tenacity of Eth-

nicity: A Siberian Saga in Global Perspective. Prince-

ton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Prokof’yeva, E. D.; Chernetsov, V. N.; and Prytkova, N.

E. (1964). “The Khants and Mansi.” In The Peoples of

Siberia, ed. M. G. Levin, L. P. Potapov. Chicago: Uni-

versity of Chicago Press.

Taagepera, Rein. (1999). The Finno-Ugric Republics and the

Russian State. London: Hurst.

EETE

KHASBULATOV, RUSLAN IMRANOVICH

(b. 1942), economist, Russian legislator.

Ruslan Khasbulatov studied at Kazakh State

University and Moscow State University (MGU),

where he was active in the Komsomol and joined

the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU)

in 1966. He earned a doctorate in economics from

MGU in 1970. Khasbulatov spent the 1970s and

1980s working at the Academy of Sciences’s Insti-

tute of Scientific Information and the Scientific

Research Institute for Questions of Secondary

Schools. He transferred to the Plekhanov Institute

for Economic Management in 1979, eventually be-

coming chair of the division of Economy of For-

eign Countries.

In 1990 Khasbulatov was elected to the first

RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic)

Congress of People’s Deputies. When the Congress

elected Yeltsin as chair, he picked Khasbulatov as

his first deputy (May 1990). Following Yeltsin’s

election to the newly created Russian presidency,

Khasbulatov became speaker of parliament (Octo-

ber 1991).

Khasbulatov opposed the amount of power

that devolved to Yeltsin after the collapse of the

Soviet Union. He also opposed Yeltsin’s economic

policy of shock therapy and the privatization cam-

paigns. As Yeltsin’s team drafted a new Russian

constitution, Khasbulatov spearheaded a parlia-

mentary effort to reduce Yeltsin’s authority and

more equitably redistribute powers between the

Russian executive and legislative branches.

The power struggle culminated in Yeltsin’s dis-

solution of parliament in September 1993. Led by

Khasbulatov and Russian Vice President Alexander

Rutskoi, legislators barricaded themselves in the

parliamentary building. Yeltsin responded by fir-

ing on the building the night of October 3–4, 1993.

Khasbulatov was led from the building in hand-

KHASBULATOV, RUSLAN IMRANOVICH

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

cuffs and sent to prison. In February 1994, the

Russian State Duma amnestied Khasbulatov along

with all the participants in the parliamentary re-

bellion.

An ethnic Chechen, Khasbulatov became in-

volved in the domestic politics of the rebellious re-

public. He unsuccessfully ran for president in 1996

and has been involved in negotiations to end the

second Chechen war. As of 2003, Khasbulatov

teaches at the Plekhanov Institute in Moscow.

See also: CHECHNYA AND CHECHENS; OCTOBER 1993

EVENTS; PRIVATIZATION; YELTSIN, BORIS NIKO-

LAYEVICH

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dunlop, John B. (1993). The Rise of Russia and the Fall

of the Soviet Empire. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Uni-

versity Press.

E. R

OBERTSON

KHAZARS

A nomadic Turkic-speaking tribal confederation

and an offshoot of the Turk kaghanate, the Khaz-

ars established one of the earliest and most suc-

cessful states in medieval eastern Europe. Khazar

history is divided into two periods: the Crimean–

North Caucasus (c. 650–750) and the Lower Volga

(c. 750–965) phases. Politically focused on the

northern Black Sea region, during the first phase

the Khazars were locked in endless wars against the

Arabs over the control of the Caucasus. After a ma-

jor defeat in 737, the Khazars relocated their polit-

ical focus to the north and established their capital

of Atil/Itil in the Volga delta around 800. The next

one hundred years of Khazar history (known as

Pax Chazarica) brought security to the Russian

steppe and the surrounding regions, permitting

cross-continental trade to flourish via Khazaria and

providing it with the necessary stability for the for-

mation of a unique material culture, known to ar-

chaeologists as Saltovo.

Khazaria was an empire or kaghanate, the

highest form of Turkic political organization. The

kaghan or its leader was apparently of Turkic ori-

gin and had supreme secular and sacred functions.

During the ninth century, his political-religious

role was split: He retained his religious-sacred func-

tion, while the governor or beg ruled the state.

At its height in the first half of the ninth cen-

tury, Khazar territories stretched from the middle

Dnieper in the west to the Volga-Ural steppe in the

east, and from the middle Volga in the north to the

Crimea in the south. It was populated by Turkic

and Iranian nomads, Finno-Ugrian foragers, Slavic

agriculturalists, and urban Crimean Greeks, mak-

ing the kaghanate a multiethnic, multilingual, and

multireligious state. Khazar economy was diverse

and included animal husbandry, agriculture, hunt-

ing and gathering, fishing, craft production, agri-

culture, viniculture, and domestic and international

trade. Khazars traded locally manufactured goods

as well as the furs, slaves, honey, and wax they

obtained as tribute from the Slavic and Finno-

Ugrian tribes of the north. Khazaria also acted as

an intermediary for Rus-Arab trade and received a

tithe from the bypassing merchants. Millions of

Islamic silver coins (dirhams) were exported via

the “Khazar Way” (lower Volga-Don-Donets-Oka-

upper Volga) trade route to northwestern Russia in

exchange for Rus commodities.

Most Khazars practiced shamanist-Täri reli-

gion. In the late eighth to early ninth century (but

perhaps as late as 861), the Khazar ruling elite con-

verted to Judaism. While many questions remain

concerning this conversion and its pervasiveness, it

is clear that by accepting Judaism, the ruling class

made Khazaria a religious neutral zone for its war-

ring Christian and Islamic neighbors. Religious tol-

erance and Khazaria’s international commercial

interests brought Christians, Muslims, Jews, pa-

gans, and others to trade and live within the

kaghanate.

Pax Chazarica came to an end by the early tenth

century. Already in the 890s, Pechenegs and Mag-

yars infiltrated Khazaria from the east, while the

Rus annexed Khazarian territories in the northwest.

Concurrently, the Khazar Way declined and the

Rus-Islamic trade shifted to the lands of the Volga

Bulghars, thereby bypassing Khazar toll collectors.

Greatly weakened, Khazaria was destroyed in 965

by the Rus and their Torky allies.

See also: ISLAM; JEWS; RELIGION; TORKY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Dunlop, D. M. (1967). The History of the Jewish Khazars.

New York: Schocken Books.

Golden, Peter B. (1980). Khazar Studies: An Historico-

Philological Inquiry into the Origins of the Khazars, Vol.

1. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó.

KHAZARS

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

Golden, Peter B. (1990). “The Peoples of the South Russ-

ian Steppe.” In The Cambridge History of Early Inner

Asia, ed. Denis Sinor. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge

University Press.

Golden, Peter B. (1992). An Introduction to the History of

the Turkic Peoples. Wiesbaden, Germany: Harras-

sowitz Verlag.

Noonan, Thomas S. (1997). “The Khazar Economy.”

Archivum Eurasiae Medii Aevi 9:253–318.

Zuckerman, C. (1995). “On the Date of the Khazars’ Con-

version to Judaism and the Chronology of the Kings

of the Rus Oleg and Igor: A Study of the Anony-

mous Khazar Letter from the Genizah of Cairo.” Re-

vue des Études Byzantines 53:237–270.

OMAN

K. K

OVALEV

KHIVA

Khiva, a city in northwestern Uzbekistan and the

name of a khanate in existence prior to and dur-

ing the rule of the Russian Empire, is located in the

midst of the deserts of Central Asia. Early in hu-

man history, farming peoples settled in the region,

relying on irrigation to bring water to their fields

from the nearby Amu River (Amu-Darya), known

in antiquity as the Oxus. Its sources in the great

glacial fields of the Pamir and Hindu Kush moun-

tains to the southeast assured a steady supply of

water sufficient to sustain agriculture and human

settlement. Long-distance commerce began with

the opening of the great trade routes (collectively

known as the Silk Route) between Asia, the Middle

East, and Europe. Nomadic tribes frequently invaded

the territory, conquering the lands of Khorezm (as

Khiva was then called) and destroying the cities.

Settlers founded the city of Khiva in the tenth cen-

tury, during a period of prosperity. That time of

peace came to an end with the Mongol invasion of

the thirteenth century. Two centuries later, Turkic

tribes in turn conquered the region.

One Turkic leader (khan) founded the Khanate

of Khiva shortly afterward. The strongest unifying

force among its peoples was the Islamic religion.

All the peoples living there belonged to the Sunni

branch of Islam. The hot climate permitted the

Khivan farmers to grow cotton. It was woven into

beautiful rugs, which Khiva’s merchants trans-

ported for sale to the Middle East and to Russia.

Slavery was common, for nomads brought cap-

tives for sale in Khiva whom they had captured in

Persia (Shiite Muslims), and in the Siberian plains

(Russians). The Khivan peoples were divided by clan

and tribal loyalties, and spoke several Turkic lan-

guages. The most important division was between

the nomadic tribes of the desert and those who lived

in towns or farmed the irrigated land. Nomadic

raids and revolts unsettled the principality. Fre-

quent wars with neighboring rulers (especially

Bukhara) also kept Khiva weak.

The Russian Empire conquered the khanate in

the 1870s. In the eighteenth century, it had begun

to expand into the plains of southern Siberia and

northern Central Asia, with the goal of colonial

domination of the area. In the 1860s its armies be-

gan their offensive against the khanates of the

southern oasis lands. The khanate forces were

poorly armed and quickly capitulated. Khiva sur-

rendered to a Russian army after a brief war in

1873. Some khanates were absorbed into the em-

pire. Khiva (and Bukhara) remained as Russian pro-

tectorates, independent in their internal affairs but

forced to accept the empire’s control over their for-

eign affairs. The Khanate of Khiva was left with a

shrunken territory within the borders imposed by

Russia. Its trade with Russia grew rapidly, for its

cotton was in great demand for Russian textile

manufacturing.

Following the collapse of the Russian Empire in

1917, the khanate briefly regained its full inde-

pendence. But in 1918 armies under the command

of the Communist Party from the revolutionary

state of Soviet Russia invaded Central Asia. The

Communists won the support of a group of Khivan

reformers, who took charge of a tiny state that

they called the Khorezm People’s Republic. It lasted

only until 1924, when the Soviet government or-

dered Khorezm’s leaders to agree to the annexation

of their state by the new Union of Soviet Socialist

Republics. Its lands were divided between the So-

viet Republics of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

The Communists believed that their new ethno-

territorial republics, grouped around one majority

(“titular”) nationality, would assist in bringing so-

cialism to the Central Asian peoples. Uzbek and

Turkmen communists assumed command of the

peoples once ruled by the Khivan khan. The city of

Khiva became a small regional center. Its ancient

walled city was a picturesque reminder of its pre-

Russian past.

See also: CENTRAL ASIA; TURKMENISTAN AND TURKMEN;

UZBEKISTAN AND UZBEKS

KHIVA

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Becker, Seymour. (1968). Russia’s Protectorates in Central

Asia: Bukhara and Khiva, 1865–1924. Cambridge,

MA: Harvard University Press.

Glazebrook, Philip. (1937). Journey to Khiva. London:

Harvill Press.

Naumkin, Vitaly. (1992). Khiva. Caught in Time: Great

Photographic Archives. Reading, UK: Garnet Pub-

lishing.

ANIEL

ROWER

KHMELNITSKY, BOHDAN

(c. 1595–1657), hetman of the Zaporozhian Cos-

sack Host (1648–1657) and founder of the Het-

manate (Cossack state).

Born into a family of Orthodox petty gentry,

Khmelnitsky fought at the Battle of Cecora (1620)

and was taken prisoner to Istanbul for two years.

Enrolled as a registered Cossack, he was a military

chancellor during the Cossack revolts of 1637 and

1638. In 1646 he took part in a Cossack delegation

to King Wladyslaw IV, who sought to win the Cos-

sacks over to his secret plans for a war against the

Ottomans. In 1647 a magnate’s servitor attacked

Khmelnitsky’s estate. Khmelnitsky found no re-

dress. Arrested in November 1647, he escaped and

fled to the traditional Cossack stronghold, or Sich,

where he was proclaimed hetman in February

1648. He received support from the Crimean

Khanate, and in May Khmelnitsky defeated the Pol-

ish armies sent against him. The king died in that

month, throwing the Polish-Lithuanian Common-

wealth, an elective monarchy, into crisis.

Throughout 1648, as an uprising raged in

Ukraine with attacks on landholders, Catholic

clergy, and Jews, Khmelnitsky energetically orga-

nized a military force and a civil administration.

Defeating what remained of the Commonwealth’s

forces in September, he influenced the election of

Jan Kazimierz as a propeace candidate. At the end

of the year, Khmelnitsky marched east, entering

KHMELNITSKY, BOHDAN

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Ichan-Kala, the ancient inner city of Khiva, was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site for its many monuments and oriental

UDOVIC

AISANT

/CORBIS

Kyiv to the acclamation that he was a Moses lib-

erating his people from the “Polish bondage.” He

declared his intentions to rule as an autocrat as far

as Western Ukrainian Lviv.

A renewed war (the Battle of Zboriv) proved

inconclusive because of the desertion of the Crimean

khan. From mid-1649 Khmelnitsky searched for

foreign allies against the Commonwealth, but the

Tatars remained his only ally. Initially the Ottoman

Empire seemed the most likely supporter, but the

extension of Ottoman protection in 1651 did not

bring the required military assistance. Khmelnitsky

sought to gain a status for Ukraine similar to the

Ottoman vassal Moldavia, in part by marrying his

son into its ruling family. Having been defeated by

the Poles at Berestechko in June 1651, he in turn

defeated them in June 1652. His Danubian inter-

vention ended in fiasco with his son Tymish’s death

in September 1653. The weakened Khmelnitsky

then turned more seriously to the Muscovite tsar,

and after the Russian decision to take him under

“tsar’s high hand” in 1653, he convened a Cossack

council at Pereyaslav and took an oath of loyalty

to the tsar in January 1654 , but failed to receive

an oath from his emissaries. Retaining far greater

power in Ukraine than the terms negotiated,

Khmelnitsky came to be disillusioned with Mus-

covy, especially after the truce between Muscovy

and the Commonwealth in November 1656. He

joined a coalition with Sweden and Transylvania

against the Commonwealth (and against Muscovite

wishes), but a Transylvanian-Ukrainian invasion

had failed just before his death.

Evaluations of Khmelnitsky and his policies

vary greatly, with some seeing him as a great

statesman and others as a destructive rebel. The na-

ture of the Pereyaslav Agreement has been the sub-

ject of controversy; in Soviet historiography it was

viewed as the “reunification” of Ukraine with Rus-

sia.

See also: COSSACKS; UKRAINE AND UKRAINIANS

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Basarab, John. (1982). Pereiaslav 1654: A Historiograph-

ical Study. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrain-

ian Studies Press.

Hrushevsky, Mykhailo. (2002). History of Ukraine-Rus’’,

vol. 8. Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian

Studies Press.

Stow, Kenneth, and Teller, Adam, eds. (2003). “Gezeirot

Ta’’h Jews, Cossacks, Poles, and Peasants in 1648

Ukraine.” Jewish History 17(2).

Sysyn, Frank E. (1985). Between Poland and Ukraine: The

Dilemma of Adam Kysil, 1600–1653. Cambridge, MA:

Harvard University Press for HURI.

Sysyn, Frank E. (1995). “The Changing Image of the

Hetman: On the 350th Anniversary of the

Khmel’’nyts’’kyi Uprising.” Jahrbücher für Geschichte

Osteuropas 46: 531–45.

Vernadsky, George. (1941). Bohdan, Hetman of Ukraine.

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

RANK

E. S

YSYN

KHOMYAKOV, ALEXEI STEPANOVICH

(1804–1860), slavophile philosopher, theologian,

poet, and playwright.

Alexei Khomyakov was born in Moscow of an

old noble family. He was well educated in a pious,

traditional, cultivated household, under the partic-

ular influence of his devout mother. He was tu-

tored in French, English, and Latin in his childhood

and youth, and later added Greek and German. The

Khomyakov house burned to the ground in the

Moscow fire of 1812, and the family was forced

to take refuge on one of their country estates near

Ryazan. When Khomyakov first saw St. Petersburg

in 1815, the pious young Muscovite allegedly

found it a pagan and thoroughly un-Russian place.

At the University of Moscow, Khomyakov studied

philosophy and theology, but took his kandidat

(master’s; in some cases equivalent of Ph.D.) degree

in mathematics in 1821.

Between 1822 and 1825, Khomyakov served in

the military, to which he briefly returned in 1828

as the captain of a regiment, when Emperor

Nicholas I appealed for volunteers to fight in the

Turkish War. In the early 1820s he also had rela-

tions with the so-called Lovers of Wisdom (Ob-

shchestvo Lyubomudriya) and published several

poems in the Moscow Messenger. Following his first

stint in the army, he briefly studied painting in

Paris and visited Switzerland and Italy before re-

turning to Russia.

In the 1820s and the 1830s, Khomyakov was

known primarily as a playwright (Ermak, the False

Dmitry) and a poet. His poetry is “characterized by

rhetorical pathos, a lofty view of the poet’s calling,

and a preview of his later Slavophile ideas.” In 1829

he retired from government service to devote him-

self to literature and his estates, and in 1834 he

married Yekaterina Yazykov, the sister of the poet.

KHOMYAKOV, ALEXEI STEPANOVICH

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ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY