a concise history of russia - cambridge university...

A Concise History of Russia

Accessible to students, tourists, and general readers alike, this bookprovides a broad overview of Russian history since the ninth cen-tury. Paul Bushkovitch emphasizes the enormous changes in theunderstanding of Russian history resulting from the end of theSoviet Union in 1991. Since then, new material has come to lighton the history of the Soviet era, providing new conceptions ofRussia’s pre-revolutionary past. The book traces not only the politi-cal history of Russia, but also developments in its literature, art, andscience. Bushkovitch describes well-known cultural figures, such asChekhov, Tolstoy, and Mendeleev in their institutional and his-torical contexts. Though the 1917 revolution, the resulting Sovietsystem, and the Cold War were a crucial part of Russian and worldhistory, Bushkovitch presents earlier developments as more thanjust a prelude to Bolshevik power.

Paul Bushkovitch is a professor of history at Yale University, wherehe has taught for the past 36 years. He is the author of Peter theGreat: The Struggle for Power, 1671–1725 (Cambridge 2001); Reli-gion and Society in Russia: The Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries(1991); and The Merchants of Moscow, 1580–1650 (Cambridge1980). His articles have appeared in Slavic Review, Russian Review,Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteruopas, and Kritika. He is a memberof the editorial board for the Cahiers du Monde Russe.

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Cambridge University Press978-0-521-54323-1 - A Concise History of RussiaPaul BushkovitchFrontmatterMore information

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“For any student trying to get a grasp of the essentials of Russianhistory this book is the place to start. To cover everything from theorigins of the Russian people to the collapse of the Soviet Union inone short book requires great skill, but Paul Bushkovitch is one ofthe leading experts on Russian history in the world and he managesthis task with great insight and panache.”

– Dominic Lieven, Trinity College, Cambridge University

“This is a lively and readable account, covering more than a thou-sand years of Russian history in an authoritative narrative. Theauthor deals perceptively not only with political developments, butalso with those aspects of modern Russian culture and science thathave had an international impact.”

– Maureen Perrie, University of Birmingham

“If you want to understand Russia, and the story of the Russians,you can do no better than Paul Bushkovitch’s A Concise Historyof Russia. Bushkovitch has performed a minor miracle: he’s toldthe remarkably complicated, convoluted, and controversial tale ofRussian history simply, directly, and even-handedly. He doesn’t getmired in the details, lost in the twists and turns, or sidetracked by axegrinding. He tells you what happened and why, full stop. So if youwant to know what happened and why in Russian history, you’dbe advised to begin with Bushkovitch’s masterful introduction.”

– Marshall Poe, University of Iowa

“Both learned and accessible, this short history of Russia’s troubledpassage to the present tells a story of a state and a people whocreated an empire that much of the world saw as a threat. Whetheras the ‘Gendarme of Europe’ or the ‘Red Menace,’ Russia and itsSoviet successor (even Putin’s Russia today!) have been as muchmisunderstood as they have been feared. Paul Bushkovitch bringsus a sober reading of Russia’s difficult rises and falls, expansionsand contractions, reforms and revolutions. Rather than seeing thepreceding millennium as a prelude to the seventy years of the SovietUnion, he gives us a rounded portrait of a country hobbled and hum-bled by its own geography, institutions like autocracy and serfdom,and grandiose plans to create utopia. Judicious in its judgments,this gracefully written work ranges from high politics to music andliterature to open a window through which a reader might begin orrenew an acquaintance with the enigmas that were Russia.”

– Ronald Grigor Suny, University of Michigan






CAMBRIDGE CONCISE HISTORIES

This is a new series of illustrated “concise histories” of selected indi-vidual countries, intended both as university and college textbooksand as general historical introductions for general readers, travelers,and members of the business community.

Other titles in the series:

A Concise History of Australia, 3rd Editionstuart macintyre

A Concise History of Austriasteven beller

A Concise History of Bolivia, 2nd Editionherbert s. klein

A Concise History of Brazilboris fausto, translated by arthur brakel

A Concise History of Britain, 1707–1975w. a. speck

A Concise History of Bulgaria, 2nd Editionr. j. crampton

A Concise History of the Caribbeanb. w. higman

A Concise History of Finlanddavid kirby

A Concise History of France, 2nd Editionroger price

A Concise History of Germany, 2nd Editionmary fulbrook

Series list continues following the Index.






A Concise Historyof Russia

PAUL BUSHKOVITCH

Yale University






32 Avenue of the Americas, New York ny 10013-2473, usa

Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge.

It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence.

www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521543231

© Paul Bushkovitch 2012

This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press.

First published 2012Reprinted 2013

A catalog record for this publication is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication dataBushkovitch, Paul.A concise history of Russia / Paul Bushkovitch. p. cm. – (Cambridge concise histories)Includes bibliographical references and index.isbn 978-0-521-83562-6 (hardback : alk. paper) – isbn 978-0-521-54323-1(pbk. : alk. paper)1. Russia – History. 2. Soviet Union – History. 3. Russia (Federation) –History. I. Title.dk37.b86 2011947–dc23 2011026272

isbn 978-0-521-83562-6 Hardback isbn 978-0-521-54323-1 Paperback

Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party Internet Web sites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such Web sites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.






CONTENTS

List of Figures page ix

Abbreviations xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Prologue xv

1. russia before russia 1

2. moscow, novgorod, lithuania,and the mongols 19

3. the emergence of russia 37

4. consolidation and revolt 59

5. peter the great 79

6. two empresses 101

7. catherine the great 117

8. russia in the age of revolution 138

9. the pinnacle of autocracy 155

10. culture and autocracy 172

11. the era of the great reforms 186

12. from serfdom to nascent capitalism 208

vii






viii Contents

13. the golden age of russian culture 228

14. russia as an empire 249

15. autocracy in decline 272

16. war and revolution 293

17. compromise and preparation 318

18. revolutions in russian culture 334

19. building utopia 351

20. war 371

21. growth, consolidation, and stagnation 393

22. soviet culture 413

23. the cold war 429

Epilogue: The End of the USSR 447

Further Reading 461

Index 473






LIST OF FIGURES

1. Vladimir Cathedral of the Dormition (TwelfthCentury) page 14

2. Birchbark Document 210 253. Kirillov Monastery (15–16 centuries) 304. “Kremlenagrad” 445. Peter the Great 896. Bashkirs 1247. Catherine the Great 1278. St. Petersburg c. 1800 1449. Village Council 158

10. Alexander II 19011. Russian Peasant Girls 21712. Ilya Muromets 22113. Tchaikovsky 23514. Repin/Tolstoy 24615. Nomadic Kirghiz 26816. Witte 27717. Nicholas II 27818. Lenin and Colleagues 30719. Stalin and Others at Gorky’s funeral 36420. Ilyushin II 384

ix






ABBREVIATIONS

BRBML Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript LibraryLOC Library of CongressLOC PG Library of Congress, Prokudin-Gorsky CollectionNASM Smithsonian National Air and Space MuseumNYPL New York Public LibraryYCBA Yale Center for British Art

xi






ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The first chapters of this book were written at the University ofAberdeen, Scotland, during a semester of residence with the supportof the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. Without theCarnegie Trust and Aberdeen University the beginning would havebeen much more difficult. I owe a particular debt of gratitude toPaul Dukes, Robert Frost, Karin Friedrich, Jane Ohlmeyer, andDuncan Rice, in their different ways my hosts for an eventful time.Over the years my colleagues have kindly read and commented onmany of the chapters, letting me know when I was on the righttrack and when I was not. For reading as well as discussion andbibliographical help, I thank Nikolaos Chrissidis, Laura Engelstein,Hilary Fink, Daniel Kevles, John MacKay, Edgar Melton, BruceMenning, and Samuel Ramer. Many years of conversation aboutRussian culture with Vladimir Alexandrov, Katerina Clark, NikolaiFirtich, Harvey Goldblatt, Vladimir Golshtein, Andrea Graziosi,Charles Halperin, Moshe Lewin, Alexander Schenker, and ElizabethValkenier made many chapters much richer than I could have madethem alone. Valerie Hansen and Frank Turner provided more helpthan they ever realized. As ever, Tatjana Lorkovic was invaluable.

I would also like to thank Tom Morehouse of the New EnglandAir Museum, Kate Igoe of the Smithsonian National Air and SpaceMuseum, Maria Zapata of the Haas Art Library of Yale University,David Thompson and Maria Singer of the Yale Center for BritishArt, and Kathryn James and E. C. Schroeder of the Beinecke Rare

xiii






xiv Acknowledgments

Book and Manuscript Library of Yale University. Their courtesy andprofessionalism were invaluable in the search for suitable images.

Maija Jansson suffered through the long gestation and birth painsof the book, putting up with a distracted and often crabby author.She read the whole manuscript, some of it several times, and keptreminding me that it would come to an end, and so it did. To her Idedicate the result.






PROLOGUE

Russia is not an idea. It is a specific country, with a particularplace on the globe, a majority language and culture, and a veryconcrete history. Yet for most of the twentieth century, outside of itsboundaries, it has been an idea, not a place – an idea about socialism.Tremendous debates have raged over its politics, economics, andculture, most of them conducted by and for people who did notknow the language, never went there, and knew very little aboutthe country and its history. Even the better informed wrote andspoke starting from presuppositions about the desirability or un-desirability of a socialist order. Some were crude propagandists,but even the more conscientious, those who learned the languageand tried to understand the country, began by posing questionsthat came from their assumptions about socialism. The result was anarrow agenda of debate: was a planned economy effective or not?How many political prisoners were there? How could the Soviets puta man in space? Should the system be called socialism, communism,or totalitarianism? Was “communism” a result of Russian history?Did the Russian intelligentsia prepare the way for communism,unintentionally or not? Did the gradual modernization of Russiamake 1917 inevitable? In all these debates the history of Russia upto the moment of the revolution was just a preface.

In Russia the collapse of the Soviet Union brought to light aflood of historical publications. These publications include numer-ous monographs on a great variety of topics, many biographies,and a massive quantity of publications of the various records of the

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xvi Prologue

Soviet regime, including the deliberations of its leaders. The aimof these publications was to illuminate the areas previously closedto investigation, and naturally the first post-Soviet writings weredevoted to the most controversial or mysterious issues. Books onthe Ribbentrop-Molotov pact of 1939, collectivization, and famine;publications of Stalin’s private correspondence; and other issueswere first on the agenda. Western historians participated in thesepublications, which gave a whole new understanding of the con-tentious issues of Soviet history. Yet the result is far from perfect.As the document publications and monographs continue to pourout in Russia and abroad, they pose more and more questions thathistorians used to the politicized debates of the Cold War era neverthought about. Paradoxically, it seems harder rather than easierto understand the story of the Soviet era of Russian history. Thepresent work reflects this difficulty, and the reader will find manyquestions left unresolved.

The collapse of the Soviet Union, paradoxically, has had as muchor more effect on the writing about Russia’s history before 1917.Now the earlier history is not just a preface but a millennium oftime that no longer ends in the Soviet experience, however impor-tant that may be. The flood of new publications, in this case mainlyfrom historians in Russia, includes virtually every period and aspectof Russian history before 1917. There are now not just biographiesof tsars and empresses, but also of major and minor political figuresand fairly ordinary people. Local history has come into being, pro-viding the kind of concrete knowledge of the variety of the country’shistory that has been routine in other countries for a long time.

Russia in its history and in its present is a mix of many differentelements. Until the fifteenth century the people called themselvesand their land “Rus,” not Russia (“Rossiia”), and it included manyterritories not now within Russian boundaries. From its inception itcontained peoples who were not Russian or even Slavic, but whomRussians understood as integral parts of their society. By 1917 thetsars and millions of Russian settlers in the steppe and Siberia hadacquired a territory far beyond the original medieval boundaries,and the Soviet state conserved most of that area. Consequently itshistory has to extend beyond the boundaries of today’s Russian






Prologue xvii

Federation and incorporate the various incarnations of Russia aswell as its diversity.

A society economically backward until the twentieth century,Russia shared many traits with nearly all pre-industrial societies –primitive agriculture, small and few cities, mass illiteracy. Russia’shistorical fate was to become the largest contiguous political unitin the world and eventually expand over the whole of northernAsia. It was a realm equally distant from Western Europe and fromthe Mediterranean world. It covered huge areas but was extremelythinly populated until the end of the seventeenth century. For thefirst seven hundred years its peripheral status was strengthened by itsadherence to Europe’s minority Christian faith, Orthodoxy, ratherthan any of the Western European churches. Then, with Peter theGreat, Russia entered European culture within a single generationand participated in all phases of European cultural life onwards,starting with and including the Enlightenment. Cultural evolutionwas easier and faster than social and political change, creating asociety with a modern culture and an archaic social and politicalstructure. The rapid industrialization of Russia after 1860 in turncreated tensions that led to the spread of Western ideas that werenot necessarily the dominant ones in the West. Thus for most ofthe twentieth century Marxism, an ideology born in the Rhinelandout of the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel combined with Britisheconomics and French utopian socialism, reordered Russian societywhile remaining marginal in the lands of its birth.

In the West itself, Russia was simply remote. For the English poetJohn Milton it was “the most northern Region of Europe reputedcivil.” Milton’s view reflected the way Europeans perceived Russiafrom the Renaissance onward, as part of Europe and as “north-ern” rather than “eastern.” It is only in the nineteenth century thatRussia became “eastern” to Europeans, and to many Russians aswell. In nineteenth-century Western Europe, “eastern” was not acompliment: it implied that Russia, like the lands the West was thencolonizing, was barbaric, despotic, and dirty, and the people proba-bly were inferior in some way. Europeans did not learn Russian, andthey did not study the country, and neither did Americans, until thebeginning of the Cold War. Even when Tolstoy and Tchaikovskyhad become part of the Western pantheon, the country as a whole






xviii Prologue

was still a mystery, as Winston Churchill insisted. The uniquenessof the Soviet order only increased that element of mystery. In con-trast, when the French Revolution occurred, it took place in thecenter of Western Europe among a people whose language hadbecome the principle language of international communication. TheRussian Revolution took place in a far country, and few outsideRussia knew the language or had any understanding of the countryand its history. Even though the Bolsheviks created a new societyfollowing a Western ideology, it necessarily remained an enigma inthe West.

Had the Russian Revolution found no followers abroad, perhapsSoviet society would have remained a peculiar system studied onlyby a few devoted scholars. Its impact however, was enormous, andremains so to this day. China, the world’s most populous countryis still ruled by a Communist Party that shows no signs of sharingpower, whatever its economic policies. Communism was the centralissue of world politics for two generations of the twentieth century.The inevitable consequence was that commentators in the West,journalists or scholars, even ordinary tourists looked at an idea, theSoviet version of socialism, not at a specific country with a specifichistory. With the end of the Soviet Union, Russian history no longerhas to be the story of the unfolding of one or another idea. It hasbecome the continuous history of a particular people in a particularplace. The present book is an attempt to reflect that change. It seeksabove all to tell the story and explain it where possible. In manycases explanations are hard to come by, but it is the hope that thereader will find food for reflection in a history that is nothing if notdramatic.






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Map 6. Soviet Union in the Second World War, 1941–5.

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