by James Millar
Many Russian intellectuals were dismayed at the popularity of the commercial chapbooks, which they viewed as expressions of a degenerate urban culture that was corrupting the hearts and minds of the Russian peasantry. Some, like Leo Tolstoy, tried to combat the chapbooks by producing a special “people’s literature,” others by publishing low-priced works from the contemporary literary canon. Literacy committees and zem-stvos also produced cheap editions of belles lettres and popular science. The most successful commercial chapbook publisher, Ivan Sytin, began printing works by Tolstoy and other literary figures for a mass readership in 1884. The Orthodox Church, while condemning the harmful influence of the commercial chapbooks, published inexpensive editions of saints’ lives, prayer books, the scriptures, religious stories, and even some works by secular authors. The state also subsidized the
CHARSKAYA, LYDIA ALEXEYEVNA
publication of religious, moralistic, and patriotic literature for soldiers and the common people.
Chapbooks, like other publications, were subject to censorship in tsarist Russia. Although the state was concerned about the potentially subversive impact of commercial chapbooks on the common people, there was never a special censorship of publications intended to be read by the lower classes. The state did, however, impose restrictions on the titles that were available in libraries and reading rooms for the common people, or that could be read to popular audiences. Most restrictions were relaxed after the 1905 Revolution, when the preliminary censorship of publications was abolished.
During World War I, commercial publishers, with the encouragement of the state, produced chapbooks glorifying the exploits of Russian soldiers. After the February Revolution brought an end to the tsarist autocracy, there was a brief upsurge of often lascivious stories about Rasputin and the imperial family. Following the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks nationalized the commercial publishing houses and suppressed the chapbooks as part of their effort to transform popular tastes. See also: CENSORSHIP; LUBOK.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brooks, Jeffrey. (1978). “Readers and Reading at the End of the Tsarist Era.” In Literature and Society in Imperial Russia, 1800-1914, ed. William Mills Todd III. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Brooks, Jeffrey. (1979). “The Kopeck Novels of Early Twentieth-Century Russia.” Journal of Popular Culture 13:85-97. Brooks, Jeffrey. (1985). When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kelly, Catriona, and Shepherd, David, eds. (1998). Constructing Russian Culture in the Age of Revolution: 1881-1940. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
E. ANTHONY SWIFT
Lydia Charskaya worked as an actress at the Alexandrinsky Theater from 1898 to 1924. Between 1901 and 1916 she published about eighty books, several of which became bestsellers, the most popular of which was Princess Dzhavakha (Knyazhna Dzhavakha, 1903).
The novels fall into four general categories: “institute” stories that take place in boarding schools for elite girls; historical novels about women; “autobiographical” novels that follow the heroine from boarding school to a career; and detective and adventure stories. The main theme throughout most of these stories is friendship among girls; the heroines generally are independent girls and women who seek adventure or some sort of diversion from the routine of everyday life. Later critics have commented that these characteristics account in large part for the books’ wide popularity among young girls in early twentieth-century Russia.
Charskaya’s reputation began to fade after 1912 when the critic Kornei Chukovsky published an article in which he wrote that her books were formulaic, repetitious, and excessive with respect to female emotions. She ceased publishing in 1916, and in 1920 Narkompros (People’s Commissariat of Enlightenment) included her work on the list of “banned” books. From 1924 until her death in 1937 she lived in poverty, supported mostly by loyal friends. Throughout the Soviet period her work was regarded with disdain, although ample evidence exists that young girls continued secretly to read her books, at least through the 1930s. During the late 1980s and 1990s Charskaya’s work enjoyed a revival in Russia, as several of her books appeared in new editions. See also: CHUKOVSKY, KORNEI IVANOVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Holmgren, Beth. (1995). “Why Russian Girls Loved Charskaia.” Russian Review 54(1):91-106. Zernova, Ruth, and Putilova, Evgeniia. (1994). “Charskaia, Lidiia Alekseevna.” In Dictionary of Russian Women Writers, ed. Marina Ledkovsky, Charlotte Rosenthal, Mary Zirin. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
ELIZABETH JONES HEMENWAY
CHARSKAYA, LYDIA ALEXEYEVNA
(1875-1937); pseudonym of Lydia Alexeyevna Churilova; Russian novelist, poet, and actress.
CHARTER OF THE CITIES
The Charter of the Cities (Charter on the Rights and Benefits for the Towns of the Russian Empire) was
CHARTER OF THE NOBILITY
issued by Catherine the Great on April 21, 1785, together with the Charter to the Nobility; its importance is suggested by the fact that the date was Catherine’s birthday. Also composed, but never issued, was a Charter for State Peasants. All three charters are parallel in structure, down to individual articles, indicating that they were intended as a single body of legislation establishing definitions, duties, rights, and privileges for three important legal estates.
The Charter has 178 articles, of which article 123 comprises an Artisans’ Regulation of 117 articles. Building on earlier laws on urban administration, the Charter instituted an urban corporation comprising six categories of inhabitants: (1) owners of immoveable property (houses, shops, land); (2) merchants in three guilds (delineated by self-declared capital); (3) artisans in craft corporations; (4) merchants from other towns or governments; (5) “eminent” citizens (by education, wealth, or public service); and (6) long-time residents unqualified for other categories but earning a living in town. There are detailed instructions for establishing eligibility and compiling registries of all these groups.
Each category elected representatives to a town council and a single delegate to a six-man council that administered affairs between plenary assemblies of the larger body. Towns were given limited rights to raise taxes, although little was said in general about finances.
The Charter applied especially to St. Petersburg and Moscow, less so to small towns often lacking all six categories. Still it was instituted, at least on paper, in the more than four hundred towns in the empire. The Charter was replaced by a command structure of municipal administration by Emperor Paul (1797), but reinstituted by Alexander I (1802). As an example of grand principles applied across the board without regard to local circumstances, the Charter remained a poorly functioning basis for urban administration until 1870, when replaced by the reform of Alexander II. See also: CATHERINE II; CHARTER OF THE NOBILITY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Griffiths, David, and Munro, George E., tr. and eds. (1993). Catherine II’s Charters of 1785 to the Nobility and the Towns. Bakersfield, CA: Charles Schlacks. Munro, George E. (1989). “The Charter to the Towns Reconsidered: The St. Petersburg Connection.” Canadian-American Slavic Studies 23:17-34.
GEORGE E. MUNRO
CHARTER OF THE NOBILITY
The Charter of the Nobility (often referred to as The Charter to the Nobility) was issued by Catherine the Great in 1785. The Charter should not be seen as an isolated document. Rather it is the product of a broad legislative and administrative agenda. Related documents that link the Charter are those that formed the Legislative Commission of 1767, the actual Statute of Local Administration of 1775, and the Charter to the Towns (also called Charter of the Cities) of 1785.
The eighteenth century in Russia, as in Europe, saw substantial advancement in the power, wealth, and prestige of the nobility. In Russia, this impetus came after 1725, the year of Peter the Great’s death. Through various means, including personal dictate and the Table of Ranks (1722), Peter was able to enforce considerable adherence to the practice of two things he deemed necessary: compulsory sta
te service and advancement by merit, not lineage. His death signified that the nobility would immediately begin to reclaim its privileges.
This process united the Russian nobility despite its disparate makeup. By 1762, when Peter III was on the throne, just prior to Catherine the Great’s accession, a law was passed emancipating the nobles from compulsory service to the state. Catherine’s rule (1762-1796) was decidedly pro-aristocracy. Whether the measures she undertook were seen in the context of modernizing Russian administration or in advancing reform, they were not detrimental to the nobility’s agenda. The aristocrats were in the ascendancy, Catherine was a supreme pragmatist, and the state was satisfied with being able to partially regularize the affairs of its principal class. Specialists often point out that this regularization led to a semblance of the rule of law in an autocratic state. Specific rights and duties were clearly defined. When one looks at the actual Charter of the Nobility, one sees what appears to be an extension of rights.
Isabel de Madariaga (1990) accurately breaks down the rights by category. In terms of personal rights, the Charter guaranteed the nobles trial by their peers, no corporal punishment, freedom from the poll tax, freedom from compulsory army duty, the right to travel abroad, and the right to enter foreign service. (This is a partial list.) Property rights were enhanced by allowing the nobles to exploit their mineral and forest resources. Manufacturing on their own land was permitted and the right to
CHASTUSHKA
purchase serfs was reinforced. As for corporate rights, the nobility’s rights of assembly were solidified and they were given the privilege of directly petitioning the empress. Historically, the upper nobility exercised this right anyway, whether it was written or not.
The Charter clearly was not a new concession to the nobility. But it consolidated numerous conditions and prerogatives. It is important to observe that serious advancement in power and prestige was still linked to government service.
The principal effects of the Charter are not always precisely traceable since so many varied elements intersected. Yet, it is safe to say that the aristocracy’s role in local and regional affairs was magnified. The central government’s apparatus for these political functions could thus be partially trimmed. Some authors indicate a potential distancing between the central and provincial governments. It is not clear how much administrative unification or cohesion resulted at either level of government because of the Charter’s promulgation. See also: CATHERINE II; CHARTER OF THE CITIES; PETER I
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jones, R. E. (1973). The Emancipation of the Russian Nobility. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Madariaga, Isabel de. (1990). Catherine the Great: A Short History. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press. Raeff, Marc (1966). The Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia: The Eighteenth Century Nobility. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World.
NICKOLAS LUPININ
CHASTUSHKA
A very popular modern Russian folk lyrical miniature or short song performed solo or by a chorus in a monothematic style. Deriving from the Russian word chasto meaning “rapid,” the chastushka is very simple in structure, usually consisting of four-line stanzas that are repetitively sung at a rapid tempo. It had its origins in simple and repetitive rhythmic peasant songs, usually based on folk sayings and proverbs and performed as overtures to dance music cycles. The advent of the balalaika (a two- and later three-string musical instrument) in the eighteenth century, which was mainly used to accompany dance performances, helped to crystallize the chastushka into a new musical genre sometime at the turn of the nineteenth century. From the mid-nineteenth century, the harmonica came to play an increasingly important role as an accompanying instrument and soon became the standard. Today, chastushki are of four main types: the four- and six-line lyrical, satirical (sometimes obscene), etc. accompanied choral songs; dance songs; paradoxical and fable songs; and two-line “suffering” or lamentation songs. The satirical chastushki have been the most common, in large part because of their amusing and didactic nature as well as their use in expressing socio-political thoughts of the day. The growing social and political grievances, particularly after the Great Reforms of 1861 and industrialization, were commonly expressed in these chastushki that satirized the tsarist regime, the nobles, and the Church. In this way, the chas-tushka became a vehicle for venting the growing frustration of the peasants and industrial workers. Its peasant origins and simple structure made the chastushka a very attractive form of spreading Soviet propaganda and engineering a new “socially and politically conscious” Soviet citizen after the Revolutions of 1917. See also: FOLK MUSIC
ROMAN K. KOVALEV
CHAYANOV, ALEXANDER VASILIEVICH
(1888-1937), pseudonym Ivan Kremnev, theoretician of the peasant family farm, leading chair of agricultural economics in Soviet Russia in the 1920s.
Born in Moscow, Alexander Chayanov entered the famous Moscow Agricultural Institute in 1906 (known as the Petrovsky Agricultural Academy from 1917 to 1923 and as the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy since 1923) and graduated with a diploma in agricultural economics in 1911. Appointed associate professor in 1913, he became full professor and chair of the agricultural organization in 1918, and worked at the academy until his arrest in 1930. In 1919 he was appointed director of the Seminar of Agricultural Economy. In 1922 this institution became the Research Institute for Agricultural Economics and Politics. As director, Chayanov gathered an illustrious body of reCHEBRIKOV, VIKTOR MIKHAILOVICH searchers. Often traveling abroad from 1911 onward, he became an internationally recognized specialist in his field, forming a network of correspondence in more than sixty countries. Chayanov actively participated in the Russian cooperative movement, filling leading positions during World War I and after the Revolution. From 1917 onward, he also took part in shaping agricultural policy, drafting plans for agricultural development at the Peoples Commissariat for Agriculture and the State Planning Commission.
Accused of being the head of the “Toiling Peasant Party,” Chayanov was arrested in 1930. Only in 1987 did details of his further fate become known. Although the planned show trial never took place, he was sentenced to five years in prison in 1931 and exiled to Kazakhstan. Released due to his poor state of health, Chayanov worked from 1933 to 1935 in the Kazakh Agricultural Institute in Alma-Ata, teaching statistics. In connection with the show trial against Bukharin, he was newly arrested in March 1937, sentenced to death October 3, 1937, and shot the same day in Alma-Ata.
Belonging to the “neopopulist tradition,” in the 1920s Chayanov became the most eminent theoretician of its Organization and Production School of Agricultural Doctrine. His fundamental work, Peasant Farm Organization (1925), was published in an earlier form in 1923 in Berlin. Emphasizing the viability of peasant agriculture and its ability to survive, he posited a special economic behavior of peasant households that relied almost exclusively on the labor of family members. Unlike the capitalist enterprise, the peasant family worked for a living, not for a profit, thus the degree of “self-exploitation” was determined not by capitalist criteria but by a hedonic calculus. He envisioned the modernization of traditional small farming not as part of capitalist or socialist development, but as part of a peasant process of raising the technical level of agricultural production through agricultural extension work and cooperative organization. His vision of a future peasant Russia is described in his utopian novel Journey of My Brother Alexei to the Land of Peasant Utopia (1920). This work later became instrumental in his downfall. His studies on the optimal size of agricultural enterprises are of interest even today. Chayanov’s theory of the peasant mode of production challenged the Marxist interpretation of differentiation of the peasantry into classes by positing the idea of a cyclical mobility based on the peasant family life cycle. Chayanov’s ideas have survived him. His work after his arrest was rediscovered in the West in the mid-1960s. His pioneering study of the family labor farm now claimed the attention of agricultural sociologists, anthropologists, and ethn
ologists working on developing countries where the peasant economy remains a predominant factor. In spite of the problematic nature of part of his work, it is generally seen as an important contribution to the development of the theory of peasant economy. See also: AGRICULTURE; PEASANT ECONOMY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bourgholtzer, Frank, ed. (1999). “Aleksandr Chayanov and Russian Berlin.” Journal of Peasant Studies 26 (Special Issue). Harrison, Mark. (1975). “Chayanov and the Economics of the Russian Peasantry.” Journal of Peasant Studies 2(4):389-417. Kerblay, Basile. (1966). “A. V. Chayanov: Life, Career, Works.” In Chayanov, Aleksandr V., The Theory of Peasant Economy, eds. Daniel Thorner, Basile Kerblay, R. E. F. Smith. Homewood, IL: Richard Irwin (American Economic Association). Millar, James R. (1970). “A Reformulation of A. V. Chayanov’s Theory of the Peasant Economy.” Economic Development and Cultural Change 18:219-229.
STEPHAN MERL
CHEBRIKOV, VIKTOR MIKHAILOVICH
(b. 1923), Soviet party and police official; head of the KGB from 1982 to 1988.
