Encyclopedia of Russian History
Page 171
Kamenev was arrested, again expelled from the Party, and exiled to Siberia in October 1932, for purported association with Martemian Ryutin’s oppositionist group. Released, then readmitted to the Party in December 1933, he briefly served in Moscow bureaucratic publishing posts. On December 16, 1934, he was arrested once more, for alleged complicity in the murder of Sergei Kirov. At a January 16, 1935, secret trial he was falsely convicted for conspiring to kill Kirov and sentenced to five years imprisonment; an additional five-year sentence was added after a second secret trial in July 1935, for allegedly plotting to kill Stalin. In
KANDINSKY, VASSILY VASSILIEVICH
Lev Kamenev rose through the Bolshevik ranks to become a member of the Politburo, only to be later executed on Stalin’s orders. © BETTMANN/CORBIS July 1936, Kamenev conceded to Stalin’s demand for a public show trial. This August 1936 spectacle concluded with sixteen “Trotskyist-Zinovievist plotters” convicted on a range of fantastic charges, including spying for the Nazis. Despite Stalin’s promise to spare the lives of Old Bolsheviks, all were condemned to death. On August 24, 1936, Kamenev was executed alongside Zinoviev. See also: SHOW TRIALS; STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH; ZINOVIEV, GRIGORY YEVSEYEVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Rabinowitch, Alexander. (1976). The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd. New York: Norton. Schapiro, Leonard. (1971). The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 2nd ed. New York: Vintage. Tucker, Robert C. (1990). Stalin in Power: The Revolution From Above, 1928-1941. New York: Norton. Voskresensky, Lev. (1989). Names That Have Returned: Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, Grigori Zinovyev, Lev Kamenev, Grigori Sokolnikov, Martemyan Ryutin. Moscow: Novosti.
MICHAEL C. HICKEY
KANDINSKY, VASSILY VASSILIEVICH
(1866-1944), artist.
In 1889, after studying at Moscow University in law and economics, Vassily Vasilievich Kandin-sky participated in an expedition to the Vologda province in the north of Russia, sponsored by the Imperial Society for Natural Sciences, Ethnography, and Anthropology. The folk art, music, and rituals of the far north were influences that prompted his later decision to abandon his law profession for art at the age of thirty.
In 1897 Kandinsky moved to Munich to study at the private art school of Anton Ab?, where he met Alexei von Jawlensky and Marianne Werefkin. After finishing his studies in the Munich Academy in 1901, Kandinsky joined the Expressionist association, Phalanx, where he met Gabrielle M?nther, a student at the Phalanx school. Although Kandin-sky maintained Munich as his principle place of residence, he exhibited in Moscow at the Moscow Association of Artists, at the Izdebsky Salon in Odessa, and with the Neue K?nstlerveriningung in Munich, all the while maintaining and strengthening the contacts between Russian artists and their German counterparts.
By 1911 Kandinsky was the leading representative of the Russian avant-garde, participating in the Jack of Diamonds show and organizing the Blaue Reiter group with Franz Marc, inviting David Burliuk and the Hyleans to participate in the exhibition and the Blaue Reiter Almanac. In 1912 he published his theory of art, Concerning the Spiritual in Art, in Munich. After the outbreak of World War I, he returned to Russia and actively participated in Russian cultural life. After the Revolution of 1917, he served in IZO Narkompros (The Visual Arts Section of the People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment). From 1918 he taught at the SVOMAS (Free Art Studio), and in 1920 he became director of INKhUK (The Institute of Artist Culture). By 1921 the art establishment began to turn away from abstraction in art toward more realistic representation, and a disillusioned Kandinsky returned to Germany to participate in Bauhaus.
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KANTOROVICH, LEONID VITALIYEVICH
See also: CHAGALL, MARC
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bowlt, John E., and Long, Rose-Carol Washton, eds. (1980). The Life of Vasilii Kandinsky in Russian Art: A Study of On the Spiritual in Art. Newtonville, MA: Oriental Research Partners. Hahl-Koch, Jelena. (1993). Kandinsky. New York: Riz-zoli. Weiss, Peg. (1995). Kandinsky and Old Russia: The Artist as Ethnographer and Shaman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
MARK KONECNY
KANTOROVICH, LEONID VITALIYEVICH
(1912-1986), Soviet mathematician and economist; founder of the theory of optimal planning and of linear programming.
Kantorovich showed early promise as a mathematical scientist, entering Leningrad University at the age of fourteen and graduating at eighteen. There he did research in set theory and soon met other great Soviet mathematicians, among them Andrey Nikolaevich Kolmogorov. By 1934 Kan-torovich was made a full professor. After the war, he played an important role in the new Siberian Branch of the Academy of Sciences, moving to Novosibirsk in 1960.
During the 1930s Kantorovich contributed to the developing theory of partially ordered functional spaces. In 1938 he began his applied work in economics when he was asked by the Laboratory of the Plywood Trust to solve the problem of distributing raw materials to maximize equipment productivity under quantitative restrictions. This problem proved to be mathematically similar to that of optimizing a sown area or the distribution of transportation flows. Kantorovich solved this by using a kind of functional analysis he called the “method of resolving multipliers.” By 1939 he had published a small book laying out the main ideas and algorithms of linear programming, later advanced independently by Tjalling Koopmans, George Dantzig, and others. Subsequently, Kantorovich combined linear programming with the idea of dynamic programming to advance methods for calculating wholesale prices and transportation tariffs, a norm for the effectiveness of capital investments and depreciation allowances, and other payments. This work, generalized to planning problems on the industrial, regional, or national level, led to his receiving the Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 1975, the only Soviet economist ever so honored. A full member of the USSR Academy of Sciences from 1960, Kan-torovich received the Lenin Prize and many other honors in Russia and abroad. See also: ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Campbell, Robert W. (1961). “Marx, Kantorovich, and Novozhilov: Stoimost versus Reality.” Slavic Review 20(3): 402-18. Kantorovich, Leonid V. (1965). The Best Use of Economic Resources. Oxford: Pergamon.
MARTIN C. SPECHLER
KAPLAN, FANYA
(1887-1918), anarchist-terrorist; arrested and executed for a failed attempt on Lenin’s life.
Born into the family of a Jewish teacher in Ukraine, Fanya Kaplan (also known as Feiga Kaplan, Feiga Roitblat, Dora Kaplan) joined a local anarchist terrorist organization during the 1905 Revolution. For her participation in a bomb-making operation in Kiev, she spent ten years in the Nerchinsk penal complex in Siberia. Here she became acquainted with other female terrorists, most notably the Socialist Revolutionaries (SRs) Maria Spiridonova and Anastasia Bitsenko. A number of her prison comrades maintain that Kaplan went blind during her early years in Nerchinsk but partially recovered her vision in 1913; one memoirist also noted Kaplan’s deafness. Released by the Provisional Government’s amnesty for political prisoners following the February Revolution of 1917, Kaplan was receiving medical treatment in Ukraine when the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917. Kaplan later stated that she was a supporter not of the Bolshevik-Left SR coalition government, but rather of the Constituent Assembly promoted by the SRs and their leader Victor Chernov. In the spring of 1918 Kaplan returned to Moscow and there visited her former prison comrade, Bitsenko, who, like Spiri-donova, had joined the Left SRs. Kaplan, however, appears to have had nothing to do with the Left SR
KARACHAI
Party and little to do with the SRs. When Lenin was wounded in August 1918, Kaplan’s nervous behavior at the scene led to her arrest, although it subsequently emerged that no one had actually witnessed her role in the shooting. She was executed within days of being apprehended. Bolshevik authorities labeled Kaplan an SR and the attempt on Lenin’s life an SR terrorist conspiracy; SR leaders strongly denied both accusations during their show trial in 1922
. See also: ANARCHISM; LENIN, VLADIMIR ILICH; SHOW TRIALS; SOCIALIST REVOLUTIONARIES; TERRORISM
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jansen, Marc. (1982). A Show Trial under Lenin: The Trial of the Socialist Revolutionaries, Moscow 1922, tr. Jean Sanders. The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. Lyandres, Semion. (1989). “The 1918 Attempt on the Life of Lenin: A New Look at the Evidence.” Slavic Review 48(3):432-48.
SALLY A. BONIECE
KARACHAI
The Karachai are a small Turkic nationality of the central North Caucasus. They speak a language from the Kypchak group of the Altaic language family and are closely related to the Balkars. They inhabit high-elevation mountain valleys of the upper Kuban and Teberda river basins, and their pastures once stretched up to the peaks and glaciers of the northern slope of the Great Caucasus mountain range.
Their remote origins can be traced to Kypchak-speaking pastoralist groups such as the Polovt-sians, who may have been forced to take refuge high in the mountains by the Mongol invasions in thirteenth century. At some point before the sixteenth century, the Karachai came under the domination of the princes in Kabarda. The Crimean khanate claimed nominal jurisdiction over much of the northwest Caucasus and, correspondingly, Karachai territories, until its demise in 1782. Conversion to Islam took place gradually, gaining momentum during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. A series of military incursions into their territories motivated several Karachai elders to sign a capitulation agreement and nonaggression pact with Russian forces in 1828. Although they were officially considered subjects of the tsar from that moment, various forms of resistance to Russian rule continued until 1864. A Karachai-Cherkess autonomous region was established in 1922 and in 1926 was divided into two distinct units. Karachai territories were occupied by the forces of Nazi Germany between July 1942 and January 1943. While many Karachai men served in the Red Army, others joined bandit and anti-Soviet partisan groups. In the fall of 1943 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR ordered the deportation of the Karachai people for alleged cooperation with the Germans and participation in organized resistance to Soviet power. The Karachai autonomous region was abolished in 1944 and virtually the entire Karachai population was deported to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan. In 1956 party members and Red Army veterans were allowed to return to their homeland, and in 1957 others were legally given the right to return. In 1957 the joint Karachai-Cherkess autonomous region was reestablished and the mass return of the Karachai was initiated. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Karachai-Cherkess autonomous region became a republic of the Russian Federation.
Traditionally, Karachais subsisted on a combination of agriculture and stock-raising. As late as the first decades of the twentieth century, only one-fourth of all Karachai had adopted a completely stationary lifestyle. The rest of the population seasonally relocated from summer to winter pastures with their herds of horses, cattle, sheep, and goats. During the Soviet period, the Karachai remained one of the least urbanized groups: Less than 20 percent lived in cities. Clans were a central component of traditional Karachai social organization. Although some clans and their elders could be recognized as more prominent or senior than others, the Karachai did not have a powerful princely elite or nobility. In the twentieth century the Karachai population grew from about 30,000 to about 100,000. A Karachai literary language was developed and standardized in the 1920s. See also: CAUCASUS; CHERKESS; ISLAM; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Wixman, Ronald. (1980). Language Aspects of Ethnic Patterns and Processes in the North Caucasus. Chicago: University of Chicago.
BRIAN BOECK
KARAKALPAKS
KARAKALPAKS
Karakalpaks are a Turkic people who live in Central Asia. Of the nearly 500,000 Karakalpaks, more than 90 percent live in northwestern Uzbekistan, in the Soviet-created Karakalpak Autonomous Republic (KAR). Other Karakalpaks live elsewhere in Uzbekistan, as well as in Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Russia, and Afghanistan. Most adhere to Sunni Islam, although Sufi sects have also attracted many followers. They speak a language that is closely related to Kazakh and Kyrgyz.
Most historians trace the Karakalpaks’ origins to Persian and Mongolian peoples living on the steppes of Central Asia and Southern Russia. Their name literally meets “black hatted,” and mention of a tribe thought to be ancestral to today’s Karakalpaks first appears in Russian chronicles (as Chorniye Kolbuki) in 1146. Renowned for their military prowess, this group allied themselves with the Kievan princes in their battles with other Russian princes and tribes of the steppes. In the 1200s some Karakalpaks joined the Mongol Golden Horde, and by the 1500s they enjoyed a short-lived independence. Over time, however, they became subjects of other Central Asian peoples and eventually the Russians, who pushed into Central Asia in the 1800s.
In 1918 they were included with other Central Asian peoples in the Turkistan Autonomous Republic, and in 1925 a Karakalpak Autonomous Oblast was created in the Kazakh Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. This oblast eventually became the KAR, and in 1936 it became part of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Under Soviet rule, Karakalpaks were encouraged to move to the KAR, their nominal homeland.
The post-Soviet period found most Karakalpaks desperately poor, living in an environmentally devastated area adjacent to the rapidly shrinking Aral Sea. Serious health problems such as hepatitis, typhoid, and cancer are widespread. Despite their nomadic traditions, their economy is dominated by agriculture, especially cotton production, which has suffered due to water shortages, soil erosion, and environmental damage. Because of lack of investment in the region, the KAR’s relations with the central Uzbek government have been strained. See also: CENTRAL ASIA; ISLAM; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; UZBEKISTAN AND UZBEKS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hanks, Reuel. (2000). “A Separate Peace? Karakalpak Nationalism and Devolution in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan.” Europe-Asia Studies 52: 939-53.
PAUL J. KUBICEK
KARAKHAN DECLARATION
In the Karakhan Manifesto of 1919, the Soviet government offered to annul the unequal treaties imposed on China by Imperial Russia. The declaration, signed by Deputy Commissar of Foreign Affairs Lev M. Karakhan , included rights of extraterritoriality for Russians in China, economic concessions, and Russia’s share of the Boxer rebellion indemnity. Though dated July 25, 1919, it was not actually published for another month. Civil war prevented its delivery to China, but the Beijing authorities soon learned its substance.
Controversy arose because the document was prepared in two versions. One variant contained the statement that “the Soviet Government returns to the Chinese people, without any compensation, the Chinese Eastern Railway [CER]. . . .” The version published in Moscow in August 1919 did not include this provision, but the copy that was delivered to Chinese diplomats in February 1920 did incorporate the offer to return the CER. However, a Soviet proposal on September 27, 1920, for a Sino-Russian agreement made no mention of returning the Chinese Eastern Railway, but requested a new agreement for its joint administration by the two nations. All subsequent Soviet reprintings of the Karakhan Manifesto omit the offer to return the CER, while a Chinese reprinting of the document in 1924 included the offer. The existence of two versions manifests the ambiguity in Soviet policy toward the Far East in 1919 and 1920, arising from the unpredictable course of the civil war and foreign intervention. Thereafter, the consolidation of Bolshevik power in Siberia, combined with continuing instability in China, led Moscow to seek some degree of control over the economically and strategically important CER. See also: CHINA, RELATIONS WITH; CIVIL WAR OF 1917-1922; RAILWAYS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Degras, Jane, ed. (1951). Soviet Documents on Foreign Policy, Vol. 1: 1917-1924. London: Oxford University Press.
KASYANOV, MIKHAIL MIKHAILOVICH
Leong, Sow-theng. (1976). Sino-Soviet Diplomatic Relations, 1917-1926. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii.
TEDDY J. ULDR
ICKS
KARAMZIN, NIKOLAI MIKHAILOVICH
(1766-1826), writer, historian, and journalist.
Born in the Simbirsk province and educated in Moscow, Nikolai Karamzin served only briefly in the military before retiring to devote himself to intellectual pursuits. In 1789 he undertook a journey to western Europe, visiting several luminaries, including Immanuel Kant, on his way. Reaching Paris in the spring of 1790, he witnessed history in the making. He described his trip in his Letters of a Russian Traveler, published upon his return in 1790 in a series of journals he founded himself. The Letters display an urbane, westernized individual in command of several languages and behavioral codes and are meant to signal Russia’s coming of age. They demonstrate a keen interest in history, but primarily as a collection of anecdotes.
The short stories Karamzin wrote in the 1790s exerted tremendous influence on the development of nineteenth-century fiction. Karamzin’s main purpose in literature and journalism was to promote a culture of politeness. History became one of the main themes of his works, which grappled with the paradoxes of modernity: The systematic debunking of myths, inspired by a commitment to reason, clashed with a need to mythologize the past to throw into relief the moral and intellectual emancipation enabled by the Enlightenment.