Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  EDWARD E. ROSLOF

  LIVONIAN WAR

  The Livonian War (1558-1583), for the possession of Livonia (historic region that became Latvia and Estonia) was first between Russia and the knightly Order of Livonia, and then between Russia and Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

  The outbreak of war was preceded by Russ-ian-Livonian negotiations resulting in the 1554 treaty on a fifteen-year armistice. According to this treaty, Livonians were to pay annual tribute to the Russian tsar for the city of Dorpat (now Tartu), on grounds that the city (originally known as “Yuriev”) belonged formerly to Russian princes, ancestors of Ivan IV. Using the overdue payment of

  LIVONIAN WAR

  this Yuriev tribute as a pretext, the tsar declared war on Livonia in January 1558.

  As for Ivan IV’s true reasons for beginning the war, two possibilities have been suggested. The first was offered in the 1850s by Russian historian Sergei Soloviev, who presented Ivan the Terrible as a precursor of Peter the Great in his efforts to gain harbors on the Baltic Sea and thus to establish direct economic relations with European countries. Until 1991 this explanation remained predominant in Russian and Soviet historiography; it was also shared by some Swedish and Danish scholars.

  However, from the 1960s on, the thesis of economic (trade) interests underlying Ivan IV’s decision to make war on Livonia has been subjected to sharp criticism. The critics pointed out that the tsar, justifying his military actions in Livonia, never referred to the need for direct trade with Europe; instead he referred to his hereditary rights, calling Livonia his patrimony (votchina). The alternative explanation proposed by Norbert Angermann (1972) and supported by Erik Tiberg (1984) and, in the 1990s, by some Russian scholars (Filyushkin, 2001), emphasizes the tsar’s ambition for expanding his power and might.

  It is most likely that Ivan IV started the war with no strategic plan in mind: He just wanted to punish the Livonians and force them to pay the contribution and fulfil all the conditions of the previous treaty. The initial success gave the tsar hope of conquering all Livonia, but here his interests clashed with the interests of Poland-Lithuania and Sweden, and thus a local conflict grew into a long and exhaustive war between the greatest powers of the Baltic region.

  As the war progressed, Ivan IV changed allies and enemies; the scene of operations also changed. So, in the course of the war one can distinguish four different periods: 1) from 1558 to 1561, the period of initial Russian success in Livonia; 2) the 1560s, the period of confrontation with Lithuania and peaceful relations with Sweden; 3) from 1570 to 1577, the last efforts of Ivan IV in Livonia; and 4) from 1578 to 1582, when severe blows from Poland-Lithuania and Sweden forced Ivan IV to give up all his acquisitions in Livonia and start peace negotiations.

  During the campaign of 1558, Russian armies, encountering no serious resistance, took the important harbor of Narva (May 11) and the city of Dorpat (July 19). After a long pause (an armistice from March through November 1559), in 1560 Russian troops undertook a new offensive in Livonia. On August 2 the main forces of the Order were defeated near Ermes (now Ergeme); on August 30 an army led by prince Andrei Kurbsky captured the castle of Fellin (now Vilyandy).

  As the collapse of the enfeebled Livonian Order became evident, the knighthood and cities of Livonia began to seek the protection of Baltic powers: Lithuania, Sweden, and Denmark. In 1561 the country was divided: The last master of the Order, Gottard Kettler, became vassal of Sigismund II Augustus, the king of Poland and grand duke of Lithuania, and acknowledged sovereignty of the latter over the territory of the abolished Order; simultaneously the northern part of Livonia, including Reval (now Tallinn), was occupied by the Swedish troops.

  Regarding Sigismund II as his principal rival in Livonia and trying to ally with Erik XIV of Sweden, Ivan IV declared war on Lithuania in 1562. A large Russian army, led by the tsar himself, besieged the city of Polotsk on the eastern frontier of the Lithuanian duchy and seized it on February 15, 1563. In the following years Lithuanians managed to avenge this failure, winning two battles in 1564 and capturing two minor fortresses in 1568, but no decisive success was achieved.

  By the beginning of the 1570s the international situation had changed again: A coup d’?tat in Sweden (Erik XIV was dethroned by his brother John III) put an end to the Russian-Swedish alliance; Poland and Lithuania (in 1569 the two states united into one, Rzecz Pospolita), on the contrary, adhered to a peaceful policy during the sickness of King Sigismund II Augustus (d. 1572) and periods of interregnum (1572-1573, 1574-1575). Under these circumstances Ivan IV tried to drive Swedish forces out of northern Livonia: Russian troops and the tsar’s vassal, Danish duke Magnus (brother of Frederick II of Denmark), besieged Revel for thirty weeks (August 21, 1570-March 16, 1571), but in vain. The alliance with the Danish king proved its inefficiency, and the raids of Crimean Tartars (for instance, the burning of Moscow by Khan Devlet- Girey on May 24, 1571) made the tsar postpone further actions in Livonia for several years.

  In 1577 Ivan IV made his last effort to conquer Livonia; his troops occupied almost the entire country (except for Reval and Riga). Next year the war entered its final phase, fatal to the Russian cause in Livonia.

  LOBACHEVSKY, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH

  In 1578 Russian troops in Livonia were defeated by combined Polish-Lithuanian and Swedish forces near the fortress Venden (now Tsesis), and the tsar’s vassal, duke Magnus, joined the Polish side. In 1579 the Polish king, Stephen Bathory, a talented general, recaptured Polotsk; the following year, he invaded Russia and devastated the Pskov region, having taken the fortresses of Velizh and Usvyat and having burned Velikiye Luky. During his third Russian campaign in August 1581, Bathory besieged Pskov; the garrison led by prince Ivan Shuisky repulsed thirty-one assaults. At the same time the Swedish troops seized Narva. Without allies, Ivan IV sought peace. On January 15, 1582, the treaty concluded in Yam Zapolsky put an end to the war with Rzecz Pospolita: Ivan IV gave up Livonia, Polotsk, and Velizh (Velikiye Luky was returned to Russia). In 1583 the armistice with Sweden was concluded, yielding Russian towns Yam, Koporye, and Ivangorod to the Swedish side.

  The failure of the Livonian war spelled disaster for Ivan IV’s foreign policy; it weakened the position of Russia towards its neighbors in the west and north, and the war was calamitous for the northwestern regions of the country. See also: IVAN IV

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Esper, Thomas. (1966). “Russia and the Baltic, 1494-1558.” Slavic Review 25:458-474. Kirchner, Walter. (1954). The Rise of Baltic Question. Newark: University of Delaware Press.

  MIKHAIL M. KROM

  LOBACHEVSKY, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH

  (1792-1856), mathematician; creator of the first non-Euclidean geometry.

  Nikolai Lobachevsky was born in Nizhny Novgorod to the family of a minor government official. In 1809 he enrolled in Kazan University, selecting mathematics as his major field. From Martin Bartels and Franz Bronner, German immigrant professors, he learned the fundamentals of trigonometry, analytical geometry, celestial mechanics, differential calculus, the history of mathematics, and astronomy. Bronner also introduced him to the current controversies in the philosophy of science. In 1811 Lobachevsky was granted a magisterial degree, and three years later he was appointed instructor in mathematics at Kazan University. His first teaching assignment was trigonometry and number theory as advanced by Carl Friedrich Gauss. In 1816 he was promoted to the rank of associate professor. In 1823 he published a gymnasium textbook in geometry and, in 1824, a textbook in algebra.

  Lobachevsky’s strong interest in geometry was first manifested in 1817 when, in one of his teaching courses, he dwelt in detail on his effort to adduce proofs for Euclid’s fifth (parallel) postulate. In 1826, at a faculty meeting, he presented a paper that showed that he had abandoned the idea of searching for proofs for the fifth postulate; in contrast to Euclid’s claim, he stated that more than one parallel could be drawn through a point outside a line. On the basis of his postulate, Lobachevsky construc
ted a new geometry including, in some opinions, Euclid’s creation as a special case. Although the text of Lobachevsky’s report was not preserved, it can be safely assumed that its contents were repeated in his “Elements of Geometry,” published in the Kazan Herald in 1829-1830. In the meantime, Lobachevsky was elected the rector of the university, a position he held until 1846.

  In order to inform Western scientists about his new ideas, in 1837 Lobachevsky published an article in French (“Geometrie imaginaire”) and in 1840 a small book in German (Geometrische Unter-suchungen zur Theorie der Parallellinien). His article “Pangeometry” appeared in Russian in 1855 and in French in 1856, the year of his death. At no time did Lobachevsky try to invalidate Euclid’s geometry; he only wanted to show that there was room and necessity for more than one geometry. After becoming familiar with the new geometry, Carl Friedrich Gauss was instrumental in Lobachevsky’s election as an honorary member of the Gottingen Scientific Society.

  After the mid-nineteenth century, Lobachevsky’s revolutionary ideas in geometry began to attract serious attention in the West. Eugenio Beltrami in Italy, Henri Poincare in France, and Felix Klein in Germany contributed to the integration of non-Euclidean geometry into the mainstream of modern mathematics. The English mathematician William Kingdon Clifford attributed Copernican significance to Lobachevsky’s ideas.

  On the initiative of Alexander Vasiliev, professor of mathematics, in 1893 Kazan University

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION

  celebrated the centennial of Lobechevsky’s birth. On this occasion, Vasiliev presented a lengthy paper explaining not only the scientific and philosophical messages of the first non-Euclidean geometry but also their growing acceptance in the West. At this time, Kazan University established the Lobachevsky Prize, to be given annually to a selected mathematician whose work was related to the Lobachevsky legacy. Among the early recipients of the prize were Sophus Lie and Henri Poincar?.

  In 1926 Kazan University celebrated the centennial of Lobachevsky’s non-Euclidean geometry. All speakers placed emphasis on Lobachevsky’s influence on modern scientific thought. Alexander Kotelnikov advanced important arguments in favor of close relations of Lobachevsky’s geometrical propositions to Einstein’s general theory of relativity. Lobachevsky also received credit for a major contribution to modern axiomatics and for proving that entire sciences could be created by logical deductions from assumed propositions. See also: ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Kagan, V. N. (1952). N. I. Lobachevsky and His Contributions to Science. Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. Vucinich, Alexander. (1962). “Nikolai Ivanovich Lobachevskii: The Man Behind the First Non-Euclidean Geometry.” ISIS 53:465-481

  ALEXANDER VUCINICH

  LOCAL GOVERNMENT AND ADMINISTRATION

  The history of local government in Russia and Soviet Union can be characterized as a story of grand plans and the inability to fully implement these plans. The first serious attempt to establish this branch of government in Russia came during the reign of Peter I. Between 1708 and 1719 Peter introduced provincial reforms, in which the country was divided into fifty guberniiu (provinces). Each of the provinces was then subdivided into uyezdy (districts). Appointed administrators governed the provinces, while district administrators and councils assisting provincial administrators were elected among local gentry. Provincial and district government was to be responsible for local health, education, and economic development. In 1720-1721 Peter introduced his municipal reform. This was the continuation of the earlier, 1699 effort to reorganize municipal finances. Municipal administration was to be elected from among the townspeople, and it was to be responsible for day-to-day running of a town or city.

  The results of Peter’s reforms of local and municipal government were uneven. The basic subdivisions for the country (provinces and districts) survived the imperial period and were successfully adopted by Soviet authorities. The substance of the reforms-the elective principle and local responsibility-fell victim to local apathy and inability to find suitable officials.

  Another attempt to reform local government in Russia took place during the reign of Catherine II. Catherine followed the policy of strengthening of gentry as a class, and under her Charter of Nobility of 1785, the gentry of each province was given a status of legal body with wide-ranging legal and property rights. The gentry, together with the centrally appointed governor, constituted local government in Russia under Catherine. In the same year, Catherine II granted a charter to towns, which provided for limited municipal government, controlled by wealthy merchants.

  The truly wide-ranging local and municipal reforms were instituted during the reign of Alexander II. The 1864 local government reform established local (zemstvo) assemblies and boards on provincial and district levels. Representation in district Zemstvos was proportional to land ownership, with allowances for real estate ownership in towns. Members of district Zemstvos elected, among themselves, a provincial assembly. Assemblies met once per year to discuss basic policy and budget. They also elected Zemstvo boards, which, together with professional staff, dealt with everyday administrative matters. The Zemstvo system was authorized to deal with education, medical and veterinary services, insurance, roads, emergency food supplies, local statistics, and other matters.

  Wide-ranging municipal reforms started in the early 1860s, when several cities were granted, on a trial basis, the right to draft their own municipal charter and elect a city council. The result of these experiments was the 1870 Municipal Charter. Under its provision, a town council was elected by all property owners or taxpayers. The council elected an administrative board, which ran a town between the elections.

  LOMONOSOV, MIKHAIL VASILIEVICH

  The local government reforms of 1860s and 1870s were wide-ranging and significant. However, they still left significant inequalities in the system. Electoral rights were based on property ownership, and largest property owners-the gentry in the rural areas and the wealthy merchants in the cities-had the greatest representation in the local government. These inequalities increased under the successors of Alexander II-Alexander III and Nicholas II-when peasants and the non-Orthodox religious minorities were denied rights to elect and be elected.

  The February Revolution of 1917 brought local and municipal government reforms of 1860s and 1870s to their widest possible extent. The lifting of all class-, nationality-, and religion-based restrictions on citizens’ participation in government considerably widened local government electorate. The temporary municipal administration law of June 9 formulated accountability, conflicts of interest, and appeal mechanisms. As central government weakened between February and October Revolutions, the role of local government in providing services and basic security to the citizens increased. At the same time, the soviets, the locally based umbrella bodies of socialist organizations, came into existence. The soviets and old local administrations coexisted throughout the Russian Civil War. As Bolsheviks consolidated power, however, the old local administrations were dissolved, and local soviets assumed their responsibilities. Throughout early 1920s the local soviets were purged of non-Bolshevik representatives and, by the time of Lenin’s death, they lost their practical importance as a seat of power in the Soviet Union. The structure of local soviets was similar to that of the provincial and district Zemstvos. They consisted of standing and plenary committees, which discussed matters before them and elected presidium and the chair of the soviet. Local soviets were tightly intertwined with local Communist Party structures and representatives of central government. This, together with their inability to raise taxes and tight central control, severely curtailed their effectiveness in such areas as public housing, municipal transport, retail trade, health, and welfare. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, there was a move away from soviets and toward Western models of local government. However, the shape of this branch of government is yet to be decided in the post-Communist Russian Federation. See also: ASSEMBLY OF THE
LAND; GUBERNIYA; SOVIET; TERRITORIAL-ADMINISTRATIVE UNITS; ZEMSTVO

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Kenez, Peter. (1999). A History of the Soviet Union from the Beginning to the End. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Riasanovsky, Nicholas V. (2000). A History of Russia. New York: Oxford University Press. Sakwa, Richard. (1998). Soviet Politics in Perspective, 2nd ed. London; New York: Routledge.

  IGOR YEYKELIS

  LOMONOSOV, MIKHAIL VASILIEVICH

  (1711-1765), chemist, physicist, poet.

  Mikhail Lomonosov was born in a small coastal village near Arkhangelsk. His father was a prosperous fisherman and trader. At age nineteen Lomonosov enrolled in the Slavic-Greek-Latin Academy in Moscow, a religious institution where he learned Latin and was exposed to Aristotelian philosophy and logic. In 1736 he was one of sixteen students selected to continue their studies at the newly established secular university at the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. Immediately the Academy sent him to Marburg University in Germany to study the physical sciences under the guidance of Christian Wolff, famous for his versatile interest in the links between physics and philosophy. He also spent some time in Freiberg, where he studied mining techniques. He sent several scientific papers to St. Petersburg. After five years in Germany, he returned to St. Petersburg and began immediately to present papers on physical and chemical themes. In 1745 he was elected full professor at the Academy.

  Lomonosov drew admiring attention not only as “the father of Russian science” but also as a major modernizer of national poetry. He introduced the living word as the vehicle of poetic expression. According to Vissarion Belinsky, who wrote in the middle of the nineteenth century: “His language is pure and noble, his style is precise and powerful, and his verse is full of glitter and soaring spirit.” According to Evelyn Bristol: “Lomonosov created a body of verse whose excellence was unprecedented in his own language.”