Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  WILLIAM D. JACKSON

  RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

  In 988 Grand Prince Vladimir of Kiev adopted Eastern Orthodoxy from Byzantium and inaugurated a gradual Christianization of his realm. First affected were elites, with churches and observance limited to cities; several centuries elapsed before the church could penetrate the hinterland. Although the devastating Mongol conquest of 1237-1240 temporarily interrupted this process, the Mongols’ religious tolerance (and tax exemptions) enabled the

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  church to resume the building of parishes and monasteries. Simultaneously, the church emerged as an important political force, symbolizing Slavic unity amidst inter-princely conflict; the relocation of the metropolitan to Moscow played a key role in the triumph of Muscovy. There it was instrumental in formulating a new political culture based on the “Third Rome” theory, with Muscovy-after the fall of Constantinople in 1453-claiming leadership over Eastern Orthodoxy. Church councils codified the new Russian Orthodoxy, defended ecclesiastical ownership of lands and peasants, and achieved formal autocephalous status for the church (with its own patriarch) in 1589.

  That triumph turned to schism (raskol). The conflict erupted in the 1650s when reformist clergy attempted to modify liturgical texts and ritual practices. At issue was the model for such changes: Reformers advocated Greek models, but opponents deemed the Orthodoxy of the Third Rome inviolable and any change tantamount to apostasy. The result was a split between the official church, supported by the state, and an underground of disaffected clergy and laity, pejoratively labeled “schismatics” by the official church but self-described as “Old Believers.”

  The eighteenth century brought still more profound change. Driven by the needs of war and inspired by Western models, Peter the Great seized ecclesiastical resources, restricted the church’s role in secular affairs, and in 1721 replaced the patriarchate with a more tractable Synod. Although Peter drew short of secularizing church property (a common device of new monarchies hungry for resources), Catherine the Great proved less inhibited: In 1764 she sequestered church lands and peasants and allocated a small budget (ravaged, over time, by inflation). These clouds had a silver lining: The church now concentrated on its strictly religious mission, founded seminaries to train clergy, and tackled the daunting task of catechizing the mass of pious but uncomprehending believers.

  Despite such gains, nineteenth-century observers discerned serious problems and shortcomings in the church. One was competition from dissenters (Old Believers, sectarians, and disbelievers) and, in borderland areas, from established faiths such as Catholicism and Lutheranism. A further cause of concern was ecclesiastical adminis-tration-in particular, its stifling centralization, the monocratic rule of bishops, and the increasingly intrusive role of the chief procurator (lay overseer of the Synod). Dismaying too was the performance of parish clergy, a hereditary caste that proved lacking in personal commitment, suitable material support, and professional training. The parish itself, the nuclear institution of the church, appeared increasingly moribund, chiefly because the atrophy of parishioners’ rights undermined their interest and active involvement. Another highly contentious issue was marriage and divorce: Having retained total control over this sphere, the church severely restricted marital dissolution, a policy that aroused growing discontent among elites, urban groups, and the peasantry.

  The church did endeavor to address these issues. Before mid-century, it constructed an elaborate network of seminaries, secured subsidies for clergy in the poorest parishes, and expanded its internal mission. Far more systematic attempts came during the Great Reforms of the 1860s, including measures to abolish the hereditary caste, professionalize seminary training, restructure the parish (investing power in parish councils), and improve ecclesiastical administration and courts. But the reforms misfired and stalled, even before the “counter-reforms” of the 1880s. The revolution of 1905 triggered a new phase of desperate reformism, but it all came to naught, largely because of a skeptical, conservative state. Thus, by 1914, despite the immense size of the institution (54,923 churches; 953 monasteries; 94,629 in monastic orders and 117,915 in the parish clergy), the church suffered from a host of long-festering and debilitating problems.

  The revolutions of 1917 promised relief, but ended in disaster. The reform expectations culminated in the Church Council of 1917-1918; the first since the seventeenth century, it reestablished the patriarchate (to ensure the church’s autonomy) and tackled the long list of overdue reforms. But it had to operate under extremely adverse conditions, especially after October 1917: The new Bolshevik regime abolished the church’s juridical status, banned clergy from education, and nationalized all church assets. The civil war of 1917-1922 brought antireligious campaigns (including the exhumation of saints’ relics to expose “clerical fraud”), the closure of many ecclesiastical (especially educational, monastic, and administrative) institutions, and the arrest and execution of clergy. By 1921 the church as an institution had virtually disappeared; it existed only as individual parish churches registered by committees of laity.

  Worse was to come. Even the New Economic Policy brought no respite. In 1922 the Bolsheviks

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  ordered the confiscation of church valuables, ostensibly to feed famine victims, but actually to precipitate a schism between the “reactionary” patriarchal wing and pro-Soviet “renovationists.” But that strategy failed abysmally, and, alarmed by signs of religious revival, in 1929 the Stalinist regime declared open war on the church. By 1939 all but 1,744 churches (of the 28,560 in 1928) were closed; vast numbers of believer-activists, not just clergy, were arrested and many executed in the Great Terror. Although the exigencies of World War II forced some concessions (including election of a new patriarch in 1943 and an increase in churches, although mainly in Ukraine), the postwar regime gradually returned to its antireligious policies. The post-Stalinist “thaw” of Nikita Khrushchev brought no relief; on the contrary, his antireligious campaign reduced the number of churches from 13,414 (1958) to 7,773 (1964). The subsequent Brezhnev regime eschewed such traumatic campaigns, but used its powers of repression to cause a steady decline in the institutions of the Russian Orthodox Church.

  During the mid-1980s the church experienced recovery. The reformist Mikhail Gorbachev cautiously restored ties to the church and permitted it to reopen parishes, monasteries, and seminaries. The breakup of the USSR in 1991 removed the last barriers. Since 1991 the church has greatly expanded the number of parishes, monasteries, and seminaries (e.g., parishes increasing from 6,794 in 1986 to over 22,000 in 2002, including 9,000 in Ukraine). The church also assumed a prominent role in public life, guardedly under President Boris Yeltsin, at least until he signed the “Law on Freedom of Conscience and Religious Organizations” in 1997, privileging the traditional confessions and imposing limits on the activity of newer, foreign religious movements (i.e., Pentacostals). The links between the Russian Orthodox Church and the state became still more pronounced under President Vladimir Putin. Although the church faced stiff competition from other faiths (especially the proselytizing sects), it rebuilt its institutional structure and carved out a salient role in Russian post-communist life and culture. See also: BYZANTIUM, INFLUENCE OF; HOLY SYNOD; METROPOLITAN; OLD BELIEVERS; ORTHODOXY; PATRIARCHATE; RELIGION; SAINTS

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Curtiss, John S. (1953). The Russian Church and Soviet State, 1917-1950. Boston: Little, Brown. Ellis, Jane. (1988). The Russian Orthodox Church: A Contemporary History. London: Routledge. Ware, Kallistos. (1993). The Orthodox Church. New York: Penguin Books.

  GREGORY L. FREEZE

  RUSSIANS

  The earliest origins of Russian culture are in dispute. Some believe that the ancestors of the modern Russians were seventh- or ninth-century migrants from the Vistula River valley (now Poland). Other archaeological evidence suggests that Slavic pastoral-ists may have spread across the central
plains of Eurasia as much as a thousand years earlier, coexisting alongside northern Finnic and Lithuanian tribes. Whatever their prehistory, people sharing the same language, beliefs, social practices, and religion have occupied what is now Russia for at least a millennium. By the tenth century C.E., Eastern Slavic society was culturally distinct and highly developed in terms of agriculture, technology, commerce, and governance. Prince Vladimir I brought Byzantine Christianity to Kiev in 988 and sponsored the baptism of the peoples of Rus, a gradual process that blended Slavic pre-Christian practices with Eastern Orthodoxy.

  The Russian Empire grew steadily from the eighteenth to the twentieth century through colonization of Siberia, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. The Soviet era brought further territorial expansion. Population density also grew throughout the millennium. By 1991, the year of the end of the Soviet Union, the population of the Russian Federation was 146,393,000. Ethnic Russians comprised 81 percent of this number, with more than one hundred other ethnic nationalities, many of them culturally Russified, making up the rest. There is a recognizably Russian culture among the population of the Russian Federation and strong cultural continuity among the Russians living in the newly independent republics of Central Asia, the Baltic region, and the Caucasus.

  Russia’s cultural history is multifaceted, encompassing both the distinct patterns of the rural peasantry and the intricate social rituals of the aristocracy, the mercantile caste, the bureaucracy, and other groups. Russia’s thousand-year history of class stratification, imperial growth and contraction, political consolidation and disintegration, repression

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  and relaxation, messianism and self-examination, and socioeconomic and cultural interconnections with other nations has had far-reaching effects on every aspect of Russian national culture.

  For many centuries, the question of whether Russian culture was more “eastern” or “western” was a burning issue. Situated at the crossroads of major civilizations and empires-Scandinavian, Byzantine, Persian, Chinese, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, British-the peoples of Russia have profoundly influenced and been influenced by them all in terms of trade, technology, language, religion, politics, and the arts.

  Since at least the time of Peter the Great, Russian writers, artists, politicians, and philosophers, as well as ordinary people in everyday discourse, have engaged in intensive cultural self-examination. Ethnic Russians have struggled to redefine their national identity in the wake of the Soviet collapse and the turmoil that accompanied the end of communism.

  The northern climate has influenced cultural, social, and political institutions, settlement patterns, household configurations, village politics, agricultural systems, and technologies. Defiance of the natural limitations of this harsh environment is seen throughout Russian history and plays a significant role in local identity.

  COUNTRY AND CITY

  In 1917 the population of Russia was more than 80 percent rural. The disruptions of the Soviet period-civil war, rural collectivization, world war- brought a massive migration to the cities. By 1996, 73 percent of the population was urban. Although there are still tens of thousands of small villages, many are simply disappearing as older people die and the younger generation departs. But despite the demise of rural communities, much of the urban population retains strong material and psychological ties to the countryside. Many own modest dachas within an hour or two of their city apartments and spend their weekends and summers gardening, hiking, hunting, gathering mushrooms and berries, and swimming in lakes and rivers. Some people maintain ties to their natal villages or those of their parents or grandparents and travel there to mark significant family events.

  In the years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, a tiny minority has accrued enough wealth to build private homes and estates on the outskirts of the cities, but most people live in small apartments in apartment blocks. Space in flats can be tight, so a single room may serve as living room, bedroom, and dining room. Domestic furnishing is fairly consistent, for reasons of both cultural style and limited purchasing power. The range of consumer d?cor choices has become enormous in the largest cities but elsewhere only slightly better than it was during the Soviet period, when state stores offered little design variation. Architectural and domestic styles are changing gradually with growing consumer opportunities and increased attention to global fashions.

  At home, people spend much time in the kitchen, eating and drinking tea (or something stronger), talking, reading, watching television, cooking, or working on crafts. When guests come, people sit at the table for the entire gathering. Public spaces around apartment blocks are often decayed and dirty, so the threshold to a family’s apartment marks a transition to private, clean space. Everyone removes shoes just inside the doorway to prevent dirt being brought inside, and slippers are worn at home.

  Urban parks are an important space of everyday life. People spend leisure time strolling or sitting on benches to talk, smoke, play chess, or read. Smaller urban parks may center on a statue of a writer or political leader, and these squares are popular meeting places. Public plazas in urban centers have played a role in political and social life for centuries. The most famous of all, Moscow’s Red Square, is a historical site of government ritual, revolutionary protest, and rebellion. The central sites where parades, concerts, and state funerals are held also provide a place for festivals, family outings, and commemorations.

  GENDER RELATIONS, FAMILY, AND KINSHIP

  Russian society has always been structured around gendered divisions of labor. Prerevolutionary rural communities were patrilocal; newly married women moved in with their husband’s family and were fully subservient to his parents until they had borne sons. The details of household management were codified in texts such as the Domostroi that addressed even intimate practices of family life and patriarchal authority, influencing both the peasantry and the aristocracy. Around the turn of the twentieth century, rural and urban women of all classes experienced the loosening of gender norms,

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  A Russian mother and her children, dressed in their finest winter clothes, take a sled to the nearest village to watch television. © STAFFAN WIDSTRAND/CORBIS and many women pushed the boundaries of their social options.

  After the 1917 revolution, communist ideology promoted the liberation of women and families from oppressive norms and structures. Women engaged in what had been male-only work in agriculture, construction, and manufacturing. During the Soviet period, they played increasingly significant roles in medicine, engineering, the sciences, and other fields. By the 1980s, one-third of the deputies in the Supreme Soviet were female, and women accounted for more than 50 percent of the students in higher education. But though “liberated” to work in the public sphere, women often retained the burden of household labor. Moreover, their equal employment status was not fully reflected in the workplace, where gender discrimination was common.

  Some of the hard-earned status of women eroded after 1991. Unemployment increased in the 1990s, and women were frequently the first discharged. Managerial jobs in the new commercial sectors were largely held by men, and a traditionalist view of work and family reasserted itself throughout society. The devaluation of women’s labor contributions has been devastating for women who need to work. Some women became entrepreneurs, but they faced stiff gender prejudice in starting businesses. The percentage of women holding political office has declined, and women’s participation in high levels of industry, the sciences, the arts, and the government has shrunk. Some young women turn to prostitution, or work in bars and nightclubs, which may seem to be a way to escape poverty.

  Despite Soviet indoctrination, traditional gender ideologies never vanished: Men are not supposed to be able to cook, clean, or perform child care, whereas women are seen as driving cars, supervising others, and engaging in politics poorly. Women are held in high regard as mothers, nur-turers, and bearers of culture. Although feminists have
challenged these dichotomous gender norms,

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  and few families can afford to divide labor along strict gender lines, such ideas are widespread. Students receive equal education, but some school activities and expectations are divided by gender.

  Romantic love is the standard motivation for marriage, and cultural tradition idealizes the passion of lovers, often in a tragic form. People meet partners at school or university, at work, or at clubs or music venues. Premarital sex is generally tolerated. With little variation over the decades, twenty-three has been the average age at marriage. Almost half of all marriages end in divorce, with economic hardship and alcohol abuse being contributing factors. Ethnic intermarriage became fairly common in Soviet times.

  The nuclear family is the fundamental domestic unit, and married couples crave apartments of their own. Since the housing shortage and the high price of new apartments make this difficult, family units are often multigenerational. Many couples with children live with a widowed parent, often a grandmother, who provides child care and cooking. A grandparent’s monthly pension may be a crucial part of family income.

  Kinship is reckoned bilaterally (counting both parents’ sides), but naming is patrilineal. Until the mid-nineteenth century, kin terms for more than sixty relations were in use; since then the number of terms has greatly decreased. Even across distances, people maintain strong relations with their siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and nieces and nephews, and many are close with even more distant relatives. Among the social factors that support such ties are the low level of geographic mobility, the importance of networks of mutual aid, and regular visits to relatives in ancestral villages for summer rest and gardening.