Encyclopedia of Russian History

by James Millar

  STUART FINKEL

  STATE STATISTICAL COMMITTEE See GOSKOMSTAT.

  STATUTE OF GRAND PRINCE VLADIMIR

  Allegedly authored by Grand Prince Vladimir (r. 980-1015), who is credited with the conversion of Kievan Rus to Christianity, the Statute established the principle of judicial separation between secular and clerical courts and forbade any of the Prince’s heirs from interfering in the church’s business. The Statute provided that all church personnel would be tried in church courts, no matter what the subject under litigation. The text scrupulously lists those who qualified for clerical jurisdiction, identifying not only monastics and members of church staffs, but also various social outsiders: pilgrims, manumitted slaves, and the blind and lame, for instance. In addition, the Statute granted church courts exclusive jurisdiction over certain offenses, even if secular subjects of the prince were involved. Divorce, fornication, adultery, rape, incest, disputes over inheritance, witchcraft, sorcery, charm-making, church theft, and intrafamilial violence were among the subjects assigned to church courts. Over and above the income generated by church courts, the Statute assigned the church a tithe from all the Rus land and a portion of various fees that the Prince collected. Finally, the text authorized bishops to supervise the various weights and measures employed for trade.

  ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

  1473

  STATUTE OF GRAND PRINCE YAROSLAV

  More than two hundred copies of the Statute survive, but none is older than the fourteenth century, a relatively late date for a document of such ostensible importance. In addition, the text includes some obvious errors that have helped undermine confidence in the legitimacy of the Statute. For instance, in the opening section the Statute reports that Grand Prince Vladimir accepted Christian baptism from Photius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who died almost a century before Vladimir converted to Christianity.

  The most recent study of the Statute, however, has concluded that, if not in Vladimir’s own time, then very soon thereafter, something like the Statute must already have existed. Archetypes of different parts of the Statute probably did originate in the reign of Vladimir, but the archetype of the entire Statute seems not to have arisen before the mid-twelfth century. This document, no longer extant, fathered two new versions in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, and each of these, in turn, contributed to a host of local reworkings, especially during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. As many as seven basic versions of the Statute survive, each evidently revised to correspond to local circumstances and changing times.

  No later than early in the fifteenth century, however, the Statute had come to enjoy official standing in the eyes of both churchmen and secular officials. In 1402 and again in 1419 Moscow Grand Prince Basil I (1389-1425) confirmed the judicial and financial guarantees laid out in the Statute. As a result, most extant copies survive along with other texts of secular and canon law in manuscript books like the Kormchaya kniga (the chief handbook of canon law) and miscellanies of canon law. Medieval secular codes, such as the Novgorod Judicial Charter and Pskov Judicial Charter, confirm that church courts in Rus did exercise independent authority, just as the Statute of Vladimir decreed. See also: KIEVAN RUS; NOVGOROD JUDICIAL CHARTER; PSKOV JUDICIAL CHARTER; STATUTE OF GRAND PRINCE YAROSLAV; VLADIMIR, ST.

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Kaiser, Daniel H. (1980). The Growth of the Law in Medieval Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kaiser, Daniel H., ed., tr. (1992). The Laws of Rus’: Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries. Salt Lake City, UT: Charles Schlacks, Jr.

  1474

  Shchapov, Yaroslav N. (1993). State and Church in Early Russia, Tenth-Thirteenth Centuries, tr. Vic Shneierson. New Rochelle, NY: A. D. Caratzas.

  DANIEL H. KAISER

  STATUTE OF GRAND PRINCE YAROSLAV

  The Statute is reported to have come from the hand of Grand Prince Yaroslav (r. 1019-1054), son of Kievan Grand Prince Vladimir, who is credited with the conversion of Rus to Christianity and also with the authorship of the Statute of Grand Prince Vladimir, which instituted church courts in Kievan Rus. Inasmuch as no copy of Yaroslav’s Statute from before the fifteenth century survives, many historians doubted the authenticity of the document, but modern textological study has rehabilitated the Statute.

  Scholars now know of some one hundred copies of the Statute, which may be divided into six separate redactions that reflect changes in the document’s content as it developed in different parts of the Rus lands in the medieval and early modern period. The archetype of the Statute evidently did appear in Rus in the reign of Yaroslav, and gave birth to the two principal versions that dominated all later modifications in the text. The archetype of the Expanded version came into being in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, then spawned a host of specially adapted copies in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The Short version seems to have arisen early in the fourteenth century, also stimulating many further variations in the document’s content and organization in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. No later than early in the fifteenth century the Statute came to enjoy official standing in the eyes of both churchmen and secular officials. In 1402 and again in 1419 Moscow Grand Prince Basil I (1389-1425) confirmed the judicial and financial guarantees laid out in the Statute. Most extant copies, consequently, survive along with other texts of secular and canon law in manuscript books such as the Kormchaya kniga (the chief handbook of canon law).

  According to the statute’s first article, Grand Prince Yaroslav, in consultation with Metropolitan Hilarion (1051-1054), used Greek Christian precedent and the example of the prince’s father to give church courts jurisdiction over divorce and to extend to the church a portion of fees collected by the

  ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

  STAVKA

  Grand Prince. The various versions of the statute contained additional provisions, whose specifics depended upon the place and time that the version was created. Among other subjects, articles consider rape, illicit sexual intercourse, infanticide, bigamy, incest, bestiality, spousal desertion and other issues of family law and sexual behavior. The Statute also attempted to regulate Christian interaction with Muslims, Jews, and those who were faithful to indigenous religions. Finally, the Statute confirmed the precedent articulated in the Statute of Grand Prince Vladimir, according to which both monastic and church people would be subject exclusively to the authority of church courts. Later versions sometimes provided for punishment by secular authorities, but in the main version the Statute relied upon monetary fines to punish wrongdoers.

  No records of litigation that employed the Statute survive from Kievan Rus, but similar statutes that arose in Novgorod and Smolensk suggest that something like Yaroslav’s Statute existed in Kiev. In addition, secular codes such as the Novgorod Judicial Charter and Pskov Judicial Charter confirm that church courts in Rus did exercise jurisdiction independent of secular courts. See also: BASIL I; KIEVAN RUS; STATUTE OF GRAND PRINCE VLADIMIR; YAROSLAV VLADIMIROVICH

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Kaiser, Daniel H. (1980). The Growth of the Law in Medieval Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kaiser, Daniel H., ed., tr. (1992). The Laws of Rus’: Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries. Salt Lake City, UT: Charles Schlacks, Jr. Shchapov, Yaroslav N. (1993). State and Church in Early Russia, Tenth-Thirteenth Centuries, tr. Vic Shneierson. New Rochelle, NY: A. D. Caratzas.

  DANIEL H. KAISER

  STAVKA

  Stavka was the headquarters of the Supreme Commander of the Russian armed forces (SVG, 1914-1918), or of the Supreme High Command of the Soviet armed forces during World War II.

  During World War I, the Imperial Russian version of Stavka constituted both the highest instance of the tsarist field command and the location (successively at Baranovichi, Mogilev, and Orel) of the Supreme Commander. A succession of incumbents, including Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, Tsar Nicholas II, and Generals Mikhail Alexeyev, Alexei Brusilov, and Lavr Kornilov, wielded broad powers
over wartime fronts and adjacent areas. The scale, scope, and impact of modern wartime operations demonstrated the need for such a command instance to direct, organize, and coordinate strategic actions and support among lesser headquarters, functional areas, and supporting rear. However, for reasons ranging from failed leadership to inadequate infrastructure and poor communications, the organizational reality never completely fulfilled conceptual promise. Between 1914 and March 1918, when Vladimir Lenin abolished a toothless version of Stavka upon conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk agreement, the headquarters grew from five directorates and a chancery to fifteen directorates, three chanceries, and two committees. In 1917, before occupation by the Bolsheviks in December, Stavka also served as an important center of counterrevolutionary activity.

  During World War II, a Soviet version of Stavka again constituted the highest instance of military-strategic direction, but with a mixed military-civilian composition. Known successively as the High Command, Supreme Command, and Supreme High Command, Stavka functioned under Josef Stalin’s immediate direction and in coordination with the Politburo and the State Defense Committee (GKO). Stavka’s role was to evaluate military-strategic situations, to adopt strategic and operational decisions, and to organize, coordinate, and support actions among field, naval, and partisan commands. The General Staff functioned as Stavka’s planning and executive agent, while all-powerful Stavka representatives, including Georgy Zhukov and Alexander Vasilevsky, frequently served as intermediaries between Moscow headquarters and major field command instances. See also: MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET; WORLD WAR I; WORLD WAR II

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Jones, David R. (1989). “Imperial Russia’s Forces at War.” In Military Effectiveness, Vol.1: The First World War, eds. Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Shtemenko, S. M. (1973). The Soviet General Staff at War. 2 vols. Moscow: Progress Publishers.

  BRUCE W. MENNING

  ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

  1475

  STEFAN YAVORSKY, METROPOLITAN

  STEFAN YAVORSKY, METROPOLITAN

  (1658-1722), metropolitan of Ryazan and first head of the Holy Synod.

  Born to a poor noble family in Poland, Yavorsky and his family moved to Left-Bank Ukraine to live in a territory controlled by Orthodox Russia. After studying in the Petr Mohyla Academy in Kiev, Yavorsky temporarily converted to Byzantine-Rite Catholicism so he could continue his education in Catholic Poland. In 1687, he returned to Kiev and the Orthodox Church and became a monk. As a teacher in the Kiev Academy, Stefan’s eloquence attracted the favorable attention of Peter I, who made him metropolitan of Ryazan in 1700. After the death of Patriarch Adrian I in 1700, Peter made Stefan the locum tenens of the Patriarchal throne.

  Initially Stefan supported Peter’s reform program. But over time, Peter’s treatment of the Orthodox Church elicited Stefan’s criticism and brought a corresponding decline in his influence. Stefan quietly objected to the secularization of church property and new restrictions on monasti-cism. Tensions between Peter and Stefan were only exacerbated by Stefan’s zealous prosecution of the Moscow apothecary Dmitry Tveritinov, whose heresy trial lasted from 1713 to 1718. Influenced by Lutheran ideas, Tveritinov rejected icons and sacraments and claimed that the Bible alone provided sufficient guidance for salvation. The heresy trial naturally brought up unpleasant questions about Western Protestant influence in Peter’s reforms. Indeed, Stefan’s attack on Lutheranism, The Rock of Faith, completed in 1718, could not be published until 1728, after Peter’s death. To make matters worse, Stefan’s political reliability came in to question after Alexei, Peter’s son, fled abroad; in one of his sermons shortly before Alexei’s flight, Stefan called him “Russia’s only hope.”

  In the meantime, Peter’s new favorite, Feofan Prokopovich, authored the Spiritual Regulation, a radical church reform that replaced the office of Patriarch at the head of the Orthodox Church with a Holy Synod-a council of bishops and priests. In a vain attempt to halt the rise of his rival, Stefan accused Feofan of heresy, but was forced to withdraw the charge and apologize. In 1721 Peter nevertheless appointed Stefan to become the first presiding member of the new Holy Synod. He died a year later.

  A transitional figure between the patriarchal and the synodal periods of the Orthodox Church, Stefan

  1476

  embodied the contradictions of early eighteenth-century Russia. One of several learned Ukrainian prelates who became prominent under Peter, Stefan both promoted Westernization and sought to limit it. He was deeply influenced by the thought of the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and helped to introduce this theology into Russian Orthodoxy through his writings. See also: HOLY SYNOD; PETER I; PROKOPOVICH, FEOFAN; RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Cracraft, James. (1971). The Church Reform of Peter the Great. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.

  J. EUGENE CLAY

  STENKA RAZIN

  (c. 1630-1671), leader of a Don Cossack revolt and hero of folksong and legend.

  Stepan Timofeyvich Razin, also known as Stenka Razin, is the hero of innumerable folksongs, legends and works of art. The most popular motif is his (legendary) sacrifice of his bride, a Persian princess, whom he throws into the Volga River for the sake of Cossack solidarity. Over the past three centuries, the name of Stepan Razin has been associated in the Russian popular mind with freedom, social justice, and heroic and adventurous manhood. The philosopher Nikolai A. Berdyaev, assessing the phenomenon of communism in Russia, characterized it as a synthesis of Marx and Stenka Razin.

  Stepan Razin, the son of a Don Cossack ataman (military leader) and, it is said, a captive Turkish woman, rose to prominence among the Cossacks at a relatively young age. Thus there was no shortage of volunteers when he led a series of brigandage expeditions to the lower Volga in 1667 and the Caspian Sea in 1668 and again in 1669, especially from among the many impoverished newcomers to the Don region, mostly former peasants escaping serfdom. Unlike other Cossack leaders, Razin welcomed the newcomers and cultivated the spirit of Cossack brotherhood and equality (obsolete by his time) among his men. His expeditions were unusually successful-Russian and Persian caravans were plundered, Persian commercial settlements and towns were devastated, a Persian fleet was defeated, and Razin’s warriors won riches and glory.

  ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

  STEPASHIN, SERGEI VADIMOVICH

  Upon returning to Russia, Razin departed from tradition by keeping his band intact and not sharing his booty with the established Cossack leaders. Moreover, as he passed through the lower Volga cities of Astrakhan and Tsaritsyn, hundreds of townsmen, fugitive peasants, and even regular soldiers flocked to his standard. The commanders of the Russian garrisons did not dare to stop the popular hero and let him and his men return to the Don region unimpeded.

  Having raised an army of perhaps seven to ten thousand, Razin announced a new campaign in 1670, aimed at settling scores with the tsar’s bo-yars and officials, the “traitors and oppressors of the poor.” The towns of Saratov and Samara opened their gates to him; Russian peasants and indigenous peoples rose up in revolt by the tens of thousands throughout the lower and middle Volga region. The rebels intended to march on Moscow, although they maintained that they were loyal to the tsar. They were defeated, however, when they besieged the next large town, Simbirsk, crushed by the government’s regular army, which exploited the lack of coordination between Cossacks and peasants. Stenka Razin fled to the Don region, where in 1671 he was captured by the men of his godfather, Kornilo Yakovlev, a leader of the Don Cossacks. Stenka Razin and his younger brother Frol were delivered to Moscow in an iron cage and executed on June 6, 1671. See also: COSSACKS; FOLKLORE; PEASANTRY

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  Field, Cecil. (1947). The Great Cossack: The Rebellion of Stenka Razin against Alexis Michaelovitch, Tsar of All the Russias. London: H. Jenkins. Fuhrmann, Joseph T. (1981). Tsar Alexis: His Reign and His Russia. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International Press. />
  ELENA PAVLOVA

  STEPASHIN, SERGEI VADIMOVICH

  (b. 1952), general-lieutenant of the internal troops of the Mnistry of Internal Affairs, member of Supreme Soviet and chair of the Defense and Security Committee, head of the Counter-Intelligence Service, minister of Internal Affairs, prime minister, and head of State Audit Commission.

  ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

  Sergei Stepashin joined the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Soviet Union and served there until 1990. He graduated from the Military Academy of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. In his last years in the Ministry of Internal Affairs he was involved in the Ministry’s response to such “hot spots” as Baku, the Fergana Valley, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Sukhumi. In 1990 he was elected to the RSFSR Supreme Soviet from Leningrad, and he served as chairman of the Committee on Defense and Security. He served in the Russian parliament until 1993. A political ally of President Boris Yeltsin, Stepashin was also appointed deputy minister of security in 1991 and held that post until 1993. In 1993 Stepashin supported Yeltsin in his struggle with the Russian parliament; Yeltsin appointed him deputy minister, then, in March 1994, minister, of the Counter-Intelligence Service. Stepashin played a leading role in unsuccessful covert efforts to overthrow the Dudayev government in Chechnya in the fall of 1994. In 1995 Yeltsin officially fired Stepashin for the fiasco in handling the Chechen raid on Budennovsk in Russia but continued his involvement in counter-intelligence activities. In 1997 Yeltsin appointed him minister of Justice. In the administrative turnover of the last years of Yeltsin’s second term, Stepashin moved up rapidly. He was appointed minister of Internal Affairs in April 1998 and then prime Minister in May 1999 to replace Yevgeny Primakov. Stepashin directed the government’s initial response to the raid of Chechen bands into Dagestan, but was replaced as prime minister by Vladimir Putin in September 1999. In 2000 Putin appointed Stepashin to head the State Auditing Commission. See also: CHECHNYA AND CHECHENS; MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET; PUTIN, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH; YABLOKO; YELTSIN, BORIS NIKOLAYEVICH