Russian identities: a historical survey

280 Pages·2011·1.352 MB·English

by  Riasanovsky, Nicholas Valentine

RUSSIAN IDENTITIES
A Historical Survey
Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
1
2005
3
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Library ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Riasanovsky,Nicholas Valentine,1923–
Russian identities:a historical survey / Nicholas V.Riasanovsky.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN-13 978-0-19-515650-8
ISBN0-19-515650-1
1.Russians—Ethnic identity. 2.National characteristics,Russian. 3.Russia—Civilization—Philosophy.
4.Slavs,Eastern—History—Philosophy. 5.Nationalism—Russia—History. I.Title.
DK33.R53 2005
947—dc22 2004065447
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States ofAmerica
on acid-free paper
Acknowledgments
Taking into account the scope ofthis work and the fact that parts ofit were at the
center of my scholarly interest for decades, I find no effective way to make full
acknowledgments.I am thinking especially of numerous teachers and colleagues,
now dead, to whom the work is dedicated.At this point I am limiting myself to
listing the names of those specialists who read and criticized all or some of the
manuscript itself:professors Victoria Bonnell,George Breslauer,John Connelly,the
late Ernest Haas,the late Martin Malia,Robert Middlekauff,Iuri Slezkine,the late
Alexander Vucinich,the late Reginald Zelnik,and Victor Zhivov.I could expatiate
on profiting from,among other topics,Zhivov’s magnificent knowledge ofRussian
history, Breslauer’s relentless tracking of Soviet leaders, or Connelly’s precision
about relevant developments in eastern Europe; but all my readers and critics
published their own books and do not need my accolades.Obviously,however,they
should not be held responsible for the remaining mistakes and weaknesses in my
work. I received expert help also from my successive research assistants, Ilya
Vinkovetsky and Leonid Kil, both very promising young scholars. Thomas
Livingston performed excellently the task of preparing and typing the manuscript
for publication as well as compiling the index.And I must thank Oxford University
Press,helpful in everything as always,and in particular my editor,Susan Ferber,and
production editor,Linda Donnelly (not to forget the two anonymous readers for the
Press).
Last and first I want to thank my wife, Arlene.
Contents
Introduction 3
1. Prehistory 7
2. Kievan Russia 18
3. Appanage and Muscovite Russia 33
4. The Reign ofPeter the Great 74
5. The Eighteenth Century in Russia after the Death of
Peter the Great 88
6. The Reign ofAlexander I,1801–1825 111
7. The Reign ofNicholas I,1825–1855,and
the New Intellectual Climate 130
8. Russia from the Death ofNicholas I to the Abdication of
Nicholas II,1855–1917 167
9. Soviet Russia,1917–1991 211
Conclusion 231
Notes 237
Index 258
RUSSIAN IDENTITIES
Introduction
One cannot understand Russia by reason,
cannot measure her by a common measure:
She is under a special dispensation—
One can only believe in Russia.
—F.I.Tiutchev,Polnoe sobranie sochinenii
When I asked an eminent political scientist during the question period that fol-
lowed his lecture on nationalism what he thought ofthe influence ofthe Hundred
Years’War on the nationalisms ofEngland and France,he first ascertained that I was
speaking of the war that had been fought from 1337 to 1453 a.d. and after that
dismissed my question in two words:“Forget it.”1However,he explained later that
he had responded as he had not because that war could not have any appreciable
impact on those nationalisms but because the present state of scholarship offered
no way to establish or trace such an impact reliably.The explanation has its point,
and it becomes more convincing as we go further back in time.
There is an enormous and ever-growing literature on nationalism as a modern
phenomenon,linked usually to the French Revolution,or to the Industrial Revolu-
tion,or to German Idealistic philosophy and Romanticism as a whole,or to general
education and “the rise ofthe masses,”or to any combination ofthese and still other
major recent historical developments. To cite one leading writer on the subject,
Ernest Gellner argues roughly as follows:modern economy develops dynamically
and irreversibly, the only alternative being collapse, and at a certain stage in its
development it needs critical elements of support. These include sufficient size,
centralization, discipline, an educated population, and an ideology to tie closely
together and inspire all components ofthe economic unit.Nationalism supplies or
helps to supply all these needs;and teachers,publicists,writers,professors,philos-
ophers,and intellectuals in general serve as its natural and effective agents.Gellner’s
scheme,like many others,aims not only to explain nationalism but also to deter-
mine its course and pace.2
Predicating nationalism on major recent historical developments has led to
another principal characteristic of contemporary scholarship on that subject,
namely the emphasis on the artificiality,the constructed nature,ofnationalism.Far
from being treated as immemorial,ifnot eternal,and based forever on ethnicity or
on some transcendent mission,nationalism has been described as a device applied,
3
4 Introduction
both by believers in the nation and by cynics,to bolster capitalism,mobilize society
for war,or serve other interests ofrulers and ruling classes.From one point ofview,
it is a leading present-day example of false consciousness. Benedict Anderson’s
Imagined Communities captures in its very title this phenomenon.3 And indeed,
much thorough and convincing scholarship has gone into demonstrating how
intellectuals have built,or at least helpedtobuild,modern nations and nationalism.
In my case,I got to see the process ofnationalism in the making through my friend
the late Dr.Sulo Haltsonen,who was secretary of the Finnish Literary Society,the
society that, in a sense, made Finland. It was fascinating to observe the still-
continuing process of the shaping of the national language itself, from several
dialects,and the relationship that Finno-Ugric linguistics established between the
Finns and other peoples from Lapland to Hungary and Siberia.One could easily
think ofsimilar developments among certain nationalities ofthe Hapsburg empire
or some Balkan peoples a century or so earlier.While the constructed nature of
modern nationalism can be seen most clearly in the case ofnew countries,such as
Finland or Latvia,the process ofconstruction is,ofcourse,by no means limited to
them.Thus,Eugen Weber in his splendid book,Peasants into Frenchman: The Mod-
ernization ofRural France,1870–1914,4gives a striking presentation ofthe workings
of that process in France, especially by means of general education, compulsory
military service,and improvement oftransportation and communication.
Recent scholarship has done much to elucidate nationalism; but some serious
problems remain.The most important and troublesome ofthem,in my opinion,is
the relationship between nationalism and the “prenationalist”past.There is no sat-
isfactory terminology. “Prenationalist,” or “protonationalist,” has a teleological
direction,which is not really warranted.Instead I shall often refer to “identity,”but
that is a general and flexible term,which can also be applied to nationalism itself.
Even ifwe accept in the main the modern view ofnationalism,we have to recognize
that nationalism in each case descended upon not a tabula rasa,but a society with a
past.Moreover,the descent usually took many years,decades,even centuries,with
most ofthe people in question still belonging most ofthe time to the old world.
But it is not only continuity and completeness that urge attention to the prena-
tionalist past.Substantively,too,what happened long ago can be significant,even
decisive,today.For example,ifI were to name the single historical event most sig-
nificant for Russian identity and Russian nationalism, I would propose not
Napoleon’s invasion ofRussia in 1812,not Stalin’s turn to a limited and strictly con-
trolled nationalism in the late 1930s,not even the emancipation ofthe serfs in 1861,
but the so-called baptism of the Rus in 988. Without that baptism, Russia (and
Ukraine and Belarus too) might have been at present a Muslim state, with an
entirely different history,identity,and nationalism.With the baptism,Orthodoxy
became a central element in Russian history and culture,whether in the days ofthe
Kievan princes,ofthe quasi-medieval appanage Russia,ofthe Orthodox tsardom of
Muscovy,ofthe Orthodox empire ofthe Romanovs,or even,as the enemy,during
Introduction 5
the communist regime,which tried desperately but failed to eradicate it.Indeed,
one must keep both the old and the new history in mind for a full understanding of
nationalism.If,at one extreme,France today,with its rich historical past,can never-
theless be interpreted by Weber and numerous other specialists largely in strikingly
modern terms,at the other extreme,Finland,which appeared as a state as late as
1917,remains inconceivable without the Finnish language;and language is old and
never a tabula rasa.
The obstacles and difficulties in studying Russian identity and Russian national-
ism are many.Prehistory is essentially an area of speculation,with no clear struc-
ture,few reliable sources,and grave dangers lurking in arguments by interpolation
or analogy.Even such a monumental factor as the struggle with the steppe peoples
escapes precise evaluation.The baptism ofthe Rus in 988did provide a new Chris-
tian identity and brought the Rus into the mainstream ofChristian religion and cul-
ture.Yet it remains an open question how many Rus,how quickly,and how fully,
joined that mainstream or even its rivulets.In Russia,as in the West,for centuries
monks served as the main and usually only informers.Whereas the appanage period
after the fall of Kiev reminds one of the inchoate early European Middle Ages,a
greater organization and cohesion were achieved around Moscow in the fifteenth,
sixteenth,and seventeenth centuries.Indeed,some scholars write ofthe integrated
society and organic culture ofthe Muscovite tsardom.But this integration was bro-
ken by the separation ofthe Old Believers from the official church in 1666,and at the
end ofthe century by the beginning ofPeter the Great’s reforms.After the relative
success ofthese reforms and the Russian turn westward in general,the society came
to be divided sharply into a small,gradually Westernizing educated class and the
overwhelmingly peasant masses.The educated proceeded to participate,often cre-
atively,in the entire range of cultural and intellectual life of Europe,including the
increasingly prominent issue ofnationalism.The ignorant remained offstage.As the
empire ofthe Romanovs expanded,more and more non-Russians became subjects
of the tsar.When World War I broke out in the summer of 1914,Russians proper,
that is,Great Russians,formed only about halfofthe population ofthe state,with
another quarter belonging to the Ukrainian or Belarus ethnicities. Still, Russian
nationalism was growing, and it was finally acquiring some mass support. The
emancipation ofthe serfs in 1861and the other “great reforms”ofAlexander II cer-
tainly contributed to the process.The factors that Weber analyzed in France were
also operating in Russia.Most important was perhaps the increase in general edu-
cation,already considerable in reality and sweeping in prospect.The revolution of
1905 was followed by a constitutional,or a quasi-constitutional,period.If Russia
entered World War I as still essentially an old regime,it was not likely to remain in
that condition for long.But events took a different turn.The empire collapsed in
1917 and ceded its place not to a modern national state,but,in short order if not
immediately,to a communist entity that eventually adopted the name ofthe Union
ofSoviet Socialist Republics.Although there is no agreement on the subject,it is safe
6 Introduction
tosay,to put it mildly,that the seventy-five years ofcommunist rule represented a
departure and a deviation in the history ofRussian identity and nationalism.Since
1991,the earlier orientation has been able to resume its course.But what it is at pres-
ent and where it will lead is highly controversial and unpredictable.Observers seem
to agree only on the assertion that this is a transitional period.
This study is not meant simply as an introduction to modern Russian national-
ism but rather constitutes an attempt to depict the different meanings of being
Russian in terms of their nature and significance in their own time and place.In
muchofmy narrative,I relied on my history ofRussia and occasionally on my other
books,such as those on the Slavophiles,on Official Nationality,or on the image of
Peter the Great in Russian history and thought.All ofthem have bibliographies.5
Why write this book? History is about the past,a thousand years ago or yester-
day,but not about tomorrow.The past has a value in itself for all human beings
interested in humanity and human destiny.Yet it also exists,and sometimes very
prominently, as part of the present-day world. The question of Rus, Russia, the
Russian identity is a fascinating example ofthat continuous and changeable histor-
ical existence,for it covers a huge territory,many centuries,and different political,
social,and economic structures.I have tried to present my account broadly,empha-
sizing such main features as the struggle against the steppe peoples, Orthodox
Christianity, autocratic monarchy, westernization, and the Soviet era and its col-
lapse.I even included prehistory,where my information is entirely secondhand and
where I am skeptical of speculation.But this area of study attracts some scholars
determined to pursue the issue ofidentity as far back as possible and who,perhaps,
may serve as a counterbalance to other searchers who start, say, with the French
Revolution. I stop only with today, when all of us should attempt ourselves to
understand Russia.After a lifetime ofstudy ofdifferent aspects and periods ofRuss-
ian identity,I am now trying to obtain a complete,ifsummary,picture.
1
Prehistory
The history ofthe Medes is dark and unknown.
—Dmitri Ivanovich Ilovaisky
How far back in time can one trace group identity? Most of our classifications of
prehistoric peoples are based on linguistics and on archaeology.1Inlinguistic terms,
the Russians are identified as East Slavs,that is,speakers ofEast Slavic,which even-
tually evolved into three distinct languages:Great Russian,often called simply Russ-
ian;Ukrainian;and White Russian,or Belorussian (Belarus).Other branches ofthe
Slavic languages are the West Slavic, including Polish and Czech, and the South
Slavic,represented,for instance,by Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian.The Slavic lan-
guages, in turn, form a subdivision of the Indo-European language family that
includes most ofthe tongues spoken today in Europe and some used in Asia.
Toexplain the relatedness ofthe languages within a family and the much closer
relationship of the languages of the same subfamily, scholars have postulated an
original language and homeland for each family and later languages and homelands
for different linguistic subfamilies before further separation and differentiation.
The Slavs, who became distinct from other Indo-European speakers around the
middle ofthe second millennium b.c.,were usually assigned a common homeland
in the general area of the valley of the Vistula and the northern slopes of the
Carpathians.The split among the Slavs has been dated,by A.A.Shakhmatov and
others,to the sixth century a.d.,and the settlement by the East Slavs of the great
plain ofEuropean Russia to the seventh,eighth,and ninth centuries.
Recent scholarship has subjected the theory of original languages and home-
lands to a searching criticism.At present,few scholars speak with any confidence
about the historical homeland ofthe Indo-Europeans,and some reject it even as a
theoretical concept.The location and the chronology of the Slavic homeland have
also been thoroughly questioned.The reevaluation has been largely instigated by
discoveries ofthe presence ofthe Slavs at a much earlier time and over a much larger
area in Russia than had been traditionally supposed.In light ofnew evidence,cer-
tain scholars have redefined the original Slavic homeland, and even the original
Indo-European homeland,as including parts ofRussia.Others have postulated an
7