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In the second half of the eighteenth century the Russian state carried out a policy of estate, civil-legal, economic, and confessional integration of Old Believers, as well as their return to Russia from abroad. This policy was first approved for the western and southwestern outskirts of the emerging New Russian region, and then the transfer of developed models to the central regions of the country occurred. Channels of social mobility were opened for Old Believers; fiscal marginalization was eliminated, as were a number of restrictions on civil rights; the official designation of “schismatics” and the mandatory labeling of external appearance were nullified; and extensive possibilities for participation in economic development were granted. On the whole, the program of estate, civil-legal and economic integration of Old Believers was implemented fairly successfully. A portion of the Old Believers from abroad returned to Russia. Deciding the question of the confessional integration of the Old Believers was more difficult. In this direction, various projects were developed by secular authorities at different levels, by the spiritual authority, and by individual groups of Old Believers. To achieve integration, the government partly rehabilitated the “Old Rite” in the 1760s. But recognition of an Old Believer confession autonomous from the ruling Church was unacceptable to the government, and particularly, to the spiritual authorities. The idea of the indissolubility of ethnic and confessional categories did not allow for another church, besides the official Orthodox one, for the Russian population. In New Russia’s Elisavetgrad Province in the 1780s, the model of edinoverie integration of Old Believers was tested. By the end of the eighteenth century, an extremely limited model edinoverie was adopted on an empire-wide scale, which did not involve the confessional autonomy of the Old Believers. As a result of the low nationwide prevalence of edinoverie, the government was partially obliged to tolerate, at the administrative level, the existence of Old Believer worship, religious infrastructure, and Old Believer priests. But this status of Old Believer confessionalism was legally uncertain and unsustainable in practical terms. Accordingly, no solution to the problem of the confessional integration of Old Believers was found during the period under review.
With the signing of the Moscow Treaty in 1970 between the Soviet Union and West Germany, a new period in Soviet-German relations began. This phenomenon was made possible by two factors: the strengthening of Brezhnev's power and the election of Willy Brandt as Chancellor of West Germany. This article identified the importance of the personal relationship between the two politicians in the transition from a policy of harsh confrontation during the Cold War to a policy of détente and economic cooperation in the form of an energy dialogue from 1970 to 1973. Against the background of current events, the author poses the question of why the two politicians were unable to agree to a policy against the backdrop of the perceived ideological antagonism between the capitalist and socialist systems. This article also considers how the relationship between the two men affected the development of economic cooperation between the two countries.
This article examines a criminal case from 1966–1969 concerning a crime that took place in 1965 in the town of Izmalkovo outside of Moscow. Two young men were charged and eventually acquitted for the rape and murder of their female classmate. Their trial drew the attention of jurists and journalists from the capital, as well as scrutiny from the highest judicial and party organs in addition to the ire of local villagers. Two accounts remain of the trial: one written in 1969 by a Moscow journalist, Olga Chaikovskaia, well-known for her writings on crime and law throughout the late Soviet period, and the other penned over a decade later by Dina Kaminskaia, one of the defense lawyers in the trial and later notorious for her advocacy on behalf of prominent dissidents. Both of these women, in describing their defense of the young men, employed gendered conceptions of justice and legality in order to criticize or condemn the Soviet justice system and its agents. And yet Kaminskaia’s and Chaikovskaia’s narratives reveal that, in spite of deep divisions between people from different classes, localities, and with disparate education levels, both urban intelligentsia elite women and the simple village women who heartily opposed them could still have a remarkable degree of faith in the criminal justice system well into the era of “stagnation.” What interested the women from the capital in this case was their perception that the highest organs of Soviet power were involved in these boys’ prosecution, and that their convictions were a foregone conclusion. What kept them coming back to Izmalkovo after repeated set-backs, was the hope that, with the right arguments and evidence, and in spite of the political bias working against them, that justice could nonetheless be achieved for the boys. On this count, they were correct.
This article examines Russian criminologists’ engagements with emergent norms of international criminal law at the fin-de-siècle. In particular, it discusses attempts to end the ‘international traffic in pornography’ from the 1880s onwards, framing these attempts as key elements in the development of Russian ideas about sexual crime more broadly. For pre- and post-revolutionary Russian criminologists involved with the Hague-based International Union for Penal Law, the crime of trafficking in pornography was conceptualized as both a crime against the censor and also an offense that did specific harm to certain social groups, namely women and children. In this way, anxieties about gender and sex lay at the heart of the calls to ban the cross-border trade in obscenity, suggesting a particular biopolitical understanding of international security haunting early twentieth century international criminal law.
Historians’ understanding of the involvement of the Soviet security services in the orchestration of the Moscow Olympics has heretofore been based on unsubstantiated rumours and anecdotes. Using previously unavailable sources, this article reveals for the first time how the ussr’s coercive apparatus was mobilized to both neutralize perceived threats to Soviet national security produced by the Olympiad and assist the cpsu in using it to promote Soviet socialism in the outside world during the Brezhnev era. The implications of this episode for our understanding of the kgb’s role in late Soviet politics are then considered, and compared with those which arise from a brief reading of the existing literature on the subject.
This article investigates the influence of Soviet economic policy on the daily life of Siberian townspeople in the 1960s using a wide range of official and personal sources. In particular, it examines how the Soviet state provided the population with food, enacted price policy and currency reform, and implemented housing programs and consumer services. This article also employs popular memoirs to explore the involvement of the scientific revolution in the beginning of the formation of a socially oriented economy. It also provides a novel perspective on the changes that impacted the everyday lives of ordinary people during the period of Khrushchev’s “Thaw.”
This article analyzes socio-economic and cultural transformations in the Soviet village from the end of the 1920s until the 1980s. The authors identify the agrarian system of that time as state capitalism and reveal that during the 1950s and 1960s, capital that played a leading role in Soviet agriculture. The authors argue that the emergence of state capitalism was due to the interaction of the state, collective farms, and peasant holdings. The preservation of traditional peasant holdings allowed the state to build a specific system of non-economic exploitation, the core of which existed until the beginning of the 1960s. The authors connect the formation of agrarian capitalism with the creation of new rural classes. The authors conclude that from the 1920s to the 1980s, a combination of economic, political and socio-cultural factors led to the transformation of the agrarian society in the Soviet Union into the state capitalism.
This article examines the impact of changes in the economic space of the Soviet Union on the formation of the economy of the Russian Federation. The compression of economic space after the dissolution of the ussr was accompanied by a contraction of economic activity. This process decentralized and disintegrated the post-Soviet economy. The once unified Soviet economic system was divided into an array of loosely coupled local systems. Due to a shortage of manpower and resources in the new Russian Federation, an economic center (Moscow) formed around the new Russian economic space. The problem of the expansion of the Russian economic space through regional integration, the expansion of economic ties, and the annexation of the territories is no less complex, but Russia is in the early stages of this process and is not yet possible to trace its impact on the Russian economy.
Much has been written about Nikolai Vissarionovich Nekrasov’s activity as a key figure in 1917, particularly about his important role in the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) party. The present essay focuses on little known aspects of Nekrasov’s activity in the period of the Provisional Government, when he became one of the closest confidants of Aleksandr Fedorovich Kerenskii. The essay draws on new materials from archives and the periodical press to reevaluate Nekrasov’s path during this time.
O H.B. Heкpacoвe нaпиcaнo нeмaлo. Иccлeдoвaтeлeй вceгдa пpивлeкaлa oднa из ключeвыx фигуp буpнoгo 1917 гoдa. B литepaтуpe xopoшo пpocлeжeн путь этoгo виднoгo пpeдcтaвитeля кaдeтcкoй пapтии. B нacтoящeй cтaтьe aкцeнт дeлaeтcя нa мaлoизвecтныx acпeктax дeятeльнocти Heкpacoвa пepиoд в Bpeмeннoгo пpaвитeльcтвa, кoгдa oн cтaнoвитcя ближaйшим copaтникoм A.Ф. Кepeнcкoгo. Bвeдeниe в нaучный oбopoт нoвыx мaтepиaлoв из apxивoв и пepиoдичecкoй пeчaти пoзвoлилo лучшe ocвeтить мнoгocлoжныe пepипeтии тoгo вpeмeни.
Neither Russian nor non-Russian historians have devoted much attention to the relationship between M.V. Rodzianko and Prince G.E. L’vov in March-April 1917. The lack of analysis can be explained in part by stereotypes concerning the insignificance of the Temporary Committee of the State Duma in the February Revolution and in subsequent events. The present article shows that Rodzianko, the chairman of the Temporary Committee of the State Duma, often involved himself in the work of the Provisional Government, and also that he, as the head of the Temporary Committee of the State Duma, saw himself as a founder of the Provisional Government. Moreover, Rodzianko also played a direct role in the operations of the Provisional Government, through the office of Duma commissars, which had been created during the February Days to facilitate the stabilization of political life in the capital and in the provinces.
B poccийcкoй и зapубeжнoй иcтopиoгpaфии вoпpoc o взaимooтнoшeнияx M.B. Poдзянкo и князя Г.E. Львoвa в мapтe – aпpeлe 1917 г. пpaктичecки нe paccмaтpивaлиcь. Oтчacти этo oбъяcняeтcя cлoжившимиcя cтepeoтипaми o нeзнaчитeльнoй poли Bpeмeннoгo кoмитeтa Гocудapcтвeннoй думы в Фeвpaльcкoй peвoлюции и в дaльнeйшиx coбытияx. Дaннoe иccлeдoвaниe дeмoнcтpиpуeт, чтo пpeдceдaтeль BКГД пpинимaл aктивнoe учacтиe в мexaнизмe функциoниpoвaния Bpeмeннoгo пpaвитeльcтвa, a eгo глaвa, M.B. Poдзянкo, видeл ceбя в кaчecтвe иcтoчникa влacти, т.e. eгo «oбpaзoвaтeля». Кpoмe тoгo, M.B. Poдзянкo учacтвoвaл и в нeпocpeдcтвeннoй дeятeльнocти пpaвитeльcтвa, иcпoльзуя для этoгo инcтитут думcкиx кoмиccapoв, coздaнный eщe в peшaющиe дни Фeвpaльcкoй peвoлюции, cтapaяcь cпocoбcтвoвaть cтaбилизaции внутpипoлитичecкoй жизни кaк в cтoлицe, тaк и нa мecтax.