Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.21638/spbu02.2023.105
C. M. Moore
I. V. Potkina’s new monograph examines state intervention in the economy during World War I by analyzing legislation enacted by the tsarist and Provisional governments between 1914 and 1917. Her analysis highlights the main areas of economic intervention, the economic priorities of the respective administrations, the quantitative distribution of regulatory activity by year, and the evolution of the legislative process in response to the extraordinary circumstances of wartime. The author concludes that the imperial government regulated the economy effectively during the war and more successfully than its Provisional successor. This conclusion challenges the prevailing narrative of the “backward” autocracy’s mismanagementof the war effort as the primary reason for its collapse and compels a reconsideration of the question: If the tsarist regime efficiently managed the wartime economy, then why was it overthrown? This review focuses on Potkina’s treatment of regulatory policies regarding wartime prohibition and the establishment of fixed prices for necessities to illustrate the discrepancy between official and popular perceptions of the relative success of the state’s interventional measures. Prohibition was greeted with pogroms of premises trading in spirits and cases of poisoning by non-potable substances such as denatured alcohol, and most of the government’s price-fixing resolutions applied only to goods procured for the armed forces, not those sold to the population in the rear. Potkina attributes the causes of the revolution to the disloyalty of public organizations that constituted the liberal political opposition, but this explanation fails to account for the popular dimension of the events of February, which remains a task for future researchers.
{"title":"State Regulation of the Economy in the Era of War and Revolution","authors":"C. M. Moore","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.105","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.105","url":null,"abstract":"I. V. Potkina’s new monograph examines state intervention in the economy during World War I by analyzing legislation enacted by the tsarist and Provisional governments between 1914 and 1917. Her analysis highlights the main areas of economic intervention, the economic priorities of the respective administrations, the quantitative distribution of regulatory activity by year, and the evolution of the legislative process in response to the extraordinary circumstances of wartime. The author concludes that the imperial government regulated the economy effectively during the war and more successfully than its Provisional successor. This conclusion challenges the prevailing narrative of the “backward” autocracy’s mismanagementof the war effort as the primary reason for its collapse and compels a reconsideration of the question: If the tsarist regime efficiently managed the wartime economy, then why was it overthrown? This review focuses on Potkina’s treatment of regulatory policies regarding wartime prohibition and the establishment of fixed prices for necessities to illustrate the discrepancy between official and popular perceptions of the relative success of the state’s interventional measures. Prohibition was greeted with pogroms of premises trading in spirits and cases of poisoning by non-potable substances such as denatured alcohol, and most of the government’s price-fixing resolutions applied only to goods procured for the armed forces, not those sold to the population in the rear. Potkina attributes the causes of the revolution to the disloyalty of public organizations that constituted the liberal political opposition, but this explanation fails to account for the popular dimension of the events of February, which remains a task for future researchers.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":"11 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84849847","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.21638/spbu02.2023.209
A. E. Lobkov
The service of American doctors in the Russian army during the Crimean war is one of the most interesting pages in the history of Russian-American relations. In 1854–1855, about 40 American physicians joined the Russian army. In general, more is known about American doctors in the Crimean theatre of military operations. However, American doctors were also present on the northern front in the Baltic area, particularly, in the Russian army in Finland. Four Americans — Drs Thrall, McMillen, Leas, and Smyser — served in Tavastehus temporary military hospital. In Russian and foreign historiography, the question of foreign doctors’ service on the northern front of the Crimean war has not been addressed, and the organization of the medical part of the Russian troops guarding the Baltic coast is under-researched. The material for this study was the letters of two American doctors, William Rockwell Thrall and William Lynn McMillen, published in the Daily Ohio State Journal and the Ohio Medical and Surgical Journal. For the first time letters from American physicians are introduced into scholarship. They are interesting not only as a historical source describing the condition of the Russian army and society during the Crimean War, but also as an example of positive experience of cooperation between Russia and the United States. This little-known material, enables to reconstruct a partial picture of American doctors’ service in Finland, their circle of acquaintances and their views on Russia.
{"title":"Letters of William Rockwell Thrall and William Lynn McMillen as a Source for Studying the Participation of American Doctors in the Crimean War","authors":"A. E. Lobkov","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.209","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.209","url":null,"abstract":"The service of American doctors in the Russian army during the Crimean war is one of the most interesting pages in the history of Russian-American relations. In 1854–1855, about 40 American physicians joined the Russian army. In general, more is known about American doctors in the Crimean theatre of military operations. However, American doctors were also present on the northern front in the Baltic area, particularly, in the Russian army in Finland. Four Americans — Drs Thrall, McMillen, Leas, and Smyser — served in Tavastehus temporary military hospital. In Russian and foreign historiography, the question of foreign doctors’ service on the northern front of the Crimean war has not been addressed, and the organization of the medical part of the Russian troops guarding the Baltic coast is under-researched. The material for this study was the letters of two American doctors, William Rockwell Thrall and William Lynn McMillen, published in the Daily Ohio State Journal and the Ohio Medical and Surgical Journal. For the first time letters from American physicians are introduced into scholarship. They are interesting not only as a historical source describing the condition of the Russian army and society during the Crimean War, but also as an example of positive experience of cooperation between Russia and the United States. This little-known material, enables to reconstruct a partial picture of American doctors’ service in Finland, their circle of acquaintances and their views on Russia.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":"26 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"84352183","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.21638/spbu02.2023.211
R. Sokolov
The historical memory of Dmitry Donskoy in the first centuries after his death was primarily of a secular nature. His victory in the Kulikovo field determined the public perception of his image. Even during the life of Dmitry, there was a convergence between his image and the memory of Alexander Nevsky, but the question of church glorification of a victor over Mamai was not raised. The reason lay in Dmitry’s policy of active interference in the affairs of ecclesiastical authorities. Even a large-scale canonization of Russian saints, initiated by Metropolitan Macarius, left Dmitry Donskoy out. It can again be attributed to his difficult relationship with the church authorities. However, this didn’t prevent an increasing tendency of inclusion of the image of the Grand Duke as a talented military leader and conqueror of the Horde in the historical memory of his contemporaries and in the coordinate system of the ideology of the newly created unified Russian state. Ivan Grozny considered him one of the “historical models” for his own rule and emphasized his own descent from this glorious ancestor. In the 17th century, the nobles, constructing their genealogical history, tried to connect their origins with the boyars who went to the court of Dmitry Donskoy. The emerging “connection” of the historical image of Dmitry with Alexander Nevsky, canonized at the all-Russian level in 1547, was also preserved.
{"title":"Historical Memory of Dmitry Donskoy in the Pre-Petrine Period","authors":"R. Sokolov","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.211","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.211","url":null,"abstract":"The historical memory of Dmitry Donskoy in the first centuries after his death was primarily of a secular nature. His victory in the Kulikovo field determined the public perception of his image. Even during the life of Dmitry, there was a convergence between his image and the memory of Alexander Nevsky, but the question of church glorification of a victor over Mamai was not raised. The reason lay in Dmitry’s policy of active interference in the affairs of ecclesiastical authorities. Even a large-scale canonization of Russian saints, initiated by Metropolitan Macarius, left Dmitry Donskoy out. It can again be attributed to his difficult relationship with the church authorities. However, this didn’t prevent an increasing tendency of inclusion of the image of the Grand Duke as a talented military leader and conqueror of the Horde in the historical memory of his contemporaries and in the coordinate system of the ideology of the newly created unified Russian state. Ivan Grozny considered him one of the “historical models” for his own rule and emphasized his own descent from this glorious ancestor. In the 17th century, the nobles, constructing their genealogical history, tried to connect their origins with the boyars who went to the court of Dmitry Donskoy. The emerging “connection” of the historical image of Dmitry with Alexander Nevsky, canonized at the all-Russian level in 1547, was also preserved.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"82364921","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.21638/spbu02.2023.102
M. A. Davydov
The author of the article highly appreciates the monograph by I. V. Potkina “On the eve of the catastrophe. The state and economy of Russia in 1914–1917”. The author of the book proposed a new approach to their study, which made it possible to identify features of the formation of the military-economic mobilization model and management of the national economy. I. V. Potkina classified eight main directions of the government’s economic policy. Comparing the ways of regulating the economy of the tsarist and the Provisional Government, the author showed that these were different periods of the formation of the mobilization model, and it was the policy of the Provisional Government that led to the collapse of the economy. As a result, the author of the monograph came to a reasonable conclusion that the economic policy of the tsarist government was in line with the challenges of the time and pan-European trends. The author of the article considers the thesis about the so-called systemic crisis of the autocracy far-fetched. He connects the problems of the country’s development in the late 19th — early 20th centuries with the fact that in 1861–1905 Russia tried to realize its first anti-capitalist utopia — that in the industrial age it is possible to be a “distinctive” great power, that is, to influence the destinies of the world, rejecting everything due to which competitors and opponents have achieved prosperity, primarily, the general civil legal system, the corresponding rights of all strata of the population and complete freedom of entrepreneurship. Only in 1906 did the transition to the rule of law begin.
{"title":"Problems of Modernization in Russia in the Book by Irina Potkina","authors":"M. A. Davydov","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.102","url":null,"abstract":"The author of the article highly appreciates the monograph by I. V. Potkina “On the eve of the catastrophe. The state and economy of Russia in 1914–1917”. The author of the book proposed a new approach to their study, which made it possible to identify features of the formation of the military-economic mobilization model and management of the national economy. I. V. Potkina classified eight main directions of the government’s economic policy. Comparing the ways of regulating the economy of the tsarist and the Provisional Government, the author showed that these were different periods of the formation of the mobilization model, and it was the policy of the Provisional Government that led to the collapse of the economy. As a result, the author of the monograph came to a reasonable conclusion that the economic policy of the tsarist government was in line with the challenges of the time and pan-European trends. The author of the article considers the thesis about the so-called systemic crisis of the autocracy far-fetched. He connects the problems of the country’s development in the late 19th — early 20th centuries with the fact that in 1861–1905 Russia tried to realize its first anti-capitalist utopia — that in the industrial age it is possible to be a “distinctive” great power, that is, to influence the destinies of the world, rejecting everything due to which competitors and opponents have achieved prosperity, primarily, the general civil legal system, the corresponding rights of all strata of the population and complete freedom of entrepreneurship. Only in 1906 did the transition to the rule of law begin.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":"58 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"80023146","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.21638/spbu02.2023.109
Mikhail I. Vtorushin
The article is devoted to an under-researched topic of the impactth at the theory of the social contract of European thinkers of the 17th–18th had on the discussion in the 18th-century Russia on the “Varangian-Russian issue”, the conditions and basis for the East Slavs’ state-building in the initial period. It gives a proper analysis of socio-political and economic factors for accepting the doctrine of G. Grotious, T. Gobbs, J. Locke, B. Spinoza, and Ch. Montesquieu by Russian nobility. The doctrine described the treaty-based relations between the State of Russia and its sovereigns. The article studies the influence of the Social Contract theory on the Tsarism’s domestic policy in the second half of the 18th century. This policy was upheld in the form of the Enlightened absolutism which served to balance the interests of the upper classes of the Russian Empire. By examining the views on the “Varangian issue” of members of the Russian Academy of Science, such as G. Bayer, G. Miller, and M. Lomonosov, the article explores the effect of the treaty-based concept of the state on the views on the genesis of the Russian statehood and the rejection of the theological doctrine of the sovereignty in the country. Historians G. Bayer and G. Miller accepted the conclusions of the European thought on the origin of state-building in some European nations as a result of an external conquest or an agreement for managing. Using the chronicle about the invitation of a Varangian Rurik, they revealed a similar process in Russia. A different viewpoint was expressed by M. Lomonosov. He considered the Slavs’ statehood and the conclusion of the management agreement to be the result of their internal development.
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Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.21638/spbu02.2023.204
A. Davydov
This article discusses aspects of activities and social functions of the revolutionary military railway tribunals, which operated in 1920–1923. The novelty of the research is ensured by the lack of attention to this theme in historiography and the involvement of a wide range of sources which have not been previously introduced into the scholarship. The author focuses on the activities of the railway tribunals in four railway networks: the United North-Western Roads (Warsaw and Baltic directions), the Petrograd part of the Moscow-Vindava-Rybinsk network, Nikolaevskaii railway network (the prospective October railway), and Murmansk network. Three revolutionary military railway tribunals operated there. The author, for the first time in historiography, describes the reasons and the process of organizing the latter, their staff composition, and the forms of their work that changed at different stages. The emphasis is placed on the emergency powers of employees of these departments and the tasks assigned to them which was manifested in almost unlimited freedom of the members of the tribunals in administering justice in the “interests of the revolution”. The article presents an original perspective on the process of the controversial activity of the transport tribunals. The study reveals a conflict between their urgent task to restore labor discipline, on the one hand, and practical activities aimed at indulging the avant-garde class, on the other hand. The author comes to the conclusion that the tribunals, first of all, sought to unite the proletarian collectives around the Communist Party. Managers’ enthusiasm for an ideological project led them away from reality. In the final part of the article, it is proved that during the period of new economic policy, the activities of the revolutionary tribunals lost their extraordinary character. They ceased tocorrespond to their purpose and, in fact, turned into people’s courts, being abolished in 1923.
{"title":"Revolutionary Military Railway Tribunals in Northwestern Russia","authors":"A. Davydov","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.204","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.204","url":null,"abstract":"This article discusses aspects of activities and social functions of the revolutionary military railway tribunals, which operated in 1920–1923. The novelty of the research is ensured by the lack of attention to this theme in historiography and the involvement of a wide range of sources which have not been previously introduced into the scholarship. The author focuses on the activities of the railway tribunals in four railway networks: the United North-Western Roads (Warsaw and Baltic directions), the Petrograd part of the Moscow-Vindava-Rybinsk network, Nikolaevskaii railway network (the prospective October railway), and Murmansk network. Three revolutionary military railway tribunals operated there. The author, for the first time in historiography, describes the reasons and the process of organizing the latter, their staff composition, and the forms of their work that changed at different stages. The emphasis is placed on the emergency powers of employees of these departments and the tasks assigned to them which was manifested in almost unlimited freedom of the members of the tribunals in administering justice in the “interests of the revolution”. The article presents an original perspective on the process of the controversial activity of the transport tribunals. The study reveals a conflict between their urgent task to restore labor discipline, on the one hand, and practical activities aimed at indulging the avant-garde class, on the other hand. The author comes to the conclusion that the tribunals, first of all, sought to unite the proletarian collectives around the Communist Party. Managers’ enthusiasm for an ideological project led them away from reality. In the final part of the article, it is proved that during the period of new economic policy, the activities of the revolutionary tribunals lost their extraordinary character. They ceased tocorrespond to their purpose and, in fact, turned into people’s courts, being abolished in 1923.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":"77 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86102838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.21638/spbu02.2023.116
A. Grinev
The article critically examines the publications of modern Russian economists on the history of the former Russian colonies in the New World, sold in 1867 to the United States and subsequently forming the territory of the state of Alaska. Paradoxically, economists tend to mainly examine historical problems of Russian America, while some historians research economy, although everything should be just the opposite. The monitoring of scholarship conducted by the author reveals about a dozen works of professional economists — Candidates and Doctors of Sciences — who devoted their works (in whole or in part) to certain problems of Russian America: the earliest work is dated by 2011, and the most recent articles — by 2021. The depressingly low academic level of the vast majority of the analyzed works should be pointed out with regret. The fact is that Russian economists, for some unclear reason, almost completely ignore a wide range of published documentary sources, not to mention archival materials. The latter, if they are used, are not directly related to the history of Russian colonies in the New World. In the same way, national economists stubbornly avoid getting acquainted with the current Russian historiography about the past of Russian America and do not use more or less modern foreign scientific literature about it at all. Instead of academic works, economists often turn to non-scientific publications (including writings on alternative history) and Internet sites with highly questionable content. The natural result is a large number of errors, inaccuracies and incorrect conclusions, which are sometimes supplemented by negligently prepared bibliography and lack of elementary publication culture: almost all national economists economize on references/footnotes in their works: it is often completely impossible to understand where this or that information comes from. Thus, there is an imitation of scholarly activity and all sorts of dilettantism instead of real useful research on the history and economy of Russian America.
{"title":"Russian America and its Problems in Contemporary National Works of Economists","authors":"A. Grinev","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.116","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.116","url":null,"abstract":"The article critically examines the publications of modern Russian economists on the history of the former Russian colonies in the New World, sold in 1867 to the United States and subsequently forming the territory of the state of Alaska. Paradoxically, economists tend to mainly examine historical problems of Russian America, while some historians research economy, although everything should be just the opposite. The monitoring of scholarship conducted by the author reveals about a dozen works of professional economists — Candidates and Doctors of Sciences — who devoted their works (in whole or in part) to certain problems of Russian America: the earliest work is dated by 2011, and the most recent articles — by 2021. The depressingly low academic level of the vast majority of the analyzed works should be pointed out with regret. The fact is that Russian economists, for some unclear reason, almost completely ignore a wide range of published documentary sources, not to mention archival materials. The latter, if they are used, are not directly related to the history of Russian colonies in the New World. In the same way, national economists stubbornly avoid getting acquainted with the current Russian historiography about the past of Russian America and do not use more or less modern foreign scientific literature about it at all. Instead of academic works, economists often turn to non-scientific publications (including writings on alternative history) and Internet sites with highly questionable content. The natural result is a large number of errors, inaccuracies and incorrect conclusions, which are sometimes supplemented by negligently prepared bibliography and lack of elementary publication culture: almost all national economists economize on references/footnotes in their works: it is often completely impossible to understand where this or that information comes from. Thus, there is an imitation of scholarly activity and all sorts of dilettantism instead of real useful research on the history and economy of Russian America.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":"30 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"86163497","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.21638/spbu02.2023.110
Vyacheslav Shaposhnik
The article examines the issue of whether there was a regency in the Russian state in the 16th century and the problem of delegation of power. The author comes to the following conclusion: the names of persons who were supposed to assume real power in the country for a certain time in the case of incapacity of the heir under the age were entered into the testaments of the monarchs. Such records were in the testaments of Vasilii III (1533) and Ivan IV (1553, 1554, 1561/1562, 1584). The author of the study believes that although in Russia at the time there was no special legislation on the regency, and there were no terms “regent”, “regency” or “board of guardians”, it is fair to state that regency actually existed in the 16th century. There could not be the legislation on the regency, with those ideas about power that existed. It was believed that the sovereign receives his power directly from God. Regents made all their decisions on behalf of the monarch, despite the fact that the sovereign himself often could not take part in the affairs of government. The acquisition of additional powers by a few “chosen ones” caused discontent among other courtiers. This led to the fact that after the death of the sovereign, the guardians or regents appointed by him often could not retain their special powers of authority and lost not only power, but also their lives. Everything was decided by the balance of forces in the court.
{"title":"Regency and Transfer of Power in Muscovy","authors":"Vyacheslav Shaposhnik","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.110","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.110","url":null,"abstract":"The article examines the issue of whether there was a regency in the Russian state in the 16th century and the problem of delegation of power. The author comes to the following conclusion: the names of persons who were supposed to assume real power in the country for a certain time in the case of incapacity of the heir under the age were entered into the testaments of the monarchs. Such records were in the testaments of Vasilii III (1533) and Ivan IV (1553, 1554, 1561/1562, 1584). The author of the study believes that although in Russia at the time there was no special legislation on the regency, and there were no terms “regent”, “regency” or “board of guardians”, it is fair to state that regency actually existed in the 16th century. There could not be the legislation on the regency, with those ideas about power that existed. It was believed that the sovereign receives his power directly from God. Regents made all their decisions on behalf of the monarch, despite the fact that the sovereign himself often could not take part in the affairs of government. The acquisition of additional powers by a few “chosen ones” caused discontent among other courtiers. This led to the fact that after the death of the sovereign, the guardians or regents appointed by him often could not retain their special powers of authority and lost not only power, but also their lives. Everything was decided by the balance of forces in the court.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":"60 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"74813490","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.21638/spbu02.2023.104
G. Freeze
The purpose of this article is to assess the role of the Orthodox Church during the prelude to the February Revolution. Recent historiography on the Great War in Western scholarship has foregrounded the role of the Churches, Protestant and Catholic, in sustaining popular support for a war that entailed unprecedented death, suffering, and hardship. That new research, seeking to explain the “endurance problem” (Durchhaltsproblem), point to the Churches in the West as the pillar of the existing regimes right to the very end of the war and as an effective instrument in mobilizing support and patriotism to defend each country’s “civilization”. Hence, no less important than brilliant military plans and effective governance, the Churches provided critical support and raised morale of both troops and civilians. Such was not the case in Russia. With few resources at its disposal, the Orthodox Church provided initial but ephemeral support. As is shown here, the Church was not only unable but unwilling to embrace the ancient regime: against a background of general war weariness, the Church elites, parish clergy, and ordinary parishioners were increasingly determined to pursue their own interests, not those of the state. By February 1917 the Church did not condemn but welcomed the overthrow of the monarchy that ultimately led to the Bolshevik seizure of power and years of brutal civil war. The monograph by I. V. Potkina “On the eve of the catastrophe. The state and the economy in Russia in 1914–1917” has many positive elements, but it is important — given recent historiography, which foregrounds the role of Churches and religion in sustaining society’s willingness to endure the Great War — to pay attention to the role of the Russian Orthodox Church.
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Pub Date : 2023-01-01DOI: 10.21638/spbu02.2023.208
Yervand H. Margaryan, Lusine Ye. Margaryan
The article is devoted to two educational movements of the turn of the 4th–5th centuries — Gothic and Armenian. Outstanding enlighteners — Ulfila and Mashtots — were at the origin of these movements and laid the cornerstone in the construction of the national identity of their peoples. In either case, it was a civilizational project designed to put an end to paganism and “latent barbarism” in the periphery of the Roman world, which was rapidly declining. The invention of their own alphabets and the translation of the Holy Scriptures was aimed at organizing a national Church, which in its turn was the main tool for creating a national identity. The introduction of the Goths to the “peoples of the Scriptures” was an initiative, first of all, of Ulfila himself, but his project was actively supported by the Roman authorities. However, there is no indication in the sources that Ulfila’s project was backed by the Gothic elite. In contrast, Mashtots’ educational project from the very beginning met with the approval and active encouragement of all strata of Armenian society, primarily, the church and secular elites, as well as common people. In fact, it was a nationwide project, and the seeds of Armenian enlightenment fell on kindly soil. This explains the surge in Armenian culture in the fifth century.
{"title":"The Role of Mashtots and Ulfila in the Creation of a New Civilizational Identity","authors":"Yervand H. Margaryan, Lusine Ye. Margaryan","doi":"10.21638/spbu02.2023.208","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu02.2023.208","url":null,"abstract":"The article is devoted to two educational movements of the turn of the 4th–5th centuries — Gothic and Armenian. Outstanding enlighteners — Ulfila and Mashtots — were at the origin of these movements and laid the cornerstone in the construction of the national identity of their peoples. In either case, it was a civilizational project designed to put an end to paganism and “latent barbarism” in the periphery of the Roman world, which was rapidly declining. The invention of their own alphabets and the translation of the Holy Scriptures was aimed at organizing a national Church, which in its turn was the main tool for creating a national identity. The introduction of the Goths to the “peoples of the Scriptures” was an initiative, first of all, of Ulfila himself, but his project was actively supported by the Roman authorities. However, there is no indication in the sources that Ulfila’s project was backed by the Gothic elite. In contrast, Mashtots’ educational project from the very beginning met with the approval and active encouragement of all strata of Armenian society, primarily, the church and secular elites, as well as common people. In fact, it was a nationwide project, and the seeds of Armenian enlightenment fell on kindly soil. This explains the surge in Armenian culture in the fifth century.","PeriodicalId":53995,"journal":{"name":"Vestnik Sankt-Peterburgskogo Universiteta-Istoriya","volume":"4 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2023-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90561317","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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