Russ 110 Final vocab Notes

1861

In March of 1861, the emancipation of the Serfs was a long awaited reform that was highly visible and public, but that also lead to bitter disappointment in the following years. Polices and laws continued to favor the nobility after emancipation, making it difficult for desperately poor peasants to need their basic needs.

the wanderers (the itinerants)

they were a group of artist in the last 30 years of the 19th century that toured the countryside of Russia displaying artwork to the peasantry that couldn’t go into the city and see it. man famous artist were part of this group.

Populism (narodnichestvo)

In the 1870s, a decade after Emancipation, but still before Alexander II’s assassination in 1881, progressive members of the intelligentisa “went to the people” with vague but idealistic goals: some went to teach basic literacy, some to teach socialism, some to foment rebellion . Most of the peasants did not understand them or their idealistic agenda and mistrusted them

Panslavism

Nikolai Danilevskii was a scientist who developed the ideas of scientific racism in the Slavic context, most notably in his work Russia and Europe, published in 1869. His ideas formed the basis for late nineteenth century justifications for Russia’s political and military involvement in South Slavic movements for independence

People’s Will (Narodnaia volia)

A radical branch of the “Land and Freedom” political party, the “People’s Will” remained committed to the idea that assassination could coerce the government into reform. They were responsible for the death of Alexander II in 1881

Alexander II & III

The death of Alexander II brought the age of reforms to an immediate end: his son, Alexander III, instituted reactionary measures to deal harshly with rebels and radicals

Counter-reform

Alexander III and his primary advisor, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, rejected constitutional reforms that were in the works at the time of Alexander II’s death. They also subverted key judicial reforms and local government reforms that had increased the rights and political power of the peasants. They increased censorship restrictions, reduced educational opportunities for the lower classes, and aggressively promoted the Russian Orthodox Church in the educational system and to the exclusion of other religions. Nicholas II, Alexander III’s son, continued these policies up to the Revolution of 1905

Pogrom

There was always anti-Semitism in Russia however, after Alexander 3rd came into power he reduced the punishment for those who did violent crimes against Jewish people

Bloody Sunday, January 1905

Imperial soldiers opened fire on a group of working class people, including children, who had assembled to deliver a petition to Nicholas II requesting labor, tax, and educational reforms. The massacre sparked demonstrations and mutinies across Russia and resulted in the October Manifesto

Rasputin

Grigorii Rasputin was a Siberian “holy man” who became very influential in the family and court of Nicholas II because he was held in high regard by the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna (in part because he seemed to treat her son’s hemophilia)He caused a lot of scandal because of this influence and because of well documented accusations of having belonged to the sect of khlysty

Alexander Kerensky

Important leader in the Provisional Government that lasted between the abdication of Nicholas II on March 2, 1917 (the February Revolution) and October 25 1917 (the October Revolution)

February 1917

The “first” revolution of 1917 resulted in the end of autocracy and Russia’s first attempt at representative government. A “Provisional Government” was set up that immediately granted many liberal rights to citizens and minority populations, although it left land reform and other large issues as they were until a “Constituent Assembly,” a popularly elected body, could convene and compose a new constitution

October 1917

The “second” revolution of 1917 brought an end to the liberal Provisional Government and the beginning of Bolshevik rule in Russia under the “Sovnarkom” (the Council of People’s Commissars) with Lenin as president, Trotsky as commissar of foreign affairs, and Stalin as commissar of nationalities.

Civil War

The Bolshevik rule wasn’t well received in the start of its rule so from spring of 1918 to early 1921 the “Red army” had to fight three different “White” Armies, an international alliance of Britain, France, and the US who wanted to keep Russian military supplies from reaching the Germans

War Communism

A term used to describe Bolshevik policies during the Revolution and Civil War (1917-1921) that sought to deal with the practical issues caused by war and economic collapse: how to get food for the Red Army and Bolshevik administrative offices in urban centers and how to keep people working

Proletariat

Marxist term for the urban working class. In the Russian context, since the urban working class was still small compared to the population of rural peasants, applying Marxist concepts of the “dictatorship of the proletariat” and “proletarian culture” became problematic. Culturally, socially, and politically, the peasantry became a problem for the Soviets in the 1920s

CheKa (ЧК)

The first Soviet secret police, the initials Che and Ka stand for “**C**hrezvychainaia **K**omissiia,” or “Extraordinary Commission.” A person who worked in the CheKa was known as a “Chekist.” The CheKa existed from 1917 to 1922, roughly corresponding to War Communism, and was reorganized in 1922 in to the NKVD, or the second version of Soviet secret police.

Great-Russian Chauvinism

A term used in Stalin’s speech in 1923 to refer to the problem of creating a truly international federation out of many different nationalities that had been oppressed in Imperial Russia . The term “great” is used to distinguish what we think of today as “Russia” from the Ukraine (sometimes referred to as “little” Russia) or Belorussia (“white” Russia”)

NEP

The New Economic Policy (NEP), 1921-1928, was the Bolshevik effort to make some economic concessions that would allow the Soviet Economy to grow while retaining strict control over political ideology (. NEP also fostered the time of greatest diversity and achievement in Soviet art and literature)

fellow travelers

“Non-communist writers and artists who refrained from criticism of the Soviet regime”

Estrangement (ostranenie)

“Estrangement” was a literary term coined by Viktor Shklovsky in the 1920s and became an influential concept in literary theory around the world. “The artist, said Shklovsky, by breaking the fixed pattern of verbal or sensuous experience, forces the beholder of art to see again simple things which \[had been\] taken for granted, or to hear again the actual sounds of speech” (Brown 60). Bulgakov’s “cones of light” and the squeaky hinges are examples of this

Collectivization

this term is used when referencing the taking of farms from the peasants to the soviet government. In December of 1929, Stalin announced a campaign to ‘liquidate the kulaks \[or ‘rich peasants’\] as a class” Many of the 1 million people labeled “kulaks” were killed, deported, or deprived of their possessions. By 1932, farms had mostly been collectivized, meaning that the state had firm control of grain production

Five Year Plan

The first five year plan was introduced as a way out of NEP in 1929 in an attempt to increase industrial production and the overall GNP. It was an unrealistic plan, and those economists, engineers, or other specialists who said as much were quickly labeled “sabateurs” or “wreckers” (vrediteli) and imprisoned or executed

Stakhanovite

Stakhanovism, introduced in 1935 during the second five year plan, was an outgrowth of these unrealistic plans for economic growth: a Stakhanovite was a laborer who (with the aid of many others) attained record levels of production

Stalinist Purges (“Great Terror”)

The human cost of collectivization and the first five year plan took a significant toll on the working population of the Soviet Union. The “Terror” of 1937 exacted a similarly destructive effect on the Party elite (civil and military), especially “Old Bolsheviks.” At public “show trials,” major leaders made confessions to horrible crimes and by the end of an ever-widening campaign to clear the ranks of sabateurs, the party elite had been decimated

stiliaga

In the Soviet Union immediately after WWII, some youth sought out alternatives to strictly conformist Soviet Culture. They became known as stiliagi, a word derived from the word stil’, or ‘style.’ Youth, some the children of party elites, some who lost their parents in the war, “turned to American Jazz and movies and other Western artifacts for a sense of identity and differentness…. Their clothing, musical tastes, and subculture marked them as the alienated youth of the late 1940s and 1950s

March 5, 1953

Stalin’s death

Siege of Leningrad

St. Petersburg became Petrograd during World War I and then Leningrad after Lenin’s death. Nazi forces seiged Leningrad for three years during World War II, but they never took it. As you might imagine, conditions in the city were horrifying.

Battle of Stalingrad

The turning point of World War II, the battle of Stalingrad was a major defeat of German forces from which they were never fully able to recover. The southern city of Volgograd was renamed Stalingrad in 1925

The Thaws

Ilia Erenburg published a novel with the title The Thaw in 1954: it gave its name to a period of greater freedom of expression under Khrushchev (1953-1964), “the Thaws.” In some ways the Thaws were a little arbitrary and confusing: some topics and criticisms were allowed, but others were not. In general, the period reflected the willingness of party ideologues to critique Stalinist excesses, but also an attempt to keep tight ideological control on art and expression in the Soviet Union

Stagnation

“Stagnation” is the term generally used to describe Soviet life and policy under Khrushchev’s successor, Leonid Brezhnev (1964-1982). There was a sense that after the Thaws Soviet society really couldn’t go back, but it also couldn’t really go forward either. Everything seemed to just be stuck.

“dissidence”

“A new willingness to speak freely without regard to the official party line, known as ‘dissidence,’ first became evident in 1965 when two hundred people demonstrated publicly in Moscow to protest the arrest of Siniavskii and Daniel” “Occasional public demonstrations by dissidents had revealed that there was a space in Soviet society for independent social action (for those who could endure police harassment, employment discrimination, and brief jail terms)”

samizdat

“Samizdat, or ‘self-publication,’ refers to a method by which Soviet citizens circulated writings that the government would not allow to be published. Such forbidden literature was typed in multiple copies (using carbon paper) and given to people who would type more copies for further dissemination”“Tamizdat” is related term, meaning to publish abroad. Izdat comes from the root “to publish”; sam means “self”; tam means “over there.”

Socialist Realism

When the experimentalism of the 1920s ended in the cultural sphere, it was replaced with an officially prescribed “method” for creating ideologically correct art: Socialist Realism. Socialist Realism “combined the tradition of nineteenth-century Russian realism” (think Tolstoy and Chekhov) with “social optimism”. One of its catch phrases was “to present reality in its revolutionary development” (i.e., reality as it should be or is coming to be). In the late 60s and 70s, “Socialist Realism remained the only approved literary school, but its canons were violated to a greater or lesser extent”

Perestroika and Glasnost

“In February 1986, Gorbachev introduced the concept of perestroika or ‘restructuring,’ declaring the need for the USSR to ‘radically transform all spheres of life’”The Chernobyl nuclear catastrophe occurred in April 1986: following the disaster, Gorbachev eventually allowed full newspaper coverage of the disaster and did away with censorship of the news media, a policy that came to be known as “openness” or glasnost’

Privatization and “shock therapy”

In practical terms the end of Communist rule meant an attempt to transition almost immediately to a market economy. The plan for “privatizing” state wealth was to distribute vouchers to every Russian citizen or permanent resident worth 10,000 rubles. The strategy failed. It was implemented in January of 1992. By 1995, “the gross national product fell by forty-five percent, industrial production fell by sixty-two percent, consumption fell by thirty-three percent, and average life expectancy fell from 63 to 58 years of age”

Nomenklatura

“Nomenklatura refers to the governing and managing elite of the Soviet Union. It involved a ranked list of Communist party members, government officials, and industrial managers that indicated who was next in line for promotion when positions became vacant” “Former Communists \[especially the nomenklatura\] have been the principal beneficiaries of privatization…sixty percent of Russia’s millionaires and forty percent of all business-owners are former Communist party members”

Oligarchs

“In 1995, with inflation and unemployment still high and his approval ratings now almost negligible, Yeltsin faced the prospect of losing the elections scheduled for 1996. Yeltsin summoned Russia’s wealthiest oligarchs (those who had used privatization to their advantage) and negotiated loans totaling 500 million rubles using as collateral shares amounting to 40 percent of Russia’s state-owned petroleum and mining operations. … The government subsequently defaulted on the “loans,” and the shares in government enterprises that had been offered as security passed into the hands of the oligarchs”