Romanovs Research Articles

“I Remember the Days of Old; I Meditate [on All Thy Works

Abstract This article analyzes the short book The Origin of the Law of Succession in Russia (1925) by St. John of Shanghai and San Francisco (1896–1966, canonized 1994) for its treatment of succession to the throne in Kyivan, Muscovite, and Imperial Russian history. In it, St. John makes the case for the gradual and intentional development of primogeniture in Muscovy and sees the Petrine Law of Succession of 1722 as a fundamental violation of customary norms about the succession. He also sees the Pauline Law of Succession of 1797 as a restoration of those norms and a step forward in the regularization of the succession. St. John discusses how the Russian Revolutions of 1917 affected the Romanov dynasty and concludes that the Pauline Law was and would continue to be a vital legal instrument for maintaining the dynasty in exile. He also recommended the elimination of the Law’s equal marriage requirement and the addition to it of a requirement that all members and spouses of members of the dynasty be Orthodox. St. John’s book became an important reference work for generations of surviving Romanovs after 1917, even if his suggested changes to the Law have yet to be implemented.

“Make Known”: Historical Memory, Politics of Memory and Historical Monuments of the Russian Empire

Historical memory is a necessary element of the nation-building process. It has various forms of realization, including visual ones. The article discusses one of the forms of visualization of historical memory through specific historical places – officially confirmed historical monuments. The author proves the thesis that the list of national historical monuments depended on the history politics implemented by the authorities and considers the evolution of this politics from 1826 (the first decree of Emperor Nicholas I on compiling in Russia a list of historical monuments, this was done by the Ministry of the Interior) until 1917. Initially, the authorities sought to recreate the picture of the historical past by fixing the surviving monuments. However historical politics was changing in the late 19th – early 20th centuries. The purpose of the empire was to present Russian history as the apotheosis of the Romanov dynasty, especially its last representatives (Alexander II, Alexander III, Nicholas II). Therefore, according to their description of 1901–1903, most historical monuments were modern monuments to the last emperors and members of the imperial family. They were not historical monuments in the true sense of the term. It was an ideological, a propaganda campaign. The author draws attention to its inefficiency; these monuments could not improve the image of the Romanovs in the eyes of society. The author draws attention to the similarity of the principles of visualization of history through historical monuments in the Russian Empire and the USSR. In both cases, an ideological basis shaped the history politics, which was less about preserving historical memory and more about ideology and channeling specific ideas through selected monuments. Moreover, in both cases, it was a cause of inefficiency of history politics.

Об идейно-мировоззренческих установках П.П. Ершова (на материале приветственных стихов царским особам)

As the research material the salutatory poems to the tsarist persons written by P.P. Ershov on the occasion of the official visit of representatives of the Romanov dynasty to Tobolsk are considered: “To the Sovereign Heir on His Arrival in Tobolsk” (1837; visit to Tobolsk by Tsesarevich Alexander Nikolaevich, the future Alexander II), “To His Imperial Highness Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich on the Occasion of His Arrival in Western Sibe-ria” (1868; arrival in Tobolsk of Alexander II's son). In order to reveal the author’s ideological and worldview attitudes, the salutatory poems are interpreted as occasional works and part of the ceremonial of the official meeting of the members of the tsarist family in the context of P.P. Ershov’s creative biography, life path and in comparison, with the concept of the literary fairy tale “The Humpbacked Horse” (1834). This approach allows to clarify the writer’s attitude to the monarchical power (idea). It is argued that the concept of renewal of national life on sound moral principles, laid by young P. Ershov in the people-oriented world of literary fairy tales and coordinated with the idea of divine responsibility of the monarchical power, finds development in the poems of 1837, 1868.

Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich Serving Russia

The new edition of Perm historian D.M. Sofyin monograph, that has been substantially revised and supplemented in comparison with the fi rst edition, is devoted to the personality and multifaceted activities for the benefi t of the Fatherland of the extraordinary and contradictory fi gure of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich. On the basis of the wide array of sources, many of which are being introduced into scientifi c circulation for the fi rst time, and available historiographic base, the author, while taking into account the comments of the reviewers, tries to present to the readers the updated text of the book about one of the most demonized representatives of the Romanov dynasty, who at the same time can be confi dently attributed to the adherents of conservative ideology, not in its theoretical, but rather practical dimension, for all his state activity was permeated with the idea of preserving and strengthening autocracy and following the established age-old traditions.

ПРАКТИКИ ПОЧИТАНИЯ МУЧЕНИКА ФИЛИППА, МИТРОПОЛИТА МОСКОВСКОГО, В СОЛОВЕЦКОМ МОНАСТЫРЕ XVII – НАЧАЛА XVIII В.

Drawing on a variety of sources, the article shows that the cult of St. Philip, Metropolitan of Moscow first appeared in the Solovki monastery in 1616, made possible by the new Romanov dynasty’s ascension to the throne in 1613. During the 17th and early 18th centuries, and especially after Philip’s canonization in 1636, the veneration of this saint gradually developed in the Solovki monastery. A significant part of these veneration practices involved visual representation of the cult and its propaganda among the population. In this, the monastery was following the traditional patterns of venerating its founders St Zosima and St Savvatiy of Solovki, which had taken shape in the 16th century. It was a peculiar feature of the Solovki monks’ religiosity that, throughout most of the 17th century, they were committed to honoring their ‘old’ saints Zosima and Savvatiy, but remained indifferent to the new cult of Philip the Metropolitan. Thus for a long time there was a gap between the official, public veneration of St. Philip and the private veneration by the monks. It was not until the turn of the 18th century that they began to treat Philip as truly ‘their own’ saint worthy of addressing prayers and requests in everyday life.

TOWNS OF VOLYN DURING THE GREAT WAR: GENERAL STATE AND LOCAL CIVIC CHARITABLE PRACTICES (1914–1916)

During the Great War, Volyn became one of the arenas of confrontation between the troops of the Entente and the Triple Alliance. The First World War on the territory of Volyn was affected not only by the battles of Russian and Austro-Hungarian troops, but also by the active activities of a number of civic organizations, mainly of a charitable nature, who wanted to help military and civilian victims of the conflict. The aim of the research is to present the activities of general state and local charitable civic organizations in sub-Russian urban centers of the Volyn province in 1914–1916. Considering the scope and nature of the article, we bypass with our attention the analysis of the activities of ethnic public structures, the Russian Red Cross Society, as well as charitable organizations of associated with members of the Romanov dynasty. The research methodology is based on the use of general scientific and specially historical research methods, including problem-chronological, synchronous, diachronic, comparative-historical and others. The scientific novelty is that the author tried, on the basis of unpublished archival materials, to highlight the activities of general state and local civic charitable initiatives in the sub-Russian urban centers of the Volyn province in 1914–1916. Conclusions. It was established that during the Great War, the towns of Volyn were important centers of civic charitable practices. Not only the general state structural units of the All-Russian Union of Cities, but also local civic initiatives, such as the Lutsk Town Committee for Aid to War Victims or the Municipal Committee for Assistance to the Poor Residents of Kremenets, carried out charitable activities here. Some wealthy townspeople were also involved in charitable activities. In general, during the Great War in Volyn, as well as in other Ukrainian provinces of the Russian Empire, we can observe the phenomenon of public activism as a substitute for the ineffectiveness of state institutions and a compensator for the limitations of self-governing bodies in solving urgent social problems caused by the war.

The Romanov Dynasty and Youth Movements in the Russian Empire and Emigration of the "First Wave"

The subject of the study is the influence of the Romanov family on the formation, development and ideology of Russian extracurricular organizations in the first half of the XX century. The author also examines in detail such aspects of the topic as the symbolic significance of the Romanovs' membership in children's associations and the role of the institution of patronage of organizations in preserving imperial traditions in the emigration of the "first wave". The connection of the Grand Dukes with the youth movements of the Union of Musketeers and the Order of Crusaders, which were active in the second half of the 1920s - early 1930s in Harbin and in the exclusion zone of the Chinese–Eastern Railway, is also considered. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the broad formulation of the question: 5 organizations have been considered for 3 decades. As a result of the conducted research, it is concluded that the ruling dynasty had a great influence on the emergence of children's and youth organizations in the Russian Empire. Their creation began with the initiative of Nicholas II in 1908 . Subsequently, for many decades, members of the Romanov family were patrons and participants of various Russian children's movements. Many of these movements, in turn, have made monarchism an important component of their ideology. In addition to Nicholas II, before the revolution, the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna provided assistance in the development of the scout movement, the heir to the throne was an honorary scout, and his second cousin Georgy Konstantinovich was no longer an honorary, but a real scout of the Tsarskoye Selo detachment.

Проблемы администрирования строительства служебных зданий при реконструкции имения Ливадия в 1910–1911 гг.

The article studies the history of creation and development of one of the Crimean residences of the Romanov dynasty, the Livadia estate. Drawing on materials of the Russian State Historical Archive, the author reveals aspects of interaction and relationships between the employees of the Livadia-Massandra appanage administration and officials of the Main Administration of Appanages of the Ministry of the Imperial Court and Appanages during construction and reconstruction of outbuildings in Livadia in 1910–11. This work was purposefully entrusted to the staff architect of appanage administration G. P. Gushchin, who was granted indulgence in his official duties in order to complete the construction in time and give his account. The author points out that, despite these measures, the first difficulties arose at the stage of preparing design specifications and estimates. The article focuses on the visits of the Main Administration of Appanages officials sent from St. Petersburg in order to get acquainted with the actual state of affairs. The article notes that the head of the architectural department A. A. Stepanov always took part in these inspection trips. Each visit revealed some shortcomings in the organization of construction by G. P. Gushchin. The first two visits showed up insufficient number of assistants in the architect’s staff and delay in construction or reconstruction of individual buildings. The third inspection, which took place two months before the deadline submission of works, identified miscalculations in design specifications, requiring allocation of additional funds. The author notes that the deadlines were indeed violated, and there was a lag in preparation and submission of reporting documentation. The article points out that the Main Administration of Appanages not only had to give instructions on the procedure, but to issue repeated orders to send the necessary documents. The last of the identified letters denied G. P. Gushchin his final payment for the works due to his failure to submit a complete account. The study of the features of the outbuildings construction administration in Livadia in 1910–11 shows that preparation of design specifications, supervision of and accounting for the works proved almost a greater problem than the actual construction.

«ЗАПЕЧАТЛЕННОЕ ПРОШЛОЕ»: ИЛЛЮСТРАЦИИ В ДОРЕВОЛЮЦИОННЫХ ШКОЛЬНЫХ УЧЕБНИКАХ ПО РУССКОЙ ИСТОРИИ (КОНЕЦ 1870-Х — 1914 ГОД)

The article is devoted to the study of visual material of pre-revolutionary school textbooks on Russian history for junior and senior classes of secondary educational institutions (gymnasiums), recommended for use by the Ministry of Public Education. Despite the large amount of educational literature, only a small part of it contained illustrations (17 items out of 54). The images were intended both for the visualization of the studied material (lithographs of monuments, frescoes, ancient coins, etc.), and for the formation of a standardized image of the past. Illustrations on a military theme were supposed to show the heroism of Russian soldiers. A separate section of the article is devoted to ways of visual representation of the monarchs of the Romanov dynasty. The historical narrative of school textbooks was formed around the deeds of monarchs, which could not but affect the content of the material. This was especially clearly reflected in the image of Peter I, the illustrations dedicated to him are distinguished by a variety of scenes. The lack of visual material for school textbooks forced the authors to use famous paintings for historical ones, changing their names and meaning. The captions to the reproductions contributed to the perception needed by the authors of textbooks, or completely changed the original meaning laid down by the artist in the picture. Thus, the illustrative material turned out to be secondary in relation to the text.

The Role of the Public Oath in Legitimizing the Power of the First Representatives of the Romanov Dynasty in the 17<sup>th</sup> Century

The Role of the Public Oath in Legitimizing the Power of the First Representatives of the Romanov Dynasty in the 17<sup>th</sup> Century

To Break Russia's Chains: Boris Savinkov and His Wars against the Tsar and the Bolsheviks

As he did in The Black Russian, his 2013 biography of Frederick Bruce Thomas, the son of formerly enslaved Mississippians who became a millionaire nightclub owner in pre-1917 Moscow, Alexandrov combines brilliant research and brisk storytelling to tell the story of Boris Savinkov (1879–1925), a notorious Russian terrorist of the first quarter of the twentieth century. While today only specialists in modern Russian history and literature are likely to recognize Savinkov's name, in his day he was an international celebrity, feted in the pages of leading European and American newspapers for a lifetime of resistance to both tsarist and Bolshevik tyranny. Although praise for a man who organized the assassination of government ministers and members of the Romanov family may seem perverse to contemporary American readers, especially those who have come of age since 9/11, being reminded that “the past is a foreign country” is always a useful exercise.In fast moving and lively prose, Alexandrov tells the fascinating story of Savinkov's long and complicated journey from a privileged, cultured, and politically progressive upper-middle-class Russian family to the most-wanted list of the Okhrana and the Cheka, the tsarist and Soviet secret police, up to his mysterious death. Because Savinkov was not only a revolutionary but a writer who told and retold his life story in novels and memoirs, his biographer must be equal parts historian, literary critic, and psychologist. It is difficult to imagine a better guide to the multiple complexities of Savinkov's life, times, and works than Alexandrov, B. E. Bensinger Professor Emeritus of Slavic Literatures at Yale. Combining deep historical knowledge, fresh critical insights, and penetrating psychological observations, Alexandrov shows Savinkov's dramatic life story taking shape against the backdrop of a cataclysmic quarter-century of Russian history that included multiple revolutions and wars.Certainly, the most difficult aspect of writing the biography of a terrorist like Savinkov is to imagine how sophisticated people might reasonably conclude that the targeted assassination of political figures could be both politically necessary and ethically acceptable. And while it is inevitable that some will see any attempt to understand political violence in a particular time and place as justifying terrorism always and anywhere, honest biographers have no choice but to try to explain why their subjects made the choices they did. In this context, Alexandrov's judicious treatment of Savinkov's argument that, given the political realities of tsarist Russia, violence could be a moral response to evil is especially valuable. The paradox of Savinkov and the other “moral terrorists” discussed in To Break Russia's Chains is that they justified targeted violence against prominent politicians and influential bureaucrats without rejecting the fifth commandment. According to their reasoning, assassination could be a moral act if the victim was responsible for brutal and unjust policies and if the perpetrator accepted punishment for what was, without question, a sin. Given the reality of tsarist arbitrary rule, the absence of any legal avenues to protest unjust policies, and the terrorists’ belief that inaction meant complicity in a criminal regime, their conclusion that violence and inevitable punishment was the only moral choice is neither incomprehensible nor illogical. Whatever one thinks of Savinkov's personality and methods, and despite his ultimate failure to achieve his goal, there is something undeniably heroic in his devoting his entire adult life to the struggle against the forces of political tyranny in his homeland. Today, when fantasies of redemptive violence have become a staple of the daily news cycle, Savinkov's story is particularly relevant.

«Его императорскому высочеству государю наследнику цесаревичу и великому князю Алексею Николаевичу…» (подарок от арестантов Первой нижегородской губернской тюрьмы в 1913 г.)

The article is devoted to little-known facts from the life of the family of Emperor Nicholas II. The main historical source was “The case of the Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Prison Inspection. About the products of the workshops of the First Nizhny Novgorod prison in 1913”, preserved in the fund 386 of the Central Archive of the Nizhny Novgorod region. It testifies that the prisoners of the First Nizhny Novgorod Provincial Prison prepared a unique gift for the son of Emperor Nicholas II — Tsarevich and Grand Duke Alexei Nikolaevich. The gift was timed to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. The article also used other types of historical sources: “Diaries of Emperor Nicholas II”, memoirs of P. Gilyar, a teacher of French, mentor of Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, materials of the pre—revolutionary periodical press — the magazine “Prison Bulletin”, as well as unique photographic documents of M. P. Dmitriev, who recorded the ceremonial reception of the imperial family in Nizhny Novgorod on May 17, 1913. The historiographical basis was the works of modern historians: N. F. Filatov, A. V. Morokhin, R. V. Golubin, S. Yu. Varentsov, L. Abrosimova. The author came to the conclusion that at the beginning of the XX century in Nizhny Novgorod penitentiary institutions, convict labor was fairly well organized, prison workshops developed. In the First Nizhny Novgorod provincial prison, an exclusive gift was prepared for Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich — a printing machine with the name “American”. It was made of expensive materials, taking into account the age and interests of the heir to the imperial throne.

Празднование 300-летия Дома Романовых в городах Поволжья

On the materials of the state archives of Samara, Kazan, Cheboksary and on published historical sources the article analyzes the preparations for the celebrations dedicated to the 300th anniversary ofthe Romanov dynasty. It isshownthat preparationsforthe holidaytook on a universal character, all segments of the population, independent of class, national, religious affiliation, were involved in the process of this preparation. Programs of celebrations are analyzed, they depended on a specific city, its material capabilities and the composition of the population. The festive program could include additional elements that differ in cities on the Volga. The author concludes that such large-scale festive events covering all segments of the population were an attempt to consolidate Russian society around the monarchy and the figure of Emperor Nicholas II after the revolutionary events of 1905–1907 and in the context of the beginning of a new social rise.

Aurore Karamzin as Intermediary between Russia and Finland

Abstract The relationship between the autonomous Grand Duchy of Finland and the Russian Empire, despite being formalized in bureaucratic structures, depended to a significant extent on informal personal relations. A case in point is the history of the children of Carl Johan Stjernvall: his three daughters married foreign noblemen. The eldest, Aurore, married first the scion of the Demidov family, Paul Nikolayevich Demidov, and second, Andrey Nikolayevich Karamzin, son of the state historian of Russia. Aurore's brother Emil Stjernvall-Walleen became the second highest-ranking civil servant in Finland: the minister state secretary. Through her marriages, Aurore Karamzin was connected to some of the most powerful families in Russia: Demidov, Durnovo, Karamzin, Stroganov, and Pushkin, among others. As an industry owner she relied heavily on relatives. Networking continued to be an important part of doing business throughout the nineteenth century, even though meritocratic considerations started playing a larger role toward the end of it. Aurore Karamzin lived through nearly the entire 1800s (1808–1902) and played a meaningful part in the development of Finland during this period. Her greatest impact was probably as a vehicle for societal and cultural innovations. It was made possible by the resources she controlled in the Demidov enterprises, institutions such as the Deaconess Institute that she founded in Helsinki, and the political situation between Finland and Russia. She was well positioned as an influencer, as she was personally acquainted with several generations of the Russian imperial family as a lady-in-waiting.

Primacy of State Over Church: the Variant of Peter I

The article is devoted to the policy of Peter I directed at the subjugation of the church power to the secular one. As an integral system of measures it showed itself at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries. Before that Peter’s worldview was formed I the situation of discussions of Russian Old Believers, Helenists and Catholics. The striving for the primacy of the secular power in the state was characteristic no only for Peter I, but also for the first tsars of Romanov dynasty. That idea found various realization in the Protestant and Catholic worlds. The supporters and executers of Peter’s police were found among the secular an church Russian elites. Te works and sermons of certain clerics demonstrated the transfer from the idea of the symphony of powers to proclaiming the tsar as pontifex. The rise of the secular state demonstrated itself in its claim to the church property; the introduction of the liability for military service for church-owned peasants, the establishment of monastery staff regulations and expulsion of many clerical categories from the taxless persons, the use of monasteries as material base for the formation of the social charity system. The strengthening of the secular elements in Russia demonstrated itself in the policy of religious tolerance in regard of the representatives of various Christian confessions, in the attempts to use the Christians from other countries in the interests of the state.

Закавказский край в царских путешествиях: от Александра II до Николая II

The travels of emperors on the national outskirts of the Russian Empire as a representation of power and mastering the symbolic space of multinational state were the means to manage cultur-ally complex communities of the Romanov dynasty servants. The article considers the circum-stances of the visits of Alexander II in 1871, Alexander III in 1888, and Nicholas II in 1914 to the South Caucasus. It describes the general characteristics of the routes and scenarios of the highest visits, shows the stability of the principal forms of communication with the local population. The importance of the continuity of the czarevitch’s’ Caucasian journeys in their future practices of ruling the region is emphasized. The commemorative aspects of the czarist visits that actualize in the public consciousness the key events of the Russian history of the Caucasus are investigated. It is noted while observing organizational and ceremonial canon, each visit solved concrete and his-torical problems determined by the completion of the accession Caucasus to Russia, the develop-ment of transport infrastructure and deeper integration of the region into the socio-cultural space of the empire, symbolic mobilization of demographic and material resources of the southern out-skirts during the World War I. The reasoned conclusion shows that the visits of the emperors pro-moted the legitimization in the eyes of the subjects of both the supreme crown authority and its representatives in the face of the authorities of the Caucasian region. “The Highest Visits” deep-ened the integration of the region into the larger imperial space and, at the same time, contributed to the reintegration of the peoples of the South Caucasus within the Russian state order.

“Rare Upsurge of Patriotic Feeling Was Felt Everywhere”: Romanov Celebrations in Baku and Elisabethpol Governorates in 1913

On the basis of new archival materials and periodicals the article examines the organization and process of celebrating the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty in 1913 in Baku and Elisabethpol governorates. As the celebrations were nationwide, the local administration prepared for it with special care, not ignoring the distinctive character of the population in the area. According to the governors, county chiefs and town mayors, the residents participated in the celebrations with sincere interest. They believed that the said participation signified their gratitude to the Romanovs for their work in the Caucasia. The celebrations were held without problems, despite the concern of the provincial police and international and interdenominational strife of various layers and groups of the population. At the same time, the celebrative traditions established in the imperial center were partially adjusted in accordance with local cultural specifics.

The Tsar’s Happy Occasion: Ritual and Dynasty in the Weddings of Russia’s Rulers, 1495–1745 by Russell E. Martin

Reviewed by: The Tsar’s Happy Occasion: Ritual and Dynasty in the Weddings of Russia’s Rulers, 1495–1745 by Russell E. Martin Maureen Perrie Martin, Russell E. The Tsar’s Happy Occasion: Ritual and Dynasty in the Weddings of Russia’s Rulers, 1495–1745. NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Northern Illinois University Press, an imprint of Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2021. xvii + 359 pp. Illustrations. Figures. Tables. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. £48.00: $59.95. In 2012 Russell Martin published a book about bride-shows in Muscovy (A Bride for the Tsar, De Kalb, IL), which the present volume complements by describing royal weddings from the late fifteenth century to the marriage of the future Peter III to the future Catherine II (‘the Great’) in 1745. The author has conducted extensive archival research for the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in particular, and he provides a thorough and meticulous account of these ceremonies. Martin’s main focus is on the Muscovite period. His first three chapters deal with a sample of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century weddings in chronological order. For the sixteenth century he takes the 1526 wedding of Vasilii III and Elena Glinskaia as his main example; for the seventeenth century he focuses on the two weddings of Tsar Mikhail Fedorovich (in 1624 and 1626) and those of Aleksei Mikhailovich in 1648 and 1671, demonstrating how at Mikhail’s weddings the earlier rituals were modified in order to create an aura of legitimacy for the new Romanov dynasty. The following three chapters discuss thematic aspects of Muscovite royal weddings. Chapter four considers marriages of Orthodox and non-Orthodox partners: Elena, the daughter of Ivan III, to the Catholic Alexander of Lithuania in 1495; Maria Staritskaia, a kinswoman of Ivan IV, to the Lutheran Magnus of Denmark in 1573; and the marriages of the First False Dmitrii to the Catholic Marina Mniszech in 1605 and 1606, the first of which took place by proxy in Cracow, and the second in Moscow. In the fifth chapter the author examines the three main categories of participants in the wedding celebrations: members of the dynasty; courtiers and servitors; and the relatives of the bride, noting that since brides were usually recruited from middle-ranking service families, the placing of their relatives at the weddings often required exemptions from the formal system of precedence (mestnichestvo). Chapter six is devoted to the exchange of wedding gifts, especially the distribution of gifts from the bride, as a means of securing the loyalty of courtiers and the prayers of the Church hierarchs. The final two chapters shift the chronology forward to the St Petersburg period. Here Martin argues that Peter the Great moved away from the aim of consolidating the dynasty that had driven royal weddings in Muscovy, in order to promote his own charismatic authority by personally dominating the ceremonies. Peter’s 1722 attempt to determine the succession having failed, however, subsequent [End Page 378] royal weddings reverted to dynastic preoccupations, complicated by rivalry between the Miloslavskii and Naryshkin branches of the family. Martin describes all of these wedding rituals in great detail, and his analyses of their symbolism are generally persuasive. The author is concerned not with the wedding service itself, since that was the domain of the Church hierarchy, but rather with the subsequent celebrations, which normally lasted for three days. In the Muscovite period, the main participants were courtiers, and the primary function of the occasion was apparently to promote the social integration of the court elite. It was only in the St Petersburg period that public processions enabled the monarch’s subjects to witness the marriages of their rulers. Martin, however, pays little attention to the changing audience for royal weddings, and fails to place these ceremonies in the broader context of Russian society. For example, he explains the removal of the remnants of pagan fertility rites from the rituals at the weddings of Aleksei Mikhailovich, and the elimination of the traditional rowdy entertainments, in terms of the tsar’s personal piousness. But the reformist ‘Zealots of Piety’ had been campaigning since the 1630s for the abolition of such improper behaviour, culminating in the...

Andrey T. Junger as a Representative of the Military Administration of the Romanov Dynasty in Dagestan

Based on the archival documents and the works of Russian kavkazologists, the article attempts to study the strategy of Russian national policy in the Caucasus. The purpose of the study is to show the place and role of one of the leaders of the Russian military administration in Dagestan – Commandant A.T. Junger as well as to identify his rights and powers as the head of the Russian military administration in Derbent. The research material is based on the archival documents of the 18th century (RGADA, RGVIA, RGAVMF) which are stored in the Russian archives and most of which are introduced into the scientific circulation for the first time. Furthermore, the achievements of Russian historians on the problem under study are widely used. The basic principles of scientific objectivity and historicism are used, involving the study of historical facts and events in the specific historical conditions with a focus on the development and interdependence of historical events as well as multivariation of the historical process. Leaving Derbent, Emperor Peter I entrusted all the management of affairs to the appointed commandant. According to his plan, the fullness of military, civil, and political power was concentrated in the hands of the commandant of Derbent, both in the fortress itself and in its district many miles away from it. The duties of the commandant also included the management of the garrison located in the fortress, supervision of order, tranquility in the fortress and outside it, and the protection of the city from the enemy. Its jurisdiction also included financial, economic, administrative and political functions. Using the identified historical sources, it was revealed that the commandant A.T. Junger, entering into negotiations with local feudal rulers, personified a representative of the government of the Russian Empire.

Representation of the Irony and Tragic Pathos of War: The Aesthetics of Humanism in V. V. Vereshchagin's Art

Vereshchagin (Василий Васильевич Верещагин, 1842-1904) is a painter belonging to the era of Russian realism, but not active in Russian Academy of Arts or the Wanderers(передвижники) representing the contemporary era, but has an artistic position through personal activities. He was the first Russian military artist, and was also a painter to receive a medal from the Russian royal family for participating in battles. He is also an artist who was nominated for the 1st Nobel Peace Prize in 1901. In this paper, based on Vereshchagin s war-themed series of works and his writings, we intend to examine what Vereshchagin s realism means. Accordingly, in this article, we will analyze Orientalism and Oriental image focusing on the ‘Turkestan Series’. Through ‘Balkan Series , we examine the suffering of mankind caused by war, sympathy for soldiers, and the image of the tragic pathos of war that human death shows. Finally, we look at history of imperialism shown through the ‘Execution Trilogy’ and raise the question of inhumane executions.