Tsarist Period Research Articles

The Russian entrepreneur

Despite a significant interest in business and entrepreneurial activities in the former USSR, there continues to be a shortage of accurate information to dispel some of the myths and misinformation particularly about entrepreneurial activities occurring in the new Russia. Since the inner workings of the economic environment in the former USSR have rarely been described or understood, it is important to view present day entrepreneurs in the context of the country's historical perspective and entrepreneurial predecessors. While never in the forefront of the largely political stage of the country during the Tsarist and Soviet periods, entrepreneurs have nonetheless been consistently present throughout the country's history. Even though most everyone was engaged to some extent in some form of commercial activity, entrepreneurs from the 16th to the 19th century were thought to be inferior individuals. As a consequence, entrepreneurs were oppressed, heavily taxed, powerless individuals at the bottom level of society. But for a few notable exceptions, even Peter the Great's program to create a class of industrialists failed to develop entrepreneurs. In spite of this significant hindrance, entrepreneurship developed and flourished during the Tsarist period, mainly due to the geographical, economic and social, psychological, and political factors. Socialism, the State's domination of the economy, and the centrally planned economy impacted the type and extent of entrepreneurship during the Soviet period. Soviet entrepreneurs, though existing in the shadow economy, were hampered by several factors: only being exposed to mostly secondhand, printed information, not having a lawful mechanism to transfer the risk of entrepreneurship from the State to the individual, not being in sync with the ultimate purpose of the country's economic activity to further the interests of the State, and dealing with an economic situation where production units were separated from research and development units. Three entrepreneurial scenarios of a high-tech company, a Russian brokerage company, and an educational organization, are presented that exemplify the entrepreneurial talent and ability present in the country. To the extent that these scenarios are repeated in a variety of industries by many different entrepreneurs, the successful movement to a progressive market-oriented economy will be speeded.

A Second Missed Opportunity: Russian in Retreat as a Global Language

Models of language competition usually favor the central language over those of the peripheries. Yet the Russian language has failed to establish its hegemony both in the tsarist and Soviet empires. While the tsarist period is briefly touched upon in the Introduction, the paper concentrates on the "missed second opportunity"—the Soviet and post-Soviet period. It attempts to explain the causes for the second failure against a broad historical background, beginning with Lenin's generous linguistic policy, through the elevation of Russian as the language of the "Soviet People" and of the "Communist Future" in the post-Stalin period, to the current (1992) retreat under local and global challenges. The role of language grievances in promoting national self-assertiveness and causing the present anti-Russian backlash in the republics is highlighted. The paper ends with a discussion of the future prospects of Russian as a second language.

Russian Peasant Schools: Officialdom, Village Culture, and Popular Pedagogy, 1861-1914

This pioneering study of primary schools in the Russian countryside during the late tsarist period examines the contribution of education to the transition to modernity. The author links social, institutional, and cultural history, thus providing a multi-dimensional description of the village response to pressures of the modern world.

Greek-Soviet Relations, 1917-1941 (review)

Reviews 113 justify his perception of a communist threat is based on the comparison of results of the national election in 1981 in selected cities with those ofthe municipal elections in 1982. This effort is methodologically unsound. It should also be stated that while Macridis makes an issue of the electoral alliances in some municipalities between the KKE and PASOK, in the second round he neglects to mention that there were also electoral alliances between the New Democracy and the KKE. Macridis' conclusion that the Greek socialist government is moving in the direction of the statism and authoritarianism of Third World socialism rather than toward Western democratic socialism is erroneous in the assumptions upon which this conclusion is contingent , and it is analytically unsound. Categorizing Greece as a Third World country, subject to Third World style authoritarianism, is invalid : Greece does not share the level of underdevelopment, the historical legacy or the sociocultural patterns of either Africa or Asia. Moreover, the Third World socialist regimes Macridis alludes to are countries such as Mozambique and Ethiopia, which are ruled by Marxist-Leninists, an ideology which PASOK repudiates. All in all, Macridis' study of Greek socialism is superficial, highly biased, lacking in analytic depth or meaningful insights, and theoretically weak. It contributes little to one's understanding of Greek socialism. Adamantia Pollis New School for Social Research Andrew L. Zapantis. Greek-Soviet Relations, 1917-1941. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Pp. 615. Western and Soviet scholarships on Greek-Russian relations during the tsarist period made appreciable strides during the last two decades. Published scholarship and ongoing research in the field touches on various aspects of this relationship—diplomatic, political, cultural and economic. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Soviet period, and the appearance of the volume under review, Greek-Soviet Relations, 1917-1941, by Andrew L. Zapantis, is of necessity a welcome study about a poorly researched topic. One would have expected that despite understandable obstacles, especially inaccessibility of diplomatic and related documents, some attempts 114 Reviews would have been made earlier by either Soviet, Greek or Western scholars to rescue some of the fast vanishing details that touch on Greek-Soviet relations. Nothing ofthe sort happened, and Zapantis' work stands in a category by itself. As the author points out in his preface, Greek-Soviet Relations is an expanded version of a doctoral dissertation submitted to the Philipps -Universität Marburg in 1978. As such, it is characterized by the virtues and shortcomings usually associated with dissertations— and expanded ones at that. Its main virtue or contribution is that it directs attention to the nature of diplomatic relations and the conditions which affected those relations between Greece and the Soviet Union. Indeed, this is the first time that so many published sources and related studies in Eastern and Western European languages, including modern Greek, have been utilized to prepare a narrative, parts of which until now remained buried in textbooks, monographs and memoirs and some of which were entirely unknown or presumed not to have existed. It is sometimes forgotten that despite the inevitable strain between Greece and the young Soviet regime resulting from ideological, political and economic considerations, the two countries established "full diplomatic and consular relations" as early as 1924 and that these relations survived remarkably well until the fall of Crete in 1941. It was a turbulent relationship, to be sure, made more so by European political developments during the interwar years, the political fortunes of Greece itself oscillating between democratic and dictatorial regimes, the existence and fate of the Communist Party of Greece, the Greek refugees who fled Russia after the failure ofthe Allies to "extinguish" the Bolsheviks, the question of mutual claims especially as it affected Greek properties in Russia, and the arrest and deportation of Greeks in the Soviet Union during the Great Purges ofthe 1930s. It is worth noting that among the individuals who had helped initiate and sustain relations between the two countries during this period were Greeks who had fled from Southern Russia after the Civil War and Intervention. This story and much more is told responsibly, chronologically but rather unimaginatively, by the author. Maybe the story in its...

The Lutherans in Russian Alaska

Research Article| May 01 1968 The Lutherans in Russian Alaska Toivo Harjunpaa Toivo Harjunpaa Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Pacific Historical Review (1968) 37 (2): 123–146. https://doi.org/10.2307/3637066 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Toivo Harjunpaa; The Lutherans in Russian Alaska. Pacific Historical Review 1 May 1968; 37 (2): 123–146. doi: https://doi.org/10.2307/3637066 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentPacific Historical Review Search This content is only available via PDF. Copyright 1969 The Pacific Coast Branch, American Historical Association Article PDF first page preview Close Modal You do not currently have access to this content.

Russia and the Middle East

D URING the past four years the Middle East has been experiencing the latest and by far the most serious of Russia's many attempts to establish her influence there. It is the most serious partly because Russia has never before been so powerful or so well organized, partly because the character of the Middle East has fundamentally changed during the past quarter of a century, and particularly since the last war. My object is to try to consider this question as a whole and not simply with reference to the present situation. I want to draw your attention to Russia's geographical position in relation to the Middle East. It seems to me that this is often overlooked by us, although not by the Russians. To them it is not the East but the South; and ever since the middle of the nineteenth century the southern fringe of Russia from the Caspian to Outer Mongolia has been peopled by millions of Muslims with strong cultural and racial ties with peoples over the border in Turkey, Iraq, Persia, and Afghanistan. This Muslim fringe is now organized into six republics which the Soviet Government is intent on using as a shop window to attract the countries of the East, and as a cultural bridge between the Soviet Union and the Middle East. The history of Russia's relations with the Middle East is of considerable importance. During the Tsarist period, and, until quite recently, during the Soviet period, it has been a history of failure. I have no intention of going into great detail, but I must touch briefly on Tsarist history because Soviet Middle Eastern policy is not, as many people suppose, an entirely new thing. The Revolution changed many aspects of Russian life, but it did not change the Russian climate or Russia's geographical position. I doubt very much if it has changed the Russian character or even Russia's aims, which still include the establishment of Russian influence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf as the best means of promoting Russia's interests and of securing her against attacks from the West. Up to the first World War the Middle East contained only two sovereign States-Turkey and Persia, with both of which Russia had common frontiers. Transcaucasia and Central Asia, the parts of Russia abutting on the Middle East, contained nearly four-fifths of Russia's twenty-odd million Muslim subjects, the great majority of whom were Turkish by race and culture. These circumstances might have been expected to give Russia great strategic, political, and cultural advantages over her West European rivals. In fact, however, largely owing to her 295

Russia and the Middle East

D URING the past four years the Middle East has been experiencing the latest and by far the most serious of Russia's many attempts to establish her influence there. It is the most serious partly because Russia has never before been so powerful or so well organized, partly because the character of the Middle East has fundamentally changed during the past quarter of a century, and particularly since the last war. My object is to try to consider this question as a whole and not simply with reference to the present situation. I want to draw your attention to Russia's geographical position in relation to the Middle East. It seems to me that this is often overlooked by us, although not by the Russians. To them it is not the East but the South; and ever since the middle of the nineteenth century the southern fringe of Russia from the Caspian to Outer Mongolia has been peopled by millions of Muslims with strong cultural and racial ties with peoples over the border in Turkey, Iraq, Persia, and Afghanistan. This Muslim fringe is now organized into six republics which the Soviet Government is intent on using as a shop window to attract the countries of the East, and as a cultural bridge between the Soviet Union and the Middle East. The history of Russia's relations with the Middle East is of considerable importance. During the Tsarist period, and, until quite recently, during the Soviet period, it has been a history of failure. I have no intention of going into great detail, but I must touch briefly on Tsarist history because Soviet Middle Eastern policy is not, as many people suppose, an entirely new thing. The Revolution changed many aspects of Russian life, but it did not change the Russian climate or Russia's geographical position. I doubt very much if it has changed the Russian character or even Russia's aims, which still include the establishment of Russian influence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf as the best means of promoting Russia's interests and of securing her against attacks from the West. Up to the first World War the Middle East contained only two sovereign States-Turkey and Persia, with both of which Russia had common frontiers. Transcaucasia and Central Asia, the parts of Russia abutting on the Middle East, contained nearly four-fifths of Russia's twenty-odd million Muslim subjects, the great majority of whom were Turkish by race and culture. These circumstances might have been expected to give Russia great strategic, political, and cultural advantages over her West European rivals. In fact, however, largely owing to her 295

RUSSIA AND THE MIDDLE EAST

D URING the past four years the Middle East has been experiencing the latest and by far the most serious of Russia's many attempts to establish her influence there. It is the most serious partly because Russia has never before been so powerful or so well organized, partly because the character of the Middle East has fundamentally changed during the past quarter of a century, and particularly since the last war. My object is to try to consider this question as a whole and not simply with reference to the present situation. I want to draw your attention to Russia's geographical position in relation to the Middle East. It seems to me that this is often overlooked by us, although not by the Russians. To them it is not the East but the South; and ever since the middle of the nineteenth century the southern fringe of Russia from the Caspian to Outer Mongolia has been peopled by millions of Muslims with strong cultural and racial ties with peoples over the border in Turkey, Iraq, Persia, and Afghanistan. This Muslim fringe is now organized into six republics which the Soviet Government is intent on using as a shop window to attract the countries of the East, and as a cultural bridge between the Soviet Union and the Middle East. The history of Russia's relations with the Middle East is of considerable importance. During the Tsarist period, and, until quite recently, during the Soviet period, it has been a history of failure. I have no intention of going into great detail, but I must touch briefly on Tsarist history because Soviet Middle Eastern policy is not, as many people suppose, an entirely new thing. The Revolution changed many aspects of Russian life, but it did not change the Russian climate or Russia's geographical position. I doubt very much if it has changed the Russian character or even Russia's aims, which still include the establishment of Russian influence in the Eastern Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf as the best means of promoting Russia's interests and of securing her against attacks from the West. Up to the first World War the Middle East contained only two sovereign States-Turkey and Persia, with both of which Russia had common frontiers. Transcaucasia and Central Asia, the parts of Russia abutting on the Middle East, contained nearly four-fifths of Russia's twenty-odd million Muslim subjects, the great majority of whom were Turkish by race and culture. These circumstances might have been expected to give Russia great strategic, political, and cultural advantages over her West European rivals. In fact, however, largely owing to her 295