Nation and Memory in Eastern Europe

1. Nation and Memory in Eastern Europe Lecture 4 Russian History II Week 5

2. Outline • Expansion and Repression 2. Between Reform and Reaction 3. Views of Russia‘s Past and Present 4. Conclusion

3. Alexander I 1801-1825

5. Holy Alliance • Inspired by Alexander I 1815 • Russia, Prussia, Austria • Christianity in European political life • Bastion against revolution The legitimacy of established governments and territorial integrity of existing countries

7. Foreign and Imperial Policy 1801 - 1856

8. Autocratic rule, but Tsar and nobility were mutually dependent on each other.

9. Domestic Policy 1801 - 1856

10. Nicholas I 1825-1855

11. Decembrist movement, 1825

12. Domestic Policy 1801 - 1856

13. Autocracy, Orthodoxy, and Nationality/National Character (narodnost’) Count Sergey S. Uvarov, Minister for Education 1832 “narodnost’” underlines the originality and uniqueness of the Russian people, the fundamental values of Russian culture and society, as opposed to Westernization. "To turn Russians back to Russian ways", ("возвраща́ть ру́сских к ру́сскому"). Uvarov

14. Ilya Repin, Religious procession in the Kursk Province, 1880-1883

15. Feodor Vasilyev, Village (1869)

16. Outline • Russia in the 19th Century: the „Gendarme of Europe“ 2. Between Reform and Reaction 3. Views of Russia‘s Past and Present 4. Conclusion

17. Domestic Policy 1801 - 1856

18. Alexander II 1855-1881

19. Imperial and Foreign Policy 1856 - 1881

20. Alexander II 1855-1881

21. Domestic Policy 1856 - 1881

23. Outline • Russia in the 19th Century: the „Gendarme of Europe“ 2. Between Reform and Reaction 3. Views of Russia‘s Past and Present 4. Conclusion

24. Nikolai Karamzin, 1766-1826 History of the Russian State, 10 volumes, 1816-1826 Petr Chaadaev Ivan Kireevsky (1806-1856)

25. Discussions on Russia’s Past, Present and Future Slavophiles Unique Russian civilization Based on orthodox church, village community (mir), ancient popular assembly Superior to Western culture Support autocracy Pro emancipation of the serfs Freedom of speech and press Reforms of Peter I alienation from true Russian national character Ivan Kireyevsky, Aleksey Khomiakov, Ivan Aksakov Many slavophiles later supported Panslavic Movement Russian Nationalism Westernizers Oriented towards Western culture Adoption of Western culture and technology necessary for future of Russia Inferior to Western culture Mostly pro-constitutional, liberal, rationalistic Pro emancipation of the serfs Freedom of speech and press Reforms of Peter I basis for modernization P. Chaadayev, Aleksandr Herzen, Vissarion Belinsky Many westernizers stayed liberals, others later became socialists or political radicals

26. Mir, Obshchina – Peasant community • 16th c. – 1929 form of organisation in villages • Corporate body with an assembly, obligations and rights • Responsible for allocating the arable land to its members and for reallocating such lands periodically (size dependent on number of hands in peasant household) • After abolition of serfdom – land owned jointly by the mir, not by the individual peasant • Slavophiles saw it as specifically Russian form of organisation • Some socialists interpreted mir as Russian version of socialism (industrialisation for Russia no precondition for socialism) • Marxist socialists, liberals, modernists-nationalists saw mir as backward form of organisation – preventing innovation and amelioration in countryside • Reforms of Stolypin: Creating an estate of individual, wealthy peasants

28. Sergei Solovyov 1820-1879 Vasily Klyuchevsky 1841-1911 Course in Russian History, 5 volumes History of Russia from the Earliest Times, 1851 – 1879 29 volumes

29. Major Ethnic Groups in the Russian Empire 1897 (125,640,000) Russians 44.31% Ukrainians 17.81% Belorussians 4.68% Poles 6.31% Jews 4.03% Other ethnic groups in the West 4.47% Ethnic groups in the North 0.42% Ethnic groups Wolga/Ural 5.85% Ethnic groups in Siberia 0.99% Ethnic groups in the Steppe 1.99% Ethnic groups in the Transcaucasus 3.53% Ethnic groups in the Caucasus 1.05% Ethnic groups in Central Asia 5.69% Diaspora groups (1.43% Germans) 1.91%

30. Outline • Russia in the 19th Century: the „Gendarme of Europe“ 2. Between Reform and Reaction 3. Views of Russia‘s Past and Present 4. Conclusion

31. Problems of nation building • Serfdom until 1861 • Liberation without land (peasants have to pay for it) • Non-Russian peasants in periphery of Empire have often more rights than Russian peasants • Gulf between nobility/elite and peasants • Weakness of Russian Orthodox Church – since 17th c. tool of autocracy • Late introduction of self-administration (zemstva) • Gulf between autocracy and educated elite • Empire vs. Russian nation (enormous role of non-Russians in imperial bureaucracy) • Great Russians are not absolute majority of population • National movements in periphery • Challenge by socialism • The Russian Empire is overstretched • Dilemma: to compete with the other Great Powers modernisation needed, effective modernisation co-operation of elites, education of population… • But… end of autocratic rule, sharing of power, education also vehicle for ‘wrong’ – revolutionary or reformist ideas – scared of peasant uprising

32. The Russian narrative • Moscow Tsardom and the Russian Empire are the legitimate successors to the Kievian Rus (principality of Kiev) • The population of the territory of the principality came under foreign rule (Lithuanian, Polish), Belarussians and Ukrainians were alienated from the Great Russians • Ukrainians and Belarussians are not separate nations, they belong to the Russian Nation • The Russian Empire collected the land of the Kievian Rus and liberated Belarussians and Ukrainians from foreign oppression The integration of this territory in the Russian Empire is historically necessary, legitimate and unites Ukrainians and Belarussians after several hundred years of enforced separation with their Russian brothers and sisters.