Vol 19, No 4 (2020): Ethnic and confessional diversity of Russia and the USSR: perception by power and society

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The article analyzes why and how persons of the Orthodox confession converted to the Armenian faith in the nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russian Empire. This phenomenon is linked to the practice of mixed marriages between persons belonging to the Orthodox and Armenian confessions. While the status of non-Orthodox Christian confessions in Russia during the synodal period has received a good amount of scholarly attention, not much research has been devoted to the conversion from Orthodoxy to the Armenian faith, and to the issue of marriages between persons belonging to these faiths. The present paper identifies the motives and circumstances of religious conversions and the peculiarities of mixed marriages. It does so on the basis of unpublished documents from the funds of the National Archive of the Republic of Armenia. Equally new is the authors’ suggestion to consider these phenomena as an integral component in the history of Russian-Armenian church relations in the period 1828-1917. Until 1905, the regulations of the Orthodox Church demanded that after the conduction of an interreligious marriage, both spouses continued to practice their respective faiths, and their children were baptized in Orthodoxy. This is reflected in the metric books of the Erivan Pokrovsky Orthodox Cathedral (1880-1885). The analysis of archival documents allows us to conclude that after 1905, most of the conversions from Orthodoxy to the Armenian faith were performed by women who intended to marry men of the Armenian confession. The reason for this phenomenon is that interreligious marriages and the baptism of children born from mixed couples was still in the competence of the Russian Orthodox Church. Only if both partners belonged to the Armenian faith, the wedding could take place in the Armenian Church, and their children were brought up in the Armenian faith. In addition to matrimonial reasons, the article underlines some other important motives behind conversions from Orthodoxy to the Armenian confession.

As a contribution to the history of the institutional development of the Russian Orthodox Church in the Central Asian parts of the Russian Empire, the present article analyzes the emergence of missionary structures in the Orenburg diocese. The research is based on a wide range of administrative documents of the Orenburg diocese (preserved in the State Archive of the Orenburg region), and on materials published in the Orenburg Diocesan Gazette. The contribution explores the reasons for the creation of the regional Committee of the Orthodox Missionary Society and the Kyrgyz Mission, and identifies the stages of their activities. It also highlights the features of the organization of Orthodox missionary work among the Kazakhs of the Urals and Turgay regions. The authors argue that Orthodox missionary work in the Steppe was meant to exclude the Kazakhs from the ongoing all-Russian Muslim consolidation. The strategy that the Russian state chose to control regions with a dense inorodtsy (non-Russians) population was acculturation, to control the respective populations by inclu- ding them into the cultural and religious Russian-Orthodox space. On the spot, however, the officials of the Kyrgyz Mission faced a whole range of obstacles, including particular attitudes of the Kazakhs about aspects of the Christian dogma. Also, there was already well-funded Islamic missionary work in the Ural and Turgai steppes. The Orthodox parish system remained weak, and state financing of missionary work was considered insufficient. The resettlement of peasants into the region required that employees of the Kirghiz mission changed their emphasis from missionary work to the ordinary duties of parish priests. All this allows the authors to conclude that the efficiency of Orthodox missionary structures among the Kazakhs of the Orenburg diocese was low.

The present article analyses some documents concerning the legal and social status of Yakov D. Frizer (1869-1932), who was a Jew, a resident of Irkutsk, a merchant of the First Guild and one of the biggest gold miners of East Siberia. The story of his life in East Siberia describes religious tolerance along with manifestations of nationalism and antisemitism. On the threshold of the 20th century, Siberia was a colorful mosaic of numerous religious groups and confessions existing in the Russian Empire. Jewish communities of Siberia were characterized by openness and heterogeneity. In contras-distinction to the Jews from the Pale of Settlement, Jews of Siberia were successfully integrated into Siberian society. Being a son of a criminal exile, Yakov Frizer in a course of time became one of the biggest Siberian entrepreneurs. Diaries from Frizer’s private archive sometimes pointed out to the cases of religious and ethnic disaffection, thereby demonstrating the complexity and versatility of interfaith relations in East Siberia. Using the definition of Pierre Bourdieu, several generations of Siberian Jews succeeded to build a “symbolic capital” that became a part of their social status, ensured their social respect, and business connections built on mutual trust, making Jews as useful society members. East Siberia in general was tolerant to questions of religious faith. The so-called “Jewish question” in East Siberia did not have the same sharpness as it had in Western provinces of the Russian Empire. The “Jewish question” in Siberia was rather an echo of anti-Semitic stereotypes that traditionally have deep roots in the Russian society, and common people consciousness. The article is based on unpublished sources and diaries from Frizer’s private archive, as well as on archival sources from the Russian State Historical Archive and the State Archive of the Russian Federation.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the state policy on Ural Gypsies in the 1920-30s. Historiographical experience allows to undertake micro-level studies including examples of certain regions taking into account their specificity. The article observes the history of Ural Gypsies. Despite a great amount of works devoted to the history of Russian Gypsies the authors are sure that a differentiated approach to the study is the most appropriate taking into account the peculiarities of certain ethnic groups each of them having its own historical specificities. Available published sources and documents that are introduced into scientific circulation for the first time allow to undertake such studies inside one region on the example of two ethnic groups of Gypsies - Russian Roma and the Kalderash Gypsies. The authors have a hypothesis that the number of Ural Gypsies could be much bigger because in official documents they were named Russians or the citizens of certain European countries (Romanians, Bulgarians, Austrians, Serbs, and others). The article analyses the effectiveness of Ural authorities’ policies aimed at organizing Gypsy collective farms (kolkhoz), industrial artels as well as cultural policies on Gypsies. Despite several successful examples in the country in general Ural attempts of organizing Gypsy collective farms were not that successful though there were all the necessary conditions and regional authorities were making a lot of efforts to maintain those farms that were organized. The sources give information on the activities of Gypsy industrial artels which unlike collective farms were functioning well.

The article focuses on the Yekaterinburg city (Urals, Russia) population on the eve of the First World War. We argue that 1897 Census data, which remains the main source for estimating the late Imperial Russia’s urban population, are not relevant for the early 20th century Yekaterinburg. The results of population surveys of 1917-1922 largely affected by the socio-political crisis do not reflect the actual development of the city before entering the First World War. So the numbers of 50-70 thousands traditionally used to estimate Yekaterinburg’s population on the eve of the WWI is a historiographic cliché which should be corrected. Our research bases on critical analyses of the newly discovered and transcribed sources Perepis’ domovladel’tcev (municipal survey of the house owners) run in October 1913 at the request of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the aggregated data of the Adresnyi stol (residence registration office) of Yekaterinburg collected in November 1912, as well as local statistics and newspapers. Using source analysis, demographic reconstruction, and a historical-comparative method we reconstructed the population of Yekaterinburg in 1912-1913. Our analysis shows that the city’s population exceeded 100 thousand already in 1912, which means that Yekaterinburg was a dynamically developing due to rapid urbanization and became one of the few Russia’ big (over 100000) cities on the eve of the WWI. While our results help better understanding of the pre-revolutionary Urals’ urbanization, it also raises the need to re-evaluate the price of the Revolution 1917 the city paid, for its’ population dropped drastically during the following crises and reached 100 thousand again only in 1926.

The article is devoted to the reconstruction of the socio-political resonance among the ruling elite of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, caused by the emergence in Poland of False Dmitry I. the Reconstruction based on the letters of members of the Senate to king Sigismund III, written in response to his question about how to deal with a man calling himself the son of Ivan The Terrible and heir to the Moscow throne. The second part of the study is based on instructions given by the gentry of the various States of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to deputies sent to the Sejm in Warsaw, which was to be held in January 1605. There were heated discussions about the campaign of False Dmitry I to Moscow, so these instructions are also a valuable historical source. The letters of Polish senators cited in this article were previously briefly mentioned in studies on the Time of Troubles. They are currently stored in the manuscript Department of the Kurnick library of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Among them are letters from Chancellor Y. Zamoyski, Lithuanian Hetman Y. Khodkiewicz, Krakow castellan Y. Ostrozhski, poznań castellan Y. Ostrorog, Bratslav podkomor L. Piaseczynski, poznań Bishop L. Goslicki, Plock voivode S. Krasinski and Sandomierz castellan S. Tarnowski. This article presents for the first time in full the translations of fragments of these letters concerning False Dmitry I, since their brief analysis in the historical literature did not reflect the fullness of the emotions and feelings of the Polish ruling elite regarding this issue. As a result of full acquaintance with the sources, we came to the conclusion that the full Polish Senate was against the extradition of the impostor to the Moscow state, and among them was also the Chancellor Y. Zamoyski. Opinions differed as to the future of the “Prince,” but they were also very cautious and did not call for his immediate support from the king and the Republic.

The article is devoted to a pioneer comparative study of the appearance and evolution of people’s houses in Western Europe and Russia in the second half of the XIX - early XX century. The institutional approach chosen by the authors is complemented by a historical and comparative method of studying the phenomenon of people’s houses. The goals of their creation and features of the activity, due to the political, economic and sociocultural historical realities of individual countries, are analyzed. Research revealed that people’s houses in Europe and in Russia were created at the same historical period - the modern era. A historiographical comparative study using new historical sources showed that in Western European countries and in the Russian Empire, the state did not play a major role in this matter, although some of the people's houses were opened by monarchs, and state policy (opposing promotion of cultural leisure to the alcoholization of the population) could contribute to the development of civil society initiatives. The performed study proves that for both European countries and Russia, private and public initiatives in establishing people's houses (primarily the cooperative movement) played a decisive role. In Russia, it is important to point out the sociocultural policy of the zemstvos, their financial support when building people's houses. The article shows the obvious differences in the history of people's houses in Western European countries and in Russia, due to the late formation of the party system in Imperial Russia. In Europe, one can meet many examples of the creation of people's houses by political parties and generally note the high level of politicization of these institutions. In Russian reality non-political nature of people's houses is obvious, they were mostly cultural and educational public institutions that were further subjected to the process of politicization (under revolutionary conditions). In conclusion, the authors acknowledge big historical significance of people's houses as civil society institutions in Russia and abroad, taking into account such principles of their functioning as independence, voluntariness, social activism and civic consciousness.

The article examines the views of modern French researchers on the relations between Russia and the post-Soviet republics of Central Asia. This allows us to identify various interpretations of Russian foreign policy, and to understand the main approaches of French scholars analyzing the goals and tasks of Russian geostrategy in the region. As the article demonstrates, French historiography, along with the objectivist view on the Central Asian vector in Russian foreign policy, also includes works of ideological nature. Special emphasis is put on French works that focus on Russian political authors who speak of Russia’s neo-imperialism. These studies explain the Russian policy in Central Asia through the ruling elite’s ambition to resurrect an empire in the post-Soviet space and to return superpower status to Russia. Of special interest is the position of authors who try to explain the Russian attitude to the Central Asian region as, on the one hand, an expression of nostalgic feelings harbored by a great part of the population about the nation’s former greatness, assuming that these feelings have an impact on the leadership’s policies, and on the other hand, as the Russian leadership’s attempt to use Russia’s active return to the international arena for the consolidation and self-identification of society. It is observed that some French authors speak of a New Great Game. This very popular concept considers the actions of Russia and other powers operating in the region (USA and China) as a continuation of the historical rivalry between the Russian and British empires in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Russian authors have always been interested in French historiography; this is due to the latter’s scientific prestige and objectivity, and in particular its application of methodologies that further develop the tradition of the Annales School. At the same time, the growing French scholarship on the issue of Russia and post-Soviet Central Asian republics has not yet been subject to close and complex consideration, which defines the novelty of the article.