The Price of Expansion:
The Nationality Problem in Russia
of the Eighteenth-Early Twentieth Centuries


Boris N. Mironov

Copyright (c) 1998 by the Slavic Research Center. All rights reserved.

Much has been written about Russia�s territorial expansion. This literature, both Russian and foreign, runs the gamut from labeling Russia as an aggressive expansionist power, endlessly striving to expand her boundaries, to justifying colonization as being in the interests of both the Russian and indigenous populations of the incorporated territories. *1
Expansion, in terms of the capture of foreign territories, and colonization, in terms of development of fallow lands, belonging, at least formally, to no one, went on hand in hand in Russia. Sometimes expansion cannot be separated from colonization since in the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries very often there were no clear state borders in the majority of Eurasia. Besides numerous peoples belonged to no state at all. A close tangle of expansion and colonization goals and coincidence in terms of time of intensified expansion and colonization makes it expedient to consider both processes together from the point of view of territorial expansion.
Between 1646 and 1914 Russia's territory grew by fifty five percent: in 1646 it encompassed 14.1 million square kilometers; in 1796, 16.6; in 1858, 18.2, and in 1914, 21.8. In the same period the population increased 25.4-fold, from 7 to 178 million. The territory of the European part of the country increased from 4.1 to 4.8 million square kilometers; it's population from 6.7 million to 143.3 million. *2 Only the United States surpassed Russia in its rate of population growth: between 1790 and 1915 its population rose from 3.9 million to 100.5 million, *3 or 25.8-fold (in absolute terms the population increase was greater in 125 years than in Russia in 266 years). As for the other European countries, they lagged far behind Russia's rate of population growth. This phenomenal rate of growth drastically changed Russia's position among the European powers. In the 1760s Russia became the most populous state in Europe. In 1762 its population comprised eighteen percent of the total population of Europe (23.2 of 130.0 million people); in 1800, twenty two percent (39 of 175 million); in 1850, twenty seven percent (68.5 of 255 million); and in 1910 thirty two percent (161 of 505 million). *4
In 1897, on the territory that was joined to Russia after 1646 there were 76.9 million people, of whom only 12.2 million or nearly sixteen percent were Russians. Within the 1646 boundaries, on the other hand, there were 52 million, of whom 8.5 million, or about sixteen percent, were non-Russians. Basically speaking, until 1917 Russians migrated to uninhabitated land in New Russia, the southeast, the Northern Caucasus and Siberia. Very few left for territory that was already settled and utilized by other peoples. In Finland Russians made up less than one percent of the population; in Poland, 2.8 percent; in the Caucasus, 4.3%. In 1897 eighty six percent of all Russians lived within the old boundaries of 1646; at that earlier date this figure had been ninety five percent (see Table 1). Table 1

The proportion of Russians in the regions of the Russian Empire in 1897

Region Population,
thousands		 Russians,
thousands		 Russians, %
Bessarabia 1935 156 8.1
Lithuania and
Byelorussia 		10063 566 5.6
Baltic lands 2385 114 4.8
The Ukraine 17134 1423 8.3
Poland 9400 267 2.8
Finland 2600 6 0.23
Central Asia 7700 588 7.6
The Caucasus 5516 235 4.3
Novorossia 6296 1345 21.4
South-East 10115 5858 57.9
Northern Caucasus 3784 1595 42.2
Siberia 5759 4424 76.8
Total 82687 16577 20.0

Sources: Obshchii svod po imperii rezul'tatov razrabotki dannykh pervoi vseobshchei perepisi naseleniia 1897 goda (St. Petersburg: N. A. Nyrkin, 1905), tom 1, pp. 1-3
We must agree with A. Kappeler, a German historian, that up to the late nineteenth century Russian expansion was determined primarily by strategic and foreign-policy reasons but not by economic ones, *5 and also with the American historian R. E. H. Mellor that "Russia simply took what others could not or would not claim". *6 The push to the Black Sea was dictated above all by the need to solidify the southern borders and to put an end to incursions by Crimean Tatars, who had taken thousands of Russian prisoners and sold them into slavery in Istanbul. At times the annual number of Russians sold into slavery reached twenty thousand. *7 According to the French ambassador to Russia, (L. F. Segur), Catherine the Great complained to Voltaire that every year the Tatars "brought plague and starvation to Russia, slew and sold into slavery up to twenty thousand people". *8 Expansion towards the Baltic Sea was prompted by the search for a warm-water port to facilitate economic and cultural ties with the West. Expansion in the Caucasus and Central Asia stemmed from the fear that otherwise the Caucasus would fall to Turkey or Persia and Central Asia to Great Britain. The annexation of the North and Trans-Caucasus cannot be understood out of the context of the war against Iran and the Ottoman Empire, the annexation of Kazakhstan and Central Asia � out of the context of the confrontation between Russia and Great Britain and Russian defeat in the Crimean war of 1853-1856, the annexation of the Far East � out of the context of the contradictions between Russia on the one hand, and Great Britain, France, the U.S.A. and Japan on the other. Russians were drawn to virtually unpopulated Siberia (at the time of conquest in the seventeenth century, the entire population of Siberia was approximately 200,000-220,000) *9 only by the possibility of tapping its fabulous natural resources. The drive towards the Far East and Central Asia was also partly incited by the desire to obtain raw material sources and markets. In all other cases strategic considerations dominated. *10
The basic economic reason for Russia's colonization was, as elsewhere, the emergence of relative agricultural overpopulation and the subsequent crisis of the given agricultural system (whatever its configuration). Every economic system has a tendency to attain the maximum population density it can support; *11 once this limit is achieved agrarian overpopulation and relative land shortages ensue. Relief from this situation is available only in economic transformation to intensive patterns or in emigration, colonization and expansion. Transformation to intensive patterns requires time, knowledge, resources and psychological restructuring; populations make this step only when emigration, colonization and expansion are not available as alternatives. In Russia, alternatives were virtually always available, and thus, the incentive to make the more difficult transition to intensive agricultural practices was attenuated. *12
There is evidence to confirm that relative overpopulation was behind colonization in Russia. From the 1860s the primary areas of out-migration were those guberniias where land hunger had reached such dimensions that even prosperous peasants were forced to leave: we have in mind the central black earth, Ukrainian and middle Volga old settlement guberniias. Between 1870 and 1896 3.4 million people, or 12.2 percent of the rural population in 1897, migrated from these regions. This cohort made up eighty seven percent of all Russian migrants for these years. *13 Because serfdom obstructed mobility, agrarian overpopulation was always more salient in areas where it prevailed (or its legacy remained). Another important aspect of migration was that in terms of natural conditions, regions of colonization very closely resembled regions of immigration � migrants seldom moved to an unfamiliar natural milieu.
Russia was always a multi-national state. Territorial expansion turned Russia into multinational empire in which the "title" nation found itself outnumbered. In 1646 Russians made up about ninety five percent of the population. Gradually, as new territory was conquered and incorporated, the number of non-Russians grew, both absolutely and proportionally. By 1917 there were about 200 ethnic groups, large and small and diverse in origins, language and culture, in the Russian Empire Russians made up 44.6 percent of this population. *14
Despite the multi-national complexion of this Empire, before 1917 Russia was a unified state; only Finland, Bukhara, Khiva and the Uriankaiskii territory *15 enjoyed full internal autonomy. Of the territories of the Russian Empire, part had been brought in through conquest (Poland, Finland, the North Caucasus and Central Asia), part through treaty (Left-Bank Ukraine, Georgia, some of the lands of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan) and the remainder had been brought in through economic colonization (the North, parts of the Volga Region and of Siberia). *16 In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries all states had used these methods to aggrandize their territories and in so doing had received international recognition of these gains.
With peoples having state formations formal treaties were concluded. For those without statehood, the process was limited to oaths of loyalty to the Russian tsar. In cases of voluntary unification treaties governed the relations between states. However such treaties did not lead to the establishment of a federation in Russia, but rather to protectorates and, eventually, to full subordination. In the event of conquest, events unfolded quite differently: in such cases the administrative and societal organization of the conquered region was determined by Russia. Ordinarily this meant broad autonomy without, however, statehood. The first basic principle of nationality policies was the respect for the status quo. The central government left intact local laws and institutions, providing them with a degree of autonomy which varied according to local circumstances; in some instances this autonomy was considerable indeed. Loyalty to the central state was rewarded with enhanced autonomy; manifestations of hostility or separatism led to diminished but never entirely eliminated, autonomy. It would take many decades before a Russia-wide administrative order could be created, but a complete unification of the administrative, legal or societal orders prevailing in the so-called nationality regions and the Great Russian provinces was never achieved before 1917. *17
The second basic principle of nationality policies was broad cooperation of the central government with non-Russian elites, who, as a rule, were granted the status of nobility. This facilitated governing the new territories. The Left-Bank Ukraine was typical; its incorporation proceeded without the usual difficulty because the Ukrainian elite was incorporated into the Russian nobility and given equal rights. *18 The third basic principal of nationality policies was the creation of certain advantages in the legal status of non-Russians as compared with that of Russians. With the exception of the Jews, the legal status of non-Russians was better than Russians. However even Jews, although they resided within the Settlement of pale and were subjected to other discriminating measures, were never enslaved, recruited into the Army on the equal footing with Russians, they had taxation privileges etc. In fact, baptized Jews had the same rights as Russians. There was, after all, the well-known case of Alexander Krzhizhanovskii (1796-1863), the grandson of a baptized Jew who, under Nicholas I of all rulers, rose to the position of arch-bishop. *19 The central government guaranteed personal freedom to peasants, shipyard workers and hunters paying the yasak, forbidding their enslavement as Russian free peasants. That is why non-Russian people who, before their incorporation in to Russia, had no relations based on serfdom, never knew what serfdom was like. Before the introduction of universal conscription in 1874, most non-Russian nationalities were exempt from the burdensome recruit levies. In 1887 the population of the Caucasus, Finland and Poland made subject to a reduced term of service, but the peoples of Siberia, Central Asia and the North remained exempt.
According to the fourth principle of nationality policies ethnic and confession criteria were not determining ones for social mobility or social prestige. Owing to this there was no relation between one's social status and nationality. The political, military, cultural and scientific elites of Russia were multinational. They included Protestant Germans and Finns, Muslim Tatars, Catholic Poles and representatives of numerous non-Russian peoples. In 1730 among government officials the share of non-Russians amounted to thirty percent and in 1850s - to sixteen percent. *20 In the period 1894-1914 among the 215 members of the State Council (until 1907 � the highest legislative and consultative body, and since 1907 - the second chamber of the State Duma), some members of which were appointed by the Emperor, at least twelve percent were non-Orthodox, that is non-Russians. In 1903 out of 568 persons who held the highest posts in central and regional State machinery of the Imperial Administration over ten percent were non-Orthodox, mainly Lutherans and Catholics and in 1913 among 6 thousand officials from ten to fifteen percent were non-orthodox people. *21 In the period 1867-1868 in the Russian Army's Officers Corps twenty three percent of all the officers were non-Orthodox and among the highest generals not less than twenty seven percent fell to the share of Protestants. In 1903 they were twenty and fifteen percent respectively. In 1912 the share of non-Orthodox officers decreased to eleven percent. *22 Until 1917 the government adhered to its main principles according to which loyalty to the throne, professionalism and noble descent were valued much higher than ethnic origin. *23
An integral part of the nationality policies was the deliberate upholding of a situation in the Empire in which the standard of living was generally higher for the population of minority regions than it was for the Russian population; minorities paid fewer taxes (see Table 2).
In the period 1886-1895 the population of thirty nine primarily non-Russian provinces paid 1.22 rubles per capita per annum, while the population of thirty one Great Russian provinces paid 1.91 rubles, or fifty nine percent more. There were no exceptions: in all regions inhabited primarily by non-Russians and subject to the Empire's system of taxation, direct taxes were lower. In Finland and the autonomous Central Asian regions, local tax systems were in place. The same pattern can be observed with indirect taxes. As a result the overall sum of state tax revenues in the thirty one Great Russian provinces was thirty nine percent higher than in the non-Russian thirty nine provinces (10.92 rubles and 7.88 rubles). The level of state expenditures was also higher for the Great Russian provinces (10.79 rubles and 4.83 rubles). But the Russian population gained little from this: these expenditures went primarily to administration rather than investment, health, culture or other popular needs. In order to shake down the population, the government needed a bureaucracy, which, in turn needed to be funded.

Table 2

Population in 1897, the average annual state income and expenditure in the groups of guberniias in 1892-1895 and the average annual direct taxes per capita 1886-1895

Group of guberniias Population,
thousands		 Income,
1000
rubles		 Expenditure,
1000
rubles		 Income,
per
capita,
rubles		 Expenditure,
per
capita,
rubles		 Difference,
rubles		 Direct
taxes per
capita,
rubles
10 of the Vistula
region		 9443 99425 48069 10.53 5.09 4.98 1.35
3 Baltic 2386 46143 14634 19.34 6.13 13.21 1.73
6 Ukrainian 17221 130827 64611 7.60 3.75 3.85 1.27
Bessarabian 1936 8919 5443 4.61 2.81 1.80 1.42
7 Byelorussian and
Lithuanian		 11676 50493 53187 4.32 4.56 -0.24 1.14
6 Caucasian 5995 40983 48442 6.84 8.08 1.24 0.79
3 Northern Caucasian 3729 13465 11616 3.61 3.12 0.49 0.53
3 of the Black sea
region		 6282 72073 37654 11.47 5.99 5.48 1.49
Total 39 guberniias 58668 462328 287245 7.88 4.83 3.05 1.22
30 Great Russian
guberniias		 52578 388706 195306 7.39 3.71 3.68 1.72
St. Petersburg
guberniia		 2105 208520 394600 99.06 187.46 -88.4 7.21
31 Great Russian
guberniias		 54683 597226 589906 10.92 10.79 0.13 1.91
Total 70 guberniias 113351 1059554 873562 9.35 7.71 1.64 1.55

Sources: P. A. Antropov. Finansovo-statisticheskii atlas Rossii. 1885-1895 (St. Petersburg: A. F. Marks, 1898), Priolozheniia, Tablitsy 1-4; Materialy uchrezhdennoi 16 noiabria Komissii po issledovaniiu voprosa o dvizhenii s 1861 g. po 1900 g. blagosostoianiia sel'skogo naseleniia (St. Petersburg: P. P. Soikin, 1903), vypusk 1, pp. 251-297.
We can agree with M. Spechler that the regions on the periphery of the empire enjoyed relative advantages from a developmental perspective as compared with the central Russian regions owing to taxation privileges, exemption from the military service, a favorable geographic position on the border or near the sea. *24 Fear of separatism forced the central government to uphold this abnormal situation, rather than being a real colonial power.
It should be noted that once "conquest" was completed and peace established, the behavior of Russians was marked by tolerance and receptivity to the "others" except in the case of Jews. But in the case of Jews, a confession but not a nationality played a decisive role. Russians never made an absolute distinction between "we" and "they". By "we" most ethnic Russians understood not only themselves but also their neighbors, if they were subjects of the tsar. As far as their Orthodox co-believers were concerned, Russians never made much of distinctions among them for, in Russian popular consciousness two notions of nationality prevailed: adherence to the Orthodox faith and loyalty to the Russian tsar. *25 It may well be that because Russian national self-awareness never fully evolved and because the ruling circles rejected hegemonic aspirations for the Russian nation, relations between Russians and the other peoples of the Empire remained civil. *26
The above-stated principles of Russia's nationality policies remained general for the entire imperial period but their realization substantially depended on the attitude towards Russian domination on the part of the people's political elite, traditions of statehood and high culture and other factors. The existence or absence of a prior tradition of statehood, that is internationally recognized territory, boundaries, written laws, administrative structures, played a particularly important role for relations between the central government and a given incorporated people. Poland and Finland are the salient examples: Poland had a tradition of statehood, but Finland did not; its statehood was brought into being by Russia in 1809. As a result, in one case we have endemic war, ending in a rupture; in the other we have peaceful coexistence, ending with peaceful separation.
Religious and cultural affinities were of also significance. Orthodox Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine, Byelorussia and Moldavia presented comparatively few problems, whereas the Muslim peoples presented far more. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the Bashkirs rose in revolt four times in the hope of transferring first to the Siberian khan, then to Turkey. In the course of these uprisings a jihad (a holy war) was sometimes proclaimed against Russians, hundreds of Russian villages were destroyed, and a multitude of peasants taken prisoner and sold into slavery. The Northern Caucasus was incorporated into Russia only after a protracted and exhausting war. It cost Russia the lives of two hundred thousand soldiers to conquer the Caucasus, which rose in revolt again and again. The war against Shamil lasted twenty-five years in the mountainous territories of Dagestan and Chechnia. His followers demonstrated their intransigence in opposition to Russian rule by proclaiming a gazavat and by emigration; with the help of the Russian government some four hundred thousand left for Turkey after defeat. The conquest of Central Asia also involved much loss of life on both sides; a holy war was proclaimed against the Russians, and cities were commonly taken only after hand-to-hand combat in the streets.
The manner of incorporation was also important, as was the existence, or absence of international recognition of the act. Military conquest, though considered a legitimate means of expanding borders, created more problems than peaceful incorporation or colonization. Russia did not wage war against the Finns, the Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Byelorussians, Ukrainians or Moldavians. Their lands were brought in as military booty, won from their former rulers by Russia; this facilitated their peaceful entry into the Russian Empire.
The Russian experience governing a multi-national empire was always a difficult one. But sometimes nationality issues were resolved successfully. The Bashkir question was ultimately settled; the government forbad the extension of serfdom to the Bashkirs and in 1798 converted the Bashkirs to the status of a military estate, like the Cossacks. Subsequently, before the Revolution of 1917 no separatist movement emerged among the Bashkirs. The Finnish question was also successfully resolved; as long as the Finns' autonomy was honored they remained satisfied. But autonomy was not enough for everybody.
In Poland, despite a large measure of autonomy and a political structure that was more liberal than that existing in Russia, dissatisfaction was rampant. Why was this? On the one hand, the ancient tradition of statehood, a glorious history, Catholicism, a feeling of superiority over their conquerors left the Poles irreconciled with their loss of sovereignty. On the other hand, it seems to me that Russia's act of hurriedly setting up a national government in Poland (in 1815, once the new Polish state had been established) made Russia the creator of Polish statehood, unnecessary and Poles hastened to escape Russian hegemony.
We can identify two periods in official Russian nationality policies: before and after 1863 with transitional period from 1830 to 1863 between them. Before 1830, these policies were tolerant to nationality peculiarities and pragmatic. The priority was social stability, internal and external security. If these were threatened on the part of nationalists the government interfered actively using all means available including military force. But if the non-Russian elites were loyal and secured social and political stability in their regions, they were accepted as partners. After the Polish rebellion of 1830, government policies hardened and became more irreconcilable, but only in Western regions they took the form of repression aimed at the liquidation of administrative and political autonomy. Before the second Polish rebellion of 1863, however, nationality policies were not aimed at cultural and linguistic aspects and their severe character showed itself only as regards Polish rebels and their supporters. But in other regions the earlier, liberal set of policies remained in force. Suffice it to say that serfdom was first restricted or eliminated in Latvia, Estonia, Moldavia, Byelorussia and the Ukraine in the early nineteenth century, and only in 1861 in Russia. It was Russian peasants who were saddled with the heaviest burden of redemption payments for their land and freedom after Emancipation.
After the second Polish rebellion was suppressed in 1863 nationality policies gradually hardened; this toughening eventually affected the entire country. Policies aimed at full administrative integration of national regions into the empire acquired a universal and forced character. These policies were supplemented by linguistic and cultural unification in the form of Russification. It should be noted that these policies were in harmony with the mood which prevailed in Russian society as well as with the awakening of Russian national consciousness and in its turn contributed to its mobilization. The brutal suppression of the Polish rebellion, measures aimed at the complete unification of Western lands and the Trans-Caucasus (since the 1860s), the Baltic provinces (since the 1880s) and Finland (since the 1890s), the attack on the specific privileged status of Baltic Germans (since 1890s) were manifestations of new nationality policies. Russification policies were reflected in education policies, in the curtailment of newspapers, periodicals and books in indigenous languages, in admission quotas to gymnasia and universities. For example, it was forbidden to publish books in Lithuanian or to teach the Lithuanian language in schools; in 1867 similar restrictions were imposed upon Byelorussian. It was forbidden to print popular books or perform plays in the Ukrainian language. The year 1881 ushered in pogroms against the Jews; the crown colluded in or directly supported these pogroms. *27 Repression intensified against the Jews: in 1882 quotas restricted admissions to gymnasia and universities (three percent in Moscow and St. Petersburg, and five percent outside the areas of Jewish settlement in general). Judo-, Armeno- and Germanophobia came into being. Jews and, to some extent, Armenians and Germans were turned into "scapegoats" on whom they put the blame for all social and economic problems caused by rapid modernization, for the government's blunders in internal policy. Anti-Semitism was used as a valve to release mass discontent. *28 Discrimination of Jews intensified after the assassination of Alexander II in 1881 in which a Jewish woman took part. The forcible conversion of the Tatars, Udmurts, Maris and Chuvashes was stepped up, and the government organized the migration of Russians to "hot spots" in order to bolster the Russian presence among the population.
How do we explain this shift in policy? One explanation is that the government became disillusioned with the prospects of peaceful and liberal integration and concluded that only a firm line with the nationalities could ensure that the state remain united. We see the emergence of what can be called the "Polish syndrome": a fear that liberal measures would lead to revolt, and belief that repression would bring tranquillity.
And what brought about this syndrome? In 1815 the Treaty of Vienna joined the Duchy of Warsaw to Russia. Alexander I took a very liberal approach to the Polish question and out of the duchy created the Kingdom of Poland, with a constitution, a parliament, and considerable autonomy. In substance Russia was resurrecting Polish statehood, recently obliterated, on very progressive foundations, since the Polish constitution was then the most liberal in Europe. All official positions were reserved for Poles, all official documents drawn up in the Polish language. Freedom of the press and of the person were proclaimed; Catholicism was the dominant religion, but all other beliefs were accorded equal rights. A Polish corps was established within the Russian army, and placed under the command of the tsar's governor-general (namestnik) in Warsaw. Each successive tsar was obliged to be crowned with the Polish crown and to pledge loyalty to the Polish constitution and both Alexander I and Nicholas I did so.
The Russian government hoped that the Polish question had been resolved for all time. But in 1830, only a few months after Nicholas I had pledged allegiance to the Polish constitution, the Poles launched their first uprising, and in 1863, their second. After this, the Russian government turned to repressive measures to resolve the Polish question. After the first rebellion the constitution was abrogated and autonomy restricted, and after the second, Polish territories were fully merged with other regions of the empire and the laws of the Russian Empire extended to what had been the Polish Kingdom. The Polish nobility, largely responsible for the uprisings, was severely repressed, especially after 1863. Thousands of participants were either exiled to Russia's central and eastern regions, executed or emigrated abroad, and many lost all means of supporting themselves. The Polish nobility was purged; as a result, about two hundred thousand people were stripped of nobility status. Those who were exiled had their land seized by the treasury, which in turn sold or rented it out to Russian landowners. The Emancipation, which treated the Russian nobility gently, in the Polish territories favored the local peasantry. There were to be no more rebellions. *29
Russian nationality policies also changed in response to the widespread emergence of national liberation movements, which gathered force during the 1860s. The government hoped to arrest this development by taking a firm line. The great reforms of the 1860s, industrialization and urbanization, dissemination of literacy, the development of school education and the press led to an unprecedented social and political mobilization of all ethnic groups including the Russian one. The development of nationalist movements on the Western border went on according to the scheme the Czeck historian, M. Hroch, had suggested for describing nationalist movements in Central and Eastern Europe: at the phase of awakening on the part of a comparatively small group of the national intelligentsia there arises an interest in the language, history and folklore of a certain ethnic group; at the next phase of agitation for the national revival national consciousness spreads over a broad strata of society; finally, on the phase of mass movement the greater part of society is influenced by the ideas of national self-consciousness and is mobilized for the struggle first for autonomy and then for independence. Thus the idea of political self-determination like a delayed-action mine was embedded in every nationalist movement, and once a movement began it developed up to its end.*30 In Russia nationalist movements started later than in the rest of Europe due to Russia's backwardness compared with other European countries. In the Russian Empire, in view of the different levels of development of various ethnic groups these nationalist movements developed asynchronously. Since the late eighteenth century in the Western outlying areas, in the first half of the nineteenth century in the Southern and Eastern borderlands nationalist movements among the most developed ethnic groups entered the phase of cultural awakening, in the second half of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries � the stage of political agitation; the stage of mass mobilization before 1905 was observed only among Russians, Poles, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Georgians and Armenians, and among other ethnic groups � in 1917 and later. Formally baptized but in fact pagan people in the North, the Urals, on the Middle Volga and in Siberia entered the cultural phase in the late nineteenth century, that is why only some of them reached the phase of agitation by 1917. *31
The application of Hroch's scheme to the nationalist movements of Muslim peoples in the Asian part of Russia shows that Georgians, as an "old nation", did not need cultural awakening, and entered the agitation phase after the reforms of the 1860s and were mobilized politically in the early twentieth century. The Armenians, who went through the stage of cultural revival in the eighteenth century, entered the agitation phase in the first half of the nineteenth century, before the revolution of 1905. The Volga and Crimean Tatars as well as Azerbaijanians went through the cultural phase in the nineteenth century, entered the agitation phase about 1905 and in 1917 - the stage of political mobilization. In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the Kazakhs were at the stage of cultural revival.
In A. Kappeler's opinion, the difference between "old" and "young" nations was of fundamental importance for the formation of the character of nationalist movements. "Old" nations had their own nobility elites and solid traditions of statehood, general and linguistic culture (Poles, Georgians, Volga and Crimea Tatars, Azerbaijanians and others). The social structure of "young" nations was incomplete, due to the absence of their own elite and often of middle urban strata; either they had never had their own statehood or it had been destroyed at the beginning of the New Age. "Old" nations were "noble", "young" nations - "peasant". "Young" nations were dominated by the noble elites of a different nationality. In the Russian empire the majority of ethnic groups were "young" nations - the Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Finns, Chuvashes, Yakuts and others. A particular case were the Diasporas of Jews and Armenians with their urban elites and developed culture but without own nobility and traditions of statehood. In accordance with their status and level of development "old" and "young" nations, as well as the Diasporas put forward different programs. "Old" nations led by the nobility right from the start strove to restore their statehood. "Young" nations led by the leaders from among the peasants strove to create a full-bodied social structure, develop their own high culture and attain autonomy. Still others, led by their intelligentsia wished to achieve equality with the dominating ethnic group and national and cultural autonomy.
By the close of the nineteenth century Armenian nationalists had put forth claims of national sovereignty and called for the creation of a "Greater Armenia" uniting the Armenians of Russia, Turkey and Iran in an independent state. All other nationalist movements in the Russian Empire limited themselves, until the end of the nineteenth century, to calls for cultural autonomy.
It is very important to note that the development of a new Russian self-consciousness after the formation of the empire was within the framework of European nationalist movements. Its origin dates back to the eighteenth century, at first as a reaction to the intensified Western influence upon Russia. Then under the influence of the ideas of enlightenment and romanticism the Russian intelligentsia began to look for the basis of the Russian identity not in the state and religion as before but in the Russian language, history and in the Russian people itself. The Polish constitution of 1815, the Polish rebellions of 1830 and 1863 became a catalyst for the Russian nationalist movement. Often it took the form of spiritual and political movements some of which tried to preserve the distinctive character of Russian culture, but most of them were aimed at the transformation of Russian society according to the Western pattern and unification of different social strata into a single Russian nation. In all these movements social and political issues obviously prevailed over nationalist ones. The imperial dynastic patriotism and the great distance between the elite and lower strata of the population hampered both the development and spread of Russian national self-consciousness and the formation of a modern Russian nation. This concise and rather rough (due to an insufficient study of the issue) description of nationalist movements in the Russian empire nevertheless, probably, correctly reflects the main milestones in their development. In the 1860s during the upsurge of nationalist movements the government changed its policy hoping to arrest them with the aid of a hard-line course.
The simultaneous rise of the nationalist movement among Russians and other ethnic groups tempted the central government to actively employ the power of Russian nationalism and anti-Semitism to neutralize opposition movements and the growing social tension since Russian nationalism supported strivings for integration and unification. Despite this the state preferred to firmly adhere to the principles of legitimate, independent of nationality monarchy (most expedient at that time), and not to follow extreme Russian nationalists. The third reason for changing nationality policies was the need for the modern state Russia was becoming after the great reforms, to unify all parts of the empire in administrative, cultural, legal and social respects, to integrate society vertically - through former estate barriers and horizontally - through national and regional borders, to strengthen links among all parts of the state machinery, irrespective of their location and all inhabitants irrespective of their estate and nationality. Since the existence of national and regional peculiarities in all spheres of life was the main obstacle for the realization of these tasks, the government had to carry out modernization guided by Russification, which, under the then conditions did not mean the creation of privileges and advantages for the Russians but primarily the systematization and unification of administration, and the integration of all ethnic groups into a single nation.
It should also be mentioned that the government's nationality policies were changing under the influence of nationality policies in European states where modernization had begun earlier and which, in the second half of the nineteenth century, was entering its final phase. For example, France and England incorporated their national minorities to a substantially greater degree than Russia did. Since the 1860s Austria and Germany more or less successfully pursued policies aimed at creating modern nations within the framework of an empire. The German policies of "Kulturkampf" pursued by Bismark with the aim of eliminating separatist movements of Catholics and turning the country into a united centralized empire was likely to become a direct spur to the changes in Russian nationality policies.
Integration policies had ambivalent results. On the one hand, among the majority of "young" nations under the effect of these policies nationalist movements were slowed down in the period 1864-1905. On the other hand, these very policies contributed to a mobilization against Russia not only of the educated elites but also of a broad strata of the population among Finns, Poles, Lithuanians and Armenians as well as of Muslims on the Middle Volga. *32 Russification policies exacerbated the nationality question and fueled the revolutionary movement, in which non-Russians played a role disproportionate to their numbers. Russians made up forty percent, and non-Russians sixty percent of the most active revolutionaries. When compared to the population distribution as a whole, Latvians were 7.45 times more active than Russians, Jews were 4.05 times more active, Poles were 2.84 times, and Armenians 2.11 times. The least active were Ukrainians, Lithuanians and Byelorussians (by 2.9, 6.7 and 11.1 times less active than Russians) (see Table 3).

Table 3

Nationality of exiled revolutionaries in 1907-1917

Nationality % among the
exiled		 % among the
population		 Ratio of % among the
exiled to % among the
population		 Activity
Russians 43.5 43.4 1.00 6
Poles 17.6 6.2 2.84 3
Jews 15.8 3.9 4.05 2
Latvians 8.2 1.1 7.45 1
Ukrainians 4.2 12.5 0.34 8
Georgians 2.3 1.1 2.09 5
Armenians 1.9 0.9 2.11 4
Estonians 0.6 0.8 0.75 7
Byelorussians 0.4 4.6 0.09 11
Lithuanians 0.2 1.3 0.15 10
Others 5.4 24.2 0.22 9

Sources: E. N. Khaziakhmetov. Sibirskaia politicheskaia ssylka 1905-1917 gg. (oblik, organizatsiia i revoliutsionnye sviazi) (Tomsk: Izdatel'stvo Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1978), Prilozhenie 2; Obshchii svod rezul'tatov pervoi perepisi naseleniia, tom 2, pp. 2-91.
In the "anti-elite" among the leaders of revolutionary organization, people of non-Russian origin prevailed. For example, in the 1870s-1880s among the narodniks nearly fifty percent were non-Russians. Among the leaders of the Socialist-Revolutionaries and Bolsheviks, Jews prevailed, among the Mensheviks were Georgians, Jews and people of other non-Russian nationalities. *33 Russification and the rejection of cultural autonomy led, by the turn of the nineteenth century to calls for independence as the sole feasible means of liberation from repression. The movement for national liberation led to the formation of political parties, which were legalized after the promulgation of a constitution in Russia in 1906. The only two parties to advocate federalism were the Byelorussian revolutionary gromada and the Georgian socialist federalists; all others set full independence as their goal. At the outbreak of World War I the leaders of nationalist parties in the State Duma supported foreign policy of Russian government. After the fall of the monarchy, in the spring and summer of 1917, all nationalist movements, apart from the Finns and the Poles, did not put forward demands beyond cultural and administrative autonomy. A federal system satisfied them. In early 1918 in the elections to the Constituent Assembly nationalist parties got only twenty two percent of votes whereas the share of non-Russian voters was about fifty percent of all voters. Hence it follows, that the majority of non-Russian residents of the country voted for pan-Russian rather than nationalist parties. In all regions except the Baltic lands and Byelorussia the Bolsheviks gained little support, though it was only they who in words defended the right of nations to self-determination. *34 After the October revolution nationalist parties pursued a wait-and-see policy for sometime. But the first measures taken by the Bolsheviks pushed off the nationalist parties from them. These parties could not cooperate with the Bolsheviks in view of their striving for centralization and monopolistic power, subordinating national self-determination to the principle of the class struggle. The victory of the Bolsheviks was perceived by many non-Russians as the victory of town over countryside, workers over the peasants, Russians over non-Russians. *35 A return to the idea of national independence occurred. These hesitations were revealing for the central government's conservative policies in this domain, engendering separatism, while the liberal orientation of the Provisional Government inspired hopes for a peaceful resolution of nationality issues within the framework of a democratic Russia.
The protracted expansion of the country's territory had earnest consequences. On the positive side of the ledger were an increase in the reserves of natural resources in the form of land, timber, internal waters, fish and game, mineral springs; a shifting of the center of the population and economic activity from the North to the South, to a more favorable geographic environment; an improvement in the safety of living of Russians in border areas and a more rational redistribution of labor resources between the regions of old and new settling; a fruitful influence of estate and cooperative organization and a more developed culture and economy which existed in the annexed Western regions.
However, the expansion had negative consequences too: it determined the extensive character of the use of natural resources, contributed to the formation of an amorphous system of rural and urban settlements with their poor infrastructure, and, perhaps, most importantly it finally created a serious nationality problem. The issue of nationalities exerted a traumatic effect upon political and social processes in the mother country, and considerable means were required to uphold social stability and this hampered the economic development of the Great Russian provinces; taxation grew, arousing the discontent of the Russian population; non-Russian peoples set an example of disloyalty to the authorities facilitating the general growth of oppositional moods in the country and weakening the authority of the central government.
The nationality problem had come into being although the Russian empire had never been a colonial power in the European sense of the word (some elements of colonialism were observed as regards, for example, the peoples of Siberia) for several reasons. Firstly, Russians never drove the native population into reservations, never took their lands from them, confining themselves, as a rule, to fallow lands. Representatives of other ethnic groups were not barred from migrating to Russian territories.
Secondly, in economic and cultural respects the Russian center was inferior to its Western periphery and not too much surpassed most of its Eastern and Southern outlying districts. During the imperial period in consequence of her economic backwardness Russia herself was greatly dependent on foreign capital, European culture, science and technology.
Thirdly, the Russians were not a "dominating" nation in the empire in the European sense: they were subjected to partial societal discrimination as compared with the non-Russians and were inferior to some other ethnic groups (for example, to the Germans, Poles and Jews) in terms of the degree of urbanization, level of literacy, economic development and number of people engaged in the sphere of intellectual work. The mass of Russians had always lived worse than non-Russians. And if the standard of living is judged by life expectancy, even at the turn of the nineteenth century the Russians were inferior not only to the Latvians, Estonians, Lithuanians, Jews and Poles but also to the Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Tatars and Bashkirs. *36
Fourthly, Russia's nationality policies were remarkable for their pragmatism and tolerance towards non-Russians, giving priority not to economic but political and strategic considerations. During the course of Russian expansion economic benefits and Christian missionary work were less pronounced than in the policies of the West-European sea-powers, and on the contrary factors of security and cooperation with the native population were more pronounced. This was caused by the greater geographic, historical, cultural and religious proximity of Russians and non-Russians than of West Europeans and colonial peoples of America, Asia and Africa. In the Russian version non-Russian ethnic groups resided side by side, for a long time Russians had contact with them, their way of life and beliefs had much in common. *37 For a long time neither religious nor linguistic, or administrative and legal assimilation was their object.
Finally, Russia differed from West European countries by the fact that for a long time her "dominating" nation did not absorb the conquered. The Russian state to a decisive degree was held together by the dynastic and estate principle and not by the ethnic and religious self-consciousness of the Russians. Owing to religious, cultural, social, economic and political diversity of the peoples inhabiting the empire it was remarkable for such a heterogeneity that the label of a "colonial power" did not disclose its essence. *38 Only after 1863 the central government's nationality policies tended towards the successive integration of all parts of the empire into a unified nation state, but in view of the huge variety of ethnic groups the integration under the abusive term of Russification in different regions and among different peoples was carried out with a different depth and intensity and sometimes with deviations from the general line.
The example of pre-Revolutionary Russia shows that as a given ethnic group evolved within the Russian Empire (and Russia generally posed no obstacles to such evolution), strivings for cultural autonomy arose and then gave way to calls for complete separation. These circumstances affected this process: the degree to which strivings for cultural autonomy were satisfied; the degree of democratization of Russia itself; and the dynamism of Russia's economic growth as well as economic conditions in general. By the beginning of the twentieth century the time was ripe for a reconsideration of official nationality policies, for Russians now made up only forty-five percent of the population, and non-Russians were clamoring for autonomy. Yet the central government would not budge, and this surely contributed to the rise of separatism, and ultimately led to the collapse of empire in 1917. Hesitations of nationalist political parties in 1917 on the issue of staying with Russia or separating from her are very symptomatic. They show that the change of nationality policies by the Provisional government which agreed to the federal structure of Russia and in September 1917 even recognized (although conditionally, until the final consideration of this issue in the Constituent Assembly) the right of nations to self-determination, *39 created real pre-requisites for a peaceful solution of nationality problems within the framework of a democratic state and that only the course of military events, unsuccessful for Russia, and the Bolshevik victory finally predetermined the disintegration of the country. *40

Notes

  1. There is a large historiography on nationality question, see the most important in Russian: Ts. P. Agaian. Rol' Rossii v istoricheskikh sud'bakh armianskogo naroda (Moscow: Nauka, 1978); I. G. Akmanov. Bashkirskie vosstaniia XVII-pervoi treti XVIII v. (Ufa: Bashkirskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1978); S. Kh. Alishev. Istoricheskie sud'by narodov Srednego Povolzh'ia. XVI-nachalo XIX v. (Moscow, 1990); A. Arsharuni and Kh. Gabidullin. Ocherki panislamizma i pantiurkizma v Rossii (Moscow, 1931); N. E. Bekmakhanova. Mnogonatsional'noe naselenie Kazakhstana i Kirgizii v epokhu kapitalizma (Moscow: Nauka, 1986); I. Berlin. Istoricheskie sud'by evreiskogo naroda na territorii russkogo gosudarstva (Petrograd, 1919); I. I. Vysotskii. Ocherki po istorii ob'edineniia Pribaltiki s Rossiei (1710-1910 gg.) (Riga: A. Nitavskii, 1910); G. A. Galoian. Rossiia i narody Zakavkaz'ia. Ocherki politicheskoi istorii ikh vzaimootnoshenii s drevneishikh vremen do pobedy Velikoi Oktiabr'skoi sotsialisticheskoi revoliutsii (Moscow: Nauka, 1976); P. G. Galuzo. Turkestan - koloniia (Ocherki po istorii Turkestana ot zavoevaniia russkimi do revoliutsii 1917 goda) (Moscow, 1929); R. Sh. Ganelin and V. E. Kel'ner, "Problemy istoriographii evreev v Rossii. Vtoraia polovina XIX-pervaia chetvert' XX v.", in: M. Agranovskaia (ed.) Evrei v Rossii. Istoriograficheskie ocherki (Moscow and Ierusalim: Evreiskii universitet v Moskve, 1995), pp. 183-255; Iu. Gessen. Istoriia evreiskogo naroda v Rossii (Leningrad, 1925), tom 1, 2; L. M. Dameshek. Vnutrenniaia politika tsarizma i narody Sibiri (XIX-nachalo XX v.) (Irkutsk: Izdatel'stvo Irkutskogo universiteta, 1986); N. M. Druzhinin (ed.) Voprosy formirovaniia russkoi narodnosti i natsii (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo AN SSSR, 1958); Kolonial'naia politika rossiiskogo tsarizma v Azerbaidzhane v 20-60 gg. XIX v. (Moscow and Leningrad: Izdatel'stvo AN SSSR, 1936, 1937), chast' 1, 2; A. Lokshin (ed.) Evrei v Rossiiskoi imperii XVIII-XIX vekov. Sbornik trudov evreiskikh istorikov (Moscow and Ierusalim: Gesharim, 1995); A. Sh. Mil'man. Politicheskii stroi Azerbaidzhana XIX-nachala XX vekov (administrativnyi apparat i sud, formy i metody kolonial'nogo upravleniia) (Baku, 1966); M. A. Miropiev. O polozhenii russkikh inorodtsev (St. Petersburg, 1901); S. M. Sambuk. Politika tsarizma v Belorussii vo vtoroi polovine XIX veka (Minsk, 1980); B. S. Suleimenov and V. Ia. Basin. Kazakhstan v sostave Rossii v XVIII-nachale XX veka (Alma-Ata: Nauka, 1981); N. A. Smirnov. Politika Rossii na Kavkaze v XVI-XIX vekakh (Moscow: Sotsekgiz, 1958); A. F. Fadeev. Rossia i Kavkaz v pervoi treti XIX v. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo AN SSSR, 1960); M. M. Fedorov. Pravovoe polozhenie narodov Vostochnoi Sibiri (XVII-nachalo XX veka) (Iakutsk, 1978); N. Firsov. Polozhenie inorodtsev Severo-Vostochnoi Rossii v Moskovskom gosudarstve (Kazan': Universitetskaia tipografiia, 1866); Ia. G. Frumkin et al. (eds.) Kniga o russkom evreistve. Ot 1860-kh godov do revoliutsii 1917 g. (New York: Soiuz russkikh evreev, 1960); Kh. Kh. Khasanov. Formirovanie tatarskoi burzhuaznoi natsii (Kazan': Tatarskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1977); N. P. Egunov. Kolonial'naia politika tsarizma i pervyi etap natsional'nogo dvizheniia v Buriatii v epokhu imperializma (Ulan-Ude, 1963); B. Kh. Iuldashbaev. Problema natsii i politicheskoe polozhenie bashkir v sostave tsarskoi Rossii (Ufa: Bashkirskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1979). Other literature: Edward Allworth (ed.) Central Asia. A Century of Russian Rule (New York: Columbia University Press, 1967); Idem (ed.) Soviet Nationality Problems (New York: Columbia University Press, 1971); Idem (ed.) Central Asia. 120 Years of Russian Rule (Durham and London, 1989); Idem. The Modern Uzbeks. From the Fourteenth Century to the Present: A Cultural History (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1990); Jeremy R. Azrael (ed.) Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York and London: Praeger Publishers, 1978); Salo W. Baron. The Russian Jew under Tsars and Soviets (New York: Macmillan, 1964); Helene Carrere d'Encausse. Islam and Russian Empire. Reform and Revolution in Central Asia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988); George J. Demko. The Russian Colonization of Kazakhstan, 1896-1916 (Bloomington: Indiana University; The Hague: Mouton, 1969); Alton S. Donnelly. The Russian Conquest of Bashkiria 1552-1700. A Case Study in Imperialism (New Haven, 1968); Alan Fisher. The Crimean Tatars (Stanford: Hoover Institution Press, Stanford University, 1978); Jonathan Frankel. Prophecy and politics: Socialism, Nationalism, and the Russian Jews, 1862-1917 (New York et al.: Cambridge University Press, 1981); J. H. Hodgson, "Finland's Position in the Russian Empire 1905-1910", Journal of Central Affairs, vol. 20 (July 1960), pp. 158-173; George F. Jewsbury. The Russian Annexation of Bessarabia: 1774-1828. A Study of Imperial Expansion (Boulder, CO: East European Quarterly, 1976); Andreas Kappeler. Russland als Vielvolkerreich. Entstehung. Geshichte. Zerfall (Munchen: C. H. Beck; 1992); D. G. Kirby (ed.) Finland and Russia 1808-1920. From Autonomy to Independence. A Selection of Documents (London: Macmillan, 1975); George V. Lantzeff and Richard A. Pierce. Eastward to Empire. Exploration and Conquest on the Russian Open Frontier, to 1750 (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1973); Alexander Loit (ed.) National Movements in the Baltic Countries during the 19th Century (Stockholm, 1985); Richard Pierce. Russian Central Asia 1867-1917. A Study in Colonial Rule (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960); Nicholas V. Riazanovsky. Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959); Alfred J. Rieber, "Struggle Over the Borderlands", in S. Frederick Starr (ed.) The Legacy of History in Russia and the New States of Eurasia (Armonk, NY and London: M. E. Sharpe, 1994), pp. 61-90; Idem, "Persistent Factors in Russian Foreign Policy: An Interpretive Essays", in Hugh Ragsdale (ed.) Imperial Russian Foreign Policy (Washington and Cambridge: Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Cambridge University Press, 1993), pp. 315-360; Idem, "The Historiography of Imperial Russian Foreign Policy: A Critical Survey", Ibid., pp. 360-444; Michael Rywkin (ed.) Russian Colonial Expansion to 1917 (London and New York, 1988); Michael Stanislawski. Tzar Nicholas I and the Jews: The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia, 1825-1855 (Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1983); Ronald G. Suny (ed.) Transcaucasia: Nationalism and Social Change: Essays in History of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (Ann Arbor, MI: Michigan Slavic Publications, University of Michigan, 1983); Tadeusz Swietochowski. Russian Azerbaijan 1905-1920: The Shaping of National Identity in Muslim Community (London et al.: Cambridge University Press, 1985); J. G. Tewari. Muslims under the Czar and the Soviets (Lucknow, India: Academy of Islamic Research and Publication, 1984); Edward С. Thaden. Russia's Western Borderlands, 1710-1870 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984); Idem (ed.) Russification in the Baltic Provinces and Finland, 1855-1914 (Princeton: Princeten University Press, 1981); Nicholas P. Vakar. Byelorussia. The Making of a Nation. A Case Study (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1956); Wayne S. Vucinich. Russia and Asia. Essays on the Influence of Russia on the Asian Peoples (Stanford, California: University of California Press, 1972); Piotr S. Wandycz. The Lands of Partitioned Poland 1795-1918 (Seattle and Londoff: University of Washington Press, 1974); Serge A. Zenkovsky. Pan-Turkism and Islam in Russia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960).

  2. A. Bushen (ed.) Statisticlieskie tablitsy Rossiiskoi imperil (St. Petersburg: K. Vul'f, 1863), vypusk 2, p. 58; la. E. Vodarskii. Naselenie Rossii za 400 let (XVI-nachalo XX vv.) (Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1973), pp. 2-28; Idem. Naselenie Rossii v kontse XVII- nachale XVIII veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1977), pp. 192-193; V. M. Kabuzan. Narodonaselenie Rossii v XVIII-pervoi polovine XIX v. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo AN SSSR, 1963), pp. 159-165; G. Simonenko. Sravnitel'naia statistika Tsarstva Pol'skogo i drugikh evropeiskikh stran (Varshava: Tipografiia Meditsinskoi gazety, 1879), torn 1, pp. 102, Prilozhenie, pp. 025-026; Obshchii svod po imperil rezul'tatov razrabotki dannykh pervoi vseobshchei perepisi naseleniia 1897 goda (St. Petersburg: N. A. Nyrkin, 1905), torn 1, pp. 1-3; Statisticheskii ezhegodnik Finliandii 1916 g. (Gel'sinfors: Tipografiia Finliandskogo Senata, 1917), p. 8; Statisticheskii ezhegodnik Rossii 1914 g. (Petrograd: Tipografiia Shtaba Petrogradskogo voennogo okruga, 1915), pp. 33-62; Statisticheskii ezhegodnik Rossii 1916 g. (Moscow: Tipografiia Moskovskogo Soveta, 1918), vypusk 1, pp. 85-86.

  3. Historical Statistics of the United States. Colonial Times to 1970 (Washington: U. S. Department of Commerce, 1975), vol. 1, p. 8.

  4. S. I. Bruk. Naselenie mira. Etno-demograficheskii spravohnik (Moscow: Nauka, 1981), pp. 14-15; Michael G. Mulhall. Dictionary of Statistics (London et al.: G. Routledge, 1892), p. 441.

  5. Andreas Kappeler. Rossiia - mnogonatsional'naia imperiia. Vozniknovenie, istoriia, raspad. Trans. from German by S. Chervonnoi (Moscow: Progress, 1996), p. 154.

  6. Roy E. H. Mellor. The Soviet Union and its Geographical Problems (London: Macmillan, 1982), p. 29.

  7. H. Inalcik, "Servile Labor in the Ottoman Empire", in Abraham Ascher et al. (eds.) The Mutual Effects of the Islamic and Judo-Christian Worlds: The East European Pattern (New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1979), pp. 39-40; Alan Fisher, "Muscovy and the Black Sea Trade", Canadian-American Slavic Studies, vol. 6, no. 4 (1972), pp. 582, 593.

  8. Iu. Limonov (ed.) Rossiia XVIII v. glazami inostrantsev (Leningrad: Lenizdat, 1989), p. 409.

  9. V. Z. Drobizhev et al. Istoricheskaia geografiia SSSR (Moscow: Vysshaia shkola, 1973), pp. 114-115.

  10. P. N. Pavlov. Promyslovaia kolonizatsiia Sibiri v XVII v. (Krasnoiarsk: Krasnoiarskii pedagogicheskii institut, 1974); I. L. lamzin and V. P. Voshchinin. Uchenie о kolonizatsiiakh i pereseleniiakh (Moscow and Leningrad: Gosizdat, 1926), pp. 27-66.

  11. N. Baranskii. Kratkii kurs ekonomicheskoi geografii (Moscow and Leningrad: Moskovskii rabochii, 1931), p. 35.

  12. Much has been written about Russian colonization. See the most important: D. I. Bagalei. Materialy dlia istorii kolonizatsii i byta stepnoi okrainy Moskovskogo gosudarstva v XVI-XVIII stoletiiakh (Khar'kov: Istoriko-filologicheskoe obshchestvo, 1886); Idem. Ocherk iz istorii kolonizatsii i byta stepnoi okrainy Moskovskogo gosudarstva v XVI-XVIII stoletiiakh (Moscow: Obshchestvo istorii i drevnostei rossiiskikh pri Moskovskom universitete, 1887), torn 1; Idem. Kolonizatsiia Novorossiiskogo kraia i pervye shagi ego po puti kul'tury. Istoricheskii etiud (Kiev: Korchak-Novitskii, 1889); A. B. Geller. Pereselencheskaia politika tsarizma i kolonizatsiia Kazakhstana v XX v. (1905-1916 gg.) (Leningrad: Leningradskii gosudarstvennyi universitet, 1954); I. A. Gurvich. Pereseleniia krest'ian v Sibir' (Moscow: Levenson, 1889); I. Ivanovich, "Kolonizatsiia Kavkaza. Ocherk", Vestnik Evropy, torn 4 (1900); I. lamzin. Pereselencheskoe dvizhenie v Rossii s momenta osvobozhdeniia krest'ian (Kiev: bez. izd., 1912); A. A. Isaev. Pereseleniia v russkom narodnom khoziaistve (St. Petersburg: A. F. Tsinzermeng, 1891); V. M. Kabuzan. Zaselenie Novorossii (Ekaterinoslavskoi i Khersonskoi gubemii) v XVIJI-pervoi polovine KIXveka. 1719-1858 gg. (Moscow: Nauka, 1976); Idem, "Zaselenie Sibiri i Dal'nego Vostoka v kontse XVIII-nachale XX v. (1795-1917 g.)", Istoriia SSSR, 3 (1979), pp. 22-38; A. A. Kaufman. Sibirskoe pereselenie na iskhode XIX veka. Istoriko-statisticheskii ocherk (St. Petersburg: V. Kirshbaum, 1901); Idem. Pereselenie i kolonizatsiia (St. Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia pol'za, 1905); Idem. � voprosu о prichinakh i veroiatnoi budushchnosti russkikh pereselenii (Moscow: A. I. Mamontov, 1898); Idem. Formy khoziaistva v ikh istoricheskom razvitii (Moscow: I. D. Sytin, 1910); S. D. Merkulov. Voprosy kolonizatsii Priamurskogo kraia (St. Petersburg: lu. Mansfei'd, 1911); N. P. Oganovskh. Zakonomernosti agrarnoi evoliutsii. Tom 3. vypusk 1. Naselenie. Pereselencheskii vopros (Moscow: Zadruga, 1914); Ocherk po istorii kolonizatsii Severa (Petrograd: Gosizdat, 1922); P. Peretiatkovich. Povolzh'e v XV-XVI vekakh (Ocherki po istorii kraia i ego kolonizatsii) (Moscow: M. K. Grachev, 1877); Idem. Povolzh'e v XVII i XVIII vv. (Ocherki po istorii kraia i ego kolonizatsii) (Odessa: P. A. Zeienoi, 1882); V. V. Pokshishevskii. Zaselenie Sibiri (Istoriko-geograficheskie ocherki) (Irkutsk, 1951); A. A. Preobrazhenskii. Ocherki po istorii kolonizatsii Zapadnogo Urala (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, 1956); N. Romanov. Pereselenie krest'ian Viatskoi gubernii (Viatka: Viatskoe gubernskoe zemstvo, 1880); F. G. Safonov. Krest'ianskaia kolonizatsiia basseinov Leny i Ilima v XVII v. (lakutsk: lakutskoe knizhnoe izdatel'stvo, 1956); P. P. Semenov. Znachenie Sibiri v kolonizatsionnom dvizhenii evropeiskikh narodov (Izvestiia Russkogo geograficheskogo obshchestva, kniga 28, vypusk 4) (St. Petersburg, 1892); N. Serpovskii. Pereseleniia v Rossii v drevnee i novoe vremia i znachenie ikh v khoziaistve strany (laroslavl': V. Fal'k, 1885); P. A. Sokolovskii. Ekonomicheskii byt zemledel'cheskogo naseleniia Rossii i kolonizatsiia iugo-vostochnykh stepei pered krepostnym pravoifl (St. Petersburg: F. S. Sushchinskii, 1878); lu. M. Tarasov. Russkaia krest'ianskaia kolonizatsiia luzhnogo Urala: Vtoraia polovina XVIII-pervaia polovina XIX v. (Moscow: Nauka, 1984); �. V. Tikhonov. Pereseleniia v Rossii vo vtoroi polovine XIX v. Po materialam 1897 g. i pasportnoi statistiki (Moscow: Nauka, 1978); M. M. Shul'gin. Zemleustroistvo i pereseleniia v Rossii v XVIII i pervoi polovine XIX vv. (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Moskovskogo mezhevogo instituta, 1928); A. V. Vereshchagin. Istoricheskii obzor kolonizatsii Chernomorskogo poberezh'ia Kavkaza i ее rezul'tatov (St. Petersburg: Obshchestvennaia pol'za, 1885); P. D. Vereshchagin. Agrarnye migratsii krest'ianstva Belorussii na okrainy Rossii v kontse XIX-nachale XX v. (Moscow: Institut istorii AN SSSR, 1981); la. E. Vodarskii, "Rost raspakhannosti Chemozemnogo tsentra Rossii v XVII-pervoi polovine XVIII veka", in V. P. Zagorovskii (ed.) Istoricheskaia geografiia Chemozemnogo tsentra Rossii (dooktiabr'skii period) (Voronezh: Izdatel'stvo Voronezhskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 1989), pp. 29-41.

  13. Tikhonov. Pereseleniia v Rossii vo vtoroi polovine XIX v., pp. 148-154; L. G. Beskrovnyi et al., "Migratsii naseleniia v Rossii v XIX-nachale XX vv", in: A. D. Kolesnikov (ed.) Problemy istoricheskoi demografii SSSR (Tomsk: Izdatel'stvo Tomskogo universiteta, 1980), pp. 26-32; Barbara A. Anderson. Internal Migration during Modernization in Late Nineteenth Century Russia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1980).

  14. Bruk. Naselenie mira, pp. 218-219.

  15. The Uriankaiskii territory, or Tuva, situated in the South East of Siberia in the Upper reaches of the Enisei and which was incorporated into Russia as a protectorate in 1914: V. I. Dulov. Sotsial'no-ekonomicheskaia istoriia Tuvy (XIX- nachalo XX v.) (Moscow: Izdatel'stvo AN SSSR, 1956).

  16. Drobizhev et al. Istoricheskaia geografiia SSSR, pp. 85-108, 167- 175.

  17. N. M. Korkunov. Russkoe gosudarstvennoe pravo (St. Petersburg: M. Stasiulevich, 1893), torn 2, pp. 254-264, 351-358; G. S. Kalinin i A. F. Goncharova (eds.) Istoriia gosudarstva i prava SSSR (Moscow: luridicheskaia literatura, 1972), chast' 1, pp. 250-310, 387-476; E. A. Skripelev (ed.) Razvitie russkogo prava v pervoi polovine XIX veka (Moscow: Nauka, 1994), pp. 241-245. Boris N. Mironov 227

  18. Zenon E. Kohut. Russian Centralism and Ukrainian Autonomy: Imperial Absorption of the Hetmanate 1760s-1830s (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 1988).

  19. A. S. Rodosskii. Biograficheskii slovar' studentov pervykh XXVIII kursov S. Peterburgskoi dukhovnoi akademii: 1814-1869 (St. Petersburg; I. V. Leont'ev, 1907), p. 448.

  20. Brenda Meehan-Waters, "Social and Career Characteristics of the Administrative Elite, 1689-1761", in Walter M. Pintner and Don K. Rowney (eds.) Russian Officialdom. The Bureaucratization of Russian Society from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1980), p. 84; Walter M. Pintner, 'The Evolution of Civil Officialdom, 1755-1855", Ibid., p. 195, 197,208.

  21. P. A. Zaionchkovskii. Pravitel''stvennyi apparat samoderzhavnoi Rossii v XIX v. (Moscow: Mysl', 1978), pp. 200-219; Eric Amburger. Geschichte der Behordenorganisation Russland von Peter dem Grossen bis 1917 (Leiden, 1966); John A. Armstrong. "Mobilized Diaspora in Tsarist Russia: The Case of the Baltic Germans", in Jeremy R. Azrael (ed.) Soviet Nationality Policies and Practices (New York and London: Praeger Publishers, 1978), pp. 63-106; Dominic С. �. Lieven, "The Russian Civil Service under Nicholas II: Some Variation on the Bureaucratic Theme", Jahrbiicherfiir Geshcichte Osteuropas, Bd. 29 (1981), S. 366-403.

  22. P. A. Zaionchkovskii. Samoderzhavie i russkaia armiia na rubezhe XIX-XX stoletii. 1881-1903 gg. (Moscow: Mysl', 1973); Peter Kenez, "A Profile of the Prerevolutionary Officer Corps", California Slavic Studies, vol. 7 (1973), pp. 121-158; Hans-Peter Stein, "Der Offizier des russischen Heeres im Zeitalter zwischen Reform und Revolution (1861-1905)", Forschungen zur osteuropdischen Geschichte, Bd. 13 (1967), S. 346-507.

  23. Kappeler. Rossiia - mnogonatsional'naia imperiia, pp. 247-249.

  24. M. С. Spechler, "The Economic Advantages of Being Peripheral: Subordinate Nations in Multinational Empires", Eastern European Politics and Societies, vol. 3, no. 3 (1989), pp. 448-464.

  25. Jeffrey Brooks. When Russia Learned to Read: Literacy and Popular Literature, 1861-1917 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), pp. 214-245; Andreas Kappeler, "Some Remarks on Russian National Identities (Sixteenth to Nineteenth Centuries)", Ethnic Studies, vol. 10 (1993), pp. 147-155; Z. V. Sikevich. Etnosotsiologiia: Natsional'nye otnosheniia i etnonatsional'nye konflikty (St. Petersburg: Izdatel'stvo St. Peterburgskogo universiteta, 1994), pp. 80-81.

  26. Kappeler. Rossiia - mnogonatsional'naia imperiia, pp. 52-53, 95.

  27. R. Sh. Ganelin, "Pervaia gosudarstvennaia duma v bor'be s chernosotenstvom i pogromami", in N. A. Troitskii (ed.) Osvoboditel'noe dvizhenie v Rossii (Saratov: Izdatel'stvo Saratovskogo universiteta, 1992), vypusk 15, pp. 113-140.

  28. Kappeler. Rossiia - mnogonatsional'naia imperiia, pp. 223-225.

  29. A. A. Komilov. Russkaia politika v Pol'she so vremeni razdelov do nachala XX veka (Petrograd: Ogni, 1915).

  30. Miroslav Hroch. Social Preconditions of National Revival in Europe. A Comparative Analysis of the Social Composition of Patriotic Groups among the Smaller European Nations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).

  31. For the detailed description of nationalist movements from the point of view of Hroch's conception which I adhere to in my paper, see: Kappeler. Rossiia - mnogonatsional'naia imperiia, pp.174-203.

  32. Ibid., p. 231.

  33. Andreas Kappeler, "Zur Charakteristik russischer Terroristen (1878-1887)", Jahrbucher fur Geshcichte Osteuropas, Bd. 27 (1979), S. 520-547; Leonard Shapiro, "The Role of the Jews in the Russian Revolutionary Movement", Slavonic and East European review, vol. 40 (1961), pp. 148-167; David Lane. The Roots of Russian Communism. A Social and historical Study of Russian Social-Democracy 1898-1907 (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1964), pp. 39-53; Maureen Perrie, "The Social Composition and Structure of the Socialist-Revolutionary Party before 1917", Soviet Studies, vol. 24 (1972/1973), pp. 223-250.

  34. Oliver Radkey. The Election to the All-Russian Constituent Assembly of 1917 (Ithaca and London: Comell University Press, 1950).

  35. Richard Pipes. The Formation of Soviet Union. Communism and Nationalism 1917-1923 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954), p. 53.

  36. M. Ptukha. Smertnosf 11 narodnostei Evropeiskoi Rossii �v kontse 19 veka (Kiev: TSSU Ukrainy, 1928), pp. 1-57.

  37. Kappeler. Rossiia - mnogonatsional'naia imperiia, pp. 52-53, 95.

  38. Ibid., pp. 133-137.

  39. Robert P. Browder and Alexander F. Kerensky (eds.) The Russian Provisional Government. Documents (Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1961), Vol. 1, pp. 426-432.

  40. �. V. Gusev (ed.) Neproletarskie partii v Rossii. Urok istorii (Moscow: Mysl', 1984), pp. 309-323, 364-376; Kappeler. Rossiia - mnogonatsional'naia imperiia, pp. 291-303.