In this article, the authors attempt to reconstruct the biographies of the two first directors of the Leningrad State Anti-Religious Museum, opened in 1931 in St Isaac’s Cathedral in Leningrad. The data presented in this paper is, on the one hand, important for a better understanding of one of the understudied subjects in the history of the museum. It allows one to contextualise this story more accurately within the larger history of the epoch. On the other hand, it also has a broader scholarly significance. A museum is not only a keeper of artefacts of past culture, but also an individual artefact of its own culture. Analysing its history allows one to understand better the circumstances of the place and time of its functioning. The article draws on materials from several St. Petersburg archives, namely the Central State Historical Archive of St. Petersburg, the Central State Archive of St. Petersburg, the Central State Archive of Historical and Political Documents of St. Petersburg, the Central State Archive of Literature and Art of St. Petersburg, and the Scientific Archive of the Russian Academy of Arts. Almost all of them are introduced into the academic circuit for the first time. The authors show that for both Lev Finn and Sergei Terekhov their work in the museum was a rather brief episode of their professional life. The article attempts to reconstruct their careers. An attempt is made to explain their trajectory.
During the Autumn Crisis of 1850, Russian diplomacy played a significant stabilising role. In particular, the Russian envoy to Vienna, Baron Peter von Meyendorff, made a considerable contribution to the peaceful resolution of the Austro-Prussian conflict, which threatened to escalate into a pan-European war. The author analyses Meyendorff’s political correspondence with Chancellor Nesselrode from the Archive of Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire, a translation of which is appended. These papers outline the course, results, and evaluation of the negotiations held at Olmütz between the heads of the Prussian and Austrian foreign ministries on 28–29 November 1850. Meyendorff, who accompanied Austrian Minister Schwarzenberg on this trip, sent important and valuable information to St. Petersburg in an attempt to present both Vienna’s and Berlin’s position in a positive light in order to dispel Nicholas I’s mistrust of Prussian intentions. At the same time, Meyendorff’s role and contribution to the conclusion of this agreement are still a matter of debate among historians, with some of them considering Meyendorff’s mediation to be only a minor factor in the positive outcome of the negotiations. Far from claiming to bring complete clarity to this issue, this article is meant to put into the academic circuit new archival sources on this crucial event, which determined the further course of the German question and postponed Austria-Prussia’s armed confrontation for leadership in Germany for a decade and a half.
In the article the author analyses the career of Evgeny Petrovich Novikov (1826–1903), a prominent Russian diplomat who played a significant role during the Great Eastern Crisis of 1876–1878 and enjoyed considerable confidence of Chancellor Alexander Gorchakov. He was ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, Greece, and Austria-Hungary during the years when relations with these countries were extremely important for Russian foreign policy. His biography has not yet been written, although Novikov’s name is mentioned in many a monograph and article on important topics of the Russian Empire’s foreign policy in the 1860s–1870s. The study draws on archival materials, published papers, and memoirs of Evgeny Novikov’s colleagues. Numerous fragmentary pieces of information about him available in the academic literature have been systematised. Having received an excellent education at Moscow University, Evgeny Novikov distinguished himself by his conscientiousness, shrewdness, and strong sense of responsibility in defence of Russia’s national interests. High-class professionals of this kind made up the diplomatic elite of the Russian Empire in the 19th century.
The Battle of Kursk went down in world military history as a key stage in the USSR’s struggle against Nazi Germany. However, the peculiarity of this large-scale event lies not only in this, but also in the unique period of its planning and preparation, which lasted three months, relative to other battles and major battles. During this period only one offensive operation, Operation Citadel, was being developed in Berlin, which was to form the core of the summer campaign. The author analyses documents preserved in the Federal Archives of the Federal Republic of Germany, which reveal the course of the meeting in Munich on May 4, 1943, where the potential of two Wehrmacht strike groups concentrated in the Kursk Bulge area at the end of April 1943 was discussed, successfully implementing the plan of encirclement of Soviet troops in early May 1943, and the opinions expressed by Hitlers, generals and field marshals who were privy to its essence, on this issue. The meeting went down in history as the most important event in the planning process of the 1943 Wehrmacht summer campaign on the Soviet-German front, as it resulted in Hitler making a number of important decisions that, according to some of its participants, significantly influenced its results.
The author scrutinizes the development of civil society in the early republican Turkey focusing on the models of its interaction with the state in the context of Kemalist revolution, namely the large-scale reforms of the 1920s and 1930s aimed at building the “New Turkey” as a modern secular nation-state. He analyses various manifestations of grass root civic activity in Turkey in the 1920s and 1930s. In doing so, it focuses on the rural population’s reaction to the Kemalist land and taxation reforms. The article contributes to the exiting literature in two following ways. First, it challenges the existing assumption that the rural population of the early Republican Turkey sporadically protested against only the most visible cases of social injustice. It also suggests counterarguments to the thesis that at that time the center and periphery had their own socio-political dynamics isolated one from another. Second, the article introduces to the reader a wide range of Turkish sources (e.g., “public columns” in the main periodicals of that time, petitions published in the yearly books of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, party inspectors’ reports stored in the fund of the Republican People’s Party). An analysis of the data presented in these sources and its comparison against already known historical facts form the article’s methodological framework. The author explains the key social contradictions about the land question. He further on defines the main forms of systemic grass root civic activity and the structural elements of the Kemalists social basis on the periphery. The main findings are that in the 1920–30s the rural Turkey witnessed both legal and illegal forms of resistance. The absence of a full-scale working formal state structure on the periphery made the Kemalist state curbing this resistance by using patron-client networks centered on the figures of “aga”, the wealthy local landlords and merchants.
One of the pivotal issues in the study of Italian fascism pertains to the question of public consensus under Mussolini’s regime. In the article, the author presents a comprehensive examination of the international historiographic discourse pertaining to this issue, tracing its evolution from the initial works published during the dictatorship to the impassioned debates that arose with the publication of Renzo De Felice’s multi-volume history of the Fascist regime in the 1960–1980s. At the core of De Felice’s research was the examination of the phenomenon of consensus within Italian society between 1920 and 1945. This paper acknowledges the value of De Felice’s contributions but challenges the methodological principles, research methods, and the conceptualisation of fascism as a long-term political strategy, particularly the notion of “Mussolinism” as a distinct form of “left-wing totalitarianism”. De Felice’s interpretation initially posited a consensus comprising new political forces and established elite structures. However, by the mid-1930s, this consensus had acquired a mass character, effectively eliminating the necessity for recourse to violence and endowing Mussolini’s regime with a distinctive quality: “incomplete totalitarianism”. De Felice’s analysis suggests that the collapse of the Fascist regime in Italy was primarily the result of a combination of miscalculations by the military and political leadership, coupled with inherent weaknesses in the system itself, rather than being driven by the erosion of mass consent. The historiographical debate surrounding the issue of consensus has been shaped by the works of Marxist historians and left-wing democrats who have opposed De Felice’s views. Additionally, the perspectives of liberals and regime apologists have contributed to this ongoing discussion. The 1990s saw the debate continue to evolve, encompassing both local and social historical analysis.
Mikhail Rostovtzeff, an eminent classicist, occupied a pivotal role not only within the academic milieu of the Russian Diaspora but also in the years preceding and following his departure from Russia in 1918. His activities were especially noteworthy during the initial years of emigration. The State Archive of the Russian Federation holds copies of four documents from the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace (Leland Stanford Junior University) that illustrate the close relationship Rostovtzeff maintained with his like-minded colleague Pyotr Struve, one of the leaders of the Russian political emigration at the turn of the 1910s and early 1920s. Furthermore, the documents demonstrate Rostovtzeff’s active involvement in advancing anti-Bolshevik initiatives within the United States. Despite the apparent futility of his anti-Bolshevik efforts, Rostovtzeff nevertheless endeavoured to fulfill his public obligation through active engagement in social life abroad. This entailed offering aid to colleagues confronting daunting circumstances, cultivating and sustaining ties with the political milieu, particularly in the realm of foreign affairs, within the United States. The article introduces a previously unexplored correspondence between Rostovtzeff and Struve, providing insights not only into the lives of these scholars but also into the historical context of Soviet-American relations prior to the formal establishment of diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Russian Christian pilgrims who visited the Holy Land in the eighteenth century and have left written accounts were interested in more than simply the customary religious aspects of pilgrimage. They also explored secular motifs and issues. In addition to religious concerns, they sought to understand the nature of the Middle East and the striking diversity and exoticism that characterised the region. The article focuses on the theme of nature as presented in two narrative sources: the pilgrimage accounts written by the Russian hieromonks Leontius (1763–1765) and Meletius (1793–1794). Leontius’ notes on his journey to the holy sites of Egypt and Palestine are currently in the archive and awaiting publication. Meletius’ “Journey to Jerusalem” was published twice (1798 and 1800), but failed to gain much scholarly attention. Analysis of these travelogues reveals that both inquisitive pilgrims articulated their perspectives on the Middle East with remarkable candour and openness. They are extremely emotional about its natural phenomena, guided by the God-centred perception of the world through the prism of Russian Orthodoxy. In describing the nature of the Middle East, Leontius and Meletius conveyed to us the sacred image of the Holy Land, which looked like a beautiful but elusive mirage, evoking nostalgic thoughts of the very distant past, but not of the present.
In the article, that author presents a detailed analysis of the propaganda tactics employed by both Kemalist and anti-Kemalist forces during the early 1930s. It draws upon a diverse array of source material, including the Turkish newspapers, such as “Nation” (Ulus), “Time” (Vakit), “Republic” (Cumhuriyet), and the opposition daily “Free Republic” (Serbes Cumhuriyet), which ran from October 1930 to January 1931. The latter was established as the official print media of the Free Republican Party (FRP), which was headed by a close associate of the President, Ali Fethi (Okyar). The daily became the mouthpiece of moderate liberal movement, while concurrently turning into a weapon of ideological confrontation between the FRP and the incumbent Kemalist Republican People’s Party (RPP). The study of the opposition newspaper represents a novel approach within the Russian academic literature, as there have been no previous attempts to examine the perspective of those opposed to the Kemalists, or to analyse the representation of the main ideas of the FRP in the press. The research focuses on the analysis of anti-Kemalist propaganda in the “Free Republic” newspaper. The plethora of propaganda clichés present on its pages renders “Free Republic” a valuable source for studying the ideological shift that occurred during the early 1930s. It demonstrates the efforts to devise an alternative programme for the development of the Turkish Republic and enables the reconstruction of the ideological and political context of the Kemalist unsuccessful endeavour to establish a controllable opposition in 1930. Although it had the potential to gain a foothold in the market, the “Free Republic” newspaper ultimately succumbed to the forces of pro-government press propaganda. Despite its ambitious and courageous editorial stance, the opposition daily could not withstand the formidable and sophisticated propaganda apparatus of the Kemalists.
In the article, the author examines the activities of Polish officers serving in the Ottoman army in the middle of the 19th century. The research scrutinizes the life and career paths of three remarkable Polish officers: Michał Czajkowski, Konstanty Borzęcki, and Józef Bem. A diverse array of hitherto understudied Ottoman sources, encompassing the works of military leaders and historians, the writings of Polish and French authors, and the annotations of Russian military officials, affords the opportunity to examine the activities of the prominent Polish officers from multiple vantage points. These include their role in the modernisation of the Ottoman military, their personal lives, and the issue of cultural identity. A multifaceted analysis demonstrates the complexity and variety of roles played by the Polish officers in the Ottoman army. Firstly, although they did not significantly alter the course of events on the Caucasus front of the Crimean War, they had a significant impact on the warfare of the Balkan front. Secondly, their principal contribution was to pacify the unstable Ottoman regions and further modernise the military and industrial institutions located in different parts of the Ottoman Empire. Thirdly, the Ottoman state did not become a second home for the majority of the Polish officers. Their conversion to Islam was mostly symbolic, and following the completion of their obligations, a considerable proportion of the émigré officers returned to Europe. The Ottoman Empire was able to capitalise on the influx of educated European specialists, utilising their expertise and knowledge to its advantage.
In the article, the author undertakes an examination of three distinct periods in the history of Russian-Turkish relations. From a chronological perspective, these periods encompass the 2000s, the 2010s, and the first half of the 2020s. By the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, Russia and Turkey had begun to accord a higher level of priority to their relations with each other in a number of areas, including diplomatic interaction at the global and regional levels, trade and economic relations, energy and military-technical cooperation. This situation starkly contrasts with the late 1990s, when Turkey demonstrated a tendency to align with the “collective West” in a manner driven by both inertia and ideology. The author posits that Russian-Turkish relations have undergone a dynamic transformation over the past quarter of a century, while each of the periods under consideration exhibiting a unique constellation of complementarity and competition. These two aspects defined the respective models of bilateral relations in each period. Existing research focuses mainly on various discrete aspects of the relationship between the two countries – be it diplomatic interaction, energy, or issues of intertwined or competing interests in specific hotspots and regions such as Syria, Libya, the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Caucasus. At the same time, a comprehensive analysis of the driving forces behind the transformation of Russia-Turkey relations is still lacking in academic publications on Turkey. In order to present such an analysis, this article draws on a number of important primary sources, including official documents of Russian and Turkish state agencies and structures involved in the implementation of foreign policy, national statistics, publications of news agencies, and leading media.
This study examines a pivotal moment in the history of Russian-Iranian relations in the early nineteenth century, when the experience of Russian state-building was adopted by the high-ranking Iranian bureaucracy. The initial phase of this turn was marked by the arrival in Russia in 1829 of the Iranian “Redemption” mission following the Tehran massacre of the Russian embassy, which included its leader, the Minister Plenipotentiary Alexander Griboyedov. The ceremonial aspects of this visit are fully reflected in the travel accounts of Mustafa Afshar, secretary of the Iranian mission, and the Russian escort reports related to the event. These have informed Iranian studies since 1970 and 2003, respectively. Nevertheless, a substantial portion of the original Persian text from Mustafa Afshar’s travelogue has yet to be examined by scholars, and is introduced here for the first time as a source for this study. This part of the diary comprises a collection of discrete narratives, collectively assembled by Iranian and Russian officials with the objective of fostering a positive image of Russia. The analysis of this text enables a reassessment of the historical significance, tangible outcomes, and political implications of the visit in the context of interstate relations between Russia and Iran.
In the article, the author focuses on one of the most pivotal events of the First Egyptian Crisis (1831–1833), namely the conquest of the Syrian provinces of the Ottoman Empire by the troops of the rebel governor of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha. Additionally, he elucidates the rationale behind the Russian Emperor Nicholas I’s decision to dispatch a contingent of Russian troops in 1833 to assist the Ottoman government in its efforts to safeguard its capital. The aim of this article is to analyse the strategies employed by Muhammad Ali Pasha, the Sublime Porte, and the Russian Empire with regard to Ottoman Syria, a region of key strategic importance during the development of the crisis. The present study demonstrates that the deployment of Egyptian troops to Syria in the spring and summer of 1832 was the pivotal factor in the subsequent course of events. This challenges the dominant view in historiography, which posits that the Russian intervention in the conflict was precipitated by a direct threat of capture of the Ottoman capital by Muhammad Ali Pasha’s troops in December 1832, and that St Petersburg’s plans were limited to the defence of the Asian shore of the Bosphorus. This article, which draws on archival documents and recollections of participants in the events, demonstrates the pivotal role played by Syria in the realisation of Muhammad Ali Pasha’s objective to establish a virtually independent power base. It also elucidates the strategic countermeasures devised by the Russian command with the intention of conducting military operations against the troops of Muhammad Ali in Asia Minor and Syria. Russia’s direct military and diplomatic intervention in the conflict between the Sublime Porte and Muhammad Ali Pasha in 1833 had a significant impact, effectively thwarting the Egyptian governor’s plans and providing the Ottoman government with the necessary time to restore the combat potential of its army. However, the alliance established between Russia and the Ottoman Empire at that time did not progress further due to opposition from Great Britain, France, and Austria.
In the article, the author examines the daily activities of the Russian embassy in Istanbul during the mid-18th century. The eastern orientation of Russian diplomatic efforts during the era of Peter the Great and his successors represents a relatively understudied aspect of the foreign policy of the Russian Empire. Furthermore, the focus of researchers is understandably on political issues, while the everyday reality of embassy staff – including the actual number of personnel, their individual personalities, maintenance costs, material culture and food – is overlooked. The Archive of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Empire contains a wealth of hitherto unpublished documents that shed light on a number of subjects from the late summer and autumn of 1745. Following the unexpected passing of the Russian resident (the head of the embassy), Alexey Veshniakov, on 29 July 1745, his deputies, who had assumed the role of senior representatives of the Russian Mission, were concerned about the potential allegations of misappropriation of state-owned assets. It compelled them to meticulously catalogue all items stored within the mission, in addition to maintaining comprehensive records of the daily expenditure incurred for food supplies for a total staff complement of 42 individuals, including the family and domestic personnel of the late resident (16 persons). It would be fair to say that such matters are rarely addressed in diplomatic missives. However, the exceptional circumstances following the demise of Alexey Veshniakov provided scholars with the opportunity to reconstruct certain aspects of the daily life of the Russian colony in Istanbul.
In this article, the author analyses the causes and circumstances of the downfall of Adolphe Thiers, the first President of the Third French Republic. He held the office from 31 August 1871 until 24 May 1873, when he was compelled to resign. Although Thiers’ tenure as president was relatively brief, encompassing less than two years, it was of significant consequence in the establishment of the republican system in France. In many ways, this was the personal merit of President Thiers, who publicly espoused the cause of the republic, for which he was compelled to relinquish his post as head of state. The reasons for Thiers’ downfall have been the subject of considerable historical analysis. In this study, the author draws upon hitherto overlooked sources, thereby offering a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of an already well-researched topic. The focus of this inquiry is confidential diplomatic communications from the Russian Embassy in Paris. This source is significant in that it demonstrates that both the Russian ambassador to France, Prince Nikolay Orlov, and the embassy counsellor Grigory Okunev had direct contact with Thiers, enjoyed his confidence, and were well aware of the plans and intentions of the President of the Republic. They frequently met with him and his ministers, attended meetings of the National Assembly, and were thus able to gain a comprehensive understanding of the political process that gave rise to the republican system in France. It can be argued that their assessments and judgments are of significant interest to the historian. This is particularly true when considering the dispatches and analytical notes compiled at the Russian embassy in Paris for Emperor Alexander II by Chancellor Gorchakov. These documents have not attracted the appropriate level of attention from researchers for a considerable period of time and therefore represent a valuable and underutilised resource for historical research.
In the article, the author examines the formation of the “New Deal” policy towards the Russian Orthodox Church during the initial two years of the Great Patriotic War. From the author’s perspective, the conventional interpretation of the Soviet authorities’ ‘new deal’ policy towards the country’s religious associations entails the rejection of mass repression against believers (with the potential for targeted repression against hierarchs and church activists) and the consideration of the interests of religious organisations by the Soviet authorities. In the initial two years of the war, elements of the new religious policy existed concurrently with repression. The author examines three pivotal moments in the crystallisation of this policy, drawing on the correspondence of the rector of the Catholic parish in Moscow, Fr. Leopold Braun, and his communications with the United States and the Vatican. The first of them occurred in the autumn of 1941 and was connected with the efforts of the anti-Hitler coalition allies to demonstrate to the Soviet leadership the necessity of implementing changes in the religious sphere in order to address the issue of the USSR joining the Lend-Lease programme. The second occurred in the spring of 1942, when Soviet diplomacy explored the potential for improving relations with the Vatican. The third took place in 1943 and was characterised by public actions undertaken by the Soviet authorities towards the Orthodox Church. The author concludes that the mechanisms of instrumentalisation of the religious factor were known to the Soviet political system; however, the consistent replacement of the repressive course by a course of instrumentalisation became possible only in the context of the military-political crisis of 1941–1942. The forced mobilisation of religious leaders by the Soviet authorities was accompanied by steps towards the church from the second half of 1942 onwards. These steps became public in early 1943, in connection with the collection of church funds for a tank column named after Dmitry Donskoy. From the autumn of 1943, the “new deal” entered the public sphere and became a conscious strategy of the Soviet leadership.
Over the past three decades, the field of diplomatic history has witnessed a surge in research interest, largely influenced by the linguistic, cultural, anthropological, and gender turns in the humanities and social sciences that occurred during the twentieth century. Those engaged in what is known as the ‘new diplomatic history’ understand diplomacy to be a communicative act, as well as a means of interacting with another culture and, more broadly, with what is considered to be “otherness”. Consequently, the focus is on actors, namely direct participants in this interaction. These include accredited diplomatic representatives, embassy staff, consuls, missionaries, translators and interpreters, merchants, local agents, and women, whose social and cultural capital also influenced interstate, international, and interpersonal relations. The objective of this article is to present an overview of selected academic literature on the history of early modern European diplomacy, as this period saw the emergence of a multitude of diplomatic roles. Having identified these roles, historians then proceed to the study of diplomacy as a complex of social and cultural practices. These include representation, negotiations, drafting reports, information gathering, the establishment of diplomatic networks, writing and translation, the exchange of gifts, the organisation of receptions and balls, and the collection of data, among other activities. To gain a deeper understanding of the subject, historians draw upon the problems and tools of related disciplines, such as sociology and political science, philology and linguistics, and archeology and art history. The author presents a comprehensive review of a range of research topics, including organisational forms, diplomatic practices and the professionalisation of the diplomatic service; ceremonial and symbolic communication; patron-client relationships; cultural transfer and intercultural communication; languages of diplomacy; the perception of the “other”; material aspects of diplomacy; self-perception of diplomatic actors and problems of identity; and confessional and gender factors in diplomacy.
The interest in the legacy of Edmund Burke (1730–1797), the celebrated British orator, statesman, philosopher, and publicist, has remained largely outside the scope of specialised research in Russia. It is evident that Burke’s incisive critiques of the French Revolution, coupled with his staunch advocacy for English liberties, parliamentary democracy, and constitutional monarchy, rendered him a controversial figure within both the “liberating” and “conservative” schools of Russian social thought. The objective of this article is to address the existing gap in the literature by collating, elucidating, and analysing the facts that bear testimony to the perception of Burke’s personality and major writings, specifically “A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful” (1757) and “Reflections on the Revolution in France” (1790), by his Russian contemporaries.
