Level of Repression in Altai Regions between 1935 and 1937: An Attempt at Using Statistical and GIS Methods

This article focuses on the analysis of the impact of socio-economic development indicators of Altai region and Oyrot autonomous region on the eve of the Great Purge (1935 — first half of 1937) on the regional intensity of repression. Employing statistical methods (regression analysis), the author verifies the hypothesis that in the areas with the highest level of well-being of the population, the level of repression was also higher. It is established that the turnover and expenditures per capita compared with other economic indicators had the greatest influence on repression levels in Altai and Oyrotia regions. Based on the results of the analysis of regional statistics, the author of the article puts forward a theory that the thesis proclaimed by the Bolsheviks to justify the failure of economic development by the actions of the “enemies” in practice seems untenable, since economically lagging regions were characterised by a relatively low level of repression. In the second part of the article, the author presents a typology of districts of Altai and Oyrotia regions based on the results of cluster analysis of various groups of socio-economic development indicators. Additionally, she substantiates the hypothesis about the influence of the spatial factor on the intensity of repression: the groups of regions of each individual cluster consist mainly of adjacent regions.

Social Mobility of Collective Farmers in the 1930s

The author carries out a retrospective analysis of social mobility elevators and channels functioning within the collective farm system in the USSR in the 1930s. The subject of research is the collective farm peasantry and its border social groups (machine operators, administrative staff of collective farms, and machine and tractor station workers). It is concluded that multidirectional channels and lifts of intergroup and intragroup social mobility operated in Soviet rural areas in the 1930s. The most widespread channel of social mobility was collectivisation. Intensive social processes took place inside collective farms, which resembled social elevators that had an internal corporate character. A professional career in collective farms could be used as a mechanism of mobility: external elevators, institutionalised state practices, “positive” behavioural practices, and “positive” socio-political record. Channels of social and professional mobility functioned within the collective farm system. The most socially significant of them was the transition of workers engaged in horse and manual labour to machine operators. The collective farm system was integrated into the system of social elevators and channels operating in the USSR, but transition to them from collective farms was limited. Administrative, educational, professional, gender, and age barriers were in place for the social mobility of collective farmers. Chance to go beyond collective farms was given to young people receiving education and conscription. Being sentenced to prison meant the collective farmer’s descent to the bottom of the Soviet social ladder. The mechanisms of social descent could be: “negative” behavioural practices, illegal actions, and “negative” socio-political record.

Economic Reforms in Hungary and Bulgaria and the Reaction to them in the USSR (Late 1950s — First Half of the 1970s)

This article analyses economic reforms in Hungary and Bulgaria between the late 1950s and early 1970s, as well as the reaction of official Moscow to the changes in these countries. The main sources for this article were documents of the Soviet embassies in the HPR and the PRB, briefing notes of Soviet economists, reports of special services and materials of meetings and negotiations at the highest party and state level. The authors conclude that a significant role in the launch and curtailment of reforms belonged to the political leaders of Hungary and Bulgaria — Ya. Kadar, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the HSWP, and T. Zhivkov, the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the BCP, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the PRB. Therefore, at the level of decision-making, these reforms differed from similar ones in other countries of the socialist camp. The authors demonstrate that the transition to self-supporting relations in the HPR and PRB did not solve a number of economic problems, but, on the contrary, provoked a departure from socialist principles and the strengthening of market elements. This circumstance led to an increase in the volume of external debt of Hungary and Bulgaria, mainly to capitalist countries, which caused concern on the part of the Soviet leadership. Therefore, the Kremlin, which had previously pursued a policy of detached observation, forced Zhivkov and Kadar to curtail economic reforms. At the same time, Moscow offered individual solutions in each case. In Bulgaria, for example, the economic independence of enterprises ended after the USSR repaid the country’s internal debt, and in Hungary after Brezhnev’s conversation with Kadar. The authors believe that the direct initiator of the curtailment of reforms in the HPR and the PRB was a rather narrow circle of Soviet leaders who realised the futility of introducing market mechanisms into the socialist economy and launched a large-scale revision of the concept of the development of the world system of socialism in the early 1970s.

Vases, Caskets, and Decorative Lamps of the Leningrad Factory of Porcelain in 1956–1966: Context, Attribution, Interpretation

This paper focuses on two stages in the development of post-war production interior porcelain. The first stage is the completion of the development in the decorative and industrial arts of the grand style. The second stage is the development of modern style, which is reflected in the works of mass porcelain. The research refers to the Leningrad Factory of Porcelain and the production of the enterprise from 1956–1966. The products of the plant have not been studied sufficiently so far. However, the factory was one of the many Soviet porcelain enterprises that was involved in the creation of a new living environment. Two stages in the development of industrial art related to the organisation of the residential interior were reflected in the company’s products, i.e. works of small porcelain plastics, utilitarian porcelain, i.e. vases, boxes, bottles, night lamps, etc. The first stage is filled with works of small plastic arts (second half of the 1950s). The second stage is associated with the interior, in which porcelain goods played the role of accents in the interior, emphasising empty space (first half of the 1960s). The author of the article carries out analysis of caskets and vials of the enterprise (40 Years of October caskets, casket with a lion, Matryoshka casket, Summer Garden, a series of bottles and caskets), vases and pots (Lines planters, decorative vases, damask, and stacks), lamps (Chinese Pagoda night light, Golden Cockerel night light). Based on the interpretation of the value of the enterprise in the formation of the interior, the value of products in the processes of transition from the grand style to the modern style, a conclusion is drawn about the importance of the plant in the formation of the living environment. The massive nature of the works of the plant influenced the fact that the current stylistic trends were available to a vast number of Soviet citizens, who perceived new aesthetic norms.

Attribution of Works by Vladimir Grinberg and Alexander Vedernikov: The Problem of the Artist’s Signature

This article considers the phenomenon of the authors’ signatures of Vladimir Grinberg (1896—1942) and Alexander Vedernikov (1898—1975), two representatives of the Leningrad Landscape School community in the 1930s—1940s. During this period, they entered a single circle of friendly and professional communication and experienced mutual influences. The artists’ work is considered more broadly and goes beyond their participation in the community. The goal of the article is to single out the most significant periods of their activity, trace changes in the authors’ handwriting from decade to decade, pay attention to the period of apprenticeship and formation of the artists, and focus on controversial issues in the attribution of their paintings and drawings. A study of all the works by Grinberg and Vedernikov currently identified in museum and private collections, makes it possible to trace the changes in the authors’ styles and discover the artistic landmarks of the masters. Grinberg’s manner repeatedly transformed. The neoclassical stylistics of his works of the late 1910s and citation of paintings by the old masters gave way to modest still lifes in the 1920s. After landscapes and scenes of everyday life on a black background in the early 1930s, there was a lightening of the colour scheme during his work on the New Leningrad series in the middle of the decade. In the early 1940s, Grinberg began to paint very broadly, generalising and simplifying the images. This scandalising manner has parallels with the style of the 1960s. Vedernikov was influenced by the art of French post-impressionists. Also, he took interest in the art of Russian folk crafts in the post-war period, more particularly, in Gorodets painting. The article pays much attention to Grinberg’s and Vedernikov’s lithographs. A significant part of their works has been catalogued and published, which facilitates dating and attribution, but much remains unknown (for example, an episode in Vedernikov’s work associated with the unification of the Masters of Analytical Art). In the article, the author describes the marking of works in detail, the placement and outline of the signatures, and traces the changes in them, which will help determine the range of works and authorship more accurately.

Moscow Print Yard under Patriarch Nikon: Specific Features of the Repertoire and Artistic Design of Publications

This article studies the activities of the Moscow Print Yard during the period under Patriarch Nikon between 1652 and 1658. The period was not only characterised by a serious economic activity intended to organise work at the Print Yard but also a number of considerable changes in the repertoire of publications of the printing house and book design. All these actions took place under the direct supervision of Patriarch Nikon and his participation. This article makes an attempt to trace the overall activity of the Print Yard in two directions: studying the structure of the repertoire of print products and book design and changes in the external form of Moscow editions. The article examines a new type of editions which appeared under Patriarch Nikon — loose-leaf editions, clarifying the reasons and motives for their appearance, which are not due to their economic benefit but their efficiency and circulation, and the opportunity to standardise church administrative issues through them. Additionally, the author considers issues connected with iconographic “preparation” related to changes in the images of the animal symbols of the Evangelists in the frontispiece engravings of the Gospel. Also, the article clarifies the reasons that prompted Patriarch Nikon to make these corrections, which are based on a general approach to correcting church rites and books. In correcting the order of animal symbols, Patriarch Nikon relied on the ancient Russian manuscript tradition (pre-15th century) and Greek samples associated primarily with the images on the Antimins. The article pays special attention to the publication of Antimins as a new type of Moscow edition considering the question of its samples. Finally, the author examines the features of engraved illustrations in Nikon’s editions and their design demonstrating the significance of Nikon’s reforms for the development of the artistic form and art of the Moscow book.

Literary, Socio-Political, and Material Everyday Life of the Editorial Board of the Russkoye Bogatstvo Magazine, Its Authors, and Staff between 1896 and 1900

This article introduces into scholarly circulation documents kept in the funds of the Scientific Research Department of Manuscripts of the RSL and the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art relating to literary, socio-political, and material life of the Russkoye Bogatstvo magazine. Along with documentary evidence of literary activity, these documents serve to clarify human preferences, assessments, relationships, and reveal the internal mechanisms of the editorial life of the magazine. The chronological period which the archival materials date back to (1896–1900) is a landmark in the history of the magazine when it first became a legal print medium of the Narodniks and, second, recovered the cooperative principle of its publication. Finally, during the period in question, the relations between the members of the editorial board began to be regulated progressively. Also, to a greater extent than before, all financial flows that passed through the editorial board started to be regulated legally organising the work of the editorial board which allowed the magazine to continue to exist despite the many difficulties — censorious, political, repressive — it had to face on its long and difficult way to the reader. The materials presented in the article tell about some episodes of the fate of the famous magazine under the changing historical conditions and clarify facts of human, literary, and financial relations in the editorial board, while a brief real commentary restores the historical and literary context of the facts described in these documents. The subject of the published documents is specific circumstances including economic ones of the editorial office of Russkoye Bogatstvo, which until now have rarely been the subject of historical and literary publications and articles.

Art of Being an Art Critic. Review of: Busev, M. A. (2020). Iskusstvo postigat’ iskusstvo: sbornik statei k 100-letiiu N. A. Dmitrievoi [Art of Comprehending Art: Collected Articles for N. A. Dmitrieva’s 100th Birthday]. Moscow: BooksMArt. 408 p.: Il.

This review examines Art of Comprehending Art, a collection of scholarly articles based on the materials of the conference Historical and Theoretical Issues of Art Studies: For N. A. Dmitrieva’s 100th Birthday (held on April 24–25, 2017 at the State Institute of Art Studies of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation). The first part of the collection presents colleagues’ memories about N. A. Dmitrieva’s work revealing various facets of her talent. In the second part of the book, scholarly articles by contemporary art historians are devoted to the issues that N. A. Dmitrieva examined, i.e. the history of art criticism and art education in Russia, theoretical and methodological issues (image and word, issues of interpretation, kitsch), the creative work of P. Picasso, M. Vrubel, and A. Chekhov. The third section contains fragments of N. A. Dmitrieva’s diary, as well as two previously unpublished articles.

British Requiem for the Peasantry in the USSR: Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge

The subject of this interdisciplinary article is the case of British journalists Gareth Jones and Malcolm Muggeridge. In 1933 they were the first and the only ones to draw the world’s attention to the tragedy in the USSR: Soviet power destroyed the foundation of traditional Russian society, i.e. the peasantry — for the sake of the rapid industrialisation of the country, the socialisation of agriculture and the radical transformation of man. The price of this new “main revolution” (according to G. Jones) or experiment, which originated in the brains of “rootless urbanists” — Bolsheviks (Muggeridge) were human-induced famine, death of millions of peasants in Ukraine, Volga, Cuban, and Rostov-on-Don regions. But fascinated by the embodiment of the idea of utopia, as well as proceeding from the interests of Realpolitik, the West ignored this tragedy. The article examines the conflict between the personality — Jones and society, Soviet and Western, as evidence to the fact that “a man can be destroyed but not defeated” (Hemingway). The subject of “famine” was developed in the works of A. Koestler, G. Orwell, research of R. Conquest, D. Rayfield, who in their ideas and opinions followed Jones and Muggeridge. Views on Russia of the latter ones and of an influential New York Times correspondent in Moscow — Walter Duranty, who in 1932 got a Pulitzer prize for his deceitful reports denying the famine in the Soviet Union, are presented here as ethically and culturally opposite: Stalin’s apologist Duranty viewed Russia as a country of Asians, of born slaves; Jones and Muggeridge saw it as a tragic country which was losing its mighty human potential — peasantry and natural course of development, and both of them anticipated the collapse of the Soviet regime. And the Soviet civilization collapsed, though 60 years later, for it was doomed: it is impossible to build Heaven on blood — to achieve world harmony at the cost of “a tear of a child” (Dostoevsky), i. e. the suffering of innocent people.

Northern Russian Names of Flour and Bread Made of Different Varieties of Grain: The Semantic-Motivational Aspect

This article discusses dialectal names of bread made of a mixture of two or three varieties of flour (barley, rye, oat, or wheat), recorded on the territory of Arkhangelsk, Vologda, and northern Kostroma regions. The author carries out an analysis of this group of vocabulary in linguo-geographic and semantic-motivational aspects in order to determine the peculiarities of the formation of the lexical group under consideration and the corresponding food tradition, to identify possible foreign language and foreign cultural influences and the etymological reconstruction of lexemes with an unclear motivation. There are several groups of names and areas of distribution of the ideogram “bread made of mixed flour”. It is established that the use of bread made of mixed flour was typical of residents of the south, southeast, and west of Arkhangelsk region, the central and eastern parts of Vologda region, and the northeastern parts of Kostroma region. The author singles out several types of names and areas of their distribution, i.e. двоежиток — троежитник; двинянка; соричник, сорица; смёш, смешечник; сутолока. Referring to the semantic-motivational models revealed, the author proposes an etymology for the northern Russian двинянка ‘bread that has two layers of dough’ in connection with the number два ‘two’. Given the existing etymology of Rus. dial. сорник ‘bread made of several types of flour’ in connection with the Komi сор ‘admixture’, it is proposed to consider dial. смешенник as a calque of loanwords with the root сор- (сорник, etc.). The archaic nature of the vocabulary group in question makes it possible to consider the tradition of making mixed flour and bread out of it quite old. It was partially borrowed by Russian peasants from the Finno-Ugric peoples who had more experience in baking bread from barley.