RUSSIA

Typical wooden buildings in a village in the Central Ural Mountains near Kungur, Russia. officially Russian Federation, Russian Rossiya, or Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, country that stretches over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. Once the preeminent republic of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), Russia has been an independent country since the dissolution of the union in December 1991. Under the Soviet system it was called the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (R.S.F.S.R.). With an area of 6,592,800 square miles (17,075,400 square kilometres), Russia is the world's largest country, covering almost twice the territory of either the United States or China. It ranks sixth in the world in population, following China, India, the United States, Indonesia, and Brazil. The great majority of the people are Russians, but there also are some 70 smaller national groups living within its borders. Most of the population is concentrated in a great triangle in the western, or European, part of the country, although over the past three centuriesand particularly during the early and mid-20th centurythere was a steady flow of people eastward to the Asiatic section commonly referred to as Siberia. On its northern and eastern sides Russia is bounded by the Arctic and Pacific oceans, and it has small frontages in the northwest on the Baltic Sea at St. Petersburg and at the detached Russian oblast (province) of Kaliningrad. On the south it borders North Korea, China, Mongolia, and the former Soviet republics of Kazakstan, Azerbaijan, and Georgia. On the southwest and west it borders the former Soviet republics of Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, and Estonia, as well as Finland and Norway; in addition, Kaliningrad (formerly a part of what was once East Prussia annexed in 1945) abuts Poland and Lithuania. Extending nearly halfway around the Northern Hemisphere and covering much of eastern and northeastern Europe as well as the whole of northern Asia, Russia has a maximum east-west extent, along the Arctic Circle, of some 4,800 miles (7,700 kilometres) and a north-south width of 1,250 to 1,850 miles. There is an enormous variety of landforms and landscapes, which occur mainly in a series of broad latitudinal belts. Arctic deserts lie in the extreme north, giving way southward to the tundra and then to the forest zones, which cover about half of the country and give it much of its character. South of the forest zone lie the wooded steppe and steppe, beyond which are small sections of semidesert along the northern shore of the Caspian Sea. Much of the federation lies in latitudes where the winter cold is intense and where evaporation can barely keep pace with the accumulation of moisture, engendering abundant rivers, lakes, and swamps. The capital of Russia is Moscow, which was also the capital of the R.S.F.S.R. and of the Soviet Union. The republic itself had been established immediately after the Russian Revolution of October (November, New Style) 1917 and became a union republic on Dec. 30 (Dec. 17, Old Style), 1922. Following the termination of the U.S.S.R. in 1991, Russia joined with other former Soviet republics in forming the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Historically, the territory of European Russia was the core of the expanding Russian state and suffered onslaughts ranging from that of the Mongol hordes in the 13th century to the Nazi invasion of World War II. This historical heritage, together with the country's vast area and natural wealth, which permitted the development of a large-scale industrial economy, gave Russia a unique place of leadership among the former Soviet republics. Its brooding landscapes and the complexities of the prerevolutionary society inspired the prose and music of such giants of world culture as Anton Chekhov, Aleksandr Pushkin, Leo Tolstoy, and Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky, while the October Revolution (of 1917) and the changes it brought were reflected in the works of such noted figures as the novelists Maksim Gorky, Mikhail Sholokhov, and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, and the composers Dimitry Shostakovich and Sergey Prokofiev. For the geography and history of Russia's two largest cities, see the articles Moscow and Saint Petersburg. For the history of the Soviet Union as a whole, from the Revolution to 1991, see Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. For the geography and history of the other former Soviet republics, see Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Ukraine. also called Russian Federation, Russian Rossiya, or Rossiyskaya Federatsiya, world's largest country, stretching over a vast expanse of eastern Europe and northern Asia. Russia covers almost twice the territory of either the United States or China. Russia was the political centre of the Russian Empire from 1721 to 1917 and of the subsequent Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (q.v.) until 1991. During the Soviet period it was officially called the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic, or Russian S.F.S.R. The great majority of the population of Russia are Russians, but there are also some 60 other nationalities. Russia ranks sixth in the world in the size of its population. Russia is bounded on the west by Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine (with the western exclave of Kaliningrad oblast [province] touching Poland) and is bounded on the south by Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakstan, Mongolia, China, and North Korea. It faces the Baltic and Black Seas on the west, the Arctic Ocean and conjoined seas on the north, and the Pacific Ocean and conjoined seas on the east. The capital is Moscow. Area 6,592,800 square miles (17,075,400 square km). Pop. (1993 est.) 148,000,000. Additional reading Geography In the first several years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, very little was published in book form that dealt authoritatively with post-Soviet Russia as a separate entity. For detailed information, it is still necessary to refer to volumes covering the U.S.S.R. as a whole. Comprehensive coverage of Russia is included in Raymond E. Zickel (ed.), Soviet Union: A Country Study, 2nd ed. (1991). Several other texts have chapters devoted to Russia or its various regions, including V.N. Bandera and Z.L. Melnyk (eds.), The Soviet Economy in Regional Perspective (1973); J.C. Dewdney, The U.S.S.R. in Maps (1982); I.S. Koropeckyj and Gertrude E. Schroeder (eds.), Economics of Soviet Regions (1981); and Paul E. Lydolph, Geography of the U.S.S.R., 5th ed. (1990).Murray Feshbach et al. (eds.), Environmental and Health Atlas of Russia (1995), explores the connection between public health and the quality of the environment, providing maps and explanatory essays. Ecological damage during the Soviet period is discussed in Murray Feshbach and Alfred Friendly, Jr., Ecocide in the USSR: Health and Nature Under Siege (1992); D.J. Peterson, Troubled Lands: The Legacy of Soviet Environmental Destruction (1993); Ze'ev Wolfson (Boris Komarov), The Geography of Survival: Ecology in the Post-Soviet Era (1994); and Murray Feshbach, Ecological Disaster: Clearing Up the Hidden Legacy of the Soviet Regime (1995).The physical environments of Siberia and the Far East, which comprise three-quarters of the territory of the Russian Federation and make it an important Asian country, are covered in great detail in S.P. Suslov. Physical Geography of Asiatic Russia (1961; originally published in Russian, 2nd ed., 1954); R.V. Kovalev (ed.), Genesis of the Soils of Western Siberia, trans. from Russian (1968); T. Rosswall and O.W. Heal (eds.), Structure and Function of Tundra Ecosystems (1975); and V. Sukachev and N. Dylis, Fundamentals of Forest Biogeocoenology (1968; originally published in Russian, 1964).The ethnic composition of the population and its implications are discussed in Edward Allworth (ed.), Ethnic Russia in the USSR: The Dilemma of Dominance (1980); Walter Kolarz, The Peoples of the Soviet Far East (1954, reprinted 1969); Viktor Kozlov, The Peoples of the Soviet Union (1988; originally published in Russian, 1975); M.G. Levin and L.P. Potapov (eds.), The Peoples of Siberia (1964; originally published in Russian, 1956); and Farley Mowat, The Siberians (1970, reissued 1982, also published as Sibir: My Discovery of Siberia, 1970). The Russians, as the dominant ethnic group, have received particular attention in W.H. Parker, The Russians (1973); Roger Portal, The Slavs: A Cultural and Historical Survey of the Slavonic Peoples (1969; originally published in French, 1965); and Hedrick Smith, The Russians, updated ed. (1983). Population movements are treated in Terence Armstrong, Russian Settlement in the North (1965); Wolfgang Lutz, Sergei Scherbov, and Andrei Volkov (eds.), Demographic Trends and Patterns in the Soviet Union Before 1991 (1994); and Donald W. Treadgold, The Great Siberian Migration: Government and Peasant in Resettlement Emancipation to the First World War (1957, reprinted 1976). Valuable additional material on many aspects of the Russian republic and its peoples is found in Archie Brown, Michael Kaser, and Gerald S. Smith (eds.), The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, 2nd ed. (1994); and Stephen White (ed.), Political and Economic Encyclopaedia of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe (1990).The vast resources of Siberia, their development potential, and the problems involved in their exploitation have been the subject of numerous studies, including George St. George, Siberia: The New Frontier (1969); Violet Conolly, Beyond the Urals: Economic Developments in Soviet Asia (1967), and Siberia Today and Tomorrow: A Study of Economic Resources, Problems, and Achievements (1975); Paul Dibb, Siberia and the Pacific: A Study of Economic Development and Trade Prospects (1972); Yves Laulan (ed.), Exploitation of Siberia's Natural Resources (1974); Alan Wood (ed.), Siberia: Problems and Prospects for Regional Development (1987); and Alan Wood and R.A. French (eds.), The Development of Siberia: People and Resources (1989). The special problems of the Far East region are the focus of E. Stuart Kirby, The Soviet Far East (1971); Erich Thiel, The Soviet Far East: A Survey of Its Physical and Economic Geography (1957, reprinted 1976; originally published in German, 1953); and Allan Rodgers (ed.), The Soviet Far East: Geographical Perspectives on Development (1990). The vital role of transport in Siberian development is the subject of Robert N. North, Transport in Western Siberia: Tsarist and Soviet Development (1979); and Theodore Shabad and Victor L. Mote, Gateway to Siberian Resources: The BAM (1977), discussing the Baikal-Amur Mainline Railway.Historical studies of geopolitical aspects include W.A. Douglas Jackson, The Russo-Chinese Borderlands: Zone of Peaceful Contact or Potential Conflict?, 2nd ed. (1968); William O. McCagg, Jr., and Brian D. Silver (eds.), Soviet Asian Ethnic Frontiers (1979); and James H. Bater and R.A. French (eds.), Studies in Russian Historical Geography (1983).Studies of urbanization in Russia include F.E. Ian Hamilton, The Moscow City Region (1976); G. Lappo, A. Chikishev, and A. Bekker, Moscow, Capital of the Soviet Union (1976); Wright Miller, Leningrad (1970); and James H. Bater, The Soviet City: Ideal and Reality (1980).In the early 1990s, numerous books were published on the problems leading to and connected with the breakup of the U.S.S.R. Economic issues are discussed in International Monetary Fund et al., A Study of the Soviet Economy, 3 vol. (1991), an excellent, wide-ranging survey of the Soviet economy just before the country's dissolution; Anders slund, Gorbachev's Struggle for Economic Reform, updated and expanded ed. (1991); Anders slund (ed.), Market Socialism or the Restoration of Capitalism? (1992); and John E. Tedstrom (ed.), Socialism, Perestroika, and the Dilemmas of Soviet Economic Reform (1990). The ethnic question is the focus of Rachel Denber (ed.), The Soviet Nationality Reader: The Disintegration in Context (1992); and Gail W. Lapidus, Victor Zaslavsky, and Philip Goldman (eds.), From Union to Commonwealth: Nationalism and Separatism in the Soviet Republics (1992).Current developments not yet discussed in monographic literature are discussed in the journal Post-Soviet Geography (monthly).The best general history of Russian literature is Victor Terras, A History of Russian Literature (1991). Outstanding books on the interaction of literature and society in the 19th century include Isaiah Berlin, Russian Thinkers, ed. by Henry Hardy and Aileen Kelly (1978); and, for the Soviet period, Ronald Hingley, Russian Writers and Soviet Society, 19171978 (1979). An excellent survey of Soviet culture as a whole is Andrei Sinyavsky (Andrei Siniavskii), Soviet Civilization: A Cultural History, trans. from Russian (1990). Important books on Russian art include Camilla Gray, The Great Experiment: Russian Art, 18631922 (1962, reissued as The Russian Experiment in Art, 18631922, 1971); and Angelica Zander Rudenstine (ed.), Russian Avant-garde Art: The George Costakis Collection (1981). The copiously illustrated work by Konstantin Rudnitsky, Russian and Soviet Theater, 19051932, trans. from Russian (1988), provides a good introduction to the golden age of Russian theatre. John C. Dewdney Andrew B. Wachtel History From the beginnings to c. 1700 The best brief survey of early Russian history in English is S.F. Platonov, History of Russia, trans. from Russian (1925, reprinted 1964). A judicious broad survey is Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, 5th ed. (1993). Other useful works include V.O. Kluchevsky, A History of Russia, 5 vol., trans. from Russian (191131, reissued 1960); and Pavel N. Miliukov, Outlines of Russian Culture, 3 vol., trans. from Russian (1942). George Vernadsky, Kievan Russia (1948, reprinted 1973); and M.W. Thompson, Novgorod the Great (1967), trace the history of Kiev. The Mongol period is treated in George Vernadsky, The Mongols and Russia (1953); and John Fennell, The Crisis of Medieval Russia, 12001304 (1983). The history of Muscovy is chronicled by John Fennell, The Emergence of Moscow, 13041359 (1968), and Ivan the Great of Moscow (1961); Robert O. Crummey, The Formation of Muscovy, 13041613 (1987); S.F. Platonov, The Time of Troubles: A Historical Study of the Internal Crises and Social Struggle in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Muscovy (1970, reissued 1985; originally published in Russian, 1923); George Vernadsky, Russia at the Dawn of the Modern Age (1959), and The Tsardom of Moscow, 15471682, 2 vol. (1969); and Paul Dukes, The Making of Russian Absolutism, 16131801, 2nd ed. (1990). Edward Louis Keenan The 18th century Interpretative surveys with significant treatment of the 18th century include Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime (1974, reissued 1992); and Marc Raeff, Understanding Imperial Russia: State and Society in the Old Regime (1984; originally published in French, 1982). A brief summary of the reforms and reign of Peter I the Great is presented in Benedict H. Sumner, Peter the Great and the Emergence of Russia (1950, reprinted 1972). Reinhard Wittram, Peter I, Czar und Kaiser, 2 vol. (1964), is still an essential comprehensive account, in German. Important insights in the Westernization of Russian culture are found in James Cracraft, The Petrine Revolution in Russian Architecture (1988); and a chronicle of its impact on Russian consciousness is offered in Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, The Image of Peter the Great in Russian History and Thought (1985). Economic and social aspects of the Petrine revolution are glimpsed through an 18th-century work by a contemporary of the events, Ivan Pososhkov, The Book of Poverty and Wealth, trans. from Russian and ed. by A.P. Vlasto and L.R. Lewitter (1987); discussed in Peter I. Lyashchenko (Petr I. Liashchenko), History of the National Economy of Russia, to the 1917 Revolution (1949, reprinted 1970; originally published in Russian, 2 vol., 194748); and illuminated for the entire 18th century in Arcadius Kahan, The Plow, the Hammer, and the Knout: An Economic History of Eighteenth-Century Russia (1985).A critical analysis of the relationship between administration and society in the 18th century is given in John P. LeDonne, Ruling Russia: Politics and Administration in the Age of Absolutism, 17621796 (1984), and Absolutism and Ruling Class: The Formation of the Russian Political Order, 17001825 (1991). James Cracraft, The Church Reform of Peter the Great (1971); and Gregory L. Freeze, The Russian Levites: Parish Clergy in the Eighteenth Century (1977), discuss ecclesiastical affairs. Robert O. Crummey, The Old Believers & the World of Antichrist: The Vyg Community & the Russian State, 16941855 (1970), studies the religious dissidence.The reign and person of Catherine II the Great are magisterially analyzed by Isabel De Madariaga, Russia in the Age of Catherine the Great (1981), and Catherine the Great: A Short History (1990). Cultural, educational, and literary matters of the period are discussed in J.L. Garrard (ed.), The Eighteenth Century in Russia (1973); and Harold B. Segel (ed.), The Literature of Eighteenth-Century Russia, 2 vol. (1967), an anthology with informative introduction and notes. Philosophical and political thought is presented in James M. Edie et al. (eds.), Russian Philosophy, 3 vol. (1965, reissued 1976); Marc Raeff (ed.), Russian Intellectual History (1966, reissued 1978); and V.V. Zenkovskii, A History of Russian Philosophy, 2 vol. (1953, reprinted 1967; originally published in Russian, 194850). Alexander Vucinich, Science in Russian Culture, vol. 1: A History to 1860 (1963), examines science and education. The emergence of critical social reflection is discussed in Allen McConnell, A Russian Philosophe, Alexander Radishchev, 17491802 (1964, reprinted 1981); and the history-making work itself is Aleksandr Nikolaevich Radishchev, A Journey from St. Petersburg to Moscow, trans. from Russian by Leo Wiener and ed. by Roderick Page Thaler (1958, reprinted 1966). Marc Raeff Russia from 1801 to 1904 General surveys of Russian history in the 19th century include J.N. Westwood, Endurance and Endeavour: Russian History, 18121986, 3rd ed. (1987); and Hugh Seton-Watson, The Russian Empire, 18011917 (1967, reprinted 1990). The best work in English on the reign of Alexander I is Marc Raeff, Michael Speransky, Statesman of Imperial Russia, 17721839, 2nd rev. ed. (1969). The reign of Nicholas I is explored by Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 18251855 (1959, reprinted 1969); and W. Bruce Lincoln, Nicholas I, Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias (1978, reprinted 1989). Intellectual life during the reign of Nicholas I is described in Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, A Parting of Ways: Government and the Educated Public in Russia, 18011855 (1976). A useful addition is John S. Curtiss, The Russian Army Under Nicholas I, 18251855 (1965), a general description of the army's performance. A highly detailed operational account as seen by the Russian high command is found in Albert Seaton, The Crimean War: A Russian Chronicle (1977). The general economic development of Russia in the 19th century is analyzed in G.T. Robinson, Rural Russia Under the Old Rgime: A History of the Landlord-Peasant World and a Prologue to the Peasant Revolution of 1917 (1932, reprinted 1969); and Arcadius Kahan, Russian Economic History: The Nineteenth Century (1989). The industrialization drive of the 1890s is treated in Theodore H. Von Laue, Sergei Witte and the Industrialization of Russia (1963, reprinted 1974). An analysis of reform and counterreform dynamics, specifically Russian, is given in Thomas S. Pearson, Russian Officialdom in Crisis: Autocracy and Local Self-Government, 18611900 (1989).Biographical studies that do much to explain the interplay of cultural and political factors in the 19th century are Martin E. Malia, Alexander Herzen and the Birth of Russian Socialism, 18121855 (1961); and Richard Pipes, Struve: Liberal on the Left, 18701905 (1970). The classical description and interpretation of the earlier revolutionary movement and the development of so-called populism is Franco Venturi, Roots of Revolution: A History of the Populist and Socialist Movements in Nineteenth Century Russia (1960, reprinted 1983; originally published in Italian, 1952).Useful books on non-Russian peoples in this period include James W. Long, From Privileged to Dispossessed: The Volga Germans, 18601917 (1988); John Doyle Klier, Russia Gathers Her Jews: The Origins of the Jewish Question' in Russia, 17721825 (1986); Michael Stanislawski, Tsar Nicholas I and the Jews: The Transformation of Jewish Society in Russia, 18251855 (1983); and Hans Rogger, Jewish Policies and Right-Wing Politics in Imperial Russia (1986).Studies of important moments and problems in Russian foreign policy that thoroughly examine the Russian point of view are Marian Kukiel, Czartoryski and European Unity, 17701861 (1955, reprinted 1981); Michael Boro Petrovich, The Emergence of Russian Panslavism, 18561870 (1956, reprinted 1985); Benedict H. Sumner, Russia and the Balkans, 18701880 (1937, reissued 1962); Andrew Malozemoff, Russian Far Eastern Policy, 18811904: With Special Emphasis on the Causes of the Russo-Japanese War (1958, reprinted 1977); and George F. Kennan, The Fateful Alliance: France, Russia, and the Coming of the First World War (1984). Nicholas V. Riasanovsky Russia from 1905 to 1917 The best general introduction to the period is Hans Rogger, Russia in the Age of Modernisation and Revolution, 18811917 (1983). Foreign policy is discussed in Dietrich Geyer, Russian Imperialism: The Interaction of Domestic and Foreign Policy, 18601914 (1987; originally published in German, 1977); and Dominic Lieven, Russia and the Origins of the First World War (1983). Lieven's Russia's Rulers Under the Old Regime (1989) gives a collective portrait of the people who determined the policy. The best introduction to the economy of the period is Peter Gatrell, The Tsarist Economy, 18501917 (1986); while the study by Margaret Miller, The Economic Development of Russia, 19051914: With Special Reference to Trade, Industry, and Finance, 2nd ed. (1967), addresses a particular aspect in a more specialized way.Abraham Ascher, The Revolution of 1905, 2 vol. (198892), covers the subject. The topic is also addressed in Andrew M. Verner, The Crisis of Russian Aristocracy: Nicholas II and the 1905 Revolution (1990). A more comparative socioeconomic approach to the revolution is demonstrated in Teodor Shanin, The Roots of Otherness: Russia's Turn of Century, 2 vol. (1986), concentrating especially on the peasantry. Robert Service, Lenin: A Political Life, 3 vol. (198595), is a good introduction to the history of the Social Democratic Party. The reaction of the elites to the revolution is analyzed in Roberta Thompson Manning, The Crisis of the Old Order in Russia: Gentry and Government (1982); and the reconstruction of the political system in Terence Emmons, The Formation of Political Parties and the First National Elections in Russia (1983). The politics of the new parliament, the Duma, are outlined in Geoffrey A. Hosking, The Russian Constitutional Experiment: Government and Duma, 19071914 (1973); and the social dimension of the new politics is examined in Leopold H. Haimson (ed.), The Politics of Rural Russia, 19051914 (1979); and in Victoria E. Bonnell, Roots of Rebellion: Workers' Politics and Organizations in St. Petersburg and Moscow, 19001914 (1983). Russia's problems during World War I are described in Michael T. Florinsky, The End of the Russian Empire: A Study in the Economic and Social History of the War (1931, reprinted 1973); Norman Stone, The Eastern Front, 19141917 (1975, reprinted 1985); and Raymond Pearson, The Russian Moderates and the Crisis of Tsarism, 19141917 (1977). Geoffrey Alan Hosking Soviet and post-Soviet Russia For the Soviet period there are hardly any specific histories of Russia: it is always treated in the wider context of the Soviet Union. An overview of the revolution and its consequences is offered in Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution (1982); and Robert Service, The Russian Revolution, 19001927, 2nd ed. (1991). Martin McCauley, The Soviet Union: 19171991, 2nd ed. (1993), provides a general survey. Relevant historical biographies include the one of Lenin cited in the previous paragraph; Adam B. Ulam, Stalin: The Man and His Era (1973, reissued 1989); and Martin McCauley, The Khruschchev Era, 19531964 (1995). The Gorbachev era is analyzed in Angus Roxburgh, The Second Russian Revolution: The Struggle for Power in the Kremlin (1991); Archie Brown (ed.), New Thinking in Soviet Politics (1992); Stephen White, Gorbachev and After, 3rd ed. (1992), a solid narrative of the years of perestroika; Richard Sakwa, Gorbachev and His Reforms, 19851990 (1990), the most detailed account of his reforms; and Mikhail Gorbachev, Perestroika: New Thinking for Our Country and the World, new, updated ed. (1988), revealing insights into Gorbachev's thinking and the lack of clarity of vision on how to implement perestroika. Good introductions to political structure and situations are Richard Sakwa, Soviet Politics (1989); Gordon B. Smith, Soviet Politics: Struggling with Change, 2nd ed. (1992); Geoffrey Ponton, The Soviet Era: Soviet Politics from Lenin to Yeltsin (1994), a readable, wide-ranging survey; and Geoffrey Hosking, Jonathan Aves, and Peter J.S. Duncan, The Road to Post-communism: Independent Political Movements in the Soviet Union, 19851991 (1992), the most detailed, well-researched treatment of these movements. Alec Nove, An Economic History of the USSR, 19171991, 3rd ed. (1992), is a readable account. Marshall I. Goldman, What Went Wrong with Perestroika (1991), written by an American economist and long-term student of the Soviet Union, is a good account of the weaknesses and contradictions of perestroika. Graham Smith (ed.), The Nationalities Question in the Soviet Union (1990), provides coverage of all the major nationalities. Foreign policy is discussed in Adam B. Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 191773, 2nd ed. (1974); and Joseph L. Nogee and Robert H. Donaldson, Soviet Foreign Policy Since World War II, 4th ed. (1992). Amy W. Knight, The KGB: Police and Politics in the Soviet Union, rev. ed. (1990), is the most thorough account; and an insider's story is Christopher Andrew and Oleg Gordievsky, KGB: The Inside Story of Its Foreign Operations from Lenin to Gorbachev (1990). Martin McCauley Administration and social conditions Government Government during the Soviet era Prior to the events that brought about the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the R.S.F.S.R., like the other 14 union republics, was subject to a series of Soviet constitutions (1918, 1924, 1936, 1977). Until the late 1980s the whole structure of Soviet government was dominated at all levels by the Communist Party, which was all-powerful and whose head was the country's de facto leader. Under the Soviet constitutions, the R.S.F.S.R. nominally was a sovereign socialist state that derived its power from the workers and peasants. A socialist economic system and socialist ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange were the economic basis of the republic. Even before the R.S.F.S.R. had been established, the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets had created a Soviet republic out of the former Russian Empire. The Third All-Russian Congress of Soviets (January 1918) announced the creation of the R.S.F.S.R., and the republic's first constitution was promulgated in July 1918. During and after the Civil War (191820) the R.S.F.S.R. was organized to include autonomous soviet socialist republics (A.S.S.R.'s). On Dec. 30, 1922, the R.S.F.S.R. and the other republics entered the formal federation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.), whose constitution was ratified in 1924. Later events were greatly influenced by that document's recognition of each republic's right to secede from the U.S.S.R. The 1936 constitution, adopted by the Extraordinary 17th All-Russian Congress of Soviets in January 1937, established a federal structure that lasted for about 50 years, despite changes introduced in 1978. The R.S.F.S.R. was politically divided into A.S.S.R.'s, autonomous oblasti (provinces), and okruga (districts)which were the homelands of the more important non-Russian nationalitiesas well as provinces and kraya (regions), the latter division including the autonomous provinces and districts (see The people). All these divisions were represented in the legislative branch: the Supreme Soviets of the U.S.S.R. and of the R.S.F.S.R., both of which were bicameral (a Soviet of the Federation and a Soviet of Nationalities). The autonomous republics enjoyed a measure of political independence, each having its own constitution, higher organs of state power, legislature, and judiciary; each sent deputies to the Supreme Soviets of both the U.S.S.R. and the R.S.F.S.R. Autonomous provinces and districts also sent deputies to these bodies, but their autonomy was limited. The division of Russia into these types of political units and their representation in central government were retained after independence. Under this system the highest organ of state power in the republic was the Supreme Soviet of the R.S.F.S.R., which appointed the Council of Ministers as its highest executive and administrative organ. Each autonomous republic also had its Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers, while local soviets were responsible for the affairs of their provinces, districts, regions, rayony (sectors), cities, and other localities. All these bodies were subject to decisions made at the centre by the Supreme Soviet and Council of Ministers of the U.S.S.R. Until 1988, elections at all levels were from a single slate of candidates, the great majority of whom were in effect chosen by the Communist Party. The transitional period From the late 1980s through 1991the period of Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika (restructuring), glasnost (openness), and demokratizatsiya (democratization) reform policiesfundamental changes took place in the political system and government structures of the U.S.S.R. that altered both the nature of the Soviet federal state and the status and powers of the individual republics. The first major change consisted of legislation passed by the old Supreme Soviet in 1988 that created a new body, the Congress of People's Deputies of the U.S.S.R., together with a Congress of People's Deputies in each republic. Elections to these bodies were held in 1989. For the first time, voters were presented with a choice of candidates, including non-Communists, although the system was such that party members remained a strong element: one-third of the deputies came from territorial constituencies, another third were from national territorial constituencies, and the remaining third from organizations such as the Communist Party, trade unions, and professional bodies. Thereafter, the pace of change accelerated, culminating in 1991. In June 1990 the Congress of the R.S.F.S.R. proclaimed that Russian laws took precedence over Soviet laws. In April 1991 the post of president of the Russian Federation was created to head the executive branch and to be elected by popular vote, and in June Boris Yeltsin won the presidency to become the republic's first democratically elected leader. An abortive coup in August by hard-liners opposed to Gorbachev's reforms led to the collapse of most U.S.S.R. government organizations, the abolition of the Communist Party's leading role in government, and the dissolution of the party itself. Republic after republic declared its sovereignty, and in December the U.S.S.R. was formally dissolved. Concurrently, the Russian Federation and 10 other former Soviet republics established the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), which was to replace the Soviet Union with a more loosely structured federation. Russia played a leading role in the creation of the CIS and has maintained its status as the dominant member. Cultural life The development of Russian culture Russia's unique and vibrant culture developed, as did the country itself, from a complicated interplay of native Slavic cultural material and borrowings from a wide variety of foreign cultures. In the Kievan period (c. 10th13th centuries) the borrowings were primarily from Eastern Orthodox Byzantine culture. During the Muscovite period (c. 14th17th centuries) the Slavic and Byzantine cultural substrates were enriched and modified by Asiatic influences carried by the Mongol hordes. Finally, in the modern period (since the 18th century) the cultural heritage of western Europe was added to the Russian melting pot. The Kievan period Although many traces of the Slavic culture that existed in the territories of Kievan Rus survived beyond its Christianization (which occurred, according to The Russian Primary Chronicle, in AD 988), the cultural system that organized the lives of the early Slavs is far from being understood. From the 10th century on, however, enough material has survived to give a reasonable portrait of Old Russian cultural life. High culture in Kievan Rus was primarily ecclesiastical. The level of literacy was low, and artistic composition was undertaken almost exclusively by monks. The earliest literary works to have circulated were translations from Greek into Old Church Slavonic (a South Slavic dialect that was, in this period, close enough to Old Russian to be understandable). By the 11th century, however, monks were producing original works (on Byzantine models), primarily in the genres of saints' lives, historical chronicles, and homilies. At least one great secular work was produced as well: the epic The Song of Igor's Campaign, which dates from the late 12th century and describes a failed military expedition against the neighbouring Polovtsy. Evidence also exists (primarily in the form of church records of suppression) of a thriving popular culture based on pre-Christian traditions centring around harvest, marriage, birth, and death rituals. The most important aspects of Kievan culture for the development of modern Russian culture, however, were not literary or folkloric but rather artistic and architectural. The early Slavic rulers expressed their religious piety and displayed their wealth through the construction of stone churches, at first in Byzantine style (like the 11th-century Cathedral of St. Sophia that still stands in Kiev, Ukraine) and later in a distinctive Russian style (best preserved today in churches in and around the city of Vladimir, to the east of Moscow). The interiors of many of these churches were ornately decorated with frescoes and icons.