Religious and Secular Forces in Late Tsarist Russia: Essays in Honor of Donald W. Treadgold.by Charles E. TimberlakeReview by: Stephen K. BataldenSlavic Review, Vol. 54, No. 4 (Winter, 1995), pp. 1084-1086Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2501454 .

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1084 Slavic Review

on state policy. Dittmar Dahlmann examines the Socialist Revolutionary Party through the prism of the political trial of its leaders in 1907.

Three essays seek to explain the relative weakness of civil society under tsarism. Peter Liessem surveys the efforts of lawyers in various legal societies, especially those in St. Petersburg and Moscow, to defend the rule of law; Ralph Tuchtenhagen dem- onstrates the inability of the temperance movement to overcome the age-old Russian devotion to strong drink; and Carmen Scheide traces the slow development of women's education. Maria Deppermann explicates the "myth of St. Petersburg," which embod- ies not only the glorious artistic legacies of Petr and Ekaterina but also the tyranny and squalor chronicled by Gogol', Dostoevskii, Belyi and many others. Finally, Heiko Haumann reiterates the political chaos of 1916-1917, stressing, as he did in his fine study, Kapitalismus im zaristischen Staat 1906-1917 (1980), disunity among Russian in- dustrialists, contrary to the leninist notion of a united "Russian bourgeoisie."

The best of these articles-those of Plaggenborg, Dahlmann, Deppermann and Haumann-go beyond narrative and statistical analysis to raise historiographical is- sues. For example, Plaggenborg places the debate over Stolypin's reforms in its social context by stressing the Russian peasants' hostility to the concept of hired labor, their refusal to treat land as a commodity and their fidelity to economically viable communal agriculture. More questionable is Deppermann's application of Max Weber's notion of bureaucratic rationality to the tsarist regime. To the economic historian, the arbitrary treatment of corporations, stock exchanges, business organi- zations and industrial labor by Petr, Ekaterina and Witte disqualifies the Russian state from the weberian definition. Rather, imperial rulers employed what might be called "military-autocratic" means to maintain their legitimacy. These methods lacked the qualities of rationality, efficiency and respect for law that Weber consid- ered central to modern bureaucracy and its economic counterpart, capitalism. The Soviet state likewise enforced its autocracy by military means and rejected rational- legal procedures. Baroque architecture, classical statuary and marxist ideology consti- tuted European forms without content. (Nor did Russian and Soviet rulers respect tradition or lead by the force of charisma, the two other aspects of Weber's famous triad of ideal types.)

The American reader notices the absence of references to some of the most sig- nificant historical works produced recently in English, such as those by Ronald Grigor Suny oIn the Transcaucasus; by Tim McDaniel on the struggles among workers, em- ployers and tsarist officials; and by Paul R. Gregory and Peter Gatrell on the late tsarist economy. Still, for the most part these German authors pay far more attention to American scholarly works, including unpublished doctoral dissertations, than do Americans to German ones. This volume should inspire American students of Russian history to dust off their German-English dictionaries and wade into the dizzying thick- ets of Teutonic syntax for the sake of a fruitful dialogue with German historians of the late imperial period.

THOMAS C. OWEN Louisiana State University

Religious and Secular Forces in Late Tsarist Russia: Essays in Honor of Donald W. Treadgold. Ed. Charles E. Timberlake. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1992. 376 pp. $35.00, hard bound.

The papers in this festschrift honor the late Donald Treadgold and were first presented to him by former students oIn the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday in 1987. Now brought together under the editorship of Charles Timberlake, these essays represent not only a useful addition to the literature on religion and politics in Russia, but also document the breadth of scholarship inspired by Donald Treadgold. In addition to

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Book Reviews 1085

thirteen essays written by twelve of Treadgold's former students, the volume contains timely tributes by Nicholas Riasanovsky and Robert Byrnes. Because of the range of research interests represented by these former Treadgold students, the editor faced a formidable task in providing thematic linkages for the volume. Indeed, the title carries an appropriate sense of vsiakaia vsiachina. Timberlake's opening essay, a survey of Russian church history combined with references to late imperial intellectual, edu- cational and ethnic issues, does an admirable job of connecting the quite disparate themes reflected in the volume.

The initial three essays address topics that fall chronologically well before the traditional dating of "late" tsarist Russia. David Goldfrank's essay on sixteenth-century "inquisitions" summarizes the evidence on heresy trials, claiming that these trials were new to late fifteenth-century Muscovy and were driven by secular political issues (such as succession conflict) as much as by doctrinal or religious dangers. William James's essay on Jesuit schools in late eighteenth-century Russia documents the successes of Jesuit teachers such as Gabriel Gruber in Polotsk and St. Petersburg. James's admira- tion for Jesuit schooling is not free of some exaggeration, however, as in his claim that "the Society of Jesus was the only organization in the empire with the talent and facilities to offer the Russian nobles the type of sophistication they desired." John McErlean describes the career of the Catholic convert and Russian diplomat, Petr Borisovich Kozlovskii (1783-1840), in the process expanding our knowledge of the liberal Kozlovskii beyond the references to him as "Prince K**" in the Marquis de Custine's Russia in 1839.

While all of the essays address themes reflected in Treadgold's own scholarship, five of the contributions focus particularly on his interest in Russia's religious tradi- tions. In an essay on the allure of the "Old Catholics" (Roman Catholics who rejected Pope Leo XIII's 1870 proclamation of papal infallibility), John Basil sets Russian Or- thodox scholarly interest in Old Catholicism and ecumenism alongside the equally significant opposition that occasionally ensued. In the process, Basil demonstrates again the breadth of the debate flourishing in late-nineteenth-century Russian theo- logical academies. Thomas Sorenson's essay on the 1884 statute expanding parish schools uses Holy-Synod-published records to document the increase in church-ad- ministered primary schooling between 1884 and the 1905 Russian revolution. Inspired by a Holy Synod ober-procuror (Pobedonostsev), whose conservative religious agenda nevertheless included a commitment to expanded literacy, there was a growth in parish schools from roughly 4,500 in 1884 to more than 42,000 by the end of the century, with a parallel rise in enrollment to almost two million. Robert Nichols's essay adds to this picture by focusing upon the events surrounding the canonization of St. Serafim of Sarov in 1903. Nichols effectively uses the canonization at Arzamas as a point of departure for reconstructing the complicated spiritual and patriotic/chauvinist im- pulses operating within the court of Nikolai II. David Davies's essay on Mikhail Ger- shenzon not unexpectedly positions this Vekhi contributor among the challengers to contemporary western rationalism and materialism. Finally, in a short but highly ef- fective essay, Edward Lazzerini examines the debate that ensued at a Tavrida zemstvo conference on Tatar education held in Simferopol' in 1908. Noting the status of the Crimean Tatars as inorodtsy (the non-Orthodox "others"), Lazzerini documents how fundamental issues of modern education were addressed in an open setting that in- cluded both Muslim Turkic reformers, such as Ismail Bey Gasprinskii, and traditional Muslim defenders of the premodernist status quo. That such debates were occurring in an empire rent by division between an imperial center and a non-Russian periphery makes the essay particularly timely.

Other contributions to the volume address notions of aziatchina and the organi- zation of the bolshevik party (the late Joseph Schiebel), justice in Petrograd (Tsuyoshi Hasegawa), zemstvo education in Tver' (Charles Timberlake) and Herzen's place in the lineage of Russian revolutionaries (Alan Kimball). In all, the breadth and rich docu- mentation of these widely varying essays combine to bring honor to the memory of Donald Treadgold. As Nicholas Riasanovsky notes in his tribute, Treadgold's "central,

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1086 Slavic Review

perhaps defining trait as a historian, intellectual, and human being is his magnificent curiosity."

STEPHEN K. BATALDEN

Arizona State University

Krov' po sovesti: terrorizm v Rossii. Dokumenty i biografii. Ed. Oleg V. Budnitskii. Rostov- on-Don: Izd-vo RGPU, 1994. 256 pp. Paper.

Budnitskii's edited volume is a welcome example of scrupulous and gifted post-Soviet scholarship, which also has broader intellectual and cultural significance for Russian readers and the historian himself. Like so many intellectuals in the former USSR, Budnitskii is searching for causes of political violence so characteristic for the com- munist period of his country's history. In doing so, he presents a vivid documentary picture of the terrorist tradition, which had become part of Russia's domestic life long before the Bolshevik takeover. Budnitskii's objective is to demonstrate "the develop- ment of terrorist ideas in Russia" in their complexity-from the first "death sentences" issued in revolutionary leaflets of the 1860s to "scientific" justifications of terrorist methods by the Socialist Revolutionaries after the turn of the century. Even though the title of the book is somewhat misleading, causing the reader to assume that the collected documents are concerned with both the theory and the practices of Russian terrorism, the idea behind Budnitskii's effort is well taken: before studying terrorism in practice it is essential to understand what the extremists of various persuasions considered to be appropriate tactics. A wide assortment of approaches vis-a-vis ter- rorist activity is illuminated in this volume with well selected documentary evidence, represented by official party documents, excerpts from diaries and memoirs, trial materials, and articles from the periodical press.

The collection-the first of its kind not only in Russia, but also in the West,- focuses primarily on well known proponents of terrorist methods, such as militant Populist groups and the SRs. The book also pays due attention to revolutionaries traditionally not associated with terrorism. Thus, it becomes evident from the selected documents and Budnitskii's thoroughly researched notes and commentaries (accurate even in secondary detail) that the Bolsheviks were far from immune to "the temptation of terror." It is only regrettable that the editor did not include similar information about other Social Democrats, such as the Georgian Mensheviks, the Jewish Bundists, and the Latvian SDs, a significant number of whom were also known to take part in terrorist acts and expropriations.

"For a long time we viewed [terror] from one side only-the side of the revolu- tionaries," states Budnitskii in his brief, yet thoughtful introductory article. His main contribution is a more comprehensive approach to the problem which includes well balanced evidence concerning the dubious position of the Russian liberals. While not adopting violence as their method of fighting the autocracy, the liberals consistently refused to condemn terrorist tactics of the extremists and often could not conceal their joy at sensational terrorist feats. Budnitskii is entirely correct in arguing that one of the main objectives behind the liberal attitude was a desire to use the extremists to extract political concessions from the weakened authorities-quite in accordance with a famous formula: "yield, or 'they' will shoot."

The liberal standpoint on the issue of terrorism was a major factor causing the "conservative camp" to consider the liberals to be marching under the same banner with the radicals. This, in turn, only helped to intensify the reaction, even though Budnitskii clearly exaggerates when he calls "terror from the right" a "mirror image" of the revolutionary terrorism. The zealots of the Black Hundreds could not dream of reaching the astounding figure of 17,000 victims of left-wing terrorist acts between 1901 and 1911. These statistics, of course, do not disprove that the radicals and the government used violence reciprocally, with both sides contributing to the avalanche of bloodshed.

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