Born in Moscow, Valery Bryusov was an early proponent of Symbolism in Russia. As editor of the almanac Russkie Simvolisty (Russian symbolists, 1894-1895), Bryusov presented the first articulation of the tenets of Modernism in Russia. Bryusov’s poetry in this almanac illustrated the points set forth in the declarations, with elements of decadence, synaesthesic imagery, and Symbolist motifs.
In 1899 Sergei Polyakov invited Bryusov to participate in the founding of the Skorpion Publishing House. In addition to publishing the works of leading Symbolists, Skorpion Publishing House in 1904 sponsored the literary journal Vesy (The scales), which became the leading forum for writers of that time. By 1906 Bryusov became increasingly critical of writers and poets with whom he disagreed, instituting a vitriolic polemic against the proponents of mystical anarchism and the so-called younger generation of Symbolists, especially those involved with the journal Zolotoye runo (The golden fleece).
In the 1910s Bryusov continued to work in all aspects of artistic culture, writing plays, a novel, and literary criticism, and engaging the Futurists in a lively debate on poetry. In 1913 Bryusov wrote a book of poems under the pseudonym Nelli, combining an ironic life story of a tragic poet with experimental, Futurist-inspired poems. The ironic mystification met with consternation and derision by the Futurists.
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Bryusov was an enthusiastic supporter of the Russian Revolution, believing it to be a transformative event in history. Bryusov became a member of the Communist Party in 1920 and was active in Narkompros (The People’s Commissariat for Enlightenment), serving as head of its printing and library divisions. In 1921 Bryusov organized the Higher Institute of Literature and Art and was the director until his death. See also: FUTURISM; SILVER AGE
Pyman, Avril. (1994). A History of Russian Symbolism. New York: Cambridge University Press. Rice, Martin. (1975). Valery Briusov and the Rise of Russian Symbolism. Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis.
The Treaty of Bucharest brought the Turkish war of 1806-1812 to an end. Having advanced the Russian frontier to the Dniester River in 1792, Catherine the Great intended to include Moldavia and Wallachia within a Dacian Kingdom under one of her favorites. The immediate occasion for the war, however, were the intrigues of Napoleon’s ambassador at Constantinople, General Horace Se-bastiani, who dismissed two pro-Russian princes in violation of protective rights obtained by the tsar in 1802. Catherine’s grandson Alexander I opened hostilities in 1806 when sixty thousand men, initially led by General Mikhail Kamensky and later by Mikhail Kutuzov, crossed the Danube. This campaign proved desultory, even though in 1807 a Russian administration replaced the Greek Princes nominated by the Turks. When Napoleon met Tsar Alexander I at Tilsit (1807) and later at Erfurt (1808) to partition the Ottoman Empire, the former was willing to concede control of both principalities to Russia but was unwilling to give up Constantinople, the ultimate prize the French emperor had sought. In consequence, the good relations between the two emperors deteriorated. When it became apparent that Napoleon was planning a coalition for an invasion of Russia in 1812, the tsar, unwilling to fight Turks and French on two fronts, sent a delegation under General Count Alexander de Langeron, General Joseph Fonton, and the Russian ambassador to Constantinople, Count Andrei Italinsky, to negotiate with the Turks in Bucharest. The latter were represented by the Grand Vizier Ahmed Pasha, the Chief Interpreter (Drogman) Mehmed Said Galid Effendi, and his colleague Demetrius Moruzi. They met at the inn of a wealthy Armenian Mirzaian Manuc. The talks were confrontational: the Turks unwilling to cede one inch of territory, the Russians demanding the whole province of Moldavia. In the end, Sir Stratford Canning, a young English diplomat who replaced the vacationing English ambassador Sir Robert Adair, made a diplomatic debut that earned him a brilliant career on the eve of the Crimean War. He argued that the Turks lacked the resources to continue the war, while the Russians needed the troops of Admiral Pavel Chichagov (taking over Ku-tuzov’s command) who returned to Russia to face the Napoleonic onslaught. In the end, Canning cited an obscure article of the Treaty of Tilsitt (article 12) negotiated by the Russian Chancelor Peter Rumyantsev as an acceptable compensation. This territory, misnamed by the Russians “Bessarabia” (a name derived from the first Romanian princely dynasty of Wallachia, which controlled only Moldavia’s southern tier), advanced the Russian frontier from the Dniester to the Pruth and the northern mouth of the Danube (Kilia). This represented a gain of 500,000 people of various ethnic stock, 45,000 kilometers, five fortresses, and 685 villages. By sacrificing the coveted prize of both principalities and withdrawing the army from Turkey, the tsar was able to confront Napoleon on a single front. This, according to General Langeron, made a difference at the battle of Borodino (1812).
Not content at having saved most of the Moldo-Wallachian provinces, the Turks, who had no legal right to a territory over which they exercised de jure suzerainty, vented their frustration by hacking their chief interpreter Moruzi to pieces and hanging his head at the Seraglio. From a Romanian standpoint, the cession of Bessarabia to Russia in 1812 marked a permanent enstrangement in Russo-Romanian relations, which continued in the early twenty-first century with the creation of a Moldavian Republic within the Russian Commonwealth. See also: ROMANIA, RELATIONS WITH; RUSSO-TURKISH WARS; TURKEY, RELATIONS WITH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dima, Nicholas. (1982). Bessarabia and Bukovina: The Soviet Romanian Territorial Dispute. New York and Boulder, CO: East European Monographs.
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Florescu, Radu. (1992). The Struggle Against Russia in the Romanian Principalities (1821-1854). Munich: Romanian Academic Society. Jewsbury, George F. (1976). The Russian Annexation of Bessarabia 1174-1828. New York: East European Monographs.
See also: CIVIL WAR OF 1917-1922; COSSACKS; WORLD WAR II
Budyonny, Smeyon. (1972). The Path of Valour. Moscow: Progress Publishers. Vitoshnov, Sergei. (1998). Semen Budennyi. Minsk: Kuzma.
(1883-1973), marshal of the Soviet Union.
Born near Rostov-on-Don to non-Cossack parents, Budenny served in Cossack regiments during the Russo- Japanese War and in World War I (receiving four St. George’s Crosses for bravery as a noncommissioned officer). Having joined the Bolsheviks in 1918 and being an accomplished horseman, he organized cavalry detachments around Tsaritsyn during the civil war before creating and commanding the legendary First Cavalry Army in actions against the Whites and the Poles. From 1924 to 1937 he served as Inspector of Cavalry, reaching the exalted rank of marshal in 1935. He actively helped purge the Red Army in 1937, as commander of Moscow military district, but the Nazi invasion revealed him to be completely out of his depth in modern, mechanized warfare. As commander- in-chief of the SouthWest Direction of the Red Army in Ukraine and Bessarabia, Budenny was largely responsible for the disastrous loss of Kiev in August 1941. Probably only his closeness to Josef Stalin and Kliment Voroshilov (a legacy of his civil war service at Tsaritsyn/Stalingrad) saved him from execution. Instead, he was removed from frontline posts in September 1941, becoming commander of cavalry in 1943 and deputy minister of agriculture, in charge of horse breeding. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1939 to 1952. Virtually uneducated but with enormous charisma (and even more enormous moustaches), Budenny became a folklore figure, a decorative accoutrement to the grey men of the postwar Soviet leadership, and a museum piece. Present at all parades and state occasions, bedecked with medals and orders, he was a living relic of the heroic days of the Civil War. Several thousand streets, settlements, and collective farms were named in his honor, as was a breed of Russian horses. He lived out his last years quietly in Moscow, pursuing equestrian interests.
BUKHARA
Established in the sixteenth century, the Bukharan khanate maintained commercial and diplomatic contact
