Chernyshevsky believed in the peasant commune as the germ of the future socialist society and called for a peasant revolution in his publications. Fearing Chernyshevsky’s growing influence, the government closed Contemporary in 1861 and put its editor under secret police surveillance. In July 1862 Chernyshevsky was arrested and imprisoned in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg. During his two years of imprisonment from 1862 to 1864, when Chernyshevsky waited for his sentence, he wrote his most famous novel What Is to Be Done? and several other works of fiction. In the novel What Is to Be Done? Cherny-shevsky described the life of a new type of people, who lived by their own labor and led a new kind of family life, where the enlightened woman was a man’s lifelong companion. The novel popularized the ideas of women’s equality and “cooperative socialism”; it depicted the future society as a society of equality and happiness for all. This novel was a synthesis of Chernyshevsky’s sociopolitical, philosophical, and ethical views. The novel became very popular among the radical youth. Aside from the ideas it contained, this work was not a great literary achievement. Lampert (op. cit., p. 224) states that Chernyshevsky “wrote his novel on a fairly low imaginative plane.” All his heroes speak with the same voice, men and women alike. Cherny-shevsky himself did not have any delusions about his literary talent. He wrote his wife from Siberia: “I have not a trace of artistic talent . . . and all [the novel’s] merit consists merely in its truthfulness” (Lampert, op. cit., p. 223).
In spite of the lack of direct evidence of Cherny-shevsky’s participation as a member in the revolutionary organizations, he was condemned to fourteen (later reduced to seven) years of forced labor, followed by lifelong exile in Siberia. According to Lampert, “the government had come to realize the extent of Chernyshevsky’s influence on the younger generation; it knew what his views were, and it had taken fright.” The government considCHERVONETS ered Chernyshevsky’s ideas a danger to the existing order.
On May 19, 1864, the ceremony of “civil execution” was performed on Chernyshevsky in the center of St. Petersburg in Mytninskaya Square. “After sentence has been read out he was forced to kneel, a sword was broken over his head and he was then set in a pillory by a chain,” wrote Alexei Suvorin (Lampert, op. cit., p. 130). However, instead the reaction of condemnation anticipated by the authorities, the big crowd stood silent. Then somebody from the crowd threw a bunch of flowers at Chernyshevsky’s feet.
Chernyshevsky spent more than twenty-five years in prison, forced labor, and exile. During this time he continued to write fiction, essays, and philosophical works (the most famous of his philosophical works was The Nature of Human Knowledge). The last years of his life he devoted to the translation of Georg Weber’s Universal History. Chernyshevsky refused to ask the authorities for “imperial mercy” even when they encouraged him to do so. Chernyshevsky believed that he was innocent and thus did not need be forgiven by the government. Chernyshevsky’s fortitude brought him respect even from among his opponents. The respect for Chernyshevsky and deep sympathy for his misfortune was expressed by the Russian writer Fyodor Dostoyevsky.
Chernyshevsky received permission from the authorities to return to his native city of Saratov only four months before his death. Government persecution fueled the image of Chernyshevsky as a “revolutionary saint.” His works were denied publication in Russia until the first Russian revolution in 1905. However, the novels and essays of Cherny-shevsky were spread around the country illegally, often in handwritten copies. His novel What Is to Be Done? became a table book of several generations of Russian radical youth. This novel was considered a classic of Russian literature in Soviet times. After the collapse of the socialist system, people lost interest in the pro-socialist ideas and works of Chernyshevsky. He died on October 29, 1989. See also: DOSTOYEVSKY, FYODOR MIKHAILOVICH; JOURNALISM; SOCIALISM; WHAT IS TO BE DONE Randall, Francis B. (1967). N. G. Chernyshevskii. New York: Twayne. Tompkins, Stuart Ramsay. (1957). The Russian Intelligentsia: Makers of the Revolutionary State. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
VICTORIA KHITERER
A gold-backed currency introduced by the Soviet government in 1922 as part of the New Economic Policy (NEP).
The Soviet Union did not possess a stable currency at the end of the civil war, and the government realized that it could not achieve its ambitious economic development plans without first solving this pressing monetary problem. Accordingly, a Sovnarkom decree of October 11, 1922, authorized the Soviet state bank to issue the chervonets bank note as the equivalent of the prerevolutionary ten-ruble gold coin (7.74232 grams of pure gold). This legislation required at least 25 percent of chervontsy (plural) to be backed by precious metals and hard currency. The first paper chervontsy appeared in December 1922, and in 1923 the state bank (Gos-bank) also began issuing gold chervonets coins (primarily for use in foreign trade). The chervonets circulated alongside the rapidly depreciating sovz-nak (“Soviet note”) ruble until February 1924, when the state bank began to withdraw the sovz- nak ruble from circulation and established the cher-vonets as the country’s sole legal tender, equal to ten “new” rubles. Through the 1920s, the cher-vonets was officially quoted on foreign exchanges. However, this attempt to maintain a “hard” Soviet currency was controversial almost from its inception and quickly ended along with the NEP itself. On June 9, 1926, the government passed a resolution forbidding the export of Soviet currency abroad, and in February 1930 Soviet currency was withdrawn from foreign exchanges, and private exchanges of foreign currency for chervontsy were banned.
BIBLOGRAPHY
Lampert, E. (1965). Sons against Fathers. Studies in Russian Radicalism and Revolution. Oxford: Clarendon. Paperno, Irina. (1988). Chernyshevsky and the Age of Realism: A Study of the Semiotic of Behavior. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. See also: NEW ECONOMIC POLICY; RUBLE
Goland, Yurii. (1994). “Currency Regulation in the NEP Period.” Europe-Asia Studies 46(8).
Gregory, Paul R. (1994). Before Command: An Economic History of Russia from Emancipation to the First Five-Year Plan. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
The battle of Chesme (“fountain” in Turkish) was fought on the night of July 5-6, 1770 between a Russian squadron under the command of Count Aleksei Grigoryievich Orlov and an Ottoman fleet under Hassan Bey at Chesme bay on the western Anatolian Mediterranean coast. Orlov had nine ships of the line, three frigates, a bomb ship, and a number of smaller vessels under his command. Ottoman forces numbered sixteen line ships, six frigates, six xebecs, thirteen galleys, and thirty-two galliots. Orlov’s plan was to send in vessels to attack the tightly clustered Ottoman squadron at anchor in the bay. On the evening of June 26, Orlov sent a detachment of four line ships, two frigates, a bomb ship, and four fire ships under the command of Captain S.K. Greig into the anchorage. A fire ship under the command of Lieutenant Il’in soon set an Ottoman 84-gun line ship alight, and the fire soon spread to other vessels. In total numbers the destruction was the greatest naval victory in the days of sail; the Ottomans lost fifteen line ships, six frigates and about fifty smaller vessels. About ten thousand Ottoman sailors died in the battle, and the Russians captured a number of Ottoman ships, including five galleys and the frigate Rodos-60. Empress Catherine the Great awarded Orlov the title of “Count Chesmensky” for his participation in the victory. The strategic result for Russia was command of the sea in the Aegean during the remainder of its war with the Ottoman Empire. When a peace treaty was signed at K???k Kaynarca in 1774, the Ottoman Empire recognized Russian claims to represent Christian interests in the empire. See also: CATHERINE II; ORLOV, GRIGORY GRIGORIEVICH; RUSSO-TURKISH WARS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Daly, Robert Welter. (1958). “Russia’s Maritime Past,” In The Soviet Navy, ed. Malcolm George Saunders. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
(1872-1936), revolutionary and diplomat.
Georgy Chicherin was born on November 12, 1872, in Karaul, Tambov Province, into an aristocratic family of declining fortunes. He studied in the history and philology faculty at St. Petersburg University. After graduation, he worked in the archives department of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Disillusioned with the Romanov
