A teenaged Chkalov became an aviation mechanic during the Russian Civil War. He qualified as a pilot by the age of seventeen and joined the air force, where he gained a reputation as a skilled but overly daring flier. Chkalov’s rashness caught up with him in 1929, when he caused an accident that killed another pilot. He was reprimanded and briefly discharged. Chkalov returned to the air force in 1930 but resigned in 1933 to work as a test pilot for designer Nikolai Polikarpov.
During the mid-1930s, Chkalov turned to long-distance flying and polar aviation, where he achieved his greatest renown. With Georgy Baidukov as copilot and Alexander Belyakov as navigator, Chkalov set an unofficial world record for distance flying in July 1936, by flying from Moscow to Udd Island, off the coast of Kamchatka. On June 18, 1937, the same team gained international fame by flying from Moscow to Vancouver, Washington, crossing over the North Pole along the way. This was an official world record, and even though it was broken the following month by Mikhail Gromov (who also flew to America over the North Pole), Chkalov’s bluff, hearty charm made him the most admired of “Stalin’s falcons,” the hero-pilots featured so prominently in the propaganda of the 1930s.
Chkalov died on December 15, 1938, testing a prototype of the Polikarpov I-180. He was given a hero’s funeral and buried in the Kremlin Wall. Rumors have persisted since Chkalov’s death that he was somehow killed on Stalin’s orders. Chkalov’s family and several prominent journalists have come out in support of this theory, but no concrete proof has emerged to link Stalin with Chkalov’s death. See also: AVIATION
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Baidukov, Georgii F. (1991). Russian Lindbergh: The Life of Valery Baidukov, tr. Peter Belov. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Hardesty, Von. (1987-1988). “Soviets Blaze Sky Trail over Top of World.” Air and Space/Smithsonian 2(5):48-54. McCannon, John. (1998). Red Arctic: Polar Exploration and the Myth of the North in the Soviet Union, 1932-1939. New York: Oxford University Press.
(1864-1926), revolutionary activist.
Born into a Georgian noble family in the west Georgian district of Imereti, Nikolai, or “Karlo” as he was better known, Semenovich went on to become a prominent figure in the Georgian social democratic movement and the RSDLP (the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party). He played a central role in the February revolution in Russia. His revolutionary career began with his expulsion from Odessa University (now in Ukraine) for participation in a student demonstration. On his return to Georgia, he became involved in local Marxist activities in the west Georgian town of Batumi. Prominent in the 1905 revolution in Georgia, and active in the local social democratic press, in 1907 he was elected as Georgian deputy to the Third State Duma (Russian imperial parliament). He led the RS-DLP faction in the Third and Fourth Dumas where he was threatened with expulsion a number of times. He led the faction in refusing to vote war credits to the Russian government in 1914.
Chkheidze made a name for himself as a great orator and was extraordinarily popular among Russian workers. It was no surprise that in February 1917 he was elected the first Chairman of the Petrograd (St. Petersburg) Workers’ and Soldiers’ Soviet. Given the Soviet’s powerful role in the revolution, Chkheidze was a key figure in Russian government policy during 1917. A menshevik, he became increasingly disillusioned with the path of Russian politics, as well as the ineffectiveness of his own Menshevik colleagues and the provisional government. On the eve of the October Revolution in 1917, Karlo returned to Georgia where he became, in 1918, Chairman of the Transcaucasian Seim (parliament). From 1919 to 1921, he was a member of the Georgian Constituent Assembly. After the Red Army invasion of Georgia in February of 1921, Karlo was forced into exile in Paris. He left behind two of his elder daughters; his only son had died in 1917. Unable to bear the petty politics of emigr? life, he committed suicide in 1926. See also: GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS; MENSHEVIKS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brovkin, Vladimir N. (1987). The Mensheviks after October: Socialist Opposition and the Rise of the Bolshevik Dictatorship. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
251
Christianization was the acceptance of Christianity (in its Eastern Orthodox form) by the political elite of the early Rus principalities and its imposition upon the rest of the population at the end of the tenth century.
The most influential decision in the process of Christianization was made by Saint Vladimir Svyatoslavich, Prince of Kiev (r. 978-1015), to adopt Christianity and forcibly baptize those under his rule in the Dnieper River. His conversion is traditionally associated with the year 988 because the account of it in the Russian Primary Chronicle is recorded under that year, but sources point to either 987 or 989 instead.
This decision by Prince Vladimir was the result of a process of heightened activity by missionary monks and priests from Byzantium among the Slavs as well as increased military, diplomatic, and trade contact between the Rus and Constantinople from the mid-ninth century onward. Shortly after the Muslim invasion stripped much of the eastern provinces from the empire, the Church in Constantinople began to attempt to balance the losses in the east with gains in the north. Such activity brought the Byzantine Church into competition with the Roman Church, which also was active in converting pagan Slavic peoples. The evidence for increased trade between Constantinople and Rus at this time comes both from the Rus Primary Chronicle and from archaeological evidence, such as greater numbers of Byzantine coins found in Rus coin hordes dating from around 970 onward (although Islamic dirhams and silver ingots remained the main monetary medium of exchange throughout this period).
Christianity appeared among the Rus before Vladimir’s conversion. The first evidence found for it is from Photios, Patriarch of Constantinople (r. 858-867), who mentions that within a few years after the Rus attack on Constantinople in 860, some Rus converted to Christianity. In addition, Theo-phanes Continuatus tells us that an archbishop sent by Patriarch Ignatius (r. 847-858, 867-877) was received by the Rus in 876. In the tenth century, three significant occurrences preceded Vladimir’s conversion. First, in 911, negotiations in Constantinople over a treaty between the Greeks and the Rus allowed the Greek churchmen an opportunity to tell the Rus envoys about Christianity. Second, the treaty of 944 between the Rus and Greeks informs us that some Christians were among the Rus envoys. Finally, Princess Olga, the regent for her son Svyatoslav, traveled from Kiev to Constantinople in the 950s and converted to Christianity at that time.
The Russian Primary Chronicle has traditionally been the main source regarding the decision by Vladimir to convert, but now the scholarly consensus is that most of the account appearing in the chronicle is a later invention. The chronicle’s account is a compilation of four conversion stories tied loosely together. Three of these stories are similar to, and borrow from, stories told about the conversion of previous rulers in other countries, and thus can be considered literary commonplaces. One of the stories, however, finds independent confirmation in other sources of the time and may provide more reliable information.
In the first story, missionaries from Islam, Judaism, Western Christianity, and Eastern Christianity come to Kiev to convince Vladimir to convert to their particular religion. The most persuasive of these missionaries is a Greek philosopher who exegetically summarizes the Old and New Testaments and shows the prince an icon of the Last Judgment. But Vladimir decides “yet to wait a little.” In the second story, Vladimir sends ten “good and wise men” to each of the major neighboring religions. The emissaries are most impressed with what they see in Constantinople-in particular, the sublime church architecture and the beauty of the church service-yet Vladimir continues to wait. In the third story, Vladimir captures the Crimean city of Kherson, after making a vow he will convert to Christianity if successful, and demands the sister of the Byzantine emperor in marriage, but he still does not convert. In the fourth story, Vladimir goes blind in Kherson. Anna (the sister of the Byzantine emperor), who has arrived to marry Vladimir, tells him that when he is baptized he will have his sight restored; he then allows himself to be baptized and is cured of the affliction.
Of these four stories, only the third story, concerning the capture of Kherson, has much value for trying to determine the events of 988-989. In combination with contemporary Arabic, Armenian, and Byzantine sources, historians can create this context for the Primary Chronicle’s third story: Following a successful revolt by the Bulgarians and their defeat of the imperial army in August 986, the Byzantine general Bardas Phokas rose up
CHRONICLE OF CURRENT EVENTS
