above and beyond those residing in the new judicial system. These decrees remained in force until just days before the February Revolution of 1917. On August 27, 1882, the government introduced “temporary rules on the press,” which gave more censorship power to the administration. Minister of Internal Affairs D. A. Tolstoy then introduced a new University Statute on August 23, 1884. This effectively repealed university corporate autonomy and bu- reaucratized the administration of higher education. It also placed limits on higher education for women. Finally a cluster of three major acts placed new administrative restrictions on the institutions of self-government, the zemstvos and town dumas. These laws of June 12, 1890 (zemstvo) and June 11, 1892 (town duma) changed the electoral laws to favor the gentry in the case of the zemstvos and large property owners in the cities. Many recent
COUNTRY ESTATES
voters in town and countryside alike were disenfranchised. In addition new bureaucratic instances were established to shore up administrative control over self-government. This would call forth opposition in the form of a zemstvo movement that would be instrumental in the 1905 Revolution. Perhaps most symbolic of all the counterreforms was the notorious act of July 12, 1889 that created the Land Captains (zemskie nachal’niki). These were appointed government officials in the countryside who combined administrative, police, and judicial authority. The aim was once again administrative control, this time over the relatively new peasant institutions and indeed over peasant life in the broadest sense. Control rather than building a new society from the grassroots was the central point of these counterreforms. The counterreforms and their supporting ideology extended into the reign of Nicholas II, making it that much more difficult for the regime to solve its social and political problems. They in fact made revolution more likely. The counterreforms co-existed uneasily with more forward-looking economic policies even during the reign of Alexander III. See also: ALEXANDER III, NICHOLAS II
DANIEL ORLOVSKY
Country estates, some dating back to the fifteenth century, originated as land grants from the crown to trusted servitors. The Russian empire expanded rapidly, particularly in the eighteenth century, and along with it the estate network, which ultimately stretched from the Baltic Sea to the Crimean Peninsula, and from the Duchy of Warsaw to the Ural Mountains. During the estate’s golden age from the reign of Catherine II to the War of 1812, wealthy nobles who had retired from state service built thousands of magnificent houses, most in neoclassical style, surrounded by elegant formal gardens and expansive landscape parks.
Until the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, estates were private princedoms (owned exclusively by nobles) supported by involuntary labor. Thus in some respects the pre-emancipation estate was comparable to the plantation of the American south. Its uniqueness lay in its scores of highly trained serf craftsmen and artists, some of whom founded dynasties of acclaimed artists. Very wealthy landowners took pride in having at hand accomplished architects and painters, musicians, actors, and dancers for entertainment, and cabinetmakers, gilders, embroiderers, lace-makers and other skilled craftsmen who produced all the luxury items they needed. Hence the greatest estates, in addition to being economic centers, were also culturally self-contained worlds that facilitated the rapid development of Russian culture.
Estates also served as important places of inspiration and creativity for Russia’s most renowned authors, painters, and composers. For the intellectual and artistic elite, country estates were Arcadian retreats, places of refuge from the constraints of city life. Alexander Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin, Ivan Turgenev’s A Sportsman’s Sketches and Fathers and Sons, Leo Tolstoy’s War and Peace and Anna Karen-ina, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture are among the many Russian masterpieces composed on a country estate.
After 1861 many small estate owners, unable to survive the loss of their unpaid labor, sold their holdings (a situation memorialized in Anton Chekhov’s The Cherry Orchard). On larger estates a system similar to sharecropping was devised; these estates retained their economic strength until the revolution. Up to World War I Russia exported tons of grains and other agricultural products produced on thousands of country estates. In non- black-earth (non-chernozem) regions, enterprises on estates such as Khmelita (Smolensk guberniya), exporting prize-winning cheeses, Glubokoye (Pskov guberniya), producing wooden lanterns sold in England, and Polotnyany Zavod (Kaluga gu-berniya), which manufactured the linen paper used for Russian currency, also contributed to the economy.
The Bolshevik revolution destroyed the country estate, and with it much of the provincial economic and cultural infrastructure. Some estate houses have survived as orphanages, sanitariums, institutes, or spas. In the 1970s certain demolished estates associated with famous cultural figures (such as Pushkin’s Mikhailovskoye and Turgenev’s Spasskoye-Lutovinovo) were rebuilt. A few museum estates such as Kuskovo and Ostankino in Moscow and the battered manor houses of the Crimea still offer tourists a glimpse of Russia’s pre-Revolutionary estate splendor. See also: PEASANTRY; SERFDOM; SLAVERY
COURT, HIGH ARBITRATION
Blum, Jerome. (1961). Lord and Peasant in Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Roosevelt, Priscilla. (1995). Life on the Russian Country Estate: A Social and Cultural History. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
The High Arbitration Court is at the top of the system of arbitration courts. These courts were originally created in the Soviet period as informal tribunals to resolve problems in implementing economic plans. In the post- communist era they have been reorganized into a system of courts with exclusive jurisdiction over lawsuits among businesses and between businesses and government agencies. While for historical reasons they are called “arbitration” courts, in fact they are formal state courts with compulsory jurisdiction and have nothing to do with private arbitration of disputes.
The structure of the courts is governed by the 1995 Constitutional Law on Arbitration Courts. Beneath the High Arbitration Court there are ten appellate courts, each with jurisdiction over a separate large area of the country, and numerous trial courts. The High Arbitration Court is responsible for the management of the entire arbitration court system. Procedural rules are provided by the 2002 Arbitration Procedure Code. Cases are heard in the first instance in the trial court. Either party may then appeal to an appellate instance within the trial court, and may further appeal to the appropriate appellate court. There is no right to appeal to the High Arbitration Court; rather, review by the High Arbitration Court is discretionary with the Court. The High Arbitration Court has original jurisdiction over two types of cases: (1) those concerning the legality of acts of the Federation Council, the State Duma, the president, or the government; and (2) economic disputes between the Russian Federation and one of its eighty-nine subjects. The High Arbitration Court also has, and frequently exercises, the power to issue explanations on matters of judicial practice, for the guidance of the lower courts, lawyers, and the public. The Court also publishes many of its decisions in individual cases on the Internet. See also: COURT, SUPREME; LEGAL SYSTEMS.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hendley, Kathryn. (1998). “Remaking an Institution: The Transition in Russia from State Arbitrazh to Arbi- trazh Courts.” American Journal of Comparative Law 46:93-127. Hendley, Kathryn; Murrell, Peter; and Ryterman, Randi. (2001). “Law Works in Russia: The Role of Law in Interenterprise Transactions.” In Assessing the Value of Law in Transition Economies, ed. Peter Murrell. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Oda, Hiroshi. (2002). Russian Commercial Law. The Hague, Netherlands: Kluwer Law International.
The Supreme Court is “the highest judicial body for civil, criminal, administrative and other cases falling within the jurisdiction of courts of general jurisdiction” under Article 126 of the Russian Constitution. The courts of general jurisdiction hear all cases except: (1) lawsuits among businesses and between businesses and government agencies, which are heard by the Arbitration Court system; and (2) certain Constitutional issues, which are heard by the Constitutional Court. Beneath the Supreme Court are the highest courts of each of the eighty-nine subjects of
