Evenki had carried on trade relations with the Chinese. Russians subjected Evenki to a fur tax (yasak), and held hostages to ensure its payment. The Soviet government brought new forms of control, organizing Evenki into collective farms, arresting rich herders, and settling nomads to the extent possible. Families were often sundered, as adults remained with the reindeer herds while children attended compulsory school. Children were not taught their own language or how to pursue traditional activities. Inadequate schooling, racism, and apathy have hindered their ability to pursue nontraditional activities. In some areas, mining and smelting have removed substantial pastures and hunting grounds through environmental degradation. Hydropower projects have also challenged traditional activities by appropriating portions of Evenki territory.
Since the demise of the Soviet Union, Evenki reindeer herds have suffered serious decline. At the same time substantial numbers of families took the opportunity provided by new laws to leave state-owned farms and establish small, family based hunting and herding operations. However, lack of government support has made the survival of these enterprises almost impossible. Evenki are battling this predicament through the establishment of quasipolitical organizations, mainly at the regional level, to pursue their rights. See also: NATIONALITIES POLICIES, SOVIET; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; NORTHERN PEOPLES
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anderson, David. (2000). “The Evenkis of Central Siberia.” In Endangered Peoples of the Arctic. Struggles to Survive and Thrive, ed. Milton M. Freeman. West-port, CT: Greenwood Press. Anderson, David. (2000). Identity and Ecology in Arctic Siberia. The Number One Reindeer Brigade. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fondahl, Gail. (1998). Gaining Ground? Evenkis, Land, and Reform in Southeastern Siberia. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
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(1846-1920), jeweler to the Russian imperial court; creator of the stunning Easter eggs, holiday gifts to Nicholas II and his family.
Peter Carl Faberg? was born in 1846 in St. Petersburg, the son of a master goldsmith. The French surname of the future jeweler derives from his family’s Huguenot background; they left France during the seventeenth century, moving eastward from Germany to the Baltic before settling in Russia. Peter Carl, also called Carl Gustavovich in keeping with the Russian patronymic tradition, was educated in the local German-language school and later attended commercial courses at the Dresden Handelsschule. The combination of his astonishing craftsmanship and cosmopolitanism gave him entry to all European royal houses.
In 1861 young Carl set out on his requisite Grand Tour of the continent. He developed an abiding interest in renaissance and baroque designs and was especially influenced by the French rococo of the eighteenth century. His mastery of fine detail and ability to work in a variety of precious metals and jewels, including hardstone carving, contributed to his unique style Faberg?. In addition to his legendary eggs, whose matching of the delicacy of fine jewelry with technological innovations was epitomized by the miniature Trans-Siberian train that chugged through one of them, his oeuvre ranged from carved animals to icons to cigarette cases. His clients, primarily from the pan-European aristocracy, knew that he could be trusted not to repeat the specific designs they requested.
Faberg? matched his exquisite style with a finely honed business acumen. From his renowned establishment in St. Petersburg on Bolshaya Morskaya Street, he published catalogs of his ob-jets d’art. Employing the finest craftsmen, he expanded his enterprise to Moscow, drawing the attention of serious art collectors from Bangkok to Boston; special exhibitions held around the world continue to attract by the thousands. He left Russia in 1918 and died in Lausanne, Switzerland, in 1920. Faberg? lies buried alongside his wife in Cannes. See also: FRENCH INFLUENCE IN RUSSIA; ST. PETERSBURG
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Von Habsburg, G?za. (2000). Faberg?: Imperial Craftsman and his World, with contributions by Alexander Von
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Solodkoff and Robert Bianchi. London: Booth-Clibborn Editions.
See also: FAMILY CODE ON MARRIAGE, THE FAMILY, AND GUARDIANSHIP; FAMILY EDICT OF 1944; FAMILY LAWS OF 1936; MARRIAGE AND FAMILY LIFE
In 1926 the Soviet government affirmed a new Code on Marriage, the Family, and Guardianship to replace the 1918 version. Adopted after extensive and often heated nationwide debate, the new Code addressed several social issues: the lack of protection for women after divorce; the large number of homeless orphans (besprizorniki); the incompatibility of divorce and common property within the peasant household; and the mutual obligations of cohabiting, unmarried partners.
The new Code promoted both individual freedom and greater protection for the vulnerable. It simplified the divorce procedure in the 1918 version even further by transferring contested divorces from the courts to local statistical bureaus. Either spouse could register a divorce without the partner’s consent or even knowledge. This provision removed the law’s last vestige of authority over the dissolution of marriage, circumscribing both the power of law and the marital tie. The Code recognized de facto marriage (cohabitation) as the juridical equal of civil (registered) marriage, thus undercutting the need to marry “legally.” It provided a definition of de facto “marriage” based on cohabitation, a joint household, mutual upbringing of children, and third party recognition. It established joint property between spouses, thus providing housewives material protection after divorce. It abolished the controversial practice of “collective” paternity featured in the 1918 Family Code. If a woman had sexual relations with several men and could not identify the father of her child, a judge would assign paternity (and future child support payments) to one man only. The Code incorporated an April 1926 decree that reversed the prohibition on adoption and encouraged peasant families to adopt homeless orphans, who were to be fully integrated into the peasant household and entitled to land. It set a time limit on alimony to one year for the disabled and provided six months of alimony for the needy or unemployed. It also created a wider circle of family obligations by expanding the base of alimony recipients to include children, parents, siblings, and grandparents.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Farnsworth, Beatrice. (1978). “Bolshevik Alternatives and the Soviet Family: The 1926 Marriage Law Debate.” In Women in Russia, eds. Dorothy Atkinson, Alexander Dallin, Gail Warshovsky Lapidus. Sussex, UK: Harvester Press. Goldman, Wendy. (1984). “Freedom and Its Consequences: The Debate on the Soviet Family Code of 1926.” Russian History 11(4):362-388. Goldman, Wendy. (1991). “Working-Class Women and the ‘Withering- Away’ of the Family: Popular Responses to Family Policy.” In Russia in the Era of NEP: Explorations in Soviet Society and Culture, eds. Sheila Fitzpatrick, Alexander Rabinowitch, Richard Stites. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Lapidus, Gail Warshovsky. (1978). Women in Soviet Society. Berkeley: University of California Press. Quigley, John. (1979). “The 1926 Soviet Family Code: Retreat from Free Love.” Soviet Union 6(2):166-74.
The Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets ratified the Code on Marriage, the Family, and Guardianship in October 1918, one year after the Bolsheviks took power. Alexander Goikhbarg, the young author of the Code, expected that family law would soon be outmoded and “the fetters of husband and wife” unnecessary. Goikhbarg and other revolutionary jurists believed children, the elderly, and the disabled would be supported under socialism by the state; housework would be socialized and waged; and women would no longer be economically dependent on men. The family, stripped of its social functions, would “wither away,” replaced by “free unions” based on mutual love and respect. The Code aimed to provide a transitional legal framework for that short period in which legal duties and protections were still necessary.
