BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brandes, Detlef. (1991). “A Success Story: The German Colonists in New Russia and Bessarabia: 1787-1914.” Acta Slavica Iaponica 9:32-46. Giesinger, Adam. (1981). From Catherine to Khrushchev: The Story of Russia’s Germans. Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia. Kern, Albert. (1998). Homeland Book of the Bessarabian Germans. Fargo, ND: Germans from Russia Heritage Collection, North Dakota State University Libraries. Koch, Fred C. (1977). The Volga Germans: In Russia and the Americas, from 1763 to the Present. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. Long, James W. (1988). From Privileged to Dispossessed: The Volga Germans, 1860-1917. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Pleve, Igor R. (2001). The German Colonies on the Volga: The Second Half of the Eighteenth Century, tr. Richard R. Rye. Lincoln, NE: American Historical Society of Germans from Russia.
The reign of Peter the Great (1682-1725) marked Russia’s official entry into European diplomatic affairs. Around 1740 this was followed by the entry of another power, Prussia, transformed under Frederick the Great. Significant Russian-Prussian relations began during the reign of Catherine the Great
GERMANY, RELATIONS WITH
(1762-1796), a former German princess. Catherine’s husband, Peter III, a great admirer of Frederick II, the king of Prussia, had withdrawn from the Seven Years’ War, a decision that left Russia with no gains from a costly conflict that it had been waging successfully. After the coup removing Peter from the throne, Catherine repudiated his treaty with Prussia in order to demonstrate Russia’s power and independence. By 1772, however, relations with Prussia had been reestablished, in part in connection with the negotiations leading to the partition of Poland by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon posed a direct threat to Prussia and Russia, and they both participated in the coalitions formed in opposition to the French emperor. The defeat of Napoleon led to the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The three most conservative of the attending powers (Russia, Austria, and Prussia) were determined to preserve a balance of power through the Concert of Europe and to preserve the old order by exercising the right to intervene militarily in order to preserve legitimate governments.
The next significant period in German-Russian relations occurred just prior to and during the unification of Germany under the leadership of King Wilhelm I of Prussia, and his iron chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. Bismarck was able to unite Germany in part by securing Russian nonintervention. Although Russia has been criticized for enabling the rise of Germany, there were practical considerations for its support of Bismarck, such as the possibility of increasing its influence in certain areas as a consequence of the Austro-Prussian War. Furthermore, the possible consequences of German unification under Prussia were not fully understood. During the immediate aftermath of the unification, Austria-Hungary, Russia, and Germany formed the Three Emperors’ League (1872-1873), a defensive military alliance that attempted to revive and maintain the old order upheld at the Congress of Vienna. Difficulties and disagreements arising from the situation in the Crimea and in the Balkans brought about the league’s collapse. It was revived and then allowed to lapse permanently in 1887 because of the impossibility of reconciling the differences between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Bismarck maintained relations with Austria and negotiated the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia, which guaranteed the neutrality of the signatories in case of war, except if Germany attacked France or Russia attacked Austria-Hungary. Wilhelm II’s dismissal of Bismarck and refusal to renew the Reinsurance Treaty in 1890 led to the formation of new alliances. Russia, no longer tied to Germany or Austria-Hungary, and afraid of being diplomatically isolated and without allies, negotiated a treaty with France. Wilhelm II alienated the British, who maintained friendly relations with the French, and Germany found itself allied with only Italy and Austria-Hungary.
During the conflict between Austria-Hungary and Serbia that triggered World War I, Germany was compelled to support Austria-Hungary and Russia was similarly committed to support the Serbians. The resulting war led to a major conflict between Russia and Germany on the Eastern Front. Russia’s poor performance in the war combined with the policies of Tsar Nicholas II led to defeat and revolution. The Bolshevik regime that replaced the Provisional Government ended Russia’s participation in the war by the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1917 which was bitterly resented by many Russian. The Versailles Treaty, signed by a defeated Germany, in 1919, overturned the earlier Russian-German agreement.
The refusal of the Allied powers to recognize the communist government and the diplomatic isolation of the Soviet Union were factors in German-Soviet relations during the interwar years. Even after the rise of Adolf Hitler and the violent suppression of the Communist Party in Germany, Josef Stalin continued to maintain relations with Germany. Although Hitler and Stalin gave considerable aid and support to different factions during the Spanish Civil War, no breach of their relationship occurred and negotiations for a nonaggression treaty were initiated. Stalin’s primary reason for signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939 is still uncertain. The Nazi-Soviet Pact included a nonag-gression clause and a secret protocol calling for the division of Poland between the two countries. Whether Stalin believed a genuine alliance could be formed with Germany against the Allied powers or was merely attempting to gain time to further industrialize and prepare for war, it is clear that he did not expect the massive German invasion of the Soviet Union that was launched on June 22, 1941.
The defeat of Hitler and Germany by the Allied powers led to the occupation of Eastern Germany and East Berlin by the Soviet Union. Although divided and occupied, Germany played a role in the Cold War; the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) was allied with the Soviet Union, while the German Federal Republic (West Germany) was allied with the United States and the Western powGIGANTOMANIA ers. The collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union paved the way for the reunification of Germany in 1990. The republics of the former Soviet Union have established economic and diplomatic relations with unified Germany, which has become the Russian Federation’s most important trading and financial partner in the post-communist era. See also: GERMAN DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC; GERMAN SETTLERS; NAZI-SOVIET PACT OF 1939; SOVIET-GERMAN TRADE AGREEMENT OF 1939; THREE EMPERORS’ LEAGUE; WORLD WAR I; WORLD WAR II
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jelavich, Barbara A. (1964). A Century of Russian Foreign Policy, 1814-1914. New York. Smyser, W. R. (1999). From Yalta to Berlin: The Cold War Struggle over Germany. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Sodaro, Michael J. (1990). Moscow, Germany, and the West from Khrushchev to Gorbachev. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Stent, Angela. (1999). Russia and Germany Reborn: Unification, the Soviet Collapse, and the New Europe. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Gigantomania is the creation of abnormally large works. Gigantomania dominated different areas of political and cultural life in the Soviet Union and was a feature of other totalitarian societies (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, communist states of Eastern Europe, and modern China).
According to the Marxist theory, socialism must triumph historically over capitalism. Soviet rulers attempted to prove the superiority of the socialist system by the creation of gigantic industrial complexes, huge farms, colossal buildings, and enormous statues.
Enormous new cities and industrial centers were erected in the Soviet Union from the end of the 1920s through the 1930s. Historian Nicolas V. Riasanovsky wrote, “Gigantic industrial complexes, exemplified by Magnitostroi in the Urals and Kuznetsstroi in western Siberia, began to take shape. Entire cities arose in the wilderness. Magnitogorsk, for instance, acquired in a few years a population of a quarter of a million.” However, the execution of the Five-Year Plans, industrialization, and the forced collectivization of agriculture were accompanied by a huge number of human victims. Gulag prisoners working in terrible conditions built many of the huge projects.
Gigantism and monumental classicism became the typical features of Soviet architecture starting in the 1930s. All other architecture styles were suppressed in the Soviet Union. Historian Geoffrey Hosking points out that in the Soviet architecture “. . . neoclassical forms gradually became distorted, more extended in size . . ..” As the result of this distortion, many large buildings were erected, as exemplified by the tasteless “wedding cake” style skyscrapers built in Moscow after World War II.
