and the analysis of earlier historical sources.
In general, Russian historiography of the early twentieth century blossomed early, but this ended abruptly with the October Revolution of 1917. After the Bolsheviks prohibited the teaching of history in schools and dismantled the historical departments in universities, the last citadel of non-Marxist historiography was the Academy of Sciences, but after the so-called Academic Affair and mass repressions against historians from 1929 to 1931, the Marxist-Leninist school of historiography became supreme in the USSR. See also: KARAMZIN, NIKOLAI MIKHAILOVICH KLYUCHEV-SKY, VASILY OSIPOVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Byrnes, Robert F. (1995). V. O. Kliuchevsky: Historian of Russia. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Mazour, Anatole. (1975). Modern Russian Historiography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. Sanders, Tomas, ed. (1999). Historiography of Imperial Russia. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharp. Vernadsky, George. (1978). Russian Historiography: A History. Belmont, MA: Nordland.
The Holy Alliance is the name given to the treaty signed on September 26, 1815, in Paris by the mon-archs of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. Its maker and prime mover was Tsar Alexander I. In 1815 after the downfall of Napoleon, Alexander was at the height of his powers. A romantic, an idealist, indeed something of an evangelical who had experienced a religious conversion in 1812, Alexander had fallen under the influence of a spiritualist, Baroness Julie von Kr?dener, the wife of one of his diplomats, and the alliance was the product of nightly prayer meetings between the two. The alliance called upon the three powers to deal with one other and with their peoples on the basis of the Christian Gospel so there could emerge a fraternal union of rulers and peoples that would forever rid the earth of the scourge of war. At the insistence of the Austrian chancellor, Klemens von Metternich, Alexander’s ally in the war against Napoleon, “fraternal” was struck out and changed to “a paternal alliance of monarchs over their peoples,” lest the former clause be interpreted by Russia in a manner that would conflict with the language of other treaties under negotiation at this time.
Two common criticisms of the Holy Alliance are that its members (which in time included most the sovereigns of Europe) forged it into an instrument of oppression against their subjects, and, more important, that Alexander used it as a base to attain hegemony in Europe. Neither criticism is persuasive. The first can be challenged on factual grounds. The aspirations of the overwhelming majority of Europeans in the aftermath of the devastation of the Napoleonic Wars ran to one thing and one thing only: peace. National rights, national liberties, and the like were at this time simply not matters of priority. Moreover, the Holy Alliance powers exercised considerable restraint after 1815, as demonstrated by the extent to which they allowed multiple revolutionary fuses to be lit before they stepped in-in a real sense they allowed revolutions to explode (the Spanish and Italian revolutions of 1820-1821; the revolutions in France, Belgium, the Papal States, and Poland in 1830-1831; those in France, Germany, Austria, and Italy in 1848). Similarly, the argument that Alexander was bent on expansion in Europe overlooks the many things he did that pulled the opposite way. With a combination of threats and persuasion, he forced Prussia from the path of aggrandizement in Poland and onto that of cooperation with Austria. He resisted repeated appeals from the smaller German states for an anti-Austrian alliance-a move that he believed would be inimical to the interests of the general peace. Finally, he continually urged Russians to respect Turkish interests in the Balkans and especially in Greece. The fact is that Alexander was a committed moderate statesman who happened to believe what he said, and what he said illustrates a point often forgotten by historians and political sci-entists-that there is a place in the international system for principles and moral values. See also: NAPOLEON I; VIENNA, CONGRESS OF
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Knapton, Ernest John. (1939). The Lady of the Holy Alliance: The Life of Julie de Kr?dener. New York: Columbia University Press. Nicolson, Harold. (1946). The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity, 1812-1822. New York: Harcourt, Brace. Schroeder, Paul. (1994). The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
The governing body of the Russian Orthodox Church from 1721 to 1917.
On January 25, 1721, Peter the Great formally established an Ecclesiastical College to rule and reform the Russian Orthodox Church. This new governing body was renamed the Most Holy Governing Synod at its first session in February and replaced the former office of Patriarch, which had been in abeyance since the death of the last incumbent, Adrian, in 1700. The creation of the Synod, modeled after the state-controlled synods of the Lutheran church, was an integral part of Peter’s wider program for the reform of Russia’s secular administrative and military machine, a program aimed at improving efficiency, eradicating abuses, and, above all, increasing the Sovereign’s control of revenue.
The Synod was entrusted with the administration of all church affairs. A governing statute called the Ecclesiastical Regulation was written by Archbishop Feofan Prokopovich, with amendments by Peter. According to the statute, the Synod was to
HOMELESS CHILDREN
have twelve clerical members appointed by the tsar, although in practice there were always fewer. Despite the powers granted by the statute, ecclesiastical authority was effectively reduced in 1722 when Peter created the office of over-procurator to oversee the Synod. The over-procurator was to be a lay official whose chief duty was to be the Sovereign’s “eye,” to “ensure that the Synod does its duty.” In theory the Synod was meant to be equal to its secular counterpart, the Senate, but in reality ecclesiastical government had very little autonomy and was firmly subordinate to the tsar. Collegial administration guaranteed the Sovereign firmer control over the church than patriarchal administration had allowed, and removed the challenge to the tsar’s authority that a patriarch had represented.
Despite the formal recognition of the Synod in 1723 by four Eastern patriarchs, Russian clergy resented the abolition of Russia’s patriarchate, the domination of the Synod by Peter’s handpicked foreign clergy, and the interference in church affairs by the over-procurator. Nonetheless, attempts to restore the patriarchate after Peter’s death in 1725 failed. Instead, the office of over-procurator (in abeyance from 1726) was restored in 1741, gaining exclusive access to the tsar in 1803. From 1824 the over-procurator exercised effective authority over all aspects of church administration and held ministerial rank. The best-known incumbent, Kon-stantin Petrovich Pobedonostsev (1880-1905), was able to wield far-reaching influence during his procuratorship.
After the election of the First Imperial Duma in 1905, deputies began to voice concern over the Synod’s subservience to the procurator and tsar, but only after Nicholas II’s abdication could steps be taken to restore the autonomy of the church. In July 1917 the Provisional Government abolished the post of over-procurator and invited the Synod to call elections to a council to decide the future of church administration. In November 1917 a council of 564 delegates reestablished the patriarchate and elected Metropolitan Tikhon of Moscow as Patriarch of All Russia, thus bringing to an end Peter the Great’s system of Synodal governance. See also: ORTHODOXY; PETER I; POBEDONOSTSEV, KON-STANTIN
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Cracraft, James. (1971). The Church Reform of Peter the Great. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Freeze, Gregory. (1983). The Parish Clergy in the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hughes, Lindsey. (1998). Russia in the Age of Peter the Great. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Homeless children, or besprizorniki, constituted one of the most vexing social problems facing the new Soviet state, caused by cumulative effects of World War I (1914-1917), the Russian Revolution and Civil War (1918-1921), and cold, hunger, and disease, which claimed the lives of millions of parents. The catastrophic famine of 1921 and 1922 produced millions of additional orphaned and abandoned children. Divorce, single motherhood, unemployment,
