that became the source of inspiration for Dmitry Merezhkovsky, Nikolai Berdyayev, Vyacheslav Ivanov, and other Silver Age religious philosophers who revealed the negative traits of the alliance between the Orthodox Church and the State and called for the free creativity of religious laymen in order to bring about radical change in Russian social and cultural life.
After the Bolshevik Revolution the majority of prominent Russian thinkers had to migrate abroad. Berdyayev, Georgy Fedotov, and Merezhkovsky continued there the tradition of the philosophy of
ILMINSKY, NIKOLAI IVANOVICH
history based on the idea of unity of Russia and Europe. At the opposite pole, national conservative isolationism found its expression in the works of Pyotr Alexeyev, Pyotr Bicilli, Nikolai Trubetskoy, Pyotr Savitsky, Lev Karsavin, and other representatives of the Eurasian movement. The liberal and conservative nationalist visions of Russian history are still present in contemporary thought. The liberal paradigm coined by Andrei Sakharov was preserved in the writings of Yegor Gaidar, Boris Fyodorov, Grig-ory Yavlinsky, and others. Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s vision of Russian history based on Berdyayev’s legacy is moderately conservative, while Alexander Dugin and other neo-Eurasians form the extreme right wing, advocating an isolationist nationalist approach to Russia’s past and present. See also: BERDYAYEV, NIKOLAI ALEXANDROVICH; CHAA-DAYEV, PETER YAKOVLEVICH; DECEMBRIST MOVEMENT AND REBELLION; ENLIGHTENMENT, IMPACT OF; HEGEL, GEORG WILHELM FRIEDRICH; KARAMZIN, NIKOLAI MIKHAILOVICH; LOVERS OF WISDOM, THE; SLAVOPHILES; TOLSTOY, LEO NIKOLAYEVICH; WEST- ERNIZERS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Berlin, Isaiah. (1978). Russian Thinkers. London: Hogarth. Florovsky, Georges. (1979-1987). Ways of Russian Theology. 2 vols., tr. Robert L. Nichols. Belmont, MA: Nordland. Glatzer-Rosenthal, Bernice, ed. (1986). Nietzsche in Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kline, George. (1968). Religious and Anti-Religious Thought in Russia. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lossky, Nicholas. (1951). History of Russian Philosophy. New York: International Universities Press. Pipes, Richard, ed. (1961). The Russian Intelligentsia. New York: Columbia University Press. Raeff, Marc. (1966). The Origins of the Russian Intelligentsia: The Eighteenth-Century Nobility. New York: Harcourt, Brace amp; World. Riasanovsky, Nicholas. (1952). Russia and the West in the Teaching of the Slavophiles: A Study of Romantic Ideology. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Walicki, Andrzej. (1979). A History of Russian Thought from the Enlightenment to Marxism, tr. Helen An-drews-Rusiecka. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Zenkovsky, Vasilii. (1953). A History of Russian Philosophy, 2 vols., tr. George L. Kline. New York: Columbia University Press.
BORIS GUBMAN
IGOR
(d. 945), second grand prince of Kiev, who, like his predecessor Oleg, negotiated treaties with Constantinople.
Igor, the alleged son of Ryurik, succeeded Oleg around 912. Soon after, the Primary Chronicle reports, the Derevlyane attempted to regain their independence from the prince of Kiev. Igor crushed the revolt and imposed an even heavier tribute on the tribe. In 915, when the Pechenegs first arrived in Rus, Igor concluded peace with them, but in 920 he was forced to wage war. After that, nothing is known of his activities until 941 when, for unexplained reasons, he attacked Byzantium with 10,000 boats and 40,000 men. His troops ravaged the Greek lands for several months. However, when the Byzantine army returned from Armenia and from fighting the Saracens, it destroyed Igor’s boats with Greek fire. In 944 Igor sought revenge by allegedly launching a second attack. When the Greeks sued for peace, he conceded, sending envoys to Emperor Romanus Lecapenus to confirm the agreements that Oleg had concluded in 907 and 911. The treaty reveals that Igor had Christians in his entourage. They swore their oaths on the Holy Cross in the Church of St. Elias in Kiev, while the pagans swore their oaths on their weapons in front of the idol of Perun. In 945 the Derevlyane once again revolted against Igor’s heavy-handed measures; when he came to Iskorosten to collect tribute from them, they killed him. His wife, the esteemed Princess Olga from Pskov, then became regent for their minor son Svyatoslav. See also: GRAND PRINCE; KIEVAN RUS; PECHENEGS; PRIMARY CHRONICLE; RURIKID DYNASTY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Vernadsky, George. (1948). Kievan Russia. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
(1822-1891), professor of Turkic Languages at Kazan University and lay Russian Orthodox missionary, known as “Enlightener of Natives.”
Nikolai Ilminsky gave up a brilliant academic career to devote himself to missionary work among
the non-Russians. He was convinced that only through the mother tongue and native teachers and clergy could the nominally baptized and animists become true Russian Orthodox believers and thus resist conversion to Islam. This conviction was at the heart of what became known as the “Ilminsky System.”
In 1863, while still holding the chair of Turkic languages at both Kazan University and Kazan Theological Academy, Ilminsky established the Kazan Central Baptized-Tatar School, which served as his showcase and model for non-Russian schools and whose thousands of graduates spawned numerous village schools. In 1867 Ilminsky founded the Gurri Brotherhood, which supported the growing network of native schools, and set up the Kazan Translating Commission. By 1891 the Commission had produced 177 titles in over a dozen languages; by 1904 the Commission had produced titles in twenty-three languages. For most of the languages, this required the creation of alphabets, grammars, primers, and dictionaries. Starting with the baptized Tatars of the Kazan region, Ilminsky’s activities extended to the multinational Volga-Ural area, to Siberia, and to Central Asia. But disciples carried his system further: Ivan Kasatkin, for example, founded the Orthodox Church of Japan.
Ilminsky’s system encountered strong opposition from Russian nationalists who saw in the Russian language the “cement of the Empire” and feared that his approach encouraged national self-esteem among the minorities. Yet by demonstrating the fervent piety of his students and above all stressing that the alternative was defection to Islam, he was able to obtain the backing of powerful figures in the government and the Church, including Konstantin Pobedonostev. Ilminsky even became a quasi-official advisor on nationality affairs and as such promoted strict censorship, unfavorable appointments, and restrictive laws for Muslims and Buddhists.
The impact of Ilminsky’s system on preliterate nationalities was revolutionary, as these peoples, equipped with a written language and the beginnings of a national intelligentsia, experienced a national awakening. Such national leaders as the Chuvash Ivan Yakovlev and the Kazakh Ibrai Al-tynsarin were Ilminsky’s disciples and prot? g?s, while Lenin’s father worked closely with Ilminsky in promoting non-Russian education in Simbirsk Province. This may explain why Lenin’s nationality policy, summarized as “national in form, socialist in content” was remarkably similar to Ilminsky’s system, which was defended by his supporters as “national in form, Orthodox in content.” See also: EDUCATION; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH; TATARSTAN AND TATARS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dowler, Wayne. (2001). Classroom and Empire: The Politics of Schooling Russia’s Eastern Nationalities, 1860-1917. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Kreindler, Isabelle. (1977). “A Neglected Source of Lenin’s Nationality Policy.” Slavic Review 36:86-100.
To paraphrase the nineteenth-century historian of Russia, Vasily Klyuchevsky, the history of Russia is the history of migration. The Kievan polity itself was founded by Varangian traders in the ninth century, then populated by the steady migration and population growth of Slavic agriculturalists. By the sixteenth century the attempt to control population movement became one of the most important tasks of the Muscovite state. Serfdom (i.e., elimination of the right of peasants to move from one lord to another) was entrenched in the late sixteenth and
