Erickson, John. (1983). The Road to Berlin. Boulder, CO: Westview Press . Glantz, David M., and House, Jonathan M. (1999). The Battle of Kursk. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas. Glantz, David M., and Orenstein, Harold S, eds. (1999). The Battle for Kursk 1943: The Soviet General Staff Study. London: Frank Cass. Manstein, Erich von. (1958). Lost Victories. Chicago: Henry Regnery. Zetterling Niklas, and Frankson, Anders. (2000). Kursk 1943: A Statistical Analysis. London: Frank Cass.
On Saturday, August 12, 2000, the nuclear-powered cruise-missile submarine Kursk (K-141), one of Russia’s most modern submarines, was lost with all 118 crewmembers during a large-scale exercise of the Russian Northern Fleet in the Barents Sea. The Kursk sank just after its commander, Captain First Rank Gennady Lyachin, informed the exercise directors that the submarine was about to execute a mock torpedo attack on a surface target. Exercise controllers lost contact with the vessel and fleet radio operators failed to reestablish communication. Shortly after the Kursk’s last communication, Russian and Western acoustic sensors recorded two underwater explosions, one smaller and a second larger (the equivalent of five tons of TNT).
Russian surface and air units began a search for the submarine and in the early evening located a target at a depth of 108 meters (354.3 feet) and about 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the Northern Fleet’s base at Murmansk. Russian undersea rescue units were dispatched to the site. The command of the Northern Fleet was slow to announce the possible loss of the submarine or to provide reliable information on the event. On August 13 Admiral Vyacheslav Popov, commander of the Northern Fleet, conducted a press conference on the success of the exercise but did not mention the possible loss of the Kursk. A Russian undersea apparatus reached the Kursk on Sunday afternoon and reported that the submarine’s bow had been severely damaged by an explosion. The rescue crews suggested three hypotheses to explain the sinking: an internal explosion connected with the torpedo firing, a possible collision with another submarine or surface ship, or the detonation of a mine left over from World War II.
On Monday, August 14, the Northern Fleet’s press service began to report its version of the disaster. The reports emphasized the absence of nuclear weapons, the stability of the submarine’s reactors, and the low radioactivity at the site. It also falsely reported that communications had been reestablished with the submarine. The Northern Fleet and the Naval High Command in Moscow reported the probable cause of the disaster as a collision with a foreign submarine. While there were reports of evidence supporting this thesis, none was ever presented to confirm the explanation, and both the United States and Royal navies denied that any of their submarines had been involved in any collision with the Kursk. The Russian Navy was also reluctant to publish a list of those on board the submarine. The list, leaked to the newspaper Kom-somolskaya pravda (Komsomol Truth), was published on August 18. The Russian Navy’s initial unwillingness to accept foreign assistance in the rescue operation and failure to get access to the Kursk undermined its credibility.
When President Vladimir Putin learned of the crisis while on vacation in Sochi, he created a State Commission under Deputy Prime Minister Ilya Kle-banov to investigate the event. Putin invited foreign assistance in the rescue operation. British and Norwegian divers successfully entered the Kursk on August 21 and found no survivors. Putin had kept a low profile during the rescue phase and did not directly address the relatives of the crew until August 22. At that time Putin vowed to recover the crew and vessel. In the fall of 2001 an international recovery team lifted the Kursk, minus the damaged bow. The hull was brought back to a dry dock at Roslyakovo. In December 2001, on the basis of information regarding the preparation for the exercise in which the Kursk was lost, President Putin fired fourteen senior naval officials, including Admiral Popov. Preliminary data from the Klebanov
KUSTAR
commission seems to confirm that the submarine sank as a result of a detonation of an ultra highspeed torpedo, skval-type. On June 18, 2002, Ilya Klebanov confirmed that the remaining plausible explanation for the destruction of the submarine was an internal torpedo explosion. See also: MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET; PUTIN, VLADIMIR VLADIMIROVICH
Burleson, Clyde. (2002). Kursk Down. New York: Warner Books. Despite increasing competition from factories, cottage industry continued to account for a large share of Russian manufactured goods until the end of the tsarist regime, and enjoyed a brief revival in the 1920s under the New Economic Policy. Notwithstanding the importance of cottage industry in the Russian economy, there is no reliable data for the number of cottage workers in the country as a whole. Estimates range from 2.5 million to 15 million peasants engaged in cottage industry at the end of the nineteenth century. See also: PEASANT ECONOMY; PEASANTRY
JACOB W. KIPP
Cottage worker, home worker; a peasant engaged in cottage industry (kustarnaya promyshlennost) to earn cash, usually in combination with agricultural production.
Cottage industry became an important source of income for rural peasants in some parts of Russia by the sixteenth century and developed extensively during the nineteenth century, producing a wide range of wooden, textile, metal, and leather goods. It was usually a family enterprise, although some peasants formed producer cooperatives and worked under the supervision of an elected elder. Some cottage workers independently produced and sold their production, while others participated in a putting-out system in which they worked for a middleman who furnished them with raw or semifinished materials and collected and marketed the finished products. By the beginning of the twentieth century, the state, zemstvos, and cooperatives had established schools, credit banks, and warehouses to assist cottage workers in producing and marketing a wide variety of goods.
The socioeconomic position of Russian cottage workers was the subject of many debates in the decades preceding the revolution. Populists argued that most cottage workers remained peasant agriculturists and engaged in cottage industry only to supplement their earnings from agriculture, while Marxists contended that cottage workers were becoming proletarianized and wholly dependent on the income they earned from selling manufactured goods to middlemen.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Blum, Jerome. (1961). Lord and Peasant in Russia from the Ninth to the Nineteenth Century. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Crisp, Olga. (1976). Studies in the Russian Economy Before 1914. London: Macmillan. Gatrell, Peter. (1986). The Tsarist Economy, 1850-1914. London: Batsford. Salmond, Wendy R. (1996). Arts and Crafts in Imperial Russia: Reviving the Kustar Art Industries, 1970-1917. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
(1745-1813), general, renowned for his victory over Napoleon.
At the age of sixty-seven, Mikhail Kutuzov led the Russian armies to victory over Napoleon in the War of 1812 and created the preconditions for their final victory in the campaigns of 1813 and 1814. Kutuzov first distinguished himself in extensive service against the Turks during the reign of Catherine II. He served in the Russo-Turkish War of 1768-1774, first on the staff of Petr Rumyant-sev’s army, and then in line units with Vasily Dol-gorukov’s Crimean Army. In combat in the Crimea in 1774 he was shot through the head and lost an eye. When he returned to service, he took command of the Bug Light Infantry Corps of Field Marshal Alexander Suvorov’s army. He led his corps into combat with the Turks once again when war broke out in 1788. He was wounded again at the siege of Ochakov in that year, but continued to command troops throughout the war, serving under Grigory Potemkin and Alexander Suvorov. FolKUYBYSHEV, VALERIAN VLADIMIROVICH lowing the end of hostilities, Kutuzov served in a number of senior positions, including ambassador to Turkey, commander of Russian forces in Finland, and military governor of Lithuania. It seemed that his days as an active commander had passed. In September 1801 he retired.
The Napoleonic Wars put a quick end to Ku-tuzov’s ease. When war threatened in 1805, Alexander I designated Kutuzov, now a field marshal, commander of the leading Russian expeditionary army sent to cooperate with the Austrians. On the way to the designated rallying point of Braunau, on the Austrian border with Bavaria, Ku-tuzov learned of the surrender of the Austrian army at Ulm on October 20. Now facing French forces four times stronger than his army, Kutuzov began a skillful and orderly withdrawal to the east, hoping to link up with
