Moro-zov’s government.) In 1645 the government, in response to a middle service class provincial cavalry petition, promised that the time limit on the recovery of fugitive serfs would be repealed as soon as a census was taken. The census was taken in 1646-1647, but the statute of limitations was not repealed. All the while Morozov’s extensive correspondence with his estate stewards reveals that he was recruiting peasants from other lords and moving such peasants about (typically from the center to the Volga region) to conceal them. Morozov was also active in the potash business: he ordered his serfs to cut down trees, burn them, and barrel the ashes for export. See also: ALEXEI MIKHAILOVICH; ASSEMBLY OF THE LAND; BOYAR; CHANCELLERY SYSTEM; ENSERFMENT; LAW CODE OF 1649
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Crummey, Robert Owen. (1983). Aristocrats and Servitors: The Boyar Elite in Russia, 1613-1689. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hellie, Richard. (1971). Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
(c. 1918-1932), young man murdered in 1932 who became a hero for the Pioneers (members of the Soviet organization for children in the 10 to 14 age group); celebrated in biographies, pamphlets, textbooks, songs, films, paintings, and plays.
Soviet accounts of the life of Pavel Morozov are mythic in tone and often contradictory. All agree that he was born in the western Siberian village of Gerasimovka, about 150 miles from Sverdlovsk (Ekaterinburg), probably in December 1918. He and
his younger brother Fyodor were murdered on September 3, 1932. The Morozov murders were taken up by the local press about two weeks after they happened; in late September 1932, the central children’s press became aware of the case, and reporters were dispatched to Siberia to investigate and to press for justice against the boys’ supposed murderers. In December 1932, the boys’ grandparents, their uncle, their cousin, and a neighbor stood trial; four of the five were sentenced to execution.
Like most child murders, the death of the two Morozov brothers provoked outrage; equally typically, press coverage dwelt on the innocence and goodness of the victims. But since the murders also took place in an area that was undergoing collectivization, they acquired a specifically Soviet political resonance. They were understood as an episode in the “class war”: A child political activist and fervent Pioneer had been slaughtered by kulaks, wealthy peasants, as a punishment for exposing these kulaks’ activities.
Additionally, it was reported that Pavel (or, as he became known, “Pavlik”) had displayed such commitment to the cause that he had denounced his own father, the chairman of the local collective farm, for providing dekulakized peasants with false identity papers. His murder by his relations was an act of revenge, and an attempt by them to prevent Pavlik from pushing them into collectivization. All in all, Pavlik came to exemplify virtue so resolute that it preferred death to betrayal of principle. Learning about his life was an important part of the teaching offered the Pioneers; the anniversaries of his death were commemorated with pomp, and statues of Pavlik went up all over the Soviet Union.
But indoctrination did not lead to the emergence of millions of “copycat Pavliks.” Memoirs and oral history suggest that most children found the story disturbing, rather than inspiring, even during the 1930s. And during the World War II, attention switched to another type of child hero: the boy or girl who refused to convey information, even under torture. To the postwar generations, Pavlik was a nasty little stukach, squealer. Learning about his life was a chore, and he had far less appeal than the Komsomol war heroine Zoya Kos-modemyanskaya. Indeed, surveys indicate that by 2002, the eightieth anniversary of his death, many respondents either could not remember who Pavlik was, or remembered his life inaccurately (e.g., “a hero of the Great Patriotic War”). Statues of him had disappeared (the Moscow statue in 1991), and streets had been renamed. Though the Pavlik Morozov museum in Gerasimovka was still open, few visitors bothered to call there. See also: CIVIL WAR OF 1917-1922; FOLKLORE; PURGES, THE GREAT
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Druzhnikov, Iurii. (1997). Informer 001: the Myth of Pavlik Morozov. (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers. Kelly, Catriona. (2004). Comrade Pavlik: The Life and Legend of a Soviet Boy Hero. London: Granta.
Moscow is the capital city of Russia and the country’s economic and cultural center.
Moscow was founded by Prince Yuri Vladimiro-vich Dolgoruky in 1147 on the banks of the Moscow River. Its earliest fortifications were raised on the present-day site of the Kremlin. Located in Russia’s forest belt, the city was afforded a limited degree of protection from marauders from the south. Its location adjacent several rivers also made it a good trade center. By 1325, following the sacking of Kiev and the imposition of the Mongol Yoke, Moscow’s princes obtained the sole right to rule over the Russian territories and collect tribute for the Golden Horde. The head of the Russian Orthodox church relocated to Moscow in recognition of the city’s growing authority. A prince of Moscow, Ivan III, ultimately rid Russia of Mongol rule, following which the city became the capital of the expanding Muscovite state, which reunited the Russian lands by diplomacy and military conquest from the fourteenth to the eighteenth centuries.
During the period of expansion, the young state was thrown into chaos when Ivan IV passed away without leaving an heir. His unsuccessful efforts to regain access to the Baltic Sea and Black Sea had left the state further exhausted. In the ensuing power struggle, the country was invaded by several foreign armies before the Russian people were able once again to gain control of Moscow and elect a new tsar, marking the beginning of the Romanov dynasty (1613-1917).
In 1713, Peter the Great moved the Russian capital to St. Petersburg, which he had built on the Baltic Sea as “Russia’s window to the West.”
MOSCOW
Moscow, which Peter loathed for its traditional Russian ways, remained a major center of commerce and culture. Further, all Russian tsars were crowned in the city, providing a link with the past. Recognizing the city’s historical importance, Napoleon occupied Moscow in 1812. He was forced from the city and defeated by the Russian Army as foreign invaders before him had been.
The Bolsheviks moved the capital of Russia back to Moscow when German forces threatened Petro-grad (previously St. Petersburg) in 1918. When the Germans left Russian land later that year, the capital remained in Moscow and has not been moved since.
During the Soviet era, a metro and many new construction projects were undertaken in Moscow as the city grew in population and importance. At the same time, many cultural sites, particularly churches, were destroyed. As a consequence, Moscow lost much of its architectural integrity and ancient charm. In an effort to recover this, the Russian government has engaged in a number of restoration projects in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. One of the most important has been the rebuilding of the Savior Cathedral, which was meant to mark the city’s spiritual revival.
With a population of approximately 8.5 million people (swelling to more than 11 million on workdays), Moscow is the largest city in Russia and its capital. The Kremlin houses the Presidential Administration while both chambers of the national legislature are located just off of Red Square. The prime minister and his most important deputies have their offices in the White House, the building on the banks of the Moscow River that formerly was the location of the Russian Federation’s legislature. The various ministries of the government, which report to the prime minister, are located throughout the city.
The city’s government historically has occupied a high profile in national politics. This is particularly true of the mayor, who is directly elected by the city’s residents for a four-year term. The mayor appoints the Moscow city government and is responsible for the administration of the city. Among the city’s administrative responsibilities are managing more than half of the housing occupied by Muscovites, managing a primary health-care delivery system, operating a primary and secondary school system, providing social services and utility subsidies, maintaining roads, operating a public transportation system, and policing the city. Legislative power lies with the Moscow City Duma,
