The romantic nationalists, led by Michael Pogodin and Stephen Shevyrev of Moscow University and the journal The Muscovite, celebrated Russia’s absolutist form of government, its uniqueness, its poetic richness, the peace- loving virtues of its denizens, and the notion of the Slavs as a chosen people, all of which supposedly bestowed upon Russia a glorious mission to save humanity and made it superior to a “decaying” West. The Slavophiles, led by Moscow-based landowners including the Aksakov and Kireyevsky brothers, opposed such western concepts as individualism, legalism, and majority rule, in favor of the notion of sobornost: a community, much like a church council (sobor), should engage in discussion, with the aim of achieving a “chorus” of unanimous decision and thus preserving a spirit of harmony, and brotherhood. The people then would advise the tsar, through some type of land council (zemsky sobor), a system, the Slavophiles believed, that was the “true” Russian way in all things. The Westerniz-ers, in contrast, sympathized with the values of other Europeans and assumed that Russian development, while traveling by a different path, would occur in the context of the liberal tradition that valued the individual over the state. All three groups, however, agreed on the necessity for emancipation, legal reform, and freedom of speech and press.
The doctrine of official nationality represented the government’s response to these intellectual currents, as well as to the wave of revolutions that had spread through much of the rest of Europe beyond Russia’s borders. The proponents of this doctrine, however, did not speak with one voice. For instance, because of their support for the existing state, the romantic nationalists are often defined as proponents of official nationality. However, the most influential group, sometimes called dynastic nationalists, included Emperor Nicholas I and the court, and their views were propagandized in the far-flung journalistic enterprises of Fadei Bulgarin, Nicholas Grech, and Osip Senkovsky. Their understanding of narodnost was based on patriotism, a defensive doctrine used to support the status quo and Russia’s great-power status. For them, “Rus-sianness,” even for Baltic Germans or Poles, revolved around a subject’s loyalty to the autocrat. In other words, they equated the nation with the state as governed by the dynasty, which was seen as both the repository and the emblem of the national culture.
Sergei Semenovich Uvarov’s own views of nationality straddled the many schools of thought. He shared the bulk of the opinions of the dynastic nationalists, patronized the romantic nationalists and their journal, praised the Slavophiles for their Orthodox spirit, and accepted some Westernizing tendencies in Russia’s historical development. But this architect of official nationality espoused a doctrine that lacked appeal and vitality. Instead of regarding the people as actively informing the content of nationality, Uvarov believed that the state should define, guide, and impose “true” national values upon a passive population. In a word, his concept of narodnost excluded the creative activity of the narod and made it synonymous with loyalty to throne and altar. The doctrine, while it achieved the stability which was its aim, proved anachronistic and did not survive Nicholas I and Uvarov, both of whom died in 1855.
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See also: NATIONALISM IN TSARIST EMPIRE; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST; NATION AND NATIONALITY NICHOLAS I; SLAVOPHILES; UVAROV, SERGEI SEMEN-OVICH; WESTERNIZERS
Lincoln, W. Bruce. (1978). Nicholas I: Emperor and Autocrat of All the Russias. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. Riasanovsky, Nicholas. (1967). Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855. Berkeley: University of California Press. Whittaker, Cynthia H. (1984). The Origins of Modern Russian Education: An Intellectual Biography of Count Sergei Uvarov, 1786-1855. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.
(1917-1994), marshal, chief of the Soviet General Staff, Hero of the Soviet Union, (1917-1944).
Nikolai Ogarkov was one of the outstanding military leaders of the Soviet General Staff, who combined technical knowledge with a mastery of combined arms operations. He was born on October 30, 1917, in the village of Molokovo in Tver oblast and graduated from an engineering night school in 1937. In 1938 he joined the Red Army and graduated from the Kuybyshev Military Engineering Academy in 1941. Ogarkov served as combat engineer with a wide range of units on various fronts throughout World War II. After the war he completed the advanced military engineering course at the Kuybyshev Military Engineering Academy. Ogarkov advanced rapidly in command and staff assignments and graduated in 1959 from the Voroshilov Academy of the General Staff. Thereafter he commanded a motorized rifle division in East Germany and held command and staff postings in various military districts. In 1968 he assumed the post of deputy chief of the General Staff and head of the Operations Directorate, where he was involved in planning the military intervention in Czechoslovakia. In 1974 he assumed the post of first deputy chief of the General Staff, and then chief of the General Staff in 1977. Ogarkov held that post until 1984. During his tenure he oversaw the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan and was the voice of the Soviet government in the aftermath of the shooting down of the Korean airliner, KAL 007. He was an articulate advocate of the Revolution in Military Affairs, which he believed was about to transform military art. He stressed the impact of new technologies associated with automated command and control, electronic warfare, precision strike, and weapons based on new physical principles upon the conduct of war. His advocacy of increased defense spending contributed to his removal from office in 1984. Ogarkov died on January 23, 1994. See also: AFGHANISTAN, RELATIONS WITH; MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kokoshin, Andrei A. (1998). Soviet Strategic Thought, 1917-91. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Odom, William E. (1998). The Collapse of the Soviet Military. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Zisk, Kimberly Marten. (1993). Engaging the Enemy: Organization Theory and Soviet Military Innovation, 1955-1991. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
OGHUZ See TORKY.
Court rank used in pre-Petrine Russia.
The term okolnichy (pl. okolnichie) meaning “someone close to the ruler,” is derived from the word okolo (near, by). The sources first mention an okolnichy at the court of the prince of Smolensk in 1284. In the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, okolnichie acted as administrators, judges, and military commanders, and as witnesses during compilation of a prince’s legal documents. When a prince was on campaign, okolnichie prepared bridges, fords, and lodging for him. Okolnichie usually came from local elite families. By the end of the fifteenth century, the rank of okolnichy became part of the hierarchy of the Gosudarev Dvor (Sovereign’s Court), second after the rank of boyar. Unlike boyars, who usually performed military service, okolnichie carried out various administrative assignments in the first half of the sixteenth century. Later, the okolnichie conceded their administrative functions to the secretaries.
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Under Ivan IV, the majority of okolnichie belonged to the boyar families who had long connections with Moscow. For most elite courtiers, with the exception of the most distinguished princely families, service as okolnichie was a prerequisite for receiving the rank of boyar. The rank of okolnichy also served as a means of integrating families of lesser status into the elite. By the end of the sixteenth century, the distinction between boyars and okolnichie was based largely on genealogical origin and seniority in service. From the middle of the seventeenth century, the number of okolnichie increased because of the growing size of the court. Many historians believe that all okolnichie were admitted to the royal council, the Boyar Duma, though in fact only a few of them attended meetings with the tsar. See also: BOYAR; BOYAR DUMA
Kleimola, Ann M. (1985). “Patterns of Duma Recruitment, 1505-1550.” In Essays in Honor of A. A. Zimin, ed. Daniel Clarke Waugh. Columbus, OH: Slavica. Poe, Marshall T. (2003). The Russian Elite in the Seventeenth Century. 2 vols. Helsinki: The Finnish Academy of Science and Letters.
SERGEI BOGATYREV
