a humiliating course, taking Georgia into the Russian-dominated Commonwealth of Independent States in 1993 and requesting a Russian military presence in western Georgia to counter secessionist forces in Abkhazia. Just as he had been accused of favoring Western interests when he was Soviet foreign minister, now he was charged with betraying Georgian interests as chairman of his ancestral homeland.
Shevardnadze survived at least two well-organized assassination attempts in 1995 and 1998 as well as bloody conflicts with ethnic separatists in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The Russian wars in nearby Chechnya led to increased pressure on his government from Moscow and a greater Russian presence along Georgia’s borders. Increased Russian involvement in the Caucasus, instability in Central Asia, and weak neighboring
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
governments in Armenia and Azerbaijan added to the pressures on Shevardnadze. Numerous scandals within the Georgian military weakened national security and gave Russian forces greater opportunities to penetrate the Georgian military. Increased U.S. involvement in Central Asia because of the war against terrorism, the Russian interest in the Caucasus because of the war in Chechnya, and the overall political and military weakness of the states of the Caucasus had the potential to contribute to Shevardnadze’s vulnerability.
Shevardnadze, who could have retired from public life in 1991 as an honored statesman, engaged in yet another battle, this time to keep his country from self-destruction. The opposition of high-ranking Russian general officers, who blamed Shevardnadze for the demilitarization and breakup of the Soviet Union, were likely to contribute to the discontinuity of his government in Tbilisi. Unlike Gorbachev, who turned to writing books and delivering lectures, Shevardnadze chose a different path-one that nearly cost him his life on more than one occasion. With its breathtakingly beautiful Black Sea coast, mountains, ancient culture, rich agricultural land, and energetic people, Georgia could certainly emerge as a peaceful and prosperous modern state, and Shevardnadze’s first priority was to advance the country toward that goal. See also: GEORGIA AND GEORGIANS; MOVEMENT FOR DEMOCRATIC REFORMS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Ekedahl, Carolyn McGiffert, and Goodman, Melvin A. (2001). The Wars of Eduard Shevardnadze. Washington, DC: Brassey’s. Palazchenko, Pavel. (1997). My Years with Gorbachev and Shevardnadze: The Memoir of a Soviet Interpreter. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press. Shevardnadze, Eduard. (1991). The Future Belongs to Freedom. New York: The Free Press. Shevardnadze, Eduard. (1991). My Choice: In Defense of Democracy and Freedom. Moscow: Novosti.
(1814-1861), Ukraine’s national poet.
Born a serf, Taras Shevchenko was orphaned early in life. His owner noticed his artistic ability
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while he was serving as a houseboy and apprenticed him to an icon and mural painter. In 1838 some Russian and Ukrainian intellectuals in St. Petersburg organized a lottery and used the proceeds to buy his freedom. Afterwards, Shevchenko studied under Karl Briullov at the Academy of Fine Arts, graduating in 1845. While still a student, he published a short collection of romantic poems, Kobzar (The Bard, 1840), that established his reputation as a poet. His early folklorism and idealization of the Cossacks soon gave way to poetry of social critique that prophesied rebellion. Shevchenko’s poems of the 1840s denounced serfdom and the Russian autocracy and celebrated Slavic brotherhood. In 1847 he was arrested in Kiev on the charge of belonging to the secret Cyril and Methodius Brotherhood. A search by the gendarmes discovered his satirical poems, including an unflattering portrayal of Nicholas I and his wife, and in consequence the tsar sentenced Shevchenko to military service in Central Asia, adding a special prohibition on writing and painting. Following his release in 1857, Shevchenko was not permitted to reside in Ukraine. He settled in St. Petersburg, where he died in 1861.
Shevchenko was a realist artist of note. Even during his lifetime, his contribution to the development of modern Ukrainian culture and national consciousness earned him the reputation of Ukraine’s “national bard.” His sophisticated poetical works transformed folk idioms into a modern literary product, while his vision of popular justice and democracy influenced generations of Ukrainian activists. After Shevchenko’s death, Ukrainian patriots transferred his remains to Chernecha Hill near Kaniv, in Ukraine, which immediately became a place of pilgrimage. The cult of Shevchenko continued to grow in Ukraine during the twentieth century, for patriots viewed him as a symbol of national culture and statehood. In the eyes of the communists, however, Shevchenko was a symbol of social liberation and friendship with Russia. In post-Soviet Ukraine Shevchenko is the most revered figure in the pantheon of the nation’s “founding fathers.” See also: CYRIL AND METHODIUS SOCIETY; NATIONALISM IN THE SOVIET UNION; NATIONALISM IN TSARIST EMPIRE; UKRAINE AND UKRAINIANS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Grabowicz, George G. (1982). The Poet as Mythmaker: A Study of Symbolic Meaning in Taras ?evcenko. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.
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Shevchenko, Taras. (1964). Poetical Works, trans. C. H. Andrusyshen and Watson Kirkconnell. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. Zaitsev, Pavlo. (1988). Taras Shevchenko: A Life. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
(1885-1937), highly skilled metalworker, trade union leader, and revolutionary.
Alexander Shlyapnikov, an ethnic Russian from the town of Murom in central Russia, joined the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party in 1902 and became a Bolshevik in 1903; he was imprisoned in 1904 and 1905-1907. From 1908 to 1916 he lived in Western Europe. During World War I, Shlyapnikov organized a route through Scandinavia into Russia for smuggling illegal Marxist literature and Bolshevik correspondence.
In February 1917 Shlyapnikov led the Bolshevik Party organization in Petrograd and became a member of the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ Deputies. Subsequently Shlyapnikov became chairman of the All-Russian Metalworkers’ Union (1917-1921). He became commissar of labor (1917-1918) after the October 1917 Revolution. During the Russian civil war, Shlyapnikov was chairman of the Revolutionary Mlitary Council of the Caspian-Caucasian Front (1918-1919).
From 1919 to 1921 Shlyapnikov led the Workers’ Opposition and advocated the role of unionized workers in directing and organizing the economy. Shlyapnikov continued to criticize Soviet economic policy and treatment of workers throughout the 1920s. In 1933 he was purged from the Communist Party. In 1935 he was arrested on false charges, imprisoned, and sent into internal exile. In 1936 he was arrested again. In September 1937, in a closed session, the Military College of the USSR Supreme Court found Shlyapnikov guilty of terrorist activities, based on false testimony from compromised witnesses, and ordered his execution. Shlyapnikov was rehabilitated of criminal charges in 1963 and restored to membership in the Communist Party in 1988. See also: BOLSHEVISM; SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC WORKERS PARTY; WORKERS’ OPPOSITION
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
Daniels, Robert. (1988). The Conscience of the Revolution: Communist Opposition in Soviet Russia. Boulder, CO: Westview Press. Shliapnikov, Alexander. (1982). On the Eve of 1917, tr. Richard Chappell. London: Allison and Busby.
The term shock therapy has come to arouse a great deal of controversy. Its original use was related to the use of electrical shocks as therapy in psychiatric treatment. In economic policy, it has been used to describe
