decreed. See also: KIEVAN RUS; NOVGOROD JUDICIAL CHARTER; PSKOV JUDICIAL CHARTER; STATUTE OF GRAND PRINCE YAROSLAV; VLADIMIR, ST.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kaiser, Daniel H. (1980). The Growth of the Law in Medieval Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kaiser, Daniel H., ed., tr. (1992). The Laws of Rus’: Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries. Salt Lake City, UT: Charles Schlacks, Jr.
1474
Shchapov, Yaroslav N. (1993). State and Church in Early Russia, Tenth-Thirteenth Centuries, tr. Vic Shneierson. New Rochelle, NY: A. D. Caratzas.
The Statute is reported to have come from the hand of Grand Prince Yaroslav (r. 1019-1054), son of Kievan Grand Prince Vladimir, who is credited with the conversion of Rus to Christianity and also with the authorship of the Statute of Grand Prince Vladimir, which instituted church courts in Kievan Rus. Inasmuch as no copy of Yaroslav’s Statute from before the fifteenth century survives, many historians doubted the authenticity of the document, but modern textological study has rehabilitated the Statute.
Scholars now know of some one hundred copies of the Statute, which may be divided into six separate redactions that reflect changes in the document’s content as it developed in different parts of the Rus lands in the medieval and early modern period. The archetype of the Statute evidently did appear in Rus in the reign of Yaroslav, and gave birth to the two principal versions that dominated all later modifications in the text. The archetype of the Expanded version came into being in the late twelfth or early thirteenth century, then spawned a host of specially adapted copies in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries. The Short version seems to have arisen early in the fourteenth century, also stimulating many further variations in the document’s content and organization in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. No later than early in the fifteenth century the Statute came to enjoy official standing in the eyes of both churchmen and secular officials. In 1402 and again in 1419 Moscow Grand Prince Basil I (1389-1425) confirmed the judicial and financial guarantees laid out in the Statute. Most extant copies, consequently, survive along with other texts of secular and canon law in manuscript books such as the Kormchaya kniga (the chief handbook of canon law).
According to the statute’s first article, Grand Prince Yaroslav, in consultation with Metropolitan Hilarion (1051-1054), used Greek Christian precedent and the example of the prince’s father to give church courts jurisdiction over divorce and to extend to the church a portion of fees collected by the
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
Grand Prince. The various versions of the statute contained additional provisions, whose specifics depended upon the place and time that the version was created. Among other subjects, articles consider rape, illicit sexual intercourse, infanticide, bigamy, incest, bestiality, spousal desertion and other issues of family law and sexual behavior. The Statute also attempted to regulate Christian interaction with Muslims, Jews, and those who were faithful to indigenous religions. Finally, the Statute confirmed the precedent articulated in the Statute of Grand Prince Vladimir, according to which both monastic and church people would be subject exclusively to the authority of church courts. Later versions sometimes provided for punishment by secular authorities, but in the main version the Statute relied upon monetary fines to punish wrongdoers.
No records of litigation that employed the Statute survive from Kievan Rus, but similar statutes that arose in Novgorod and Smolensk suggest that something like Yaroslav’s Statute existed in Kiev. In addition, secular codes such as the Novgorod Judicial Charter and Pskov Judicial Charter confirm that church courts in Rus did exercise jurisdiction independent of secular courts. See also: BASIL I; KIEVAN RUS; STATUTE OF GRAND PRINCE VLADIMIR; YAROSLAV VLADIMIROVICH
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kaiser, Daniel H. (1980). The Growth of the Law in Medieval Russia. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Kaiser, Daniel H., ed., tr. (1992). The Laws of Rus’: Tenth to Fifteenth Centuries. Salt Lake City, UT: Charles Schlacks, Jr. Shchapov, Yaroslav N. (1993). State and Church in Early Russia, Tenth-Thirteenth Centuries, tr. Vic Shneierson. New Rochelle, NY: A. D. Caratzas.
Stavka was the headquarters of the Supreme Commander of the Russian armed forces (SVG, 1914-1918), or of the Supreme High Command of the Soviet armed forces during World War II.
During World War I, the Imperial Russian version of Stavka constituted both the highest instance of the tsarist field command and the location (successively at Baranovichi, Mogilev, and Orel) of the Supreme Commander. A succession of incumbents, including Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevich, Tsar Nicholas II, and Generals Mikhail Alexeyev, Alexei Brusilov, and Lavr Kornilov, wielded broad powers over wartime fronts and adjacent areas. The scale, scope, and impact of modern wartime operations demonstrated the need for such a command instance to direct, organize, and coordinate strategic actions and support among lesser headquarters, functional areas, and supporting rear. However, for reasons ranging from failed leadership to inadequate infrastructure and poor communications, the organizational reality never completely fulfilled conceptual promise. Between 1914 and March 1918, when Vladimir Lenin abolished a toothless version of Stavka upon conclusion of the Brest-Litovsk agreement, the headquarters grew from five directorates and a chancery to fifteen directorates, three chanceries, and two committees. In 1917, before occupation by the Bolsheviks in December, Stavka also served as an important center of counterrevolutionary activity.
During World War II, a Soviet version of Stavka again constituted the highest instance of military-strategic direction, but with a mixed military-civilian composition. Known successively as the High Command, Supreme Command, and Supreme High Command, Stavka functioned under Josef Stalin’s immediate direction and in coordination with the Politburo and the State Defense Committee (GKO). Stavka’s role was to evaluate military- strategic situations, to adopt strategic and operational decisions, and to organize, coordinate, and support actions among field, naval, and partisan commands. The General Staff functioned as Stavka’s planning and executive agent, while all-powerful Stavka representatives, including Georgy Zhukov and Alexander Vasilevsky, frequently served as intermediaries between Moscow headquarters and major field command instances. See also: MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET; WORLD WAR I; WORLD WAR II
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jones, David R. (1989). “Imperial Russia’s Forces at War.” In Military Effectiveness, Vol.1: The First World War, eds. Allan R. Millett and Williamson Murray. Boston: Unwin Hyman. Shtemenko, S. M. (1973). The Soviet General Staff at War. 2 vols. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
1475
(1658-1722), metropolitan of Ryazan and first head of the Holy Synod.
Born to a poor noble family in Poland, Yavorsky and his family moved to Left-Bank Ukraine to live in a territory controlled by Orthodox Russia. After studying in the Petr Mohyla Academy in Kiev, Yavorsky temporarily converted to Byzantine-Rite Catholicism so he could continue his education in Catholic Poland. In 1687, he returned to Kiev and the Orthodox Church and became a monk. As a teacher in the Kiev Academy, Stefan’s eloquence attracted the favorable attention of Peter I, who made him metropolitan of Ryazan in 1700. After the death of Patriarch Adrian I in 1700, Peter made Stefan the locum tenens of the Patriarchal throne.
Initially Stefan supported Peter’s reform program. But over time, Peter’s treatment of the Orthodox Church
