businesses. He brought steamboats from England to improve transportation up the rivers and on the Black Sea. He established and supported educational and cultural institutions. He personally supervised the design and construction of parks and public buildings in the major cities.
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An engraving of Mikhail Semenovich Vorontsov that appeared in the London News. © MARY EVANS PICTURE LIBRARY
A bitter opponent of the Crimean War and the unexpected enmity with his beloved England, Vorontsov retired in 1854 in failing health, after a third of a century of service, and died two years later. In an unusual expression of public admiration for Imperial Russia, public subscriptions paid for commemorative statues of him in Odessa and Tbilisi. A beautiful museum dedicated to his good works and lasting memory, currently open to the public, is located in one of his former palaces, the famous Bloor-designed palace in Alupka, not far from Yalta on the “Russian Riviera,” the beautiful Crimean coast. See also: CAUCASUS; DECEMBRIST MOVEMENT AND REBELLION; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST
Rhinelander, Anthony. (1990). Prince Michael Vorontsov: Viceroy to the Tsar. Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press.
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(1837-1916), viceroy of the Caucasus.
At a moment of great danger to the regime Tsar Nicholas II appointed his friend and councilor, Illar-ion Ivanovich Vorontsov-Dashkov, viceroy (namest-nik) of the Caucasus in 1905. A loyal courtier, Count Vorontsov- Dashkov faced open rebellion, with most of western Georgia in the hands of insurgent peasants led by the Marxist Social Democrats. Harsh policies toward the Armenian Church (in 1903 their properties had been seized by the government), repression of the workers and peasants, and general disillusionment with the autocracy as the Russo-Japanese War went badly, led to the collapse of tsarist authority south of the Caucasian mountains. The new viceroy agreed to ameliorate the state’s policies, return the Armenian church properties, and negotiate with the rebels. The tsar did not approve of these moderate policies and thought the best place for rebels was hanging from a tree. “The example would be beneficial to many,” he wrote. But the viceroy prevailed, using both conciliatory and repressive measures to pacify the region.
The liberal methods of the viceroy improved relations among the various nationalities in the Caucasus. He was thought by many to be pro-Armenian, and did favor that nationality as it was well represented in local representative institutions and possessed great wealth and property. Vorontsov-Dashkov wrote to the tsar that the government had itself created the “Armenian problem by carelessly ignoring the religious and national views of the Armenians.” But he also attempted to placate the Georgians and the Muslims and permitted education in the local languages. By the time Russia went to war with Turkey in 1915, Armenians formed volunteer units to fight alongside the Russian army against the Turks. Although there was resistance to the draft among Caucasian Muslims, and Georgians were unenthusiastic about the war effort, no major opposition was expressed. In 1915 Vorontsov-Dashkov left the Caucasus and was replaced by Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolaevich. As Vorontsov-Dashkov departed Tiflis, he was made an honorary citizen of the city by the Armenian-dominated city duma, but neither the Georgian nobility nor Azerbaijani representatives appeared to bid him farewell. See also: CAUCASUS; NATIONALITIES POLICIES, TSARIST
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Kazemzadeh, Firuz. (1951). The Struggle for Transcaucasia (1917-1921). New York: Philosophical Library. Suny, Ronald Grigor. (1988). The Making of the Georgian Nation. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Erickson, John. (1962). The Soviet High Command. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
(1881-1969), leading Soviet political and military figure, member of Stalin’s inner circle.
A machinist’s apprentice who joined the Bolsheviks in 1903, Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov spent nearly a decade underground and in exile, then emerged in late 1917 to become the commissar of Petrograd. In 1918 he assisted Felix Dz-erzhinsky in founding the Cheka, then fought on various civil war fronts, including Tsaritsyn in 1918, where he sided with Josef V. Stalin against Leon Trotsky over the utilization of former tsarist officers in the new Red Army. A talented grassroots organizer, Voroshilov was adept at assembling ad hoc field units, especially cavalry. Following the death of Mikhail V. Frunze in late 1925, Voroshilov served until mid-1934 as commissar of military and naval affairs, and subsequently until May 1940 as defense commissar. Known more as a political toady than a serious commander, he served in important command and advisory capacities during World War II, often with baleful results. During the postwar era he aided in the Sovietization of Hungary, but at home was relegated to largely honorific governmental positions. To his credit Voroshilov objected to using the Red Army against the peasantry during collectivization, and, despite complicity in Stalin’s purges, he occasionally intervened to rescue military officers. Notwithstanding a cavalry bias, he oversaw an impressive campaign for the mechanization of the Red Army during the 1930s, including support for the T-34 tank over Stalin’s initial objections. After Stalin’s death in 1953 Voroshilov was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, a post he held until he was forced to resign in 1960 after participating in the anti-Party group opposed to Nikita Khrushchev. See also: MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET; STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH
1650
VOTCHINA
Literally, “patrimony” (the noun derives from Slavonic otchy, i.e. belonging to one’s father); in medieval Russia, inherited landed property that could be legally sold, donated or disposed in another way by the owner (votchinnik).
In the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, the term mainly indicated the hereditary rights of princes to their principalities or appanages. Thus, according to Nestor’s chronicle, the princes who gathered at Lyubech in 1097 proclaimed: “Let everybody hold his own patrimony (otchina).” It was in this sense that Ivan III later applied the word votchina to all the Russian lands claiming the legacy of his ancestors, the Kievan princes.
In the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, as land transactions became more frequent, the word votchina acquired a new basic meaning, referring to estates (villages, arable lands, forests, and so forth) owned by hereditary right. Up to the end of fifteenth century, votchina remained the only form of landed property in Muscovy. The reforms of Ivan III in the 1480s created another type of ownership of land, the pomestie, which made new landowners (pomeshchiki) entirely dependent on the grand prince who granted estates to them on condition of loyal service. In the sixteenth century, Muscovite rulers favored the growth of the pomestie system, simultaneously keeping a check on the circulation of patrimonial estates. Decrees of 1551, 1562, and 1572 regulated conditions under which alienated patrimonies could be redeemed by the seller’s kinsfolk. The same legislation stipulated that each case of donation of one’s patrimony to a monastery must be sanctioned by the government. (In 1580, the sale or donation of estates to monasteries was totally prohibited.)
Historians have stressed the growing similarity between votchina and pomestie. On the one hand, as Vladimir Kobrin points out, pomestie from the very beginning tended to become hereditary property; on the other hand, the owners of patrimonies were obliged to serve in the tsarist army (legally, since 1556), just as pomestie holders did.
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