confidant, Josef V. Stalin.
Erudite and a brilliant orator, as skilled in sarcasm as in logic, the dapper Vyshinsky was trained as a jurist. He belonged to the Menshevik party before becoming a Bolshevik in 1920. While working in educational administration during the 1920s, Vyshinsky proved his political mettle in performances as judge in early show trials (such as Shakhty). Later, as prosecutor-general, Vyshinsky continued to develop the political show trial, serving as prosecutor at the major show trials of 1936 through 1938, at which leading politicians from the past (e.g., Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, Grigory Pyatakov, Nikolai Bukharin, and Alexei Rykov) were humiliated and forced to confess to extraordinary acts of betrayal. Archival sources reveal that Vyshinsky worked closely with Stalin in manufacturing the charges and writing the scripts. Vyshinsky was also a member of the Special Board of the People’s Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) that during the years 1936 through 1938 processed most of the contrived cases of alleged saboteurs and counterrevolutionaries.
As Stalin’s prosecutor, Vyshinsky also helped to restore the authority of law in the post-collectivization era, eliminate the influence of anti-law Marxists such as Yevgeny Pashukanis, and develop a jurisprudence that supported the use of terror against political enemies. Long after leaving the administration of justice, Vyshinsky remained
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
the top authority in legal theory, and he is remembered for reviving the pre-1845 doctrine of “confession as the queen of evidence” in political cases. During Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization, Vy-shinsky’s theory of law was condemned, and his position as a legal authority undermined. See also: PURGES, THE GREAT; SHOW TRIALS
Sharlet, Robert, and Beirne, Piers. (1990). “In Search of Vyshinsky: The Paradox of Law and Terror.” In Revolution in Law: Contributions to the Development of Soviet Legal Theory, 1917-1938, ed. Piers Beirne. Ar-monk, NY: M. E. Sharpe. Vaksberg, Arkady. (1991). Stalin’s Prosecutor: The Life of Andrei Vyshinsky. New York: Grove Weidenfeld.
(1831-1895), scientist and mechanic, Russian finance minister from 1887 to 1892.
Ivan Vyshnegradsky was born into a priest’s family. After graduating from the Tver Theological Seminary and later from the Main Pedagogical Institute, he taught mathematics and mechanics (engineering) at St. Petersburg military educational institutions, headed the department of mechanics at the St. Petersburg Technological Institute, and served as the Institute’s director from 1875 to 1878. Vyshnegradsky is known as a prominent scientist in the sphere of mechanics and mechanical engineering and also as the author of several fundamental works and manuals. He participated in managing a number of joint-stock companies and earned fame as a talented entrepreneur. By the time he was appointed a government minister, his fortune amounted to nearly a million rubles. In 1884 Vyshnegradsky became a member of the Council of the Minister of Public Instruction. He drew up a program for technical education and participated in the composition of the university code.
In 1886 he was appointed a member of the State Council and in 1887 became the head of the Ministry of Finance. In this post, Vyshnegradsky, like his predecessor Nikolai Bunge, pursued a policy aimed at settlement of the budget deficit, stronger government interference in setting freight rates for private railways, nationalization of the
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY
least profitable railways, support of domestic industry, and preparation of a monetary reform. By increasing indirect taxes, converting state loans and reducing interest payments on them, encouraging grain exports and limiting imports, and increasing railway freight rates, Vyshnegradsky managed to balance the budget, accumulate gold reserves, strengthen the paper ruble, and prepare the introduction of gold circulation. In 1891 a new tariff, the most protectionist in Europe, was introduced. It signified the transition from a safeguard system of tariffs to a consistently protective one. In order to ease criticism on the part of landowners and rightists, Vyshnegradsky described his course as nationalist and supported landlords through the Nobleman’s Bank (Dvoryansky bank). In 1892 he was discharged from office for health reasons. See also: ECONOMY, TSARIST; MINISTRIES, ECONOMIC
Stepanov, Valery Leonidovich. (1996). “Three Ministers of Finance in Postreform Russia.” Russian Studies in History 35(2).
BORIS N. MIRONOV
(January 25, 1938-July 25, 1980), poet, actor, singer.
Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky was born and brought up in central Moscow. He made his living as an actor, joining Yuri Lyubimov’s company at the Taganka Theatre in 1964 and performing there to the end of his life. He was a mainstay of the theatre’s ensemble style, but also took the leading role in several epoch-making productions, notably as Galileo in Brecht’s play, and then as a generation-defining Hamlet. Besides the theatre, Vysotsky regularly appeared in films, usually playing “bad boy” roles. Part of his stock-in-trade as an actor was the performance of songs to guitar accompaniment, and it was in this genre, delivering his own words, that he became more famous in his own lifetime than any other Russian creative artist.
The beginning of Vysotsky’s professional life coincided with the appearance of guitar poetry, which in its turn was enabled by the availability of the portable tape recorder in the USSR. Vysot-sky’s songs could therefore be recorded free of
1655
Singer-actor Vladimir Vysotsky performing one of his popular ballads. © TASS/SOVFOTO. REPRINTED WITH PERMISSION official controls, and the results duplicated. The popularity of these homemade tapes, and the semilegal appearances Vysotsky made in clubs and other institutions, brought him to the attention of the authorities. He was subjected to harrassment because, in official eyes, the content and especially the style of his songs, saturated with robust humor, were unacceptable even within the relatively permissive boundaries of Socialist Realism in its later phases. Vysotsky was regularly censured by various official bodies, but, shielded by his unprecedented popularity, he was never subjected to serious reprisals.
Vysotsky was a prodigious creator of lyrics, consistent with his extravagant, extravert personality. His songs fall broadly into two successive chronological phases and two generic categories. In the earlier phase, he created hundreds of songs in which the author speaks through a persona. They include songs about military life, which formed the most officially acceptable segment of the repertoire and were in many cases created for theatre productions or films. Then there were songs about sport (running, soccer, weightlifting, even chess). There was also a series of love songs, which portray relationships in either a disenchanted, even cynical manner, or else idealize the female. The
1656
most dubious songs from the official point of view concern criminals; they are violent in their actions and crude and direct in their thoughts. The second, and on the whole later, segment of Vysotsky’s repertoire consists of songs in which the author speaks from an explicitly autobiographical stance. These songs express mounting frustration and despair; they were driven by Vysotsky’s addictive personality and the ravages it inflicted on his physical and mental stability.
While there was constant disagreement during his lifetime about whether Vysotsky was a mere entertainer or merited serious consideration as a poet, his work illustrated the arbitrariness of this distinction. The literary establishment regarded him as an embarrassment, often out of envy and resentment for his genuine popularity, and connived with their political masters in denying Vysotsky access to the public media. His spectacular marriage, his third, to the French film star Marina Vlady was another source of friction. Vysotsky made a few records in the USSR,
