Pobedonostsev was a dry, reserved, and deeply pessimistic ascetic with almost no close friends, except for the novelist Fyodor Dostoyevsky, who died in 1881. At the same time, he was a man of immense learning and scholarship who was widely respected among foreign diplomats. He read and spoke most European languages and was deeply familiar with the great body of European and American literature and philosophy—although he strongly supported censorship and tight controls for other Russians. Especially after 1890 he was convinced the regime would be overthrown by revolution. His hatred and fear of constitutional and democratic government, freedom of the press, religious freedom, trial by jury, and free secular education was best expressed in a collection of essays, Moskovskyy sbornik, published in 1896.
Narodnaya Volya
▪ Russian revolutionary organization
English People's Will , or People's Freedom
19th-century Russian revolutionary organization that regarded terrorist activities as the best means of forcing political reform and overthrowing the tsarist autocracy.
Narodnaya Volya was organized in 1879 by members of the revolutionary Populist party, Zemlya i Volya (“Land and Freedom”), who were disillusioned by the failure of their efforts to promote social revolution by agitating among peasants. The new group, emphasizing the need for an organized political struggle against the state structure, used terror to force political reform as well as to undermine the state. Led by Andrey I. Zhelyabov and Sofya L. Perovskaya, it elected an executive committee that planned the assassination of government officials, and even of the emperor Alexander II, who was killed by its members on March 1 (March 13, New Style), 1881. The assassins were arrested and hanged. The murder of the emperor stimulated antiterrorist sentiment in Russia, and Narodnaya Volya, its ranks already decimated by mass arrests, collapsed in the following year.
Zemlya i Volya
▪ political party, Russia
English Land and Freedom
first Russian political party to openly advocate a policy of revolution; it had been preceded only by conspiratorial groups. Founded in 1876, the party two years later took its name from an earlier (1861–64) secret society. A product of the Narodnik (Populist) movement, the party maintained that the peasantry would be the source of social revolution. Its members, especially doctors and teachers, settled among the peasants and encouraged them to improve their condition by changing the social system. The party also had groups operating among the intelligentsia and urban workers and had administrative and “disorganizing” sections; all its activities were coordinated by a central “basic circle.”
By 1878–79 many of those working among the peasantry had become frustrated by police repression, which convinced them of the need for political as well as social reform. They favoured emphasis on the party's “disorganizing” activities (i.e., terrorism) to bring about reforms that would in the end result in revolution. The reforms first would provide the political freedom to conduct agitation leading to the undermining of the state structure, and thus publicly exposing the state's vulnerability and encouraging revolution. Disagreeing over tactics, the members of Zemlya i Volya split into two groups in 1879. Those favouring terror formed the Narodnaya Volya (“People's Will”), which was effectively crushed by the police after it assassinated Alexander II (1881). The others, preferring to emphasize direct agitation among the people, became the Chorny Peredel (“Black Repartition”), which operated until several of its leaders left it (1883) to form a Social-Democratic organization abroad.
The early period
Foundation and medieval growth
The first documentary reference to Moscow is found in the early monastic chronicles under the year 1147, when on April 4 Yury Vladimirovich Dolgoruky (see Dolgoruky family) (Dolgoruky family), prince of Suzdal, was host at a “great banquet” for his ally the prince of Novgorod-Seversky “in Moscow.” This is the traditional date of Moscow's founding, although archaeological evidence shows that a settlement had existed on the site since Neolithic times. Archaeological work has also revealed the remains of corduroy roads and evidence of iron and leather working dating from the 11th century. Defense was essential to protect the growing settlement, and in 1156 Prince Dolgoruky built the first fortifications: earthen ramparts topped by a wooden wall with blockhouses. This was the kremlin. The origin of the word kremlin is disputed; some authorities suggest Greek words for “citadel” or “steepness,” others the early Russian word krem, meaning a conifer providing timber suitable for building. The Kremlin was sited on the relatively high spit of land between the Moscow River (Moskva River) and a small tributary, the Neglinnaya. The triangular piece of land between the rivers was protected on the eastern side by a moat joining them. The Neglinnaya now flows through an underground conduit, but part of its course is traced by a street of the same name.
Moscow soon developed as one of the more important towns of the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal. A trading settlement, or posad, grew up to the east of the Kremlin, along the Moscow River in the area known as Zaryadye. Like most other Russian towns, Moscow was captured and burned by the Tatars (Tatar) (Mongols) in their great invasion of 1236–40, and its princes had to accept Mongol suzerainty. It soon recovered, though the Tatars sacked it once again in 1293. Three years later the Kremlin was strengthened with a new earthen wall and oak palisade. Thereafter Moscow grew in importance, in trading and artisan activity, and in size, overtaking the older and previously more important centres of Suzdal and Vladimir. The town was fairly centrally placed in the system of rivers and portages that formed the trade routes across European Russia. The area east of Moscow between the Oka (Oka River) and Volga (Volga River) rivers had better soils than most of northern Russia and comprised a region of prosperous towns. Moscow's authority was greatly enhanced when in 1326 the metropolitan of the Russian Orthodox church transferred his seat from Vladimir to Moscow. Thereafter the town was to remain the centre of Russian Orthodoxy, and after the fall of Constantinople to the Turks (1453) it claimed the title of the Third Rome. Under Ivan I the principality of Vladimir was incorporated into that of Moscow. Gradually the princes of Moscow extended their rule over the other surrounding Russian princedoms, and the town became the leader in the long struggle against Mongol hegemony.
The struggle at first fluctuated. In 1378 a Muscovite army repulsed a Mongol attack on the Vozha River south of the town, and in 1380 Prince Dmitry (Dmitry (II) Donskoy) of Moscow inflicted a crushing defeat on the Mongols under the great khan Mamai in the Battle of Kulikovo (Kulikovo, Battle of) on the Don River, for which he was thereafter known as Dmitry Donskoy (“of the Don”). The Kremlin had been enlarged and given walls and towers of white limestone in 1367, but the new fortifications were unable to withstand the renewed Mongol attack in 1382: despite a heroic defense, Khan Tokhtamysh captured and plundered Moscow. However, another attack, in 1408 under Khan Yedigei, was beaten off. Moscow grew steadily in size and importance as it continued to absorb the surrounding princedoms. Within the Kremlin the first stone cathedral, of the Assumption, was built in 1326. Palaces for the prince and leading boyars (boyar), monasteries, and churches were erected. Outside the Kremlin walls, the trading and artisan quarter to the east grew in size and became known as the Kitay-gorod; this name, which originated in the 16th century, probably derives from the word kita (a binding of poles used in the fortifications before stone walls were built) and does not mean “Chinese town,” as it is sometimes translated.