Contenu du sommaire

John Keep, The origins of Russian militarism. This article, based on a lecture given to a non-specialist audience, considers some of the ways in which the Russian "service state", from its origins in sixteenth-century Muscovy to its evanescence in the Russian Empire of the mid-nineteenth century, affected the absolutist state order and the pre-modern national economy, the life of the common soldier, and the moral-intellectual outlook of the officers, a major element in the dvorianstvo or "service gentry". The argument is that the military represented a "sub-culture" poorly integrated into the community; and that Russia experienced a variant of the militarism that at one time or another has afflicted most European states. This tradition may have left an imprint on Soviet society as well, even if there are weightier, more direct reasons to explain the recent expansion of Soviet military power.

Edith Chabrier, The delegates to the First Congress of the Peoples of the East, Baku (1-8 September 1920). There were two thousand delegates present at the First Congress of the Peoples of the East organized in Baku by the Communist International. These delegates belonged to many various and highly heterogeneous ethnic entities. They were classified into Communists and non-Party members, according to somewhat doubtful criteria. We can point out five groups: the "profiteers"; Muslims of Russia and Central Asia, fiery champions of the positions of national Communism; delegations of Transcaucasia consisting mainly of representatives of small ethnic groups protected by Bolsheviks; foreign Eastern delegates - in this group, the only ones to raise their voices were the Turkish nationalists; and the representatives of the Komintern and of the Western Communist parties, who got all the credits.

Isabelle Kreindler, The Mordvinians. A doomed Soviet nationality? Although the Soviet war-time deportations of eight entire nationalities have again become a non-event of history, the effects, both among the five nationalities who have been restored in their homelands and especially among the three who are still in exile, are still very much felt. This article summarizes the background of the deported nationalities and of the basic events of their tragic experience, while focusing on the continuing ramifications of the deportations on the nationalities involved and on Soviet nationality policy in general.

Michel Heller, Krasin - Savinkov : a secret encounter. A letter of Boris Savinkov to Marshal Pilsudski, which had remained unknown to the historians until now, speaks of a secret encounter, in London, in December 1921, between the representative of the Soviet Republic and the very active enemy of the Soviet power: Boris Savinkov. This letter throws a new light on certain important aspects of Lenin's foreign policy, among others the use made by him of false information as instrument of diplomacy.

J. Eugene Clay, God's People in the early eighteenth century. The Uglich affair of 1717. The People of God (popularly known as the flagellants or khlysty) were, next to the Old Believers, the most important indigenous sectarian movement in Imperial Russia. This paper examines the documents of their first heresy trial which was held in Uglich in 1717. Using insights from comparative anthropology and the history of religions, the article considers the various theories about the origins of the People of God, reviews the historiography of the problem, and concludes, on the basis of these documents, that the sect arose from Old Belief. The article also examines the powerful influence of certain Orthodox mystical traditions of hesychasm and holy fools upon the development of the group.