Nikolai Baibakov was a key individual in the Soviet Union. His background as an oil engineer in the Baku region during the 1930s and his exploits as a deputy commissar for oil during the Second World War led to his appointment as the chief of the central economic planning organ of the USSR, Gosplan. In this post, he shaped the economy of his country in accordance with the political priorities of its leaders, often despite contradicting domestic economic realities. As a faithful communist, Baibakov’s advocacy of centralized planning in a command economy lasted his entire life, but it also cost him his job when Gorbache v started to steer the USSR in the direction of perestroika in 1985. In the aftermath of the break-up of the USSR and the subsequent privatization of its industries under Yeltsin, Baibakov remained a committed advocate of centralized planning, especially for the oil sector. His policies and ideological perspectives regarding oil as national security resource were vindicated under President Vladimir Putin at the beginning of the 21st century. / text

The Caucasus region is an integral part of Russian history, politics, and culture, both in the arenas of internal and external policy. Throughout the centuries, Russia has spent much blood and treasure to maintain its influence in this vital region. The purpose of this thesis is to highlight the Russian government’s efforts to maintain political, economic, and cultural influence in the Caucasus and how those efforts led Russia into two Chechen wars and a brief but consequential armed conflict with Georgia. This thesis paper will briefly examine the history of Russian conquest in the Caucasus and how the region became so important to Russia, politically, culturally, and economically. The paper will also explore the effects that the fall of the Soviet Union had on relations between the Russian central government and the North Caucasus republics and how the conditions that the break up created led to the first Chechen War. The work will also examine the causes of the second Chechen War and the role of radical Islam in the conflict between the Russian federal government and rebels in the North Caucasus. This paper will also analyze the possible threats to Russian hegemony in the Caucasus, including radical Islam, terrorism, and a Georgian government that seems determined to exit Russia’s sphere of influence. The work will also analyze the 2008 Russo-Georgian War and how it impacted not just Russo-Georgian relations, but also how it helped define Russia’s relationship with the West and its role in world politics. Finally, the thesis will study Russia’s future prospects in the region, whether Russian hegemony will remain in the South Caucasus and what should be done to ensure peace and stability in the North Caucasus. / text

<p> This dissertation shows how firm organization affected factory performance in the Russian Empire. The first chapter documents the impact of incorporation on firms' production technology and productivity. The second chapter studies the effect of a change in Russia's commercial code in 1901, a reform that improved the rights of small corporate shareholders. In the third chapter, I show how geography and legal forms of organization determined horizontal and vertical integration in the Russian cotton textile industry. The dataset at the heart of the project allows for a rare empirical study of the effect of organization on production at the factory level.</p><p> <b>Chapter 1: Factory Productivity and the Concession System of Incorporation in Late Imperial Russia, 1894-1908</b> In late Imperial Russia, long-term capital was scarce. Incorporation in the Russian Empire required a time-consuming and expensive Imperial concession, yet over four thousand Russian firms incorporated before 1914. I identify the characteristics of firms that chose to incorporate and measure the gains in productivity and growth in machine power enjoyed by corporations using a newly-constructed panel database of manufacturing enterprises I compiled from Imperial Russian factory censuses conducted in 1894, 1900, and 1908. Factories owned by corporations were larger, more productive, and grew faster. Higher productivity factories were more likely to incorporate, and after incorporating, they added machine power and became even more productive. Results from an instrumental variables regression suggest that selection into incorporation was not determined solely by productivity and could be influenced, for example, by connections to government officials. Comparing two kinds of corporations shows that firms sought not just access to stock markets but the corporate form's full set of capital advantages.</p><p> <b>Chapter 2: Shareholder Rights and Share Capital: The Effect of the 1901 Russian Corporation Reform, 1890-1905</b> The Russian 1901 corporation reform increased the rights of small shareholders and removed bankers from corporations' boards of directors. The reform affected one type of corporation (the A-Corporation) more than another type (called the Share Partnership) because one provision of the law created a loophole for Share Partnerships. I thus apply a differences-in-differences approach, studying the differences in corporations of these groups founded before vs. after the reform. The RUSCORP Database (Owen 1990) provides initial charter information from all Russian corporations and from all surviving Russian corporations in 1905. I find that, in response the reform, A-Corporations increased the par value of their shares, reduced their total capitalization, and reduced the number of shares they issued. The reform increased the cost to the firm of having small shareholders; thus, corporations affected by the reform began to resemble the more closely held Share Partnerships.</p><p> <b>Chapter 3: Vertical and Horizontal Integration in Imperial Russian Cotton Textiles, 1894-1900</b> When do firms produce their own inputs instead of purchasing them on the market? In one explanation firms engage in vertical integration to save the cost of transacting on the market, especially when markets are thinner and therefore price risk is greater (Coase 1937). On the other hand, firms that wish to vertically or horizontally integrate may be unable to do if they face financial constraints, because integration requires additional capital. In the third chapter, I find evidence for a thin markets explanation of integration within the Russian cotton textile industry in 1894 and 1900. The 1894 data provide especially rich information on firms' horizontal and vertical integration: the data list a complete description of each factory's internal activities and final products. Both vertically and horizontally integrated factories and firms were larger in terms of number of workers and tended to be located outside of European Russia, where markets were thinner. Vertically integrated firms were older, had more workers and machine power, and produced more revenue per worker given the same machine power. Corporations produced more revenue per worker than non-corporations, even controlling for vertical integration.</p><p> <b>Data Appendix: Imperial Russian Manufacturing Establishments Database: 1894, 1900, and 1908</b> The dissertation includes an appendix in which I describe the formation of a new database of manufacturing establishments in the Russian Empire based on manufacturing censuses conducted in 1894, 1900, and 1908. The database will allow for new studies of the Russian economy and of factory performance in developing economies. This appendix provides a codebook with variable definitions and a description of the censuses' sampling frame. The database matches factories over time, so I include an analysis comparing matched to unmatched factories. Finally, I describe differences in results that use the enterprise-level data and the aggregate data.</p>

The thesis consists of a translation of chapters pertaining to the construction and reconstruction of the famous St. Petersburg Anichkov and Beloselskiy-Belozerskiy palaces, detailing the founders, owners, and architects who designed and built them. These translations contain extraordinary and insightful information regarding the development of architectural St. Petersburg. The translated chapters also document the many changes that took place over time with each new resident of the palaces and outline the artistic architectural features of each palace. A preface to the thesis details the research and problems encountered in the process of translation. This annotated and photo-illustrated translation describes the architectural innovation inherent in the construction of each palace and illustrates the current state of restoration. The significance of the translated chapters lies in the fact that they contribute important cultural and historic information to English-language readers about the architectural history of St. Petersburg in its three-hundredth year.

Tsar Ivan IV, commonly known as Ivan the Terrible, rapidly became a symbol of Russian national identity. From the creation of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great, Ivan became recognized as the leader who consolidated Muscovite territory in the 16th Century and centralised his power against the whims of an elite which sought to preserve their privileges. However, the construction of this historical narrative was a long process, limited by the paucity of the sources as well as certain state conventions. This thesis aims to analyse how the four key historians of the Russian Empire assembled historical knowledge on Ivan IV. The writings of Nikolai Karamzin, Sergei Soloviev, Vasilii Kliuchevskii and Sergei Platonov are examined in order to understand the process that forged historiographical knowledge on the second part of Ivan's reign, which was characterised by the cruelty as well as the consolidation of his power. This analysis outlines the influence that personal experiences, beliefs and socio-political context had on the way these historians interpreted this period, which was crucial to the emergence of the modern Russia state. / Le tsar Ivan IV, surnommé le Terrible, fut un personnage qui devint rapidement un symbole pour l'identité nationale russe. Dès la création de l'Empire russe par Pierre le Grand, il fut reconnu comme celui qui a consolidé le territoire de la Moscovie au XVIe siècle et a centralisé son pouvoir contre les velléités d'une élite à conserver ses privilèges. Cependant, la construction de ce récit historique fut un long procédé, limité par la rareté des sources et les conventions étatiques. Cette thèse visait à analyser comment quatre historiens clés de la Russie impériale construisirent les connaissances historiques sur Ivan. Les écrits de Nikolai Karamzin, Sergei Soloviev, Vasilii Kliuchevskii et Sergei Platonov seront pris en compte pour comprendre le processus derrière l'historiographie de la seconde partie du règne d'Ivan, caractérisée par une cruauté et par la consolidation de son pouvoir. Cette analyse démontre l'influence que les expériences personnelles de l'historien, ses croyances et le contexte socio-politique sur la construction de cette période jugée capitale pour l'État russe.

In this thesis, I conduct a detailed case study of expressive suffixes in Russian. I show that although the suffixes under investigation have the same function (“expressive”), they differ significantly in their formal properties. I identify two major semantic types of expressive suffixes: attitude and size suffixes. Attitude suffixes convey an attitude of the speaker toward the referent. Size suffixes both convey an attitude and refer to the size of the referent. I argue that the two different semantic types map onto different syntactic types. Attitude suffixes are syntactic heads, while size suffixes are syntactic modifiers. As heads, attitude suffixes determine the formal properties (syntactic category, grammatical gender and inflectional class) of the derived form. As modifiers, size suffixes do not determine the formal properties of the derived form. Attitude suffixes can attach both to category-free √Roots and to categories (n/a/v), while size suffixes can only attach to a noun category. I investigate the functional and formal properties of Russian expressive suffixes in a systematic way, which has not been done before. In doing so, I analyze how expressive suffixes pattern along several kinds of criteria (gender/class change, category change, subcategorization). An important byproduct of this analysis is that I show how grammatical gender of an expressive form can be predicted from its inflectional class (combined with animacy and natural gender of the base). One implication of this analysis is that I show that the formal properties of expressives are no different from those of non-expressives (descriptives), as both expressives and descriptives can attach as heads or modifiers either to √Roots or categories. Another implication is that the formal criteria which I develop for a small set of expressive suffixes in Russian can be extended to set up a cross-linguistic typology of expressives.

This thesis investigates the factors influencing the adaptation of foreign words to English, beyond traditional phonological parameters such as sonority distance. The data examined were produced in an on-line adaptation task to study purely linguistic rather than orthographic or historical influences. The adapted words contain only lesser-studied phonotactic problems rather than segmental ill-formedness. The choice of Russian as a donor and English as a borrowing language allow the study of adaptations in a setting which allows a further strategy of alteration of ill-formed consonant clusters beyond vowel epenthesis and consonant deletion, namely the substitution of segments to change one cluster into another. In contrast to previous research, English production of Russian stimuli with initial consonant clusters showed that segment change is applied frequently, comparable to the amount of vowel epenthesis. Extensive variation was observed, both in ratio of successful production, and in the choice and distribution of adaptation strategy. The factors in adaptation investigated were the sonority distance of the foreign clusters, as well as concepts which have received much recent attention within phonology, namely gradient grammaticality, similarity and frequency: English native speaker judgments were collected about the perceived grammaticality of foreign clusters and the similarity between targets and adaptations, while the frequency of possible adaptations in English was calculated from a corpus of spoken English. Results show that sonority cannot explain the variation in adaptation. Furthermore, frequency has no influence on the choice of adaptation; however, higher perceived badness results in a higher percentage of adaptations, and perceived similarity is decisive for the choice of adaptations. A comparison of similarity judgments of English and Russian listeners suggested that, in keeping with Steriade (2001), there are some cross-linguistically corresponding rankings of similarity; however, differences between languages due to phonotactics and phonetic detail were also found. In summary, the experiment results suggest that the adaptation of loanwords occurs in both in perception and production; furthermore, it is determined both by L1 specifics and cross-linguistic tendencies, an thus neither a straightforward application of L1 phonology nor completely independent of language background.

Opposition to the West is one of the stable characteristics of the Russian history. It is not only enshrined in the mentality of Russian people, but has become an integral part of the social and political culture of the country. The crisis facing Russia at the present time, the active modernisation and inclusion in the globalisation not only further exacerbate this confrontation, but also actualise the perennial alternative facing Russia: to converge with the West, or enter a new confrontation with it. This study explores the influence of the ethnocentric dimension on the cultural and historical dynamics of the paradigm 'Russia vs the West'. The new concept of content, structure, forms and levels of the ethnocentrism phenomenon developed by the author is tested on the basis of integrated analysis of cultural and historical evolution of Russia, the exploration of interaction between the processes of modernisation and the peculiarities of the perception of its 'modernisation standard' – the West. The data employed by the author comes from sociological studies conducted in the last 20 years and enables not only to identify the major determinants and factors influencing the current strategy of relations between Russia and the West, but also to predict the possible scenario of the development of processes of post-Soviet modernisation of this country and its interaction with the outside world.

Mikhail Bulgakov's preoccupation with evil in Master i Margarita is set against the background of spiritual barrenness which is outlined in the essays of Vekhi (1909) as dominating Russian radical thought at the beginning of the 20th century. The themes of loss of spirituality, utilitarian faith or atheism, man-godhood, split personality, lack of faith in people and ethical inaptitude, as depicted in Vekhi, re-emerge in Bulgakov's novel more than two decades after the publication of the essays. The devil's genealogy is examined in relation to the sources which Bulgakov is known to have used while writing the novel. The study of the devil's role reveals that, in the case of the conformist characters, Woland appears as a manifestation of the irrational and metaphysical aspects of existence while, in the case of the ordinary Moscow citizens, he advocates a more common sense, rational attitude to life than that which relies on magic and witchcraft. The writer's dilemma in a philistine, authoritarian society is examined through the phenomenon of split personality (Ivan Bezdomny versus the Master). Throughout the thesis C. G. Jung's ideas are employed to illustrate how Bulgakov shapes the myth which gives meaning to the life of a writer whose work might never be published. The Pontius Pilate story is shown to contain the philosophical kernel of the novel; in accordance with Jungian ideology moral absolutes are conceived by Bulgakov, not as opposites, but as part of a paradoxical whole. The joint immortality of Pontius Pilate and Jeshua serves as a most explicit metaphor of this view which is echoed in Woland's question: what would happen to good if there were no evil?Yet, as a whole Master i Margarita must be seen to demonstrate that there may be justification, but there is no consolation, for a person who turns away from truth.

<p> This thesis examines the political work produced by a little-known Russian Realist, Vladimir Makovsky (1846-1920), while he was a member of the nineteenth-century art collective <i>Peredvizhniki.</i> Increasingly recognized for subtle yet insistent opposition to the tsarist regime and the depiction of class distinctions, the work of the <i>Peredvizhniki</i> was for decades ignored by modernist art history as the result of an influential article, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," written by American art critic Clement Greenberg in 1939. In this article, Greenberg suggests the work of Ilya Repin, the most renowned member of the <i>Peredvizhniki</i>, should be regarded not as art, but as "kitsch"--the industrialized mass culture of an urban working class. Even now, scholars who study the <i>Peredvizhniki</i> concern themselves with the social history of the group as a whole, rather than with the merits of specific artworks. Taking a different approach to analyzing the significance of the <i>Peredvizhniki</i> and of Makovsky specifically this thesis harnesses the powerful methodologies devised in the 1970s by art historians T.J. Clark and Michael Fried, two scholars who are largely responsible for reopening the dialogue on the meaning and significance of Realism in the history of modern art.</p>