The city of Glory: Sevastopol in Russian historical mythology

Journal of Contemporary History

Volumn 35, Issue 3, 2000, Pages

  Plokhy, Serhii ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ALBERTA   (Canada)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 17744387509     PISSN: 00220094     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/002200940003500303     Document Type: Article

References (45)

1. See Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Revival (Cambridge 1981), 165-7
2. John B. Dunlop, The Rise of Russia and the Fall of Soviet Empire (Princeton 1993);
3. idem, 'Russia: Confronting Loss of Empire' in Ian Bremmer and Ray Taras (eds), Nations and Politics in the Soviet Successor States (Cambridge 1993), 43-72
4. Dunlop, 'Russia: Confronting Loss of Empire', op. cit., 45-6
5. Richard Pipes, 'Weight of the Past: Russian Foreign Policy in Historical Perspective', Harvard International Review, 19, 1 (Winter 1996/97), 56
6. For a comparative analysis of imperial Russian history, see the collection of articles in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrott (eds), The End of Empire? The Transformation of the USSR in Comparative Perspective (Armonk, NY; London, UK 1997) (=The International Politics of Eurasia, vol. 9)
7. See Serhii Plokhy, 'The Symbol of Little Russia: The Pokrova Icon and Early Modern Ukrainian Political Ideology', Journal of Ukrainian Studies, 17, 1-2 (Summer-Winter 1992), 171-4
8. John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State, 2nd edn (Chicago 1993), 350
9. See the statement made by Pavel Voshchanov in Izvestiia, 29 August 1991
10. On the results of the referendum on independence in Ukraine, see Peter J. Potichnyj, 'The Referendum and Presidential Elections in Ukraine', Canadian Slavonic Papers, 32, 2 (June 1991), 122-38
11. In autumn 1996, Georgii Tikhonov, Chairman of the Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, echoing numerous declarations of the presidential hopeful, Moscow mayor Yurii Luzhkov, publicly stated that Sevastopol 'was, is and will be Russian'. See 'Ukraine-Russia differences continue', Ukrainian News, 9-27 October 1996, 5; 'Duma Passes Law Barring Division of Black Sea Fleet', OMRI Daily Digest, 24 October 1996; 'Russian Duma Enacts Black Sea Fleet Bill', Monitor Report, 24 October 1996. Even Russian Premier Viktor Chernomyrdin, usually much more responsible in his public statements, went on record as saying at the OSCE summit in Lisbon at the end of 1996 that 'Sevastopol is a Russian city; all the soil there is covered with the bones of Russian sailors'. See Den, 10 December 1996
12. See Literaturnaia Rossiia, 8 January 1993
13. See 'Obrashchenie potomkov geroev Sevastopolia k Prezidentu, pravitelstvu i Federalnomu Sobraniu Rossii', Krymskoe vremia, no. 1 16, 1996. One of the many ironies of the appeal lies in the fact that Admiral Nakhimov was never married and had no children. See his biography by Iu. Davydov, N akhimov (Moscow 1970)
14. Anthony D. Smith, 'Culture, Community and Territory: the Politics of Ethnicity and Nationalism', International Affairs, 72, 3 (July 1996), 453-4
15. John A. Armstrong, 'Myth and History in the Evolution of Ukrainian Consciousness', Ukraine and Russia in their Historical Encounter (Edmonton 1992), 133
16. Russian Political Thought
17. Nicholas Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, 1825-1855 (Berkeley and Los Angeles 1969)
18. The historical foundations of the myth were challenged in the mid-nineteenth century by Mykola Kostomarov. See his 'Ivan Susanin: istoricheskoe issledovanie' in N. Kostomarov, Sobranie sochinenii, bk. 1 (vols 1-3) (St Petersburg 1903), 265-80.
19. See also Sergei Solovev's response to Kostomarov's critique of the myth: 'O state g. Kostomarova "Ivan Susanin"' in S.M. Solovev, Istoriia Rossii s drevneishikh vremen, bk. 5 (vols 9-10) (Moscow 1961), 355-62
20. Smith, 'Culture, Community and Territory', op. cit., 454
21. See an account of the Borodino battle in the standard Soviet history of the USSR: Istoriia SSSR s drevneishikh vremen do nashikh dnei, vol. 4 (Moscow 1967), 125-32
22. On the history of the Crimean War, there exists a rich literature both in English and Russian. For an account of the events of the war, see A.J. Barker, The Vainglorious War, 1854-56 (London 1970).
23. On the diplomatic consequences of the war for Russia, see L.I. Narochnitskaia, Rossiia i otmena neitralizatsii Chernogo moria, 1856-1871 (Moscow 1989)
24. See Riasanovsky, Nicholas I and Official Nationality in Russia, op. cit., 165-7
25. On the eve of the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-8 there appeared a number of publications in Russia that were devoted to the history of the Crimean War and the defence of Sevastopol. See E. Totleben (ed.), Opisanie oborony goroda Sevastopolia, 2 vols (St Petersburg 1871); Sbornik rukupisei, predstavlennykh E.I.V. gosudariu nasledniku tsesarevichu o Sevastopolskoi oborone sevastopoltsami, 3 vols (St Petersburg 1872-73); N. Dubrovin (ed.), Materialy dlia istorii Krymskoi voiny i oborony Sevastopolia, 5 vols (St Petersburg 1871-75). See also publications that came out at the time of the war: M.I. Bogdanovich, Vostochnaia voina, parts 3-4 (St Petersburg 1877); N. Dubrovin, Vostochnaia voina 1853-1856 godov. Obzor sobytii po povodu sochineniia M.I. Bogdanovicha (St Petersburg 1878)
26. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities. Reflections on the O rigin and Spread of Nationalism (London and New York 1995), 86-7
27. See Davydov, Nakhimov, op. cit., 141, 162-6
28. See Leo Tolstoy, The Sevastopol Sketches (New York 1986)
29. See Istoriia mist i sil Ukrainskoi RSR. Krymska oblast (Kiev 1974), 163-4
30. On national bolshevism in Russia, see Utechin, Russian Political Thought, op. cit., 253-6. On Mikhail Pokrovsky, see Roman Szporluk's introduction in M.N. Pokrovsky, Russia in World History. Selected Essays, ed. Roman Szporluk (Ann Arbor 1970). Interaction between politics and history writing in the USSR is discussed in Nancy Whittier Heer, Politics and History in the Soviet Union (Cambridge, MA 1971)
31. See E. Berkov, Krymskaia kampaniia (Moscow 1 939);
32. A. Lagovskii, Oborona Sevastopolia. Krymskaia voina 1854-1855 gg. (Moscow 1939)
33. On the defence of Sevastopol in 1941-42, see Istoriia mist i sil Ukrainskoi RSR. Krymska oblast, 178-86. Istoriia goroda-geroia Sevastopolia, 1917-1957 (Kiev 1958), 199-257
34. See Radianska entsyklopediia istorii Ukrainy, vol. 3 (Kiev 1971), 214
35. See E. Tarle, Gorod russkoi slavy. Sevastopol v 1854-1855 gg. (Moscow 1954). In 1955 the same publishing house released a book by L. Gorev, Voinu 1853-1856 gg. i oborona Sevastopolia (Moscow 1955)
36. See N. Druzhinin, 'Ot redaktora' in E.V. Tarle, Krymskaia voina (=Sochineniia, vol. 8) (Moscow 1959), 5-8. In the late 1940s Evgenii Tarle also authored a book about Admiral Nakhimov: Nakhimov (Moscow 1948)
37. Tarle, Gorod russkoi slavy, op. cit., 3
38. See Tarle, Gorod russkoi slavy. On Nikolai Pirogov's participation in the defence of Sevastopol, see the publication of his letters and memoirs in N.I. Pirogov, Sevastopolskie pisma i vospominaniia (Moscow and Leningrad 1950)
39. See, for example, the chapter on the history of Sevastopol in Istoriia mist i sil Ukrainskoi RSR. Krymska oblast, 142-205, and Istoriia goroda-geroia Sevastopolia, 1917-1957. The latter book is presented as a second volume of the two-volume history of Sevastopol. The first volume never appeared
40. See Istoriia mist i sil Ukrainskoi RSR. Krymska oblast, 151; Radianska entsyklopediia istorii Ukrainy, vol. 2 (Kiev 1970), 391
41. See A.M. Blizniuk, Na bastionakh Sevastopolia (Minsk 1989)
42. Ha (Literaturnaia Rossiia, 8 January 1993)
43. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, 'The Russian Question' at the End of the Twentieth Century (New York 1995), 30
44. Literaturnaiu Rossiia, 21 August 1992
45. Gennadii Ziuganov, Uroki zhizni (Moscow 1997), 268