bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Interspecific relationships in Fagopyrum (Polygonaceae) revealed by the nucleotide sequences of the rbcl and accd genes and their intergenic region
Authors: Yasui Yasuo , Ohnishi Ohmi
Published: April 2006

DNA sequences of the rbcL and accD 5’ coding regions and their intergenic region (IGR) were determined in 20 taxa of 12 species of Fagopyrum. By comparing the sequence data and constructing phylogenetic trees, phylogenetic relationships among Fagopyrum species were investigated. The accD 5’ coding region and the IGR have evolved about five times faster than the rbcL coding region; hence the phylogenetic trees based on the data of the accD 5’ coding region, the IGR, and these data combined, had higher resolution than the trees based on rbcL alone. The classification of Fagopyrum based on the DNA sequences was almost perfectly consistent with the classification by Ohnishi and Matsuoka (1996, Genes & Genetic Systems 71: 383–390). New facts and minor differences are (1) polyploidization in F. cymosum might have occurred more than once, (2) F. lineare may not be a sister species of F. leptopodum, and (3) F. pleioramosum rather than F. capillatum may be a sister species of F. gracilipes.
Pollination inVerbascum thapsus(Scrophulariaceae): the advantage of being tall
Authors: Donnelly Sarah E. , Lortie Christopher J. , Aarssen Lonnie W.
Published: April 2006

According to the “effective pollination” hypothesis, tall stature resulting from strong apical dominance attracts greater pollinator visitation, thus allowing larger pollen loads and/or greater outcrossing rates, which in turn produces more vigorous offspring with greater genotypic variability and/or less inbreeding depression. Components of this hypothesis were tested inVerbascum thapsus, which commonly grows unbranched to over 2 m tall with strong apical dominance suppressing all axillary meristems. A natural population survey indicated that plants with visiting pollinators were significantly taller than their nearest neighboring individuals not possessing a visiting pollinator. Plants in natural populations with excluded pollinators produced seeds via a delayed selfing mechanism. However, delayed selfing under pollinator exclusion resulted in only 75% of the seed set obtained with natural pollinators. Under natural pollination, emasculated flowers experienced a 50% reduction in pollen deposition by the time of flower closure but only a 5% reduction in seed set relative to intact flowers. Hence, taller plants attracted more pollinators and maximum seed set could not be achieved without pollinators. Comparison of seed set and seed mass in plants that were artificially selfed and artificially crossed (in both the greenhouse and in natural populations) indicated that plants were fully self‐compatible with no evidence of early‐acting inbreeding depression. However, this does not exclude the possibility that inbreeding depression is manifested in later life stages. The results suggest thatV. thapsushas a mixed mating system with potential for reproductive assurance and various levels of outcrossing depending on variables affecting pollinator availability (e.g., population size).
Anatomy of shoots and tumors of in vitro habituated rhododendron ‘montego’ (Ericaceae) cultures with tissue proliferation
Authors: Mercure Eric W. , Jones Cynthia S. , Brand Mark H. , Auer Carol A.
Published: April 2006

Tissue proliferation (TP) is characterized primarily by the formation of galls or tumors at the crown of container‐grown rhododendrons that were initially propagated in vitro. In the cultivar ‘Montego’, TP–like symptoms are first observed in vitro as shoot clusters with small leaves and nodal tumors. In addition, unlike the normal in vitro non‐TP (TP–) shoots, in vitro TP (TP+) shoots proliferate rapidly without the presence of the plant growth regulator cytokinin in the tissue culture medium. Comparisons of the anatomy of TP+ and TP– shoot tips showed that TP+ shoots had a less developed vascular system, longer cells in the pith and cortex, and altered internodal elongation at the shoot apex. In addition, TP+ axillary buds were abnormal in that they were displaced onto the stem above the leaf axil, and a small group of proliferating cells replaced the shell zone at the base of the bud. Initiation of tumor formation began with the expansion of this region of cell proliferation (RCP) and shoot growth from the abnormal axillary bud (tumor bud). Organization of the tumor bud and extension of the RCP characterized the further development of two types of tumors. In polar shoot tumors, shoot growth continued from the persistent tumor bud and the tumor at the base of the shoot remained small in size. The RCP extends downward to the vascular junction of the subtending leaf and the stem of the TP+ shoot. In nonpolar tumors, continuous de novo meristem formation led to the development of large tumors with or without shoots. The RCP is present throughout the tumor and is associated with de novo meristem formation. Comparisons to the anatomy of other tumor‐like structures showed that TP tumors of Rhododendron ‘Montego’ are most similar to tobacco genetic tumors.
Ultrastructural interpretation of the Late Cretaceous megaspore Glomerisporites pupus and its associated microspores
Authors: Batten David J. , Collinson Margaret E. , Brain Anthony P. R.
Published: April 2006

The ultrastructure of the Late Cretaceous (Santonian–?early Campanian) megaspore Glomerisporites pupus and its associated microspores has been examined in an attempt to resolve a number of problems concerning the interpretation of their morphology. The new observations presented are based on an analysis of entire, fragmentary, and thin‐sectioned specimens under scanning and transmission electron microscopes. These add to, and partly correct, previous observations on this taxon. They include the following: (1) The exine of the megaspore consists of thin, homogeneous, outer undulating and inner electron dense layers, with a thicker zone of spongy structure in‐between. (2) The perispore (or perine) of the megaspore comprises four layers, in order towards the exterior: loose filamentous, dense filamentous, vacuolate, and columnar. (3) This is completely enclosed by a thick mat of hairs, which appears to be attached to the underlying perisporal layers by means of connections with a few of the “spines” that originate from the dense filamentous zone, and with some elements of the columnar perine. (4) The tripartite neck (acrolamella) of the spore, which is hidden beneath the mat of hairs, is predominantly an extension of the dense filamentous and vacuolate layers, but also involves the columnar layer, especially in the lower part. (5) Some of the numerous small floats that are embedded in the mat have hairs originating from them. (6) Both long tangled and circinate hairs surround the perispore of the microspores. (7) The exine of the microspore was at least partly attached to the perispore when the organ was viable. (8) It comprises four zones that vary in structure and electron density. These facts and comparisons made with other megaspores and their associated microspores confirm evolutionary links between G. pupus and several taxa included within the Salviniaceae (Azolla, Parazolla, Salvinia) and possible ancestors of this group (the parent plants of Ariadnaesporites and Capulisporites).
The quantitative response to cytokinin in the moss Funaria hygrometrica does not reflect differential sensitivity of initial target cells
Authors: Christianson Michael L.
Published: April 2006

Exposure to sufficient cytokinin induces the formation of buds from responsive cells in the protonema of Funaria hygrometrica. Initial perception of the phytohormone results in a Ca+2 cascade within minutes. A second cytokinin‐mediated event occurs some days later, and converts incipient buds into stably committed buds. The concentration of exogenous cytokinin also regulates the total number of buds produced from a protonemal colony. This concentration‐dependent production of buds has been thought to reflect differential sensitivity of target cells. Under that hypothesis, the regulation of bud number occurs during initial perception of hormone. This paper presents direct experimental evidence to the contrary and supports the alternate hypothesis that bud formation involves the gating of large numbers of responding cells by later events. Experiments transferring protonema between media with different levels of cytokinin show that the cytokinin concentration during the initial perception of cytokinin is unimportant in controlling bud number. Instead, bud number is found to be regulated by the concentration of exogenous cytokinin as incipient buds or bud initials become stably committed buds.
The Soviet Concept of the Territorial-Production Complex
Authors: Lonsdale Richard E.
Published: April 2006

In a society with virtually all phases of the economy subject to planning an interest in regional economic planning almost inevitably arises. Such an interest has been evident in the USSR since the early 1920s, although not always to the same degree. Out of this interest evolved the notion of the economic complex, broadly conceived as a regional grouping of integrated economic activities. Inasmuch as these complexes were frequently thought of as geographic entities, the expression “territorial-production complex” (territorial'no-proizvodstvennyi kompleks), as well as some essentially synonymous terms, came into use. Interpretations vary somewhat, but, to judge from the frequency of reference to the concept in the professional journals of the geographers, economists, and planners, the idea seems to be a basic one among those concerned with regional planning.
Axelrod and Kautsky
Authors: Ascher Abraham
Published: April 2006

The intimate friendship between Pavel Borisovich Axelrod and Karl Kautsky, stretching over almost half a century, had an important bearing on the Russian Social Democratic movement and international socialism. Kautsky, who, after Engels’ death in 1895, became the most authoritative exponent of Marxism and the major theorist of the Second International, followed developments in Russia with interest and leaned heavily on Axelrod in forming his opinions about events in that country and its Social Democratic Party. The German socialist's curiosity was aroused not only because he recognized, as early as the 1890s, the potential importance of the Marxist movement in Russia but also because Russian Marxists were especially eager to obtain his advice. “Whenever a controversial question arose,” wrote the Menshevik Rafael Abramovich, “whenever a problem emerged, the first thought [among Russian Social Democrats] was always: What would Kautsky say about this? How would Kautsky resolve this question?“
Soviet Historians Prepare for the Fiftieth
Authors: Daniels Robert V.
Published: April 2006

Every tenth-year anniversary of the October Revolution has been the occasion for a burst of publication by Soviet scholars to celebrate the event. Each successive decade has witnessed an ever larger output of documentary and memoir collections, symposia, monographs, surveys, brochures, and textbooks. The half-century year 1967 promises to be the culminating point of this effort, with hundreds of historical publications of every type now appearing or promised.

I had some advance acquaintance with this anniversary historiography during the month which I spent as an exchange scholar in Moscow and Leningrad in the fall fall of 1966 under the United States-Soviet cultural exchange agreement.
The Prussian State and the Catholic Church in Prussian Poland 1871-1914
Authors: Trzeciakowski Lech
Published: April 2006

Despite the fact that the relationship between the Prussian state and the Catholic Church had an important influence on the course of events in the eastern provinces of the German Empire, no monographic study has been devoted to the subject. Works dealing with church history, the nationality question, or the Kulturkampf have given a certain amount of attention to the problem, but without elaboration of the issues involved and as a rule with limited reliance on primary source material. This article may well be the first attempt to grapple with the problem during the period 1871 to 1914. In addition to the standard published works on the subject, numerous archival sources have been consulted, especially those of the Prussian state and the German Empire.
Reply
Authors: Erlich Victor
Published: April 2006

As a part-time observer of the Soviet literary scene, I am gratified to see my tentative generalizations endorsed by men as knowledgeable and authoritative in the field of Soviet literature as George Gibian and Max Hayward. I am also glad that my attempt at diagnosis has provided an occasion for an illuminating companion piece and a thoughtful reassessment of what is undoubtedly one of the most significant works of recent Soviet fiction.

I have no quarrel whatsoever with the main body of Professor Gibian's perceptive and amply documented analysis, which supplements admirably my sketchy survey of trends and issues. The only portion of his article which may call for a brief rejoinder or clarification is the extended footnote. To take issue with what Professor Gibian himself calls "minuscule objections" is a somewhat picayune undertaking. But, just to be conversational, let me offer a few counter-cavils.
Marxist Legal Thought in Poland
Authors: Seidler Grzegorz Leopold
Published: April 2006

Since World War II, Polish legal theory has focused principally on the sociological aspect of the law, dealing with its origin and social function. Detailed research and analytical studies have supplied information about which social groups have in the past influenced the enactment of legal norms, what their motives were, and what benefits they derived from these laws. As a result of this research the law lost its sacred character. It ceased to be thought of as something extraordinary and came to be regarded realistically as an instrument for the realization of the interests of those groups which had influenced the enactment of the law. This kind of research, however, proved to be insufficient and somewhat one-sided. Consequently, new problems are being considered, and, of these, three are receiving special attention: (1) the evaluation of positive law, (2) the relationship between legal consciousness and socialist consciousness (which might also be called Marxist consciousness), and (3) comprehensive legal research. All of these problems have practical implications for us which, I trust, justify a brief discussion of them here. Inasmuch as these problems are still being investigated and discussed, I will confine myself to mere presentation of them and mention of the efforts that have been made toward their solution.
Party Genealogy and the Soviet Historians (1920–1938)
Authors: Frankel Jonathan
Published: April 2006

To map out a convincing genealogy of the Russian revolutionary Marxist movement (and, from 1903, of its Bolshevik wing) was always a concern of its leaders. Revolutionary Marxism made its Russian debut with Plekhanov's bookletSocialism and the Political Struggleonly in 1883, some thirty-five years after theCommunist Manifestoand almost sixty years after the Decembrist uprising. It was thus a latecomer both to European Marxism and to the Russian revolutionary movement. How was it to define its own relationship to these forerunners? To emphasize only the Marxist heritage meant to isolate the young movement from the formidable tradition of revolt already built up in Russia. But to identify the emergent Marxist movement too fully with this tradition would undermine its claim to be possessed of a new message, to be the prophet of a new age.
The Formative Tears of the Russian Factory Inspectorate, 1882-1885
Authors: Giffin Frederick C.
Published: April 2006

The origins of Russian factory legislation date essentially from the decade of the 1880s, when the Industrial Revolution began to affect the economy and society of the Russian Empire. During the reign of Alexander II there had been a growing dissatisfaction with the poor working conditions in Russian factories. Desire on the part of certain officials to eliminate some of the worst abuses of the factory system led to the formation, beginning in 1859, of a number of commissions to study conditions in the factories and to make recommendations for their improvement. But, with the exception of a decree issued by the government in 1866 which sought the enforcement of more stringent sanitary measures, attempts to introduce legislation of the character recommended by these commissions were for a long time unsuccessful.
Tkachev and the Marxists
Authors: Hardy Deborah
Published: April 2006

Interest in Peter Tkachev, the angry young man of the Russian revolutionary movement in the 1860s and 870s, has generally been focused on his role as a “forerunner of Lenin.” Indeed, that is what Professor Michael Karpovich called him in an article published several decades ago. More recently Professor Albert L. Weeks has gone so far as to dub Tkachev “the first Bolshevik.” In his Tkachev biography Professor Weeks has included a study of similar Soviet opinions, that is, of the great debate in the early 1920s centering on the relationship of Lenin, Tkachev, and Auguste Blanqui, from whom Tkachev drew much of his inspiration.
Alexander Turgenev, Ambassador of Russian Culture in Partibus Infidelium
Authors: Struve Gleb
Published: April 2006

To the memory of Waclaw Lednicki (1891-1967)

“Homme de toute sorte de savoir,” was how Alexander Turgenev was once described by Chateaubriand, while Francis Jeffrey, the editor of the Edinburgh Review, in a letter to Sydney Smith, called him “a Russian gentleman accomplished in all liberal and orthodox sciences.” The word “orthodox” was underlined by Jeffrey, and Turgenev said that he did not understand the meaning of that underlining. It is possible, of course, that all Jeffrey had in mind was that Turgenev was of the Russian Orthodox faith and knew all about its tenets.
Svetozar Marković in Russia
Authors: Stokes Gale
Published: April 2006

Since the establishment of socialist governments in Eastern Europe following World War II , Svetozar Marković has become the most celebrated figure of nineteenth-century Yugoslav history. Not only was Marković the first important socialist in the Balkans, but he received his education in Russian populism at its source in St. Petersburg, participated in the activities of the Russian Section of the First International in Switzerland, organized the first consumers' and workers' collectives in the Balkans, and edited Serbia's first socialist newspaper. An incisive critic of the Serbian bureaucracy, Marković hoped to avoid the pitfalls of modernization in Serbia by establishing a democratic system of local administration based on the traditional peasant commune. Even though he was not successful, his vigorous analyses of social problems, his faith in science, and his uncompromising idealism exerted a strong influence on his contemporaries, turning the politically inclined among them from liberalism to radicalism and the artistically inclined from romanticism to realism. Little wonder, therefore, that since World War II this unusual and brilliant man has become a cultural hero in Yugoslavia.
The Russian Classical Literary Heritage and the Basic Concepts of Soviet Literary Education
Authors: Shneidman N. N.
Published: April 2006

Every effort is being made to retain in the literature programs of the Soviet schools and universities all the best work of the Russian literary giants of the nineteenth century. There is even a trend in Soviet scholarship to place the best literary work of the Soviet period in the tradition of the nineteenth-century Russian classics. Lenin repeated time and again that it was necessary “to assimilate critically all that is valuable from the preceding culture.” Some Soviet scholars go even further and claim that socialist realism and its best representatives are continuing the literary traditions of the great nineteenth-century Russian writers. Konstantin Fedin is thought of as one who continues Turgenev's “traditions of intellectualism” and shares his ability to be “a chronicler of his epoch, a creator of unforgettable women characters,” and Sholokhov is regarded as a writer who further develops Tolstoy's style. Some Soviet critics even complain because there is no visible link in the educational programs to connect Mayakovsky with Pushkin and Lermontov.
The Buyers’ Market and Soviet Consumer Goods Distribution
Authors: Skurski Roger
Published: April 2006

During most of the Soviet industrialization period, consumer goods enterprises and the distribution network could rest assured that almost any consumer product—any size, color, style, and quality—would be sold if offered to the public. This was the nature of the market during that period; the sellers held the upper hand, and they tried to fulfill their plans without being concerned much about the demands of buyers. But in the postwar period, especially after the death of Stalin, the production of consumer goods and personal incomes increased simultaneously, and gradually more and more consumer demands were answered. A concern for consumer welfare was emerging. With the advent of buyers’ market conditions, no longer were all consumer goods that arrived on the market automatically sold; inventories accumulated and the problems of the trade network multiplied.
A Scapegoat for All Seasons: The Unity and the Shape ofThe Tales of Belkin
Authors: Gregg Richard
Published: April 2006

Pushkin’sTales of the Late Ivan Petrovich Belkinare five in number, and four of them (“The Shot,” “The Blizzard,” “The Stationmaster,” and “The Lady-Peasant“) belong to the same literary species. The narrative features binding this quartet of stories together are, in the main, conventional. Each relates—among other things—the story of a young man who, having won the affections of a beautiful woman, overcomes some obstacle (or series of obstacles) which threatens their union, thereby paving the way to, or consolidating, amariage d'amourat the end of the tale. All of which is to say that embedded in each is one of the oldest of all plots, the “successful courtship.“
The Foundation of the Communist Movement in Eastern Galicia, 1919-1921
Authors: Solchanyk Roman
Published: April 2006

On the evening of October 31, 1921, a special edition of Gazeta Lwowska reported the sensational news of the arrest of all the delegates to a “Communist congress” that had convened only a few hours earlier on the grounds of St. George’s Cathedral in Lviv (Lwów in the Polish version). According to the newspaper, “the congress had been in preparation for some time [and] was attended by various Communist organizations, although central leadership was in the hands of the Ruthenians.” On the following day the events in Lviv were reconstructed, rather loosely, by the leading newspapers in Poland. Cracow’s Ilustrowany Kuryer Codzienny—exclaiming that “the hajdamacy [Ukrainian bandits] have even turned over the church for Bolshevik purposes“—related that among those arrested were members of the secret Ukrainian organizations KUM and Volia.
The Weakening of Ideological Influences upon Soviet Design
Authors: Hutchings Raymond
Published: April 2006

In this Article I shall examine the visual form or appearance (shape, size, and other visible qualities) of Soviet socially produced things (excluding any detailed consideration of trends in the fine arts or of individual craftsmanship) in relation to forces in Soviet ideology which seem to have influenced this form or appearance. (I do not attempt to describe all influences which bear on Soviet design, which would require a much more complex approach and a more extended treatment.) My definition of Soviet “ideology” would be the same as Professor Meyer's: the body of doctrine that is taught by the Communist Party to all Soviet citizens. Whether or not this doctrine is true, or thought to be true, as well as why it is propagated, or whether this would be a complete definition—these questions are considered to be irrelevant in the present context.
Herzen's From The Other Shore
Authors: Randall Francis B.
Published: April 2006

Alexander Herzen's most influential writings were the columns in the journals he edited during his exile in London in the 1850s and 1860s, Poliarnaia Zvezdaand Kolokol, which played so distinct a part in inducing members of the Russian government to prepare the emancipation of 48,000,000 serfs and the other “Great Reforms” and in persuading so much of literate Russian society to accept them. By common consent, Herzen's autobiography, My Past and Thoughts,was his great contribution to the literature of Russia and the world. Only after these does one mention his sequence of essays on the revolutions of 1848, From the Other Shore.
The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia and the Czech Resistance, 1939-1945
Authors: Luza Radomir
Published: April 2006

After three years of tense discussions and bruising internal disputes, the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) emerged in 1921 as the largest constituent unit of the Communist International (Comintern) outside of Russia. Under the leadership of a former Social Democrat, Bohumir Šmeral, it stressed a specific Czechoslovak road to socialism and viewed the new Czechoslovak Republic as the culmination of modern Czech and Slovak history. Šmeral's essentially constructive political line inspired the majority of the party's members—numbering among its adherents a high proportion of former Social Democrats—until the fifth congress of the Comintern in 1924.
Jewish Assimilation in Lvov: The Case of Wilhelm Feldman
Authors: Mendelsohn Ezra
Published: April 2006

The largest metropolis in Galicia was known to its Austrian rulers as Lemberg. The Poles, who dominated the city after 1867, referred to it as Lwόw, while the Ukrainian minority called it L'viv. German, Polish, and Ukrainian-speaking inhabitants constituted the officially recognized national groups, but there also existed a large Jewish element, which in 1900 made up approximately 30 percent of the population. Appearing in Austrian and Polish statistics only as adherents of the Mosaic faith, the Jews differed from their neighbors in far more than religion. Though formally emancipated in 1868, Galician Jewry resembled in all other respects that of Russia. The combination of a very large Jewish minority and a very backward social and economic structure, in Galicia as in the Pale of Settlement, placed great obstacles in the path of cultural assimilation.
The Young Czech Party (1874-1914): An Appraisal
Authors: Winters Stanley B.
Published: April 2006

For forty eventful years, ending with the outbreak of the First World War, the Young Czech Party waged an unremitting struggle on behalf of Czech national interests within the limited constitutional framework of the Hapsburg Monarchy. Political activity for such a span of time would be enough to insure the party a niche in history, but in addition it dominated Czech politics for sixteen of those years and enlisted politicians of the caliber of Kaizl, Kramář, Rašín, and briefly Masaryk under its banner in their quest for elective office. The intent of this article is to evaluate the party's contributions to the development of the modern Czech political system by outlining its history and general orientation and by comparing party platforms with achievements.
N. I. Pirogov and the Reform of University Government, 1856-1866
Authors: Mathes William L.
Published: April 2006

The opinions of Nikolai Ivanovich PirOgov (1810–81) provided the basis for much of the widespread debate on the “university problem” which preceded the adoption in 1863 of the General Statute of Russian Universities. Though Pirogov's equally important views on primary and secondary education and his general pedagogical philosophy have been examined in some detail, there is no systematic treatment of his views on university reform. The purpose of this article is to help elucidate those views, to demonstrate the relationship of Pirogov's ideas on university government to his activities as curator of the Odessa and Kiev school districts, to define the limits within which Pirogov's ideas were acceptable to the government of Alexander II and to a majority of the professorial community, and to compare his recommendations for reform with the statute of 1863 and with events which immediately followed its implementation.
Soviet Politics and the Group Approach: A Conceptual Note
Authors: Langsam David E. , Paul David W.
Published: April 2006

One of the “Great Debates” among Soviet specialists in the social sciences today concerns the applicability of interest group theory to the study of Soviet politics. Though a large number of specialists have accepted the notion that interest groups do indeed play a certain kind of role in the Soviet system, there are still those who hold to the opinion, once taken for granted but in recent years challenged, that interest group theory simply does not apply to the Soviet Union. The strength of the latter argument lies in the fact that in the USSR interest groups do not operate publicly and openly, as they do in the United States; therefore, interest group theory as developed to fit the American context cannot describe or explain the dynamic processes of policymaking in Russia.
The Uses of Witches in Fedin and Bulgakov
Authors: Beaujour Elizabeth Klosty
Published: April 2006

Modernist prose forms often present the reader with the paradox of cerebral, structurally complex works which express an irrational or antirational content. These works seek an almost geometric perfection of form while simultaneously rejecting intellect as a totally inadequate means of conceiving contemporary experience. Strikingly often it is a witch of a rather special breed who provides the essential thematic and narrative elements without which the intellectual pattern of the novel could not crystallize out. That voyantes and sorceresses should people the prose of Western surrealists such as Andre Breton is not too surprising, but it is surely a nice problem that two of the most self-consciously modernist Soviet novels, Fedin's Cities and Years and Bulgakov's Master and Margarita, should depend for both their compositional and moral energies on witches.
The Peasant Revolt of Bábolna 1437-1438
Authors: Held Joseph
Published: April 2006

On April 24, 1445, János Vitéz of Zredna, a well-known Hungarian humanist bishop, wrote to a friend about conditions existing in his homeland:

The sword is now the destroyer of every right … hence, Liberty is in the grip of Hatred, and pillage and looting are the providers of luxury…. No one gives mercy to another and everyone knows fear…

This was not merely humanist rhetoric; Vitéz's perceptions accurately described the Hungarian situation, where the powerful barons had become the controllers of the machinery of the state.

The Hungarian province of Transylvania (see p. 26), “the Land beyond the Forests,” in which the drama of 1437-38 was enacted, experienced a parallel development. During the fourteenth century, the barons in that province (as in the rest of Hungary) established seigneurial control over the peasant population. A system of feudal dues and obligations was imposed on the peasantry, and free movement from one estate to another was effectively curtailed. The tensions that this situation created in Transylvania were heightened by conflicts that were peculiarly Transylvanian in character.
Rassvet (1859-1862) and the Woman Question
Authors: Monter Barbara Heldt
Published: April 2006

The woman question, which produced some of the best polemical writing of the nineteenth century, was an international phenomenon. In the 1850s, in Europe, essays on different sides of the question were written, published, translated, paraphrased, or reacted to, all in short order. Russia soon joined in the debate. The woman question, under different names, had existed previously in Russia, especially during the 1830s when some of the fiction published revealed women as victims of society. But, in the post-Crimean War period, what had been part of a more general preoccupation of Russian liberals, a striving toward general enlightenment, gave rise to a new civic sense of women's role in the general betterment of society and a debate on the education that would be necessary to fulfill that role.
Finding the Way to Bezhin Meadow: Turgenev’s Intimations of Mortality
Authors: Carden Patricia
Published: April 2006

When “Bezhin Meadow” first appeared in Sovremennik in 1851, Turgenev’s friend Feoktistov wrote to him that while the story had “produced an enormous effect on the public in Moscow,” he found it lacked a “general impression,” a “general thread,” that would unify its fragmentary parts and give the reader a clue to its general significance. Well might Feoktistov have been puzzled, for the censor had omitted the story’s ending! The ending was soon available to the reader in the edition of A Hunter’s Notes published in Moscow in 1852: “With sorrow I must add that Pavel died before the year was out. He was not drowned, but killed by a fall from a horse. A pity, he was a splendid lad !“ While indicating a “general thread,” the theme of mortality, the lines produce what may at first appear to be a facile irony.
Two Worlds: Communism and Western Society
Authors: Meyer Alfred G.
Published: April 2006

The stated purpose of the encyclopedia being reviewed here, Marxism, Communism and Western Society: A Comparative Encyclopedia is to present a comprehensive comparative portrait of two worlds, one called “Communism,“ the other, “Western Society,” including their institutions and self-images, the images they have of each other, and their entire views of the cosmos; the range of topics covered is extremely wide. Several aims might be fulfilled by such a work. One of them is to serve as a reference book for students of Marxism and Communist societies, especially the Soviet Union, and not for specialists only but also for anyone interested in selected aspects of these topics. On the whole, the Encyclopedia serves this purpose very well. The relevant articles tend to be competent and thorough, even though I can understand why one of the anonymous referees of this essay found them “tinged with Germanic pedantry, dry and often verbose, with a penchant for abstraction, reifications, and fine distinctions.“
Neo-Serfdom in Bohemia
Authors: Wright William E.
Published: April 2006

“Serfdom” is one of those conventions of historical nomenclature which, like “feudal” or “medieval,” are intended to bring together in concept a number of similar elements for common consideration. Very often we are inclined to forget that the elements composing the whole may bear many marks of dissimilarity as well as marks of likeness. We should be on guard, then, not to allow the convenience of conventional terms to blind us to the great variety of characteristics and variations in quality to be found in the thing named. “Serfdom,” just like “feudalism,” means different things at different times and places, and it is well for us from time to time to examine more closely the several manifestations of it to determine if there may be important differences distinguishing one type from the other, even though they all seem to sail under the same colors.
The Beseda Circle, 1899-1905
Authors: Emmons Terence
Published: April 2006

Constitutions in almost all states have been introduced at various times, in bits and pieces and for the most part amidst violent political upheavals. The Russian Constitution will owe its inception not to the inflaming of passions and extremity of circumstance, but to the virtuous inspiration of the Supreme Authority, which, in ordering the political life of its people, is fully capable of endowing it with proper forms.

M. M.Speransky

Every attempt to introduce West European parliamentary forms of government into Russia is doomed to failure. If the tsarist regime is overthrown, its place will be taken by pure undisguised communism, the communism of Mr. Karl Marx who has just died in London and whose theories I have studied with attention and interest.

D. A.Tolstoy

The constitutional-reform movement in Russia passed through three stages of institutional development before its ultimate demise in revolution and civil war. In the first, occupying about a decade between the mid-1850s and the mid-1860s, the reform movement was concentrated in the corporate institutions of the landed gentry.
The Confessional “Rule” and the Dubrovnik Exception: The Origins of the “Serb-Catholic” Circle in Nineteenth-Century Dalmatia
Authors: Banac Ivo
Published: April 2006

It is commonly supposed that confessional adherence was the decisive element in the growth of Croat and Serb nationhood: “In the differentiation of Serbs from Croats and the rise of modern Serb and Croat national consciousness, religion played the essential role in the Serbo-Croatian linguistic area. Whereas the Catholics by rule became Croats, the Orthodox were Serbs.” This none too precise formulation assumes that, quite independently of preexisting South Slavic affinities, a homogeneous national “mass” became heterogeneous by reason of outside dispensational intervention. Without fully analyzing whether religion indeed separated the South Slavs into different nationalities or whether religious affiliation simply reflected the allogenic nature of the South Slavic settlement — such an analysis would be difficult to sustain on the basis of current ethnogenesic knowledge—I suggest that the confessional “rule” is hardly as firm as some scholars suppose and needs to be qualified.
The One-Day Votive Church: A Religious Response to the Black Death in Early Russia
Authors: Zguta Russell
Published: April 2006

In 1892, as Moscow prepared to celebrate the five-hundredth anniversary of the death of Saint Sergei of Radonezh, an article appeared in theMoskovskiia vedomostiwhich suggested that one appropriate way to mark the occasion would be to erect a replica of the small wooden Church of the Holy Trinity built by Saint Sergei at the site of his famed monastery north of Moscow. The article further urged that the project be a cooperative effort and that the proposed church be constructed in one day (that is, a twenty-four-hour period), in the tradition of theobydennye khramyof old.’ The tradition which the civic-minded writer of the article tried to revive dated back to the late fourteenth century. The early Russian chronicles record nineteen one-day votive churches built between 1390 and 1552, all as a response to the pestilence then raging. Ten of these were constructed in Novgorod, nine in Pskov. In addition, four others, one each in Moscow, Iaroslavl', Vologda, and Viatka, can be documented from other sources. All were built of wood in a twenty-four-hour period by communal labor.
GULag and Points West
Authors: Monas Sidney
Published: April 2006

“If words are not about real things and do not cause things to happen,” writes Solzhenitsyn toward the end of the third volume of Gulag Archipelago,“what is the good of them? Are they anything more than the barking of village dogs at night?” He adds parenthetically: “I should like to commend this thought to our modernists: this is how our people usually think of literature. They will not soon lose their habit. Should they, do you think?” The statement— with its flavor of the tag-end of a Russian proverb culled from Dal', even the bit about the village dogs—is characteristic of Solzhenitsyn. What clever critic safe in his armchair, however pricked by ornery oldfangledness, would care or dare to contend with it?
The Crop Failure of 1891: Soil Exhaustion, Technological Backwardness, and Russia's “Agrarian Crisis”
Authors: Simms James Y.
Published: April 2006

Russian peasant farming techniques in the last decades of the nineteenth century are generally considered to have been technologically backward. What student of Russian history has not read about the dire effects of the three field system of agriculture, the lack of fertilizer, and the inadequate wooden plow used predominantly by Russian peasants? The low productivity of the peasant is traditionally attributed to these backward methods, which in turn are seen as contributors to the exhaustion of the land and consequently the impoverishment of the Russian peasantry. As the land became exhausted, peasants could not maintain their standard of living or meet an increasing tax burden. Technological backwardness and soil exhaustion are thus important indexes for the “crisis hypothesis,” which states that the economic well-being of the Russian peasantry was deteriorating as the nineteenth century came to a close. An investigation into the causes of the crop failure of 1891 and the quality of the Russian harvest after the crop failure and famine of 1891-92, however, clearly suggests that: (1) soil moisture was the critical determinant of harvest quality; (2) peasant methods were riot unambiguously “backward,” given the climate and soil conditions in much of the black earth district and the grainlands in general, and may even have been appropriate; and (3) Russian farmland was not becoming exhausted, particularly in the so-called hunger provinces of the central black earth district. Quite simply, the vicissitudes of weather determined the harvest in tsarist Russia.
Kristijonas Donelaitis, A Lithuanian Classic
Authors: Šilbajoris Rimvydas
Published: April 2006

Kristijonas Donelaitis (1714-80) was the first major Lithuanian poet and an outstanding figure in Lithuanian letters for all time. Born in a small village in East Prussia (Lithuania Minor), he spent most of his life as the Lutheran pastor of another such place, a parish called Tolminkiemis. Accounts of his life testify that he preached eloquently to his parishioners in both German and Lithuanian, made musical instruments — a clavichord and a piano — and played them, fought with the neighboring estate over parish lands, and corresponded with fellow ministers on various friendly matters, including the writing of Lithuanian poetry. When Donelaitis died, his literary legacy consisted of several fables and the rural epic Metai (The Seasons), written probably between 1765 and 1775, but not published until 1818. Metai stands as a milestone of Lithuanian literature. It was the first extensive poetic text (2,969 lines of hexameters) in that language and a work of intrinsic quality and lasting influence. Donelaitis' achievement has been increasingly recognized in recent decades, not only in Lithuania but abroad. His stature appears all the more remarkable against the background of pioneering efforts to establish Lithuanian as a literary language by members of the Protestant clergy in Lithuania Minor and by some western Lithuanian country gentry during the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century. The sudden emergence of his epic talent, seemingly without adequate support from the cultural milieu of his own or any previous time in Lithuanian tradition, has produced an aura of mystery around Donelaitis, attracting poets, scholars, and hero worshipers alike.
Death Masks in Tolstoi
Authors: Parthé Kathleen
Published: April 2006

Tolstoi made the accurate and poetic description of death a literary problem to be solved: how does a writer use the resources of language to describe the actual sensation of dying, an experience which the living can never fully comprehend? Experimenting with various linguistic means to create and use ambiguity, Tolstoi worked on a solution to this problem over many years in Childhood, Sevastopol Tales, “Three Deaths,” War and Peace, “Notes of a Madman,” and The Death of Ivan ll'ich. There are critics who feel that his achievement in this area is virtually unsurpassed; a recent book on death in world literature devotes more attention and praise to Tolstoi than to any other writer.

The most powerful of all death scenes in Tolstoi's fiction is the one that portrays Prince Andrei Bolkonskii in War and Peace. The specter of death that Andrei sees in a dream, a substantiation of his fear of dying, is designated simply by the neuter pronoun ono (it). Konstantin Leont'ev was struck by this ono which he felt was so terrifying and mysterious that it could be identified with death itself. What makes ono so immediately striking is that although it is a neuter form, it is used intentionally (by being underlined) to refer directly to the word smert' (death), which is a feminine noun.
Khar'kov's Progressive Duma, 1910-1914: A Study in Russian Municipal Reform
Authors: Hamm Michael F.
Published: April 2006

Like their zemstvo counterparts, the municipal dumas played a major role in determining the quality of life in tsarist Russia from the Great Reforms until the Revolution in 1917. During this period of rapid urban growth, the dumas had the authority to regulate housing conditions. They bore major responsibility for ensuring an appropriate level of public health and sanitation, welfare and social services and for developing public education, transportation, parks, and recreational facilities.

The restrictive municipal “counter reform” of 1892 destroyed some of the promise of urban self-government, however, and with few exceptions, city government entered the twentieth century with a reputation for apathy, indolence, and indifference to all but the narrow concerns of the tiny propertied elite to whom local affairs had been entrusted. Perhaps Den', a leftist paper, was too harsh when it characterized the record of a St. Petersburg duma as one of “criminal indifference and cynical unconcern.” But recently historians have taken a similar, if less biting view:
Limits of Economic Measurements
Authors: Birman Igor
Published: April 2006

The basic line of reasoning in the excellent and thought-provoking article by Professor Rosefielde is: The Soviets claim and some Western scholars agree that from 1928 to 1932 the economy of the USSR grew dramatically, that, at the expense of an agricultural surplus, industry made a big leap forward “which virtually assured the success of future Soviet economic development.” A common belief of specialists (Professor Rosefielde included) is that although some value indicators, especially prices (price changes), could be distorted, in general, Soviet statistics are “not freely invented,” and “it is unlikely that the Soviets kept two sets of books.” Thus, some scholars have corrected the price basis of the calculation of the rate of economic growth during 1928-32 (instead of 1928 prices, the prices of 1937/50 were used) and obtained much less spectacular, but still very impressive, figures demonstrating growth of the economy, particularly in industry and construction.
Foreign Trade and Tsarist Policy before World War I: An Exchange
Authors: Sontag John P.
Published: April 2006

Over a decade ago I published an article in this journal which discussed the factors underlying the freedom of action which tsarist diplomacy displayed in the years prior to World War I. The article resulted from a conviction that it was necessary to account for Russian freedom of action in the face of the traditional interpretation that foreign debts had greatly restricted Russian diplomatic independence.