¹ The diaries of Dmitri Miliutin, the reforming war-minister of Alexander II (Zaionchkovsky, P. A. (ed.), Dnevnik D. A. Miliutina, Moscow, 1947 50)Google Scholar, were followed by those of his contemporary, erstwhile minister of the interior Valuiev, P. A. (Zaionchkovsky, P. A. (ed.), Dnevnik P. A. Valuieva, Moscow, 1961)Google Scholar and, finally, by the invaluable records of imperial secretary Polovtsov, A. A. (Zaionchkovsky, P. A. (ed.), Dnevnik gosudarstvennovo sekretarya A. A. Polotsova, Moscow, 1966)Google Scholar. With these publications of Zaionchkovsky must rank another, A. L. Sidorov's edition of Vitte's memoirs (Sidorov, A. L. (ed.), S. Ju. Vitte. Vospomimanya, Moscow, 1960).Google Scholar

² Zaionchkovsky, P. A., Voennye reformy 1860–70 godov v Rossii (Moscow, 1952).Google Scholar

³ Zaionchkovski, P. A., Olmena krepostnovo pravav Rossii Izd. 2-oe, perestroennoeidopol'nennoe (Moscow, 1960)Google Scholar and Provedenie v zhizni krest'anskoi reformy 1861g (Moscow, 1958).Google Scholar

⁴ Zaionchkovsky, P. A., Samoderzhavie i russkaya armiya na rubezhe XIX-XX stoletii, 1881–1903 (Moscow, 1973).Google Scholar

⁵ Zaionchkovsky, P. A., Krizis samoderzhaviya na rubezhe 1870–1880 godov (Moscow, 1964).Google Scholar

⁶ Zaionchkovsky, P. A., Rossiiskoe samoderzhavie v kontse XIX stoletiya (Moscow, 1970).Google Scholar

⁷ Zaionchkovsky, P. A., Spravochnik po istorii dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii: bibliografiya (Moscow, 1971).Google Scholar

⁸ Zaionchkovsky, P. A., Istoriya dorevoliutsionnoi Rossii v dnevnikakh i vospominaniyakh: annotiro- vannyi ukazalel’ knig ipublikatsii v zhurnalakh, toma 1 (Moscow, 1976).Google Scholar

⁹ Two studies devoted to the Russian nobility in particular produced by members of the ‘Zaionchkovsky school’ (which by now has probably disintegrated), deserve mention: Korelin, A. P., ‘Rossiiskoe dvorianstvo i evo soslovnaya organisatsia (1861–1904gg.)’, Istoriya SSSR, no. 5 (1971)Google Scholar and Solov'ev, Ju. B., Samoderzhavie i dvorianstvo v kontse XIX veka (Leningrad, 1973). The second of these studies contains a survey of soviet published work in the field (pp. 4ff.).Google Scholar

¹⁰ The abolition of serfdom in Russia, (Gulf Breeze, Fl., 1978).Google Scholar

¹¹ Ed. and transl. Gary Hamburger, The Russian autocracy in crisis.

¹² Ed. and transl. David R. Jones, The Russian autocracy under Alexander III.

¹³ An attempt to examine the failure of reform projects, this time in relation to proposals by P. A. Valuiev and P. A. Shuvalov in the reign of Alexander II, is made in a recent work by a soviet historian not connected with P. A. Zaionchkovsky: Chernukha, V. G., Vnutrennaya politika tsarisma s serediny 50-kh do nachala 80-kh gg. xixv (Leningrad, 1978)Google Scholar. For a discussion of this study see Field, Daniel, ‘Three new books on the Imperial bureaucracy’, Kritika, xv, 2 (spring 1979).Google Scholar

¹⁴ For some details sec Mosse, W. E., ‘Aspects of Tsarist bureaucracy: the State Council in the late nineteenth century’, English Historical Review, xcv, 375 (April 1980).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

¹⁵ In discussing the ultimate failure of judicial counter-reforms proposed by the minister of justice N. V. Murav'ev, he writes: ‘Otherwise Muraviev's project would have destroyed the basis of the judicial statute of 1864 by significantly weakening bourgeous principles in judicial procedure while strengthening the feudal ones. But, as A. F. Koni makes clear in his memoirs, the social unrest that began in 1892 and 1893, accompanied by the growth of a broad labor movement and its union with the Social Democrats, prevented the government from realizing these goals’. Perhaps wisely, no reference to Koni's memoirs is given and it may indeed be doubted if Koni said anything of the kind. In any case, he was in no position to know. However, a discussion of the actual causes for the failure of the reform may not have been possible for Zaionchkovsky.

¹⁶ Whilst in the crisis volume both translation and editing (by Gary M. Hamburger) leave a great deal to be desired, the job done by David R. Jones on the second volume is a competent one. Unlike Hamburger, he is familiar with institutions and personalities of the regime and his translation reads agreeably. Admittedly, he has fewer long extracts from memoranda in the worst kind of Russian ‘bureaucratese’ to contend with.

¹⁷ P. A. Zaionchkovsky, The Russian autocracy, p. 175. In another place, he writes: ‘In fact the prohibition of such a large percentage of plays was more a result of their tendentious tone than of their low level of literary merit; it is well known that the definition of this latter quality is not within the competence of a censorship department’ (p. 177).

¹⁸ Armstrong, John A., The European administrative elite (Princeton, 1973).Google Scholar

¹⁹ This, apparently, was the belief of Zaionchkovsky (Field, ‘Three new books’, p. 2).

²⁰ Amburger, Erik, Geschichte der Behbördenorgansation Russlands von Peter dem Grossen bis 1917 (Leiden, 1966).Google Scholar

²¹ Torke, Hans-Joachim, ‘Das russische Beamtentum in der ersten Hälfte des 19. Jahr- hunderts’, Forschungen zur Osteuropäischen Geschichte, xiii (Berlin, 1967).Google Scholar

²² Pintner, Walter M., ‘The social characteristics of the early nineteenth-century Russian bureaucracy’, Slavic Review, xxix, 3 (Sept. 1970).Google Scholar

²³ This is the term popularized by Daniel Field (Field, ‘Three new books’). It describes ‘ synthetic collective biography’ with a quantitative analysis of criteria like social origin, family serf-holding, level of education, age and rank level and nature of first employment.

²⁴ For a survey of the major work in this field see Orlovsky, Daniel, ‘Recent studies on the Russian Bureaucracy’, Russian Review, xxxv, 3 (1976)Google Scholar, and Field, , ‘Three new books’, p. 120 n. 3Google Scholar. Cf. also Raeff, Marc, ‘The bureaucratic phenomena of Imperial Russia 1700–1905’, American Historical Review, LXXXIV, 2 (1979).Google Scholar

²⁵ George L. Yaney's The systematization of Russian government: social evolution in the domestic administration of Imperial Russia, 1711–1905 (Urbana, 1973)Google Scholar adopts a somewhat different approach.

²⁶ For a study covering a longer period see Mosse, W. E., ‘Aspects of the tsarist bureaucracy: recruitment to the Imperial State Council, 1855–1914’, Slavic and East European Review, LVII, 2 (1979)Google Scholar and for a later period Mosse, W. E. ‘Russian bureaucracy at the end of the ancien regime: the Imperial State Council 1897–1915’, Slavic Review (forthcoming).Google Scholar

²⁷ For a particularly interesting contribution to the study of this aspect, mainly outside the area of prosopographical studies see Sinel, Allen A., ‘The socialization of the Russian bureaucratic elite, 1811–1917: Life at the Tsarskoe Selo Lyceum and the School of Jurisprudence’, Russian History, iii, pt. 1 (1976).Google Scholar

²⁸ Zaionchkovsky, Pralivel'stvennyi apparat samoderzhavnoi Rossii v xlxv.

²⁹ For a detailed review of Zaionchkovsky's last work see Daniel Field, ‘Three new books’.

³⁰ Korelin has estimated that in 1901, 70 per cent of all officials in the top four grades had no significant holdings of land. Quoted Field, ‘Three new books’, p. 126.

³¹ Ibid. p. 127.

³² It is significant that Zaionchkovsky, like other soviet scholars, avoids the term officialdom (chinovnichestvo) in his title and, largely, in his text.

³³ To ‘explain’ the changes he observes in the nature of officialdom between 1853 and 1903 Zaionchkovsky produces a far-fetched hypothesis unsupported by any evidence, about an alleged ‘ embourgeoisement’ of higher officialdom through a variety of unofficial links with commercial and industrial interests. (Ibid. p. 128.)

³⁴ Pintner and Rowney (eds.) Russian officialdom.

³⁵ B. Meehan-Waters, ‘Social and career characteristics of the administrative elite 1689–1761’, Ibid. pp. 76ff.

³⁶ H. Aulik Bennett, ‘Chiny, ordena, and officialdom’, Ibid. pp. 162ff.

³⁷ Stephen Sternheimer, ‘Administration for development: the emerging bureaucratic elite, 1920–1930’, Ibid. pp. 316ff.

³⁸ Pintner and Rowney (eds.), Russian officialdom, p. 15.

³⁹ Field, ‘Three new books’, p. 134.

⁴⁰ See Mosse, W. E., ‘Aspects of tsarist bureaucracy: the State Council in the late nineteenth century’, The English Historical Review, xcv, 375 (April, 1980)CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Mosse, W. E., ‘Bureaucracy and Nobility in Russia at the end of the nineteenth century’, Historical Journal, xxiv, 3 (1981).Google Scholar

⁴¹ Carr, E. H., The romantic exiles, A nineteenth-century portrait gallery (London, 1968)Google Scholar. It could of course be argued that, even if retrospectively and in somewhat romanticized form, Herzen had already placed himself in a social and historical setting in his outstanding autobiography (Herzen, A., My past and thoughts. The memoirs of Alexander Herzen (4 vols., New York, 1968)).Google Scholar

⁴² Edward Acton, Alexander Herzen.

⁴³ Quoted Ibid. p. 178.

⁴⁴ Ibid.

⁴⁵ The interaction of social backwardness and political ‘modernization’ is examined in Roger Pethybridge's pioneering study The social prelude to Stalinism (London, 1974).Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Ransel (ed.), The family in Imperial Russia.

⁴⁷ Gregory L. Freeze, ‘ Caste and emancipation: the changing status of clerical families in the Great Reforms’, Ibid. pp. 124ff.

⁴⁸ David L. Ransel, ‘Abandonment and fosterage of unwanted children: the women of the foundling system’, Ibid. pp. 189ff.

⁴⁹ Samuel C. Ramer, ‘Childbirth and culture: midwifery in the nineteenth-century Russian countryside’, Ibid. pp. 218ff.

⁵⁰ Nancy M. Frieden, ‘Child care: medical reform in a traditional culture’, Ibid. pp. 236ff.

⁵¹ Robert Eugene Johnson, ‘Family relations and the rural-urban nexus: patterns in the hinterland of Moscow, 1880–1900’, Ibid. pp. 263ff.

⁵² Even more on access to soviet archives which, on the evidence of the publications reviewed, has been, at least selectively, available to western scholars over the past few years.

⁵³ Ransel, ‘Abandonment and fosterage’, p. 5.