When The Russian Duma was called into existence, in 1906 by Tsar Nicholas II, only a small section of the Russian intelligentsia greeted the event as a fulfillment of its liberal aspirations, and as the beginning of a new era in Russia. The rest of the country was either indifferent, or fundamentally hostile to any compromise with the Crown, or else disappointed by the half-hearted nature of the reforms.

Diehard supporters of autocracy were unwilling to cooperate with any of these groups. Eleven years later, when the Duma was abolished, new, more important events claimed the attention of the scholar, and radically modified the way of life of all sections of the Russian people. As a result, the Duma was soon forgotten, and it passed on into history as a mere incident in the history of the Romanov autocracy.

Little is known about the immediate historical background of the 1497 Sudebnik. According to Karamzin, the Sudebnik's compilation was largely the work of one Vladimir Gusev. A few months after the code was finished, a strange conspiracy came to light. This same Vladimir Gusev was arrested, along with a number of henchmen, for plotting the murder of Dmitrij, the grandson of Grand Prince Ivan III. Also implicated in the conspiracy were Ivan's own son Vasilij and his wife Sophia; the latter had reportedly been receiving visits from witches bearing mysterious potions.

While The Impact of the Bolshevik Revolution upon international socialism has attracted considerable attention, the international impact of the revolution of March, 1917, has largely been ignored. It is the purpose of this paper to survey the effects of the March revolution upon one important segment of the Socialist International, the German, and particularly to describe the efforts of the German majority socialists to achieve a separate peace between their Government and the Provisional Government in Russia.

Though The Persian Cossack Brigade, which played such a fateful role during the revolution of 1905-1911, has attracted attention, relatively little is known of its origins and early development.

George W. Curzon devoted to the Brigade only a few of the 693 pages which make up the first volume of his monumental work on nineteenth-century Iran. Edward G. Browne, while discussing at length the role of the Brigade in the events of 1905-1909, erroneously fixed the date of its formation in 1882 and named Colonel Kozakofski (sic) as its first commander. Russian historians have done no better.

In The Traditional Peasant Society which characterized rural Bulgaria until rather recently conservatism was a value of importance, which meant that the school was not prized as a means of active social change. There were few programs of immediate community betterment and the curriculum was urban-oriented, with little concern for everyday village affairs. The changes that did occur were to be from generation to generation, with sons and daughters expected to do some things differently from their parents, particularly in economic matters, but by such a gradual adoption that there would be little strain or stress in community patterns. In direct contrast to this conservatism, with its respect for older ways and its hesitation at moving quickly into untried practices, we find the Communist program of cataclysmic change. Therefore, the school becomes immediately oriented toward daily life and the current exigencies rather than preparation for a far-off tomorrow.

All Important Soviet Writers have been united in the Union of Soviet Writers since its formation in 1934. Throughout its history, the Union has played a key part in the Soviet system of literary controls, and an understanding of the organization's mode of operation is thus necessary in any consideration of the forces which shape the course of Soviet literature. A study of the Writers’ Union also has a bearing outside the field of literature, casting light upon the operation of one type of Soviet “public” organization.

The Decade of The 1840's is one of the most fascinating in the whole of Russian literature, and one of the least understood. Historians of literature, in patronizing perspective, are wont to view it as a “pre-“ period, as a preparation to the great age of the novel which was to follow. Since the Russian novel was not fashioned at mid-century by the accidental confluence of three of four writers of genius, beginnings must be sought: the forties, the age of the Natural School, serve the purpose admirably. The Natural School writers, so-called because of their fondness for depicting “life in the raw,” laid the foundation for the realistic novel of mid-century. Their negative, critical approach (derived chiefly from the satiric naturalism of Gogol) was responsible for the creation of a homogeneous body of literature: philanthropic stories on the poor, the physiological sketch, the social criticism of Belinskij, and the first successes of Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Nekrasov. The movement was short-lived, and produced few literary works of great intrinsic merit.