The problem of criteria and methods of historical source criticism has rarely been the subject of special study. It is most often set forth in textbooks of historical method or in general introductions to historical study. And yet a number of extremely complex and important problems are related to source criticism: principles of evidence in historical study, the relation between deduction and induction, between synthesis and analysis, and so on.

For historians of medieval Russia, as for medievalists in general, these problems are of particular significance. In this field we constantly encounter the situation when one or another fact is attested by a small number of sources, sometimes a single one. The paucity of sources, their far from complete information, and their frequent tendentiousness—all this confronts scholars with the necessity of studying them with intensity and with extreme caution.

One of the greatest failures of Communist systems everywhere has been in agricultural productivity. In the Soviet Union some thirty-five years of collectivized agriculture have brought but modest increases in yields and gross production of many crops and livestock; growth of agricultural output per capita since even before the Revolution has been even less impressive. Among the Communist countries of Eastern Europe, although collectivization is much more recent, the pattern has been much the same; yields remain low, and gross production as well as per capita increases has been small.

Although some areas of Eastern Europe and large parts of the USSR can be classified as physically marginal for agriculture, the low levels of agricultural productivity are primarily attributable to defective organization and operation. There have been years when crop failure in this or that area was the direct result of drought, flood, or other natural cause, but these catastrophes cannot be blamed for the low yields which characterize the longer run. The major obstacles to production gains lie within the collectivized system.

Although his poetry enjoyed considerable contemporary popularity, Nikolai Mikhailovich Karamzin belonged to the generation of poets characterized by Ivan Rozanov as “interesting precisely for its attempts and strivings: we find almost no attainments here.” Despite the curious fact that Karamzin's verse has been reprinted in the present century more frequently than his prose, its interest for the modern reader is of an essentially historical nature. Professor Iurii M. Lotman, editor of the recent authoritative and complete collection of Karamzin's poetry, has stressed in his excellent introduction that “it is impossible to understand Karamzin the prose writer and ignore Karamzin the poet,” but his ultimate conclusion that “his poetic gift, perhaps, manifested itself with even greater force in his prose” reestablishes the primacy of the prose. Karamzin in his poetry was a stikhotvorets rather than a poet—a conscious craftsman who introduced new themes, brought a fresh approach to traditional subjects and genres, and experimented with language, form, and meter.

Throughout the nineteenth century the Russian government brooded over the part it should play in education. On the one hand, no great power could now maintain itself without a literate, well-trained population; on the other, schools provided the intellectual equipment, and sometimes even the stimulus, to criticize the social and political structure of Russia. Thus, the more the autocracy encouraged the spread of education essential to the well-being of the state, the more it contributed to the growth of antistate elements. This paper will analyze the efforts of Count Dmitrii Tolstoi, Minister of Education 1866-80, to resolve this problem in the field of elementary education.

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.

Napoleon Bonaparte used a variety of means of appealing to the Russians When he needed them, as he often did. He asked Alexander I for an interview before the battle of Austerlitz, a request which Alexander must later have regretted turning down. He marched to Friedland and Tilsit for the inauguration of the Grand Empire two years later. And in 1812 he pursued them all the way to Moscow, only to be eluded.

But the occasion of his earliest overtures to the Russians, the rapprochement with Tsar Paul during the winter of 1800-1801—an arrangement in which Albert Sorel found all the “grands projet et les grandes rȇveries” of Tilsit—though often remarked, has remained little understood. The Russians had withdrawn from the Second Coalition, but they had not reestablished diplomatic relations with France.

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.

Soviet discussions of what is meant by “socialist in content, national in form” in literature invariably approach the second half of the slogan by saying, “First of all, of course, the language” a work is created in. Beyond this point there is often less agreement, but there is no questioning the validity of having a person who writes in Chechen called a “Chechen writer.” Biographical notes on Soviet writers generally follow such an identifying procedure, except in apparently touchy cases, like that of Wanda Wasilewska, whose description consistently reads: “Soviet writer. Writes in Polish.” No such problems beset writers working in most of the other “languages of the peoples of the USSR.” The second edition of the Bol'shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia (BSE; 1949-58) everywhere uses national qualifiers on the order of: Panch—“Ukrainian Soviet writer“; Aibek —“Soviet Uzbek writer“; and Gafurov—“Lak Soviet poet.“

In his article “Kaufman of Turkestan: An Assessment of His Administration, 1867-1881” in the Slavic Review (June 1967, pages 265-85) Professor David Mac- Kenzie appears to have been unduly sensitive to any critical contemporary comment concerning General Kaufman. In his protective zeal he has sought to undermine the reputation of Eugene Schuyler, one of the most capable American diplomats of that period, whose diplomatic and literary careers were distinguished by perceptive and candid reporting.

Nothing in Eugene Schuyler's writings justifies the generous use of depreciatory language in Professor MacKenzie's article. To claim that Schuyler was “unfair or malicious,” “misrepresented” Kaufman's work, and presented a “distorted picture“ of his regime is unwarranted by the record.

Let me Thank Mr. Siscoe for raising some pertinent issues relating to my article “Kaufman of Turkestan.” His objections refer almost exclusively to my brief references to Eugene Schuyler's appraisal of the Kaufman administration. It was definitely not my intention, as Mr. Siscoe suggests, to undermine or discredit the reputation of Schuyler. Unquestionably, he was an able, conscientious American diplomat, and his book, Turkistan,contains a wealth of valuable material about the region, its people, and the Russian impact upon Central Asia. Mr. Siscoe could contribute significantly to scholarship by describing at greater length Schuyler's role as diplomat and traveler.