Encyclopedia of Russian History

A machinist’s apprentice who joined the Bolsheviks in 1903, Kliment Efremovich Voroshilov spent nearly a decade underground and in exile, then emerged in late 1917 to become the commissar of Petrograd. In 1918 he assisted Felix Dz-erzhinsky in founding the Cheka, then fought on various civil war fronts, including Tsaritsyn in 1918, where he sided with Josef V. Stalin against Leon Trotsky over the utilization of former tsarist officers in the new Red Army. A talented grassroots organizer, Voroshilov was adept at assembling ad hoc field units, especially cavalry. Following the death of Mikhail V. Frunze in late 1925, Voroshilov served until mid-1934 as commissar of military and naval affairs, and subsequently until May 1940 as defense commissar. Known more as a political toady than a serious commander, he served in important command and advisory capacities during World War II, often with baleful results. During the postwar era he aided in the Sovietization of Hungary, but at home was relegated to largely honorific governmental positions. To his credit Voroshilov objected to using the Red Army against the peasantry during collectivization, and, despite complicity in Stalin’s purges, he occasionally intervened to rescue military officers. Notwithstanding a cavalry bias, he oversaw an impressive campaign for the mechanization of the Red Army during the 1930s, including support for the T-34 tank over Stalin’s initial objections. After Stalin’s death in 1953 Voroshilov was named chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, a post he held until he was forced to resign in 1960 after participating in the anti-Party group opposed to Nikita Khrushchev. See also: MILITARY, SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET; STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH

1650

VOTCHINA

Literally, “patrimony” (the noun derives from Slavonic otchy, i.e. belonging to one’s father); in medieval Russia, inherited landed property that could be legally sold, donated or disposed in another way by the owner (votchinnik).

In the eleventh through thirteenth centuries, the term mainly indicated the hereditary rights of princes to their principalities or appanages. Thus, according to Nestor’s chronicle, the princes who gathered at Lyubech in 1097 proclaimed: “Let everybody hold his own patrimony (otchina).” It was in this sense that Ivan III later applied the word votchina to all the Russian lands claiming the legacy of his ancestors, the Kievan princes.

In the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, as land transactions became more frequent, the word votchina acquired a new basic meaning, referring to estates (villages, arable lands, forests, and so forth) owned by hereditary right. Up to the end of fifteenth century, votchina remained the only form of landed property in Muscovy. The reforms of Ivan III in the 1480s created another type of ownership of land, the pomestie, which made new landowners (pomeshchiki) entirely dependent on the grand prince who granted estates to them on condition of loyal service. In the sixteenth century, Muscovite rulers favored the growth of the pomestie system, simultaneously keeping a check on the circulation of patrimonial estates. Decrees of 1551, 1562, and 1572 regulated conditions under which alienated patrimonies could be redeemed by the seller’s kinsfolk. The same legislation stipulated that each case of donation of one’s patrimony to a monastery must be sanctioned by the government. (In 1580, the sale or donation of estates to monasteries was totally prohibited.)

Historians have stressed the growing similarity between votchina and pomestie. On the one hand, as Vladimir Kobrin points out, pomestie from the very beginning tended to become hereditary property; on the other hand, the owners of patrimonies were obliged to serve in the tsarist army (legally, since 1556), just as pomestie holders did.

ENCYCLOPEDIA OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

VOYEVODA

S. B. Veselovskii cites some cases from the 1580s, when the authorities ordered the confiscation of both pomestia (pl.) and votchiny (pl.) of those servicemen who had ignored the military summons.

But some difference between the two forms of landed property remained: In the eyes of landowners, votchina preserved its significance as the preferable right to one’s land. As O. A. Shvatchenko put it, votchiny formed the material basis of the Russian aristocracy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.