Encyclopedia of Russian History

Derleth, James. (1991). “The Defense Council and the Evolution of the Soviet National Security Decision-making Apparatus.” In Russia and Eurasia Armed Forces Annual, Vol., 15:, ed. T. W. Karasik. Gulf Breeze, FL: Academic International. Fuller, William C., Jr. (1985). Civil-Military Conflict in Imperial Russia, 1881-1914. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Hellie, Richard. (1971). Enserfment and Military Change in Muscovy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Keep, John L. H. (1985). Soldiers of the Tsar: Army and Society in Russia, 1462-1874. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

DAVID R. JONES

ADMIRALTY

From the beginning, St. Petersburg’s docks and associated administrative building, collectively known as the Admiralty, had been an essential part of the city’s existence. The shipyard was built by Peter the Great in 1704, and in the 1730s Ivan Ko-robov added the central gate and golden spire. By 1806 plans submitted by Andreian Zakharov for reconstruction of the large, and by then, decrepit complex had been approved. Zakharov had attended the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg and studied extensively in France and Italy. Although he died in 1811, long before the completion of the building in 1823, no significant changes were made in his design.

In reconstructing Korobov’s partially destroyed Admiralty, Zakharov expanded the length of the facade from 300 meters to 375. In addition there were two perpendicular wings almost half that long extending to the river. From the perspective of the Neva River, the complex consisted of two pi-shaped buildings, one within the other. The inner building served the Admiralty dockyard, which it enclosed on three sides, while the outer contained The gilded Admiralty Tower rises above St. Petersburg. © CUCHI WHITE/CORBIS

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administrative offices. The Admiralty end-blocks, facing the Neva River, are among the most successful neoclassical attempts to achieve a geometric purity of structure.

The main facade, overlooking a large square (now a park), is marked in the center by a grand arch, flanked by statues of nymphs supporting a globe, sculpted by Feodosy Shchedrin. Above the arch, a sculpted frieze portrays Neptune handing Peter the Great the trident, symbol of power over the seas. The corners of the central tower support statues of Alexander the Great, Ajax, Achilles, and Pyrrhus. The tower culminates in a spire resting on an Ionic peristyle, the cornice of which supports twenty-eight allegorical and mythological statues representing the seasons, the elements, and the winds.

The remarkable power of the Admiralty building derives from Zakharov’s ability to create visual accents for an immensely long facade. The simplicity of the surfaces provided the ideal background for large, rusticated arches and high-relief sculpture, thus converting a prosaic structure into a noble monument. See also: ARCHITECTURE; ST. PETERSBURG

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Brumfield, William Craft. (1993). A History of Russian Architecture. New York and Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hamilton, George Heard. (1975). The Art and Architecture of Russia. Harmondsworth, UK: Penguin Books.

WILLIAM CRAFT BRUMFIELD

The Adyge belong to the same ethnolinguistic family as the Cherkess and the Kabardians, who live in neighboring republics, and they speak various dialects of Western Circassian. Soviet nationalities policies established these three groups as separate peoples and languages, but historical memory and linguistic affinity, as well as post-Soviet ethnic politics, perpetuate notions of ethnic continuity. An important element in this has been the contacts, since the break-up of the Soviet Union, with Adyge living in Turkey, Syria, Israel, Jordan, West Europe, and the United States. These are the descendants of migrants who left for the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century, after the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. In the 1990s, a number of Adyge families from the diaspora migrated back and settled in Maikop, but integration remains somewhat fraught with social and legal problems.

The Adyge are Muslim, although other religious influences, including Greek Orthodox Christianity and indigenous beliefs and rituals, can be discerned in cultural practices. As elsewhere, the Soviet state discouraged Islamic practice and identity among the Adyge, but supported cultural nation-building. In the post-Soviet period, the wars in Abkhazia (1992-1993) and Chechnya (1994-1997; 1999-2000) greatly affected Adyge politics, causing the Russian state to intermittently infuse the republic with resources to prevent the spreading of conflict. In another development, the Shapsoug, who belong to the same ethno-linguistic group and live on the Black Sea shores near the town of Sochi, are lobbying Moscow for their own administrative unit, and for political linkages with the Adygeia Republic.

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