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122-636: As part of wider Russification efforts, the Tsarist government decided to close the women's Benedictine monastery in Kražiai. The locals petitioned to keep the monastery's Church of the Immaculate Conception open and transform it into a parish church. The Tsar ordered the monastery closed and demolished in June 1893. The locals started a constant vigil inside the church, protecting it from members of

244-483: A double goal. On the one hand, it had been an effort to counter Russian chauvinism by assuring a place for non-Russian languages and cultures in the newly formed Soviet Union. On the other hand, it was a means to prevent the formation of alternative ethnically based political movements , including pan-Islamism and pan-Turkism . One way of accomplishing this was to promote what some regard as artificial distinctions between ethnic groups and languages rather than promoting

366-591: A large scale. Nominally, this process was guided by the principle of "voluntary parental choice." But other factors also came into play, including the size and formal political status of the group in the Soviet federal hierarchy and the prevailing level of bilingualism among parents. By the early 1970s schools in which non-Russian languages served as the principal medium of instruction operated in 45 languages, while seven more indigenous languages were taught as subjects of study for at least one class year. By 1980, instruction

488-548: A people totalling less than one million in number. On 19 June 2018, the Russian State Duma adopted a bill that made education in all languages but Russian optional, overruling previous laws by ethnic autonomies , and reducing instruction in minority languages to only two hours a week. This bill has been likened by some commentators, such as in Foreign Affairs , to the policy of Russification. When

610-903: A pit meant for slaking lime at the local cemetery. The priests were forbidden from recording the names of the victims and performing funeral rites, including sprinkling the ground with holy water. In total, 330 people were interrogated and 71 (34 peasants, 27 nobles, and 10 city residents; 55 men and 16 women) were arrested and put on trial in Vilnius. They were defended pro bono by eight attorneys, Russians Sergey Andreyevsky , Konstantin Bialy, Alexander Turchaninov, Alexander Urusov , Vladimir Zhukovsky  [ ru ] and Poles Jan Maurycy Kamiński, Leon Dunin-Szostakowski, and Michał Węsławski . Michał Węsławski along with Stanislovas Raila  [ lt ] , served as an interpreter for peasants who spoke only Samogitian and did not know Russian. The trial

732-422: A play about the events. Lithuanians protested such attempts to usurp and appropriate the events in the spirit of the old Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth and in support of the dual Polish-Lithuanian identity. Lithuanian press denied any involvement of Poles while Polish press blamed Lithuanians for fracturing the united front against the Tsarist regime. In March 1894, Pope Leo XIII issued encyclical Caritatis on

854-566: A play by Juozapas Žebrys. The events caused a stir among Lithuanian Americans who collected donations, held lectures, and organized protest rallies. The largest rallies were held on 28 January 1894 in Chicago (estimated 6,000 people) and on 4 March 1894 in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania (estimated 7,000 Lithuanians and 3,000 of other nationalities). Historian Nerijus Udrėnas summarized that the events in Kražiai accelerated two major trends of

976-615: A process of changing one's ethnic self-label or identity from a non-Russian ethnonym to Russian, from Russianization , the spread of the Russian language, culture, and people into non-Russian cultures and regions, distinct also from Sovietization or the imposition of institutional forms established by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union throughout the territory ruled by that party. In this sense, although Russification

1098-486: A regional Ministry of Internal Affairs building, writing on Facebook, “For my death, please blame the Russian Federation.” In September 2023, Russia's Ministry of Internal Affairs decided to have an appeal by imprisoned opposition leader Alexey Navalny challenging his 19-year prison sentence on extremism charges held by a court behind closed doors, and the appeal was dismissed. Supporters of Navalny said he

1220-469: A second language but they also adopted it as their home language or mother tongue – although some still retained their sense of ethnic identity or origins even after shifting their native language to Russian. This includes both the traditional communities (e.g., Lithuanians in the northwestern Belarus ( see Eastern Vilnius region ) or the Kaliningrad Oblast ( see Lithuania Minor )) and

1342-1115: A second language or using it as a primary language. In the last decades of the Soviet Union, ethnic Russification (or ethnic assimilation ) was moving very rapidly for a few nationalities such as the Karelians and Mordvinians . Whether children born in mixed families to one Russian parent were likely to be raised as Russians depended on the context. For example, the majority of children in North Kazakhstan with one of each parent chose Russian as their nationality on their internal passport at age 16. Children of mixed Russian and Estonian parents living in Tallinn (the capital city of Estonia ), or mixed Russian and Latvian parents living in Riga (the capital of Latvia ), or mixed Russian and Lithuanian parents living in Vilnius (the capital of Lithuania ) most often chose as their own nationality that of

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1464-422: A single common language would be adopted by all nationalities in the Soviet Union, "the obliteration of national distinctions, and especially language distinctions, is a considerably more drawn-out process than the obliteration of class distinctions." At the time, Soviet nations and nationalities were further flowering their cultures and drawing together (сближение – sblizhenie) into a stronger union. In his Report on

1586-716: A total of eight petitions to the Tsar himself, asking to convert the monastery church into a parish church and transform the crumbling wooden parish Church of the Archangel Michael into a cemetery chapel. Governor-General Ivan Kakhanov  [ ru ] investigated the issue and recommended to the Ministry of the Interior of the Russian Empire to transfer the churches. However, on 1 January 1893, Kakhanov who

1708-446: Is assigning Russian nationals to lead administrative positions in national institutions. In culture, Russification primarily amounts to the domination of the Russian language in official business and the strong influence of the Russian language on national idioms. The shifts in demographics in favour of the ethnic Russian population are sometimes considered a form of Russification as well. Some researchers distinguish Russification , as

1830-403: Is usually conflated across Russification, Russianization, and Russian-led Sovietization, each can be considered a distinct process. Russianization and Sovietization, for example, did not automatically lead to Russification – a change in language or self-identity of non-Russian people to being Russian. Thus, despite long exposure to the Russian language and culture, as well as to Sovietization, at

1952-586: The 3rd Don Cossack Regiment  [ ru ] arrived to the town early next morning. They easily overpowered Lithuanians armed with sticks, flails , and stones. The Cossacks aimed their blows to the head and face as those wounds would be easily spotted later and would help searching for those who managed to escape. The Cossacks freed Klingenberg who ordered the town surrounded and every Catholic, regardless of age or sex, arrested. The arrested men were flogged with nagaikas . Lithuanian sources published 16 names of flogged men, but claimed that they numbered 69. Using

2074-854: The Caucasus , and in the Volga region (including Tatarstan ). This detached the local Muslim populations from exposure to the language and writing system of the Quran . The new alphabet for these languages was based on the Latin alphabet and was also inspired by the Turkish alphabet . By the late 1930s, the policy had changed. In 1939–1940, the Soviets decided that a number of these languages (including Tatar , Kazakh , Uzbek , Turkmen , Tajik , Kyrgyz , Azerbaijani , and Bashkir ) would henceforth use variations of

2196-570: The Cyrillic script (see Cyrillization in the Soviet union ). Not only that, the spelling and writing of these new Cyrillic words must also be in accordance with the Russian language. Some historians evaluating the Soviet Union as a colonial empire , applied the " prison of nations " idea to the USSR. Thomas Winderl wrote "The USSR became in a certain sense more a prison-house of nations than

2318-474: The Cyrillic script . Before and during World War II, Joseph Stalin deported to Central Asia and Siberia many entire nationalities for their alleged and largely disproven collaboration with the German invaders: Volga Germans , Crimean Tatars , Chechens , Ingush , Balkars , Kalmyks , and others. Shortly after the war, he deported many Ukrainians , Balts , and Estonians to Siberia as well. After

2440-644: The Komi began but it did not penetrate the Komi heartlands until the 18th century. However, by the 19th century, Komi-Russian bilingualism had become the norm and there was an increasing Russian influence on the Komi language . After the Russian defeat in the Crimean War in 1856 and the January Uprising of 1863, Tsar Alexander II increased Russification to reduce the threat of future rebellions. Russia

2562-600: The Lithuanian National Revival – separation of the dual Polish-Lithuanian identity into just Polish or Lithuanian national identities and separation of the Lithuanian National Revival into two main branches (conservative Catholic and liberal secular). Polish press also covered the events, often claiming that the defenders were Poles organized and led by Polish szlachta . Polish journalist Zenon Parvi  [ pl ] wrote

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2684-561: The Lithuanian press ban and various restrictions on the Roman Catholic Church . The government often closed churches and chapels attached to manors or cemeteries as well as monasteries and their churches. In Samogitia , authorities closed some 46 Catholic monasteries, and 22 churches and chaples. In five towns ( Dūkštas , Šešuoliai , Tytuvėnai , Kęstaičiai , and Kražiai ) local residents attempted to protest and resist

2806-792: The NKVD of the Russian SFSR . After the establishment of the USSR , there was no Soviet (federal) NKVD until 1934. In March 1946, all of the People's Commissariats (NK) were redesignated as Ministries (M). The NKVD was renamed the MVD of the USSR, along with its former subordinate, the NKGB which became the MGB of the USSR. The NKVDs of Union Republics also became Ministries of Internal Affairs subordinate to MVD of

2928-821: The Police of Russia , Migration Affairs , Drugs Control , Traffic Safety , the Centre for Combating Extremism , and the Investigative Department. The MVD is headquartered in Zhitnaya Street 16 in Yakimanka , Moscow . Vladimir Kolokoltsev has been the Minister of Internal Affairs since 2012. The first interior ministry (MVD) in Russia was created by Tsar Alexander I on 28 March 1802. The MVD

3050-861: The Premier of the Soviet Union , called for the dismissal of the All-Union MVD. The Ministry ceased to exist in January 1960, and its functions were transferred to the respective Republican Ministries. The MVD of the Russian SFSR was renamed the Ministry for Securing the Public Order in 1962. Leonid Brezhnev again recreated the All-Union Ministry for Securing the Public Order in July 1966, and later assigned Nikolai Shchelokov as Minister;

3172-518: The Russian culture and the Russian language . In a historical sense, the term refers to both official and unofficial policies of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union concerning their national constituents and to national minorities in Russia, aimed at Russian domination and hegemony. The major areas of Russification are politics and culture. In politics, an element of Russification

3294-827: The Security Council of Russia . In turn and on the same day, the Federal Drug Control Service and the Federal Migration Service merged into the MVD, and are now known as the Main Directorate for Drugs Control and the Main Directorate for Migration Affairs , respectively. In 2006, investigative journalist Anna Politkovskaya was murdered. Six years later, the former head of surveillance at Moscow’s main Internal Affairs Directorate

3416-525: The 10th class), the pattern of using the Russian language as the main medium of instruction accelerated after Khrushchev's parental choice program got underway. Pressure to convert the main medium of instruction to Russian was evidently higher in urban areas. For example, in 1961–62, reportedly only 6% of Tatar children living in urban areas attended schools in which Tatar was the main medium of instruction. Similarly in Dagestan in 1965, schools in which

3538-683: The 1970s schooling was offered in at least seven languages in Uzbekistan : Russian, Uzbek , Tajik , Kazakh , Turkmen , Kyrgyz , and Karakalpak . While formally all languages were equal, in almost all Soviet republics the Russian/local bilingualism was "asymmetric": the titular nation learned Russian, whereas immigrant Russians generally did not learn the local language. In addition, many non-Russians who lived outside their respective administrative units tended to become Russified linguistically; that is, they not only learned Russian as

3660-598: The 19th century. Russian Imperial authorities as well as modern Russian nationalists asserted that Russification was an organic national consolidation process that would accomplish the goals of homogenizing the Russian nation as they saw it, and reversing the effects of Polonization . After the 1917 revolution , authorities in the USSR decided to abolish the use of the Arabic alphabet in native languages in Soviet-controlled Central Asia, in

3782-587: The 50th anniversary. However, any such plans were interrupted by World War II and the Soviet occupation in June 1940 . 55°36′01″N 22°41′41″E  /  55.60028°N 22.69472°E  / 55.60028; 22.69472 Russification Russification ( Russian : русификация , romanized :  rusifikatsiya ), Russianisation or Russianization , is a form of cultural assimilation in which non- Russians , whether involuntarily or voluntarily, give up their culture and language in favor of

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3904-480: The Catholic Church and that the pope urged obedience only as much as it did not go against religious beliefs and freedom. After the debate, most of the clergy withdrew their support to Varpas and instead focused on Catholic Žemaičių ir Lietuvos apžvalga and Tėvynės sargas . The official Catholic hierarchy did not promote the memory of the event because the clergy was very passive if not supportive of

4026-603: The Caucasus called for the legislation to be blocked. On 10 September 2019, Udmurt activist Albert Razin self-immolated in front of the regional government building in Izhevsk as it was considering passing the controversial bill to reduce the status of the Udmurt language . Between 2002 and 2010 the number of Udmurt speakers dwindled from 463,000 to 324,000. Other languages in the Volga region recorded similar declines in

4148-588: The Communist Party's socialist project for the Soviet society as a whole but have active participation and leadership by the indigenous nationalities and operate primarily in the local languages. Early nationality policies shared with later policy the object of assuring control by the Communist Party over all aspects of Soviet political, economic, and social life. The early Soviet policy of promoting what one scholar has described as "ethnic particularism" and another as "institutionalized multinationality", had

4270-610: The Duma representatives from the Caucasus did not oppose the bill, it prompted a large outcry in the North Caucasus with representatives from the region being accused of cowardice. The law was also seen as possibly destabilizing, threatening ethnic relations and revitalizing the various North Caucasian nationalist movements. The International Circassian Organization called for the law to be rescinded before it came into effect. Twelve of Russia's ethnic autonomies, including five in

4392-860: The MVD also investigates economic crimes . Two long-time units of the Imperial MVD and NKVD , the Russian Firefighting Service and the Federal Prisons Service , transferred to the Russian Ministry of Emergency Situations in 2001 and to the Russian Ministry of Justice in 2006, respectively. The last reorganization abolished Main Directorates inherited from the NKVD in favour of Departments. In 2012, career police officer Vladimir Kolokoltsev became

4514-631: The Minister of Internal Affairs in Russia. On 5 April 2016, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the Russian Internal Troops , OMON (the Special Purpose Mobility Unit), and SOBR (SWAT) forces to form the basis of the newly created National Guard of Russia , and these close to 200,000 public order, special police, and internal troop forces previously under the command of the MVD were reassigned to

4636-475: The North Caucasus is nearly devoid of schools that teach in mainly their native languages, with the exception of one school in North Ossetia, and a few in rural regions of Dagestan; this is true even in largely monoethnic Chechnya and Ingushetia. Chechen and Ingush are still used as languages of everyday communication to a greater degree than their North Caucasian neighbours, but sociolinguistics argue that

4758-617: The Program to the Congress, Khrushchev used even stronger language: that the process of further rapprochement (sblizhenie) and greater unity of nations would eventually lead to a merging or fusion (слияние – sliyanie) of nationalities. Khrushchev's formula of rapprochement-fusing was moderated slightly when Leonid Brezhnev replaced Khrushchev as General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1964 (a post he held until his death in 1982). Brezhnev asserted that rapprochement would lead ultimately to

4880-471: The RSFSR Ministry was disbanded for the second time, the first being at the creation of the NKVD of the Soviet Union. The MVD regained its original title in 1968. Another role of the reformed MVD was to combat economic crimes , that is, to suppress private business which was largely prohibited by socialist law . This fight was never successful, due to the pervasive nature of the black market . By

5002-551: The RSFSR, whereas 27% of children in classes I-IV (primary school) studied in Russian-language schools, 53% of those in classes V-VIII (incomplete secondary school) studied in Russian-language schools, and 66% of those in classes IX-X studied in Russian-language schools. Although many non-Russian languages were still offered as a subject of study at a higher class level (in some cases through complete general secondary school –

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5124-403: The Russian language gained greater emphasis. In 1938, Russian became a required subject of study in every Soviet school, including those in which a non-Russian language was the principal medium of instruction for other subjects (e.g., mathematics, science, and social studies). In 1939, non-Russian languages that had been given Latin-based scripts in the late 1920s were given new scripts based on

5246-644: The Russian language was regarded as the language for interethnic communication for the whole Soviet Union. Therefore, for most of the Soviet era, especially after the korenizatsiya (indigenization) policy ended in the 1930s, schools in which non-Russian Soviet languages would be taught were not generally available outside the respective ethnically based administrative units of these ethnicities. Some exceptions appeared to involve cases of historic rivalries or patterns of assimilation between neighboring non-Russian groups, such as between Tatars and Bashkirs in Russia or among major Central Asian nationalities. For example, even in

5368-413: The Russian word narod ("people") implied an ethnic community , not just a civic or political community. October 13, 1978, the Soviet Council of Ministers enacted (but did not officially publish) 1978 Decree No. 835, titled "On measures to further improve the teaching and learning of the Russian language in the Union Republics", directing mandating the teaching of Russian , starting in first grade, in

5490-637: The Soviet era, a significant number of ethnic Russians and Ukrainians migrated to other Soviet republics, and many of them settled there. According to the last census in 1989, the Russian 'diaspora' in the non-Russian Soviet republics had reached 25 million. Progress in the spread of the Russian language as a second language and the gradual displacement of other languages was monitored in Soviet censuses. The Soviet censuses of 1926, 1937, 1939, and 1959, had included questions on "native language" (родной язык) as well as "nationality." The 1970, 1979, and 1989 censuses added to these questions one on "other language of

5612-468: The Tsarist authorities. The event was remembered in 1933, the 40th anniversary of the massacre. At the time, the authoritarian regime of Antanas Smetona attempted to lessen the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and thus weaken its main opponent, the Lithuanian Christian Democratic Party . Therefore, the struggle against government oppression for religious freedom was once again relevant. According to contemporary press reports, some 10,000 people attended

5734-440: The USSR to use their native languages and the free development of these languages will be ensured in the future as well. At the same time learning the Russian language, which has been voluntarily accepted by the Soviet people as a medium of communication between different nationalities, besides the language of one's nationality, broadens one's access to the achievements of science and technology and of Soviet and world culture. During

5856-427: The USSR. Secret police became a part of MVD after Lavrenty Beria merged the MGB into the MVD in March 1953. Within a year Beria's downfall caused the MVD to be split up again; after that, the MVD retained its "internal security" (police) functions, while the new KGB took on "state security" (secret police) functions. In his efforts to fight bureaucracy and maintain ' Leninist principles ', Nikita Khrushchev , as

5978-509: The amalgamation of these groups and a common set of languages based on Turkish or another regional language. The Soviet nationalities policy from its early years sought to counter these two tendencies by assuring a modicum of cultural autonomy to non-Russian nationalities within a federal system or structure of government, though maintaining that the ruling Communist Party was monolithic, not federal. A process of "national-territorial delimitation" ( ru:национально-территориальное размежевание )

6100-496: The anniversary events in Kražiai, organized by the Union for the Liberation of Vilnius . The union encouraged people to follow the example of Kražiai defenders and continue to fight for the Vilnius Region disputed with the Second Polish Republic . 38 of the surviving defenders were awarded the Order of Vytautas the Great . Other events were held in other cities and towns, organized by other Lithuanian organizations. Schools were ordered to devote one lesson on 22 November to discussing

6222-523: The bill was still being considered, advocates for minorities warned that the bill could endanger their languages and traditional cultures. The law came after a lawsuit in the summer of 2017, where a Russian mother claimed that her son had been "materially harmed" by learning the Tatar language , while in a speech Putin argued that it was wrong to force someone to learn a language that is not their own. The later "language crackdown" in which autonomous units were forced to stop mandatory hours of native languages

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6344-423: The church in Poland sparking a fierce debate between Catholic and secular Lithuanian activists. Vincas Kudirka in Varpas attacked the encyclical because the pope urged compliance and obedience to the Tsarist regime and thus "betrayed the blood spilled in Kražiai". Defenders of the encyclical, including Pranciškus Bučys , pointed out that it forced Tsarist authorities to make concessions and relax restrictions on

6466-593: The clergy who tried to comply with the orders. On 21 November, Governor of Kaunas Nikolay Klingenberg  [ ru ] personally arrived to the town to supervise the closure. Lithuanians resisted and overpowered 70 policemen that Klingenberg brought with him. The next morning, about 300 Don Cossacks arrived from Varniai and were given a free rein to loot and brutalize. According to official data, nine people died and 54 were injured. At least 24 women were raped and 16 men flogged with nagaikas . 71 persons were put on trial for rioting and disobeying police orders, but

6588-439: The closures. The monastery and church in Kęstaičiai were guarded by locals, but closed using a Cossack unit and demolished in 1887. According to the memoirs of Kražiai survivors, they had received tips from people involved in defending the Kęstaičiai monastery. Kražiai was a small town with 1,761 residents according to the Russian Empire Census in 1897. The Benedictine women's monastery in Kražiai dated since 1639. In 1757–1763,

6710-410: The collapse of the Soviet Union, especially in connection with urbanization and the declining population replacement rates (particularly low among the more western groups). As a result, several of Russia's indigenous languages and cultures are currently considered endangered . E.g. between the 1989 and 2002 censuses, the assimilation numbers of the Mordvins have totalled over 100,000, a major loss for

6832-418: The communities that appeared during Soviet times such as Ukrainian or Belarusian workers in Kazakhstan or Latvia , whose children attended primarily the Russian-language schools and thus the further generations are primarily speaking Russian as their native language; for example, 57% of Estonia's Ukrainians, 70% of Estonia's Belarusians and 37% of Estonia's Latvians claimed Russian as the native language in

6954-491: The complete unity of nationalities. "Unity" is an ambiguous term because it can imply either the maintenance of separate national identities but a higher stage of mutual attraction, similarity between nationalities or total disappearance of ethnic differences. In the political context of the time, rapprochement-unity was regarded as a softening of the pressure toward Russification that Khrushchev had promoted with his endorsement of sliyanie. The 24th Party Congress in 1971 launched

7076-430: The continued flourishing of the nations and nationalities and the fact that they are steadily and voluntarily drawing closer together on the basis of equality and fraternal cooperation. Neither artificial prodding nor holding back of the objective trends of development is admissible here. In the long term historical perspective, this development will lead to complete unity of the nations.... The equal right of all citizens of

7198-429: The cruelty of the Cossacks caused a public outcry and the people received a pardon from the Tsar. The event became a rallying cry of the Lithuanian National Revival . After the Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire . In response to the failed uprisings in 1831 and 1863–1864 , Tsarist authorities enacted various Russification policies, including

7320-411: The cultural values and traditions of the Muslim population. Eventually, 240 such schools for both boys and girls, including a women's college founded in 1901, were established prior to the "Sovietization" of the South Caucasus. The first Russian-Azeri reference library opened in 1894. In 1918, during the short period of Azerbaijan's independence , the government declared Azeri the official language, but

7442-501: The current situation will lead to their degradation relative to Russian as well. In 2020, a set of amendments to the Russian constitution was approved by the State Duma and later the Federation Council . One of the amendments enshrined Russian nation as the "state-forming nationality" (Russian: государствообразующий народ ) and Russian the “language of the state-forming nationality”. The amendment has been met with criticism from Russia's minorities who argue that it goes against

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7564-462: The defense of the church. Governor of Kaunas Nikolay Klingenberg  [ ru ] personally arrived to the town in the late evening of 21 November. He was met by Lithuanians holding up two large portraits of Tsar Alexander III of Russia and his wife Maria Feodorovna to showcase their loyalty to the Tsar and pleading him to wait for the Tsar to respond to their latest petition. Klingenberg brought about 70 policemen and ordered them to remove

7686-441: The end of the Soviet era , non-Russians were on the verge of becoming a majority of the population in the Soviet Union . After the two collapses: of Russian Empire in 1917 and Soviet Union in 1991 major processes of derussification took place. The Russification of Uralic-speaking people, such as Vepsians , Mordvins , Maris , and Permians , indigenous to large parts of western and central Russia had already begun with

7808-418: The end of the Soviet era, doctrinal rationalization had been provided for some of the practical policy steps that were taken in the areas of education and the media. First of all, the transfer of many "national schools" (schools based on local languages) to Russian as a medium of instruction accelerated under Khrushchev in the late 1950s and continued into the 1980s. Second, the new doctrine was used to justify

7930-540: The events. They exaggerated casualties and claimed, for example, that 300 Lithuanians were killed or that 600 women were raped. The press attacked the popular notion of "good Tsar, bad bureaucrats" and praised Kražiai defenders as martyrs and an inspirational example for others to follow. The Lithuanian press also covered the trial, publishing defense attorney speeches and special prayers for the defendants. Soon separate booklets were published in East Prussia (where Lithuanian publishing concentrated) and United States, including

8052-537: The excuse of searching for escaped church defenders, the Cossacks were allowed to plunder the town and surrounding villages for two weeks. They raped women – a source from 1933 counted 24 women, including two pregnant women and a 12-year old gang raped by eight Cossacks. Dozens were injured. Nine people died due to beatings and other injuries. There were rumors of people drowning in the nearby Kražantė  [ lt ] river. The Cossacks confiscated 225 sticks and flails. The deceased were buried immediately, thrown into

8174-421: The federal system. Federalism and the provision of native-language education ultimately left as a legacy a large non-Russian public that was educated in the languages of their ethnic groups and that identified a particular homeland on the territory of the Soviet Union. By the late 1930s, policies had shifted. Purges in some of the national regions, such as Ukraine , had occurred already in the early 1930s. Before

8296-433: The first class (grade) in 67 languages between 1934 and 1980. Educational reforms were undertaken after Nikita Khrushchev became First Secretary of the Communist Party in the late 1950s and launched a process of replacing non-Russian schools with Russian ones for the nationalities that had lower status in the federal system, the nationalities whose populations were smaller and the nationalities which were already bilingual on

8418-433: The former of which resulted in Mordvins no longer being among the top ten largest ethnic groups in Russia. Russia was introduced to the South Caucasus following its colonisation in the first half of the nineteenth century after Qajar Iran was forced to cede its Caucasian territories per the Treaty of Gulistan and Treaty of Turkmenchay in 1813 and 1828 respectively to Russia. By 1830 there were schools with Russian as

8540-541: The health of the Russian people, because in this war they earned general recognition as the leading force of the Soviet Union among all the nationalities of our country. The view was reflected in the new State Anthem of the Soviet Union which started with: "An unbreakable union of free republics, Great Russia has sealed forever." Anthems of nearly all Soviet republics mentioned "Russia" or "Russian nation" singled out as "brother", "friend", "elder brother" ( Uzbek SSR ) or "stronghold of friendship" ( Turkmen SSR ). Although

8662-420: The idea that a new " Soviet people " was forming on the territory of the USSR, a community for which the common language – the language of the "Soviet people" – was the Russian language, consistent with the role that Russian was playing for the fraternal nations and nationalities in the territory already. This new community was labeled a people (народ – narod ), not a nation (нация – natsiya ), but in that context

8784-473: The indigenous language was the medium of instruction existed only in rural areas. The pattern was probably similar, if less extreme, in most of the non-Russian union republics , although in Belarus and Ukraine, schooling in urban areas was highly Russianized. The promotion of federalism and of non-Russian languages had always been a strategic decision aimed at expanding and maintaining Communist Party rule. On

8906-601: The language of instruction in the cities of Shusha , Baku , Yelisavetpol ( Ganja ), and Shemakha ( Shamakhi ); later such schools were established in Kuba ( Quba ), Ordubad , and Zakataly ( Zaqatala ). Education in Russian was unpopular amongst ethnic Azerbaijanis until 1887 when Habib bey Mahmudbeyov and Sultan Majid Ganizadeh founded the first Russian–Azerbaijani school in Baku. A secular school with instruction in both Russian and Azeri , its programs were designed to be consistent with

9028-445: The last Soviet census of 1989. Russian replaced Yiddish and other languages as the main language of many Jewish communities inside the Soviet Union as well. Another consequence of the mixing of nationalities and the spread of bilingualism and linguistic Russification was the growth of ethnic intermarriage and a process of ethnic Russification—coming to call oneself Russian by nationality or ethnicity, not just speaking Russian as

9150-606: The law came after a decade in which educational opportunities in the indigenous languages was reduced by more than 50%, due to budget reductions and federal efforts to decrease the role of languages other than Russian. During this period, numerous indigenous languages in the North Caucasus showed significant decreases in their numbers of speakers even though the numbers of the corresponding nationalities increased, leading to fears of language replacement . The numbers of Ossetian, Kumyk and Avar speakers dropped by 43,000, 63,000 and 80,000 respectively. As of 2018, it has been reported that

9272-654: The locals. The residents sent letters not only to the central Russian authorities but also to the governments of foreign countries: Austria-Hungary , Germany , Italy , France , the United Kingdom , USA , and Denmark . The local nobility assisted in drafting these letters. Activists of the Lithuanian national revival, particularly those associated with the journal Žemaičių ir Lietuvos apžvalga , which had been published since 1890 in Tilsit, also became involved in

9394-423: The massacre. Film director Juozas Vaičkus  [ lt ] wanted to produce an epic film on the massacre, one of the first films in Lithuanian , and visited 136 cities and towns raising money. The film was not produced due to financial difficulties (it received no support from the government) and Vaičkus' death in 1935. In 1934, exhibition about Kražiai and religious repressions in Russian Empire in general

9516-466: The mid-1980s, the image of the people's militsiya was largely compromised by the corruption and disorderly behaviour of both enlisted and officer staff (the most shocking case was the robbery and murder of a KGB operative  [ ru ] by a group of militsiya officers stationed in the Moscow Metro in 1980). The Russian MVD re-formed as the MVD of the Russian SFSR in 1990, following

9638-401: The mid-19th century. As the central government began to further partition the countryside, the ispravniks (chiefs of police) were distributed among the sections. Serving under them in their principal localities were commissaries ( stanovoi pristav ). Ispravniki and pristav alike were armed with broad and obscurely-defined powers which, combined with the fact that they were for

9760-410: The ministry of the interior, of which the principal function was the discovery, prevention, and extirpation of political sedition . Its most famous development was the so-called Third Section (of the imperial chancery) instituted by Emperor Nicholas I in 1826. This was entirely independent of the ordinary police, but was associated with the previously existing Special Corps of Gendarmes , whose chief

9882-516: The monastery and church closed and demolished on 22 June 1893; the stones and bricks were to be used to construct an agricultural school. The Benedictine nuns attempted to delay their move to Kaunas using various excuses, including lack of warm clothing and ill health. Due to poor health, Aleksandra Sieliniewska, Benedykta Choromańska, Salomea Siemaszkówna, and Abbess Michalina Paniewska remained in Kražiai. They were visited by Russian policemen from Raseiniai and two doctors to inspect their health. When

10004-614: The monastery constructed the brick church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary (architect Thomas Zebrowski ). The church was considered the "nobles' church," meaning it was the most frequently attended by the local nobility. The nuns also mostly came from noble backgrounds and spoke Polish in their daily lives. The liturgy was conducted in Polish and Latin , the gospel was read in Polish and Samogitian , while

10126-400: The most part illiterate and wholly ignorant of the law, formed crushing forces of oppression. Towards the end of the reign of Alexander II , the government, in order to preserve order in the country districts, also created a special class of mounted rural policemen ( uryadniks , from uriad , order), who, in a time without habeas corpus , were armed with power to arrest all suspects on

10248-441: The most widely spoken language, and that Russians were the majority of the population of the country, were also cited in justification of the special place of the Russian language in government, education, and the media. At the 27th CPSU Party Congress in 1986, presided over by Mikhail Gorbachev , the 4th Party Program reiterated the formulas of the previous program: Characteristic of the national relations in our country are both

10370-473: The number of speakers; between the 2002 and 2010 censuses the number of Mari speakers declined from 254,000 to 204,000 while Chuvash recorded only 1,042,989 speakers in 2010, a 21.6% drop from 2002. This is attributed to a gradual phasing out of indigenous language teaching both in the cities and rural areas while regional media and governments shift exclusively to Russian. In the North Caucasus ,

10492-476: The nuns would not allow the men into their monastery, they broke down the doors and forcibly removed the nuns escorting them to Kaunas. The nuns were forcibly removed on 25 October 1892 and 4 May 1893. This galvanized town residents who started a constant vigil inside the church to protect it and its valuables on 13 September 1893. Several times, local priests attempted to remove the Eucharist , but were stopped by

10614-445: The official literature on nationalities and languages in subsequent years continued to speak of there being 130 equal languages in the USSR, in practice a hierarchy was endorsed in which some nationalities and languages were given special roles or viewed as having different long-term futures. An analysis of textbook publishing found that education was offered for at least one year and it was also offered to children who were in at least

10736-493: The old Empire had ever been." Stalin's Marxism and the National Question (1913) provided the basic framework for nationality policy in the Soviet Union. The early years of said policy, from the early 1920s to the mid-1930s, were guided by the policy of korenizatsiya ("indigenization"), during which the new Soviet regime sought to reverse the long-term effects of Russification on the non-Russian populations. As

10858-565: The original eastward expansion of East Slavs . Written records of the oldest period are scarce, but toponymic evidence indicates that this expansion was accomplished at the expense of various Volga-Finnic peoples , who were gradually assimilated by Russians; beginning with the Merya and the Muroma early in the 2nd millennium AD. In the 13th to 14th century , the Russification of

10980-535: The other 14 Republics. The new rule was accompanied by a statement that Russian was a "second native language" for all Soviet citizens and "the only means of participation in social life across the nation." The Councils of Ministers of the Republics across the USSR enacted resolutions based on Decree No. 835. Other aspects of Russification contemplated that native languages would gradually be removed from newspapers, radio and television in favor of Russian. Thus, until

11102-492: The parish in 1908 and, after extensive repairs, reopened on 4 September 1910. Other monastery buildings, except for the chapel of St. Roch , did not survive. The wooden Church of the Archangel Michael burned down in June 1941. News of the event quickly spread across Lithuania and reached international press, including New York World News and Kölnische Volkszeitung . Lithuanian press, including Varpas , Ūkininkas , and Vienybė lietuvninkų , devoted significant attention to

11224-587: The partitioning of Kievan Rus. The mentality behind Russification when applied to these groups differed from that applied to others, in that they were claimed to be part of the All-Russian or Triune Russian nation by the Russian Imperial government and by subscribers to Russophilia . Russification competed with contemporary nationalist movements in Ukraine and Belarus that were developing during

11346-400: The peoples of the USSR" that an individual could "use fluently" (свободно владеть). It is speculated that the explicit goal of the new question on the "second language" was to monitor the spread of Russian as the language of internationality communication. Each of the official homelands within the Soviet Union was regarded as the only homeland of the titular nationality and its language, while

11468-653: The principle that Russia is a multinational state and will only marginalize them further. The amendments were welcomed by Russian nationalists , such as Konstantin Malofeev and Nikolai Starikov . The changes in Constitution were preceded by "Strategy of government's national policy of Russian Federation" issued in December 2018, which stated that "all-Russian civic identity is founded on Russia cultural dominant, inherent to all nations of Russian Federation". With

11590-488: The regime was trying to establish its power and legitimacy throughout the former Russian empire, it went about constructing regional administrative units, recruiting non-Russians into leadership positions, and promoting non-Russian languages in government administration, the courts, the schools, and the mass media. The slogan then established was that local cultures should be "socialist in content but national in form." That is, these cultures should be transformed to conform with

11712-535: The release of the latest census in 2022, results showed a catastrophic decline in the number of many ethnic groups, particularly peoples of the Volga region. Between 2010 and 2022, the number of people identifying as ethnic Mari dropped by 22.6%, from 548,000 to 424,000 people. Ethnic Chuvash and Udmurts dropped by 25% and 30% respectively. More vulnerable groups like the Mordvins and Komi-Permyaks saw even larger declines, dropping by 35% and 40% respectively,

11834-526: The residents (about 300–400 people) from the church. Lithuanians resisted and overpowered the police. Chief of the Raseiniai Uyezd was beaten and almost hanged, but freed by the Russian policemen, while Klingenberg barricaded himself in a church choir balcony. The scuffle continued through the night. Lithuanians attempted to negotiate with Klingenberg and force him to write a protocol admitting his wrongdoings. As prearranged, about 300 Cossacks from

11956-701: The restoration of the republican Russian Council of Ministers and the Supreme Soviet of Russia . It continued in its functions when Russia gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. As of 2017 the Ministry controlled: the Politsiya (formerly Militsiya ), the General Administration for Traffic Safety , and the Federal Drug Control Service . Since the disbanding of the Russian Tax Police Service in 2003,

12078-456: The secret police functions of the dismissed Third Section and transferred the most capable Gendarmes to the Okhrana . In 1896 the powers of the minister were extended at the expense of those of the under-secretary, who remained only at the head of the corps of gendarmes; but by a law of 24 September 1904 this was reversed, and the under-secretary was again placed at the head of all the police with

12200-593: The sermons were delivered exclusively in Samogitian. The nuns communicated with the local population in Samogitian and were respected and liked by them. On 12 December 1891, Tsar Alexander III of Russia ordered the monastery closed and nine remaining nuns transferred to a Benedictine monastery in Kaunas . Town residents sent the first petitions to the Tsar, Governor-General of Vilna , and Bishop of Samogitia on 7 February 1892. They sent many other petitions, including

12322-401: The special place of the Russian language as the "language of inter-nationality communication" (язык межнационального общения) in the USSR. Use of the term "inter-nationality" (межнациональное) rather than the more conventional "international" (международное) focused on the special internal role of Russian language rather than on its role as a language of international discourse. That Russian was

12444-423: The spot. These uryadniks rapidly became the terror of the countryside. Finally, in the towns of the rural countryside, every house was provided with a "guard dog" of sorts, in the form of a porter ( dvornik ), who was charged with the duty of reporting the presence of any suspicious characters or anything of interest to the police. In addition there was also the secret police , in direct subordination to

12566-477: The theoretical plane, the Communist Party's official doctrine was of eventual national differences and nationalities as such would disappear. In official party doctrine as it was reformulated in the Third Program of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union introduced by Nikita Khrushchev at the 22nd Party Congress in 1961, although the program stated that ethnic distinctions would eventually disappear and

12688-735: The title of under-secretary for the administration of the police. By World War I , the department had spawned a counter-intelligence section. After the February Revolution of 1917, the Gendarmes and the Okhrana were disbanded as anti-revolutionary. Having won the October Revolution , the Bolsheviks disbanded the tsarist police forces and formed an all- proletarian Workers' and Peasants' Militsiya under

12810-557: The titular nationality of their republic – not Russian. More generally, patterns of linguistic and ethnic assimilation (Russification) were complex and cannot be accounted for by any single factor such as educational policy. Also relevant were the traditional cultures and religions of the groups, their residence in urban or rural areas, their contact with and exposure to the Russian language and to ethnic Russians, and other factors. Defunct The enforced Russification of Russia's remaining indigenous minorities continued in Russia after

12932-580: The turnabout in Ukraine in 1933, a purge of Veli İbraimov and his leadership in the Crimean ASSR in 1929 for "national deviation" led to the Russianization of government, education, and the media and to the creation of a special alphabet for Crimean Tatar to replace the Latin alphabet. Of the two dangers that Joseph Stalin had identified in 1923, now bourgeois nationalism (local nationalism)

13054-442: The use of Russian in government documents was permitted until all civil servants mastered the official language. Ministry of Internal Affairs (Imperial Russia) The Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation ( MVD ; Russian : Министерство внутренних дел [МВД] , Ministerstvo vnutrennikh del ) is the interior ministry of Russia . The MVD is responsible for law enforcement in Russia through its agencies

13176-457: The war, the leading role of the Russian people in the Soviet family of nations and nationalities was promoted by Stalin and his successors. This shift was most clearly underscored by Communist Party General Secretary Stalin's Victory Day toast to the Russian people in May 1945: I would like to raise a toast to the health of our Soviet people and, before all, the Russian people. I drink, before all, to

13298-583: Was also seen as a move by Putin to "build identity in Russian society". Protests and petitions against the bill by either civic society, groups of public intellectuals or regional governments came from Tatarstan (with attempts for demonstrations suppressed), Chuvashia , Mari El , North Ossetia , Kabardino-Balkaria, the Karachays , the Kumyks , the Avars , Chechnya , and Ingushetia . Although

13420-508: Was being silenced for criticizing President Vladimir Putin's government. In 2020 Navalny was poisoned in Russia with the Soviet-era nerve agent Novichok . Telecommunications service providers are required to grant the Ministry of Internal Affairs 24-hour remote access to their client databases, including telephone and electronic communication and records, enabling the Ministry to track private communications and internet activity without

13542-469: Was found guilty of organizing her murder by tracking her movements and giving a gun to the killer. In December 2019, Distributed Denial of Secrets listed a leak from Russia's Ministry of the Interior, portions of which detailed the deployment of Russian troops to Ukraine, at a time when the Kremlin was denying a military presence there. Some material from that leak was published in 2014, about half of it

13664-412: Was held on 20–29 September 1894 in Vilnius . Following the letter of the law, 36 people were acquitted while 35 people were found guilty and received various sentences, including four men who received 10 years of katorga . However, the judges themselves petitioned the new Tsar Nicholas II of Russia to pardon the people and commute the 10-year katorga to one year in prison. A collection of court documents

13786-574: Was implicated in a corruption scandal (accused of misappropriating funds collected for a monument to Mikhail Muravyov-Vilensky ) was replaced by Pyotr Orzhevsky  [ ru ] , former commander of the Special Corps of Gendarmes . Orzhevsky was a strong supporter of the various Russification policies and perhaps hoped that his strict stance would gain him favor in Saint Petersburg and restart his political career. The Tsar ordered

13908-436: Was not, and WikiLeaks reportedly rejected a request to host the files two years later, at a time when Julian Assange was focused on exposing Democratic Party documents passed to WikiLeaks by Kremlin hackers. The founder and editor of the independent news site Koza.Press, known professionally as Irina Slavina , was harassed by law enforcement for years. On October 2, 2020, she committed suicide by self-immolation outside

14030-513: Was offered in 35 non-Russian languages of the peoples of the USSR, just over half the number in the early 1930s. In most of these languages, schooling was not offered for the complete ten-year curriculum. For example, within the Russian SFSR in 1958–59, full 10-year schooling in the native language was offered in only three languages: Russian, Tatar , and Bashkir . And some nationalities had minimal or no native-language schooling. By 1962–1963, among non-Russian nationalities that were indigenous to

14152-502: Was one of the most powerful governmental bodies of the Empire, responsible for the police forces and Internal Guards , and the supervision of gubernial administrations. Its initial responsibilities also included prisons, firefighting, state enterprises, the state postal system, state property, construction, roads, medicine, clergy , natural resources, and nobility ; most of them were transferred to other ministries and government bodies by

14274-484: Was placed at its head. Its object had originally been to keep the emperor in close touch with all the branches of the administration and to bring to his notice any abuses and irregularities, and for this purpose its chief was in constant personal contact with the sovereign. Following the growth of the revolutionary movement and the assassination of Emperior Alexander II , the Department of State Police inherited

14396-614: Was populated by many minority groups, and forcing them to accept the Russian culture was an attempt to prevent self-determination tendencies and separatism. In the 19th century, Russian settlers on traditional Kazakh land (misidentified as Kyrgyz at the time) drove many of the Kazakhs over the border to China. Russification was extended to non-Muscovite ethnographic groups that composed former Kievan Rus , namely Ukrainians and Belarusians , whose vernacular language and culture developed differently from that of Muscovy due to separation after

14518-455: Was published in Polish in 1895. The church interior was almost fully demolished. Sculptures were smashed, paintings had bullet holes. Priests moved two side altars to the church in Maironiai  [ lt ] and some other items to the parish church in Kražiai, but many other items were looted. The church was left essentially empty and was closed, but not demolished. It was returned to

14640-469: Was said to be a greater threat than Great Russian chauvinism (great power chauvinism). In 1937, Faizullah Khojaev and Akmal Ikramov were removed as leaders of the Uzbek SSR , and in 1938, during the third great Moscow show trial , convicted and subsequently put to death for alleged anti-Soviet nationalist activities. After Stalin, an ethnic Georgian, became the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union,

14762-405: Was shown in Kaunas , Šiauliai , Klaipėda , and Panevėžys . A small memorial museum in Kražiai was opened in summer 1938. The same year, writer Jonas Marcinkevičius  [ lt ] published a two-volume historical novel about the events. There were other plans for commemorating the events with special medals, monument, or enlarged museum all aimed at the anticipated grand ceremony in 1943,

14884-421: Was undertaken to define the official territories of the non-Russian populations within the Soviet Union. The federal system conferred the highest status to the titular nationalities of union republics, and lower status to the titular nationalities of autonomous republics, autonomous provinces, and autonomous okrugs. In all, some 50 nationalities had a republic, province, or okrug of which they held nominal control in

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