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mainly on landscapes and religious paintings.
Back in Russia, he joined the Peredvizhniki
(
WANDERERS
) movement in 1870 and continued
to explore moral and religious themes. His
famous
Peter I Interrogates the Tsarevich Aleksei
(1871) dates from this period. Ge abandoned a
promising career as an art teacher and traveled to
the Ukraine, where he spent 10 years studying
Lev Tolstoy's religious writings. His religious
paintings are particularly expressive and, with
their emphasis on suffering, stand out from the
comforting familiarity of other religious paintings
of the era. Not long before his death, he com-
pleted a cycle of works on the Passion of Christ,
beginning with
What Is Truth?
(1890), that por-
trays Pilate's interrogation of Christ, and contin-
uing with
Crucifixion
(1891) and
Golgotha
(1892).
at war with a fourth power (except the Ottoman
Empire). First established in 1873, the league
had recovered from disagreements following the
RUSSO
-
TURKISH WAR
and was in place again from
1881 to 1887. In 1887, with Russia and Austria-
Hungary at odds over the Balkans, the agree-
ment was allowed to lapse, but Russia signed a
secret Reinsurance Treaty with Germany that
was to be renewed in 1890. By 1890, however,
with Emperor Wilhelm II in full control over for-
eign policy, Germany discontinued the Reinsur-
ance Treaty. Building from a series of French
loans designed to spur Russian industrialization,
Giers arranged for a diplomatic understanding
between France and Russia, signed in 1891, by
which the two countries would consult each
other in case of war. In January 1894, after
French insistence overcame the Russian prefer-
ence for a rapprochement with Germany, the
diplomatic understanding was upgraded to a for-
mal military alliance. As foreign minister, Giers
was known for a cautious but firm style that
matched that of Alexander III and kept Russia
out of war during his tenure. Giers died in office
on January 26, 1895.
Giers, Nikolai Karlovich
(1820-1895)
statesman and diplomat
Russian foreign minister during the reign of
ALEXANDER III
, Giers engineered the surprising
transition from a Russian alliance with imperial
Germany to one with republican France. Giers
was born in the town of Radzivilov in the pro-
vince of Volhynia in the western part of the
Russian Empire. He entered the Russian foreign
service in 1838, first working in the Asian
department of the Foreign Ministry. After serv-
ing in numerous posts abroad, including ambas-
sador to Iran (1863) and Sweden (1872), in
1875 Giers was appointed assistant foreign min-
ister and director of the Asian department of the
Foreign Ministry. With Foreign Minister Alek-
sandr
GORCHAKOV
increasingly unable to fulfill
his duties and discredited after the
CONGRESS OF
BERLIN
in 1878, Giers became de facto foreign
minister during the last years of
ALEXANDER II
's
reign, even as Gorchakov remained the titular
minister until 1882. As foreign minister, Giers
sought to maintain Russia's recent pro-German
orientation through the Three Emperor's League
that also included Germany and Austria-Hun-
gary and committed the three empires to a pol-
icy of friendly neutrality should one of them be
Giliarovsky, Vladimir Alekseevich
(1853-1935)
journalist
Born to a middle-class family that had settled in
the northern province of Vologda. Like many
youths of his day, Giliarovsky was strongly influ-
enced by the writings of the radical journalist
Nikolai Chernyshevsky, particularly by the
romantic character of Rakhmetov in
What Is to Be
Done?
(1863). In 1871, seeking to emulate Rakh-
metov, Giliarovsky set out for the Volga region,
“to serve the people,” beginning a 10-year period
of wanderings during which he worked as a barge
hauler, fireman, paint factory worker, breaker of
wild horses, circus actor, and provincial theater
actor. Giliarovsky participated in the R
USSO
-
T
URKISH WAR OF
1877-78
as a volunteer and, in
1881, settled in Moscow, the city with which he
became most closely identified. His first book of
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