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khanate of Crimea, the four successor khanates of
the Golden Horde continued to rule large parts of
European Russia until their defeat in the mid-
16th century. The khanate of Crimea, protected
by the rising power of Ottoman Turkey, preserved
its independence until 1783 during the reign of
CATHERINE II
the Great.
Ottoman Empire, the military campaigns that
followed in 1687 and 1689 against the Crimean
Tatars, allies of the Ottomans, resulted in disas-
ters that contributed to the downfall of Golitsyn
and Sophia's regency in 1689. With Sophia over-
thrown, Golitsyn was exiled to the northern
town of Kholmogory, where he eventually died
on May 2, 1714.
Golitsyn, Vasili Vasilievich
(1643-1714)
statesman
A member of an ancient princely family with
numerous branches and a long tradition of ser-
vice to the czar, Prince Vasili Golitsyn was the
main adviser to
SOPHIA
during her regency
(1682-89). Golitsyn first rose to prominence in
1676 during the reign of
ALEKSEI
(1645-76),
when he was awarded the rank of boyar and
appointed to military command in Ukraine. Dur-
ing the reign of Aleksei's son
FEODOR III
(1676-82),
Golitsyn played a leading role in the commission
that recommended the abolition of
mestnichestvo,
a cumbersome system that allotted positions in
the army, government, and diplomatic corps on
the basis of hereditary precedence. With his
lover Sophia as regent for her brother
IVAN V
and
her half brother
PETER I
, Golitsyn reached the
peak of his influence in Russian politics. Golitsyn
was able to reform the Muscovite penal code but
ran into solid opposition from the traditionalist
members of the ruling elite when he sought to
introduce far-reaching reforms, such as the abo-
lition of serfdom, initiation of widespread educa-
tion, the establishment of religious toleration,
and the promotion of industry. Golitsyn had
more lasting success in military and diplomatic
affairs. In 1686 he negotiated an advantageous
treaty of “eternal peace” with Poland, which rec-
ognized Russia's control of
KIEV
and the eastern
bank of the Dnieper River. In 1689, Russia and
China ratified the Treaty of
NERCHINSK
that estab-
lished the Russo-Chinese border along the
AMUR
RIVER
, opening the way for further Russian
exploration and expansion toward the Pacific
Ocean. Although he succeeded in rallying Euro-
pean support for a Holy League against the
Goncharov, Ivan Aleksandrovich
(1814-1891)
writer
Best known for his masterful psychological study
of a slothful gentleman in the novel
Oblomov,
Goncharov worked for the government as editor
of an official newspaper and, between 1856 and
1873, as censor. He first came to the attention of
the Russian reading public with the novel
The
Frigate Pallas
(1858), a gripping account of his
trip to Japan in 1852-53 as secretary to Admiral
Putiatin that fed Russians' growing interest in
the ocean and sea adventures.
Oblomov
(1859)
was actually the second, and by far most suc-
cessful, volume of a trilogy, begun with
A Com-
mon Life
(1847) and completed with
The Precipice
(1869). The latter depicts a frequent theme in
the literature of the era, an ordinary family con-
fronted by the arrival of a nihilist. In
Oblomov,
Goncharov portrays an indolent, guilt-ridden
landowner who spends most of his day in his
bathrobe trying to get out of bed, and contrasts
him with his foil, his efficient secretary Stolz,
who not unintentionally has a Germanic name.
The novel's eponymous hero became the sym-
bol of the agreeable laziness that was held to be
a typical Russian characteristic that to some crit-
ics was a “disease,” known to this day as
oblo-
movshchina.
Goncharova, Natalia Sergeevna
(1881-1962)
artist
A prominent exponent of a fusion of Russian and
European artistic styles, Goncharova came from
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