HISTORICAL DICTIONARY A–Z - Russia: A Reference Guide from the Renaissance to the Present - page 307

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St. Basil's Cathedral
A striking church with unique multicolored
domes that stands at the south end of RED
SQUARE in Moscow, St. Basil's has become a pop-
ular symbol of Russia. The church was commis-
sioned in 1552 by IVAN IV “the Terrible” to
celebrate the conquest of Kazan. Construction
began in 1555 and was completed in 1679. The
church was originally known as the Cathedral of
the Intercession of the Virgin but eventually was
named after BASIL THE BLESSED , the 16th-century
holy man who died in 1552 and was later can-
onized by the Russian Orthodox Church. Little is
known about the original architects, tradition-
ally identified as Posnik and Barma. Legend has
it that they were blinded by Ivan so that the
church could not be replicated, but there is little
evidence to support this. In the late 16th century
the church was used to store the czar's Great
Treasury. Fires in 1626, 1668, and 1737 dam-
aged the church and, during the brief French
occupation of Moscow in 1812, soldiers plun-
dered the church. A complete restoration was
conducted from 1839 to 1845 to replicate its early
17th-century appearance. During the Soviet era,
the church became a museum.

George's Day, peasants marked the end of the
long winter by driving out their cattle into the
spring pastures and celebrated the oncoming
spring by slaughtering a lamb and other festivi-
ties. The second St. George's Day commemorates
the building of a church dedicated to St. George
in Kiev in 1051-54. It falls on November 26
around the time of the pre-Christian celebra-
tions of the end of the agricultural year, after the
crops had been harvested and threshed. How the
custom began is still unclear, but during the mid-
15th century, the Muscovite government began
to restrict peasant movement, except for a brief
period around the second St. George's Day. At
first the measure applied only to indebted peas-
ants, allowing them to move only after they
had paid their debts. The 1497 law code ( sudeb-
nik ), passed in the reign of IVAN III , permitted
peasants to move only in a two-week period
around St. George's Day. The 1550 law code
further restricted the right to move. In 1592, the
peasants' right to move was universally can-
celed, thus marking the virtual enserfment of
the peasantry, now bound to the land that was
written into law in 1649. Although the abolition
of their right to move was supposedly “tempo-
rary,” peasants were not allowed to move freely
again until 1906, for even the EMANCIPATION ACT
of 1861 had limited their freedom to move
through the institution of the commune.

St. George's Day
There are two important St. George's Days in the
Russian Orthodox Church calendar, the second
of which is closely connected to the develop-
ment of SERFDOM in early modern Russia. The
first St. George's Day falls on April 23 and com-
memorates the death of St. George the “Dragon
Slayer,” in A . D . 303. A holiday that rivaled Easter
in some parts of the Orthodox world, on this St.

St. Petersburg
Founded in 1703 by PETER I the Great to serve as
Russia's “window on Europe,” St. Petersburg
served as the capital of Russia from 1712 until
1918, when the BOLSHEVIKS chose Moscow as