Derek Offord

Book Review: The Revolution of Peter the Great

monopoly on the requisite technology (indeed in many respects it lagged behind), while other geographical areas with similar or better levels of technological sophistication were also involved in semi-continuous warfare. He is also unhappy with cultural explanations, which posit an aversion to firearms among some societies and a fondness for them in others, noting that the Japanese did not give up the gun on cultural grounds after circa 1615, and that among Europeans there was initially a surprisingly strong distaste for firearms. Chase’s contribution to the debate is to argue that the variable development of firearms is not to be explained by the simple fact of warfare, or by the existence of sophisticated technology potentially able to perfect gunpowder weaponry. Rather, it was geography that was the crucial factor. In particular, he argues that early firearms were ineffective in the hands of, and against, steppe and desert nomads. Nomads generally fought as light cavalry, and firearms were simply not useful for them. The matchlock could not easily be reloaded while galloping on horseback, it was less accurate and slower than the bow, and its effective range was shorter, whereas horse archers could ride and shoot at the same time. Those seeking to defend themselves against nomads found firearms of little help. Hand-held weapons were ineffective against light cavalry, which did not present a massed and stationary target; and nomads on the steppes did not maintain fixed positions that could be assaulted by cannon. The best defence against cavalry was to use cavalry. In consequence, there was little incentive to develop firearms in those areas that were threatened by nomads, since neither the attackers nor the defenders found them to be of much help. The nomads never penetrated to Western Europe, and here, by contrast, warfare consisted of battles involving infantry and assaults upon fixed positions. Firearms had marginal advantages in both. Heavy cannon could be used to assault fortifications, and hand firearms could be effective against massed bodies of foot soldiers. Chase never presents his hypothesis in a reductionist fashion, but supports and develops it by a subtle, wide-ranging and detailed examination of the conduct of warfare in Europe, the Middle East, India and East Asia. His treatment of the latter is to be particularly welcomed, not least because it makes available to the non-specialist a wealth of material and ideas in an accessible form. His judgements are sound and presented in a pleasant prose style. Firearms should be essential reading for anyone, specialist and nonspecialist alike, interested in the history of war and its broader consequences.

Denis Fonvizin and the Concept of Nobility: An Eighteenth-century Russian Echo of a Western Debate

The article examines the contribution made by Denis Fonvizin, one of the major men of letters of the age of Catherine the Great, to debate about the status and function of the eighteenth-century Russian nobility. This contribution is set in the context of changes in the balance between the nobility’s obligations to the state and the privileges it enjoyed and in the context of contemporary court politics. Aware of western debates on the subject, Fonvizin approves of engagement by the nobility in commerce and prefers personal merit to heredity as a criterion for ennoblement and retention of noble status. He uses his conception of nobility (which is bolstered by the notions of virtue and honour that he draws from foreign sources) to perpetuate a sense of obligation among the Russian educated éite even though that élite had in 1762 ceased to be formally required to serve. At the same time he begins in effect to redirect the allegiance of the élite away from the state and towards the nation.

The Daring of Derzavin: The Moral and Aesthetic Independence of the Poet in Russia

thumbnail sketches of writers, although modest in length, are so vivid that they evoke an irresistible urge to revisit the works discussed (for example, Vowles on Anna Bunina, Barker on I. Grekova, and Sandler on all the late twentieth-century poets she considers). Many of the essays incorporate archival research. The volume is well edited and includes an excellent bibliographical guide to the writers discussed, thus making it easier for the reader to indulge the desire to engage or reengage directly with the art of writers whom we should know better.

The Russian Language in the Twentieth Century

Bernard Comrie and Gerald Stones The Russian Language since the Revolution (OUP 1978) provided a comprehensive account of the way Russian changed in the period between 1917 and the 1970s. In this new volume the authors, joined by Maria Polinsky, extend the time frame back to 1900 and forward to glasnost in the mid 1980s. They first consider changes in the pronunciation, morphology, syntax, and vocabulary of the language and then examine the effects of social change on the language in chapters on the changing staus of women, modes of address and speech etiquette, and orthography. They show that changes in all these areas have been very substantial, and explore the extent to which the standard language, as portrayed in dictionaries and grammars, coincides with the actual usage - both spoken and written - of educated Russians. The book will be of interest not only to students of Russian but more generally to sociolinguists and those with an interest in language change.