Russia's Rulers under the Old Regime by Dominic LievenReview by: Edward ActonThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 69, No. 2 (Apr., 1991), pp. 369-370Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4210633 .

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REVIEWS 369

Apart from its welcome emphasis on the importance of individuals, the virtue of this book is to demonstrate beyond doubt the divisions within the Russian right, the ambiguities of their commitment to autocracy, and the fatal consequences of their dilemmas. But the analytical framework in which Verner does so is limited. On the one hand, it may be true in institutional terms to claim that government under Nicholas 'was little more than the sum of innumerable ad hoc decisions' (p. 46), but this surely underestimates the major actors' commitment to ideas and principles which go unexplored here. On the other hand, whilst it is reasonable to contrast Nicholas's intensely personal conception of autocracy with Witte's bureaucratic absolutism, this alone is too crude a formulation to bear much explanatory weight. The multi-faceted, structural analysis in Dominic Lieven's Russia's Rulers under the old Regime (Yale University Press, I989) is more convincing, though since Lieven in turn had no space for politics there must still be room for a synthesis integrating the insights of both approaches. But it would be wrong to ask too much of an author who has already offered quite enough to make his book a thought-provoking addition to Princeton's distinguished list. One can only complement the press on a characteristically opulent product, which makes reading this volume as much an aesthetic as an intellectual pleasure. Department of Modern History SIMON DIXON University of Glasgow

Lieven, Dominic. Russia's Rulers under the Old Regime. Yale University Press, New Haven and London, I989. xxii + 407 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Bibliography. Appendixes. Index. ?27.50: $35.00.

DOMINIC LIEVEN'S purpose is to examine what he calls the 'ruling 6lite' under Nicholas II. The criterion by which Lieven identifies membership of this elite is appointment to the State Council, and he has chosen to concentrate specifically upon those men appointed to the Council by Nicholas between I 894 and I 9 I 4. Although this criterion excludes a few major figures who were appointed before I894, such as Witte, it embraces the great majority of the most powerful civilian and military men of Nicholas's reign. Moreover, the size of the group, 215, lends itself to both social and biographical analysis. Lieven is able to give a composite and tabulated picture of the elite which highlights their 'immense, direct material interest in landownership'; the prominence, though no longer domination, of members of ancient and very wealthy noble families; their close ties with upper-class society outside officialdom; the high proportion educated at a handful of privileged schools; and the importance of merit in securing promotion to the top of the civil service. This carefully crafted social profile is combined with a rich profusion of detail about the upbringing, the foibles, the private lives, and above all the values and mentality of individual statesmen. Having sifted through their service records, a variety of other archival material, and an imposing array of printed documents, reference works, memoirs, diaries and correspondence, Lieven has come to know the 2I5 men concerned remarkably well. Indeed while he was researching the book they became so much a part of his life that

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370 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

he pays tribute to his wife for overcoming her amazement that she had married 2I6 people, 'all but one of them long since dead'. Separate chapters are devoted to four figures: P. N. Durnovo from the conservative wing, A. N. Kulomzin from the relatively liberal centre, and the somewhat eccentric aristocratic brothers, Aleksandr and Aleksei Obolenskii. These case studies enable Lieven to bring home the considerable range of views within the elite and to correct any impression that as a group they were stupid, incompetent, or blind to the need for public participation in government. The most authoritarian among them, he argues in a stimulating final chapter on the predicament of the old regime, often displayed keener insight than their more 'progressive' colleagues. Written with imagination and panache the study makes a major contribution to our knowledge of tsarist politics, bureaucracy, education and society.

Department of History EDWARD ACTON

University of Manchester

Johnson, Barry C. (ed.). Tea and Anarchy! The Bloomsbury Diary of Olive Garnett i89o-i893. Bartletts Press, London, I989. Xi + 252 pp. Plates. Notes. Appendix. Index. ? I 7.50; I I .95 (paperback).

FOR the student of Russian literature the name of Garnett is associated pre-eminently, and often exclusively, with Constance (I86I-I946), translator extraordinary of Dostoevskii, Tolstoi, Turgenev, Chekhov and much else. But Constance (nee Black) was a Garnett by marriage, the wife since i 899 of Edward, who was in turn the brother of Olive and son of Richard, Keeper of Printed Books at the British Museum. Edward, Olive and Richard all have their own 'Russian publications'. Richard (I835-I906), prolific man of letters, published, for instance, six poetic versions of Krylov fables in I879; Edward (i 868-i 937) wrote a pioneering study of Turgenev (I 9 I 7); Olive (i 87 I-I 958) made her contribution to the Russian theme in English literature with her collection of short stories Petersburg Tales ( g900) and her novel In Russia's Night (I9I8). All the Garnetts also shared from the I89os close friendships with several of the leading Russian political emigres in England, notably Stepniak, Volkhovskii and Kropotkin. These figure prominently in the hitherto unpub- lished, little used, but fascinating diaries of Olive Garnett.

The diaries begin in I8go, when the Garnett family moved into an official residence at the British Museum, and continue virtually until the diarist's death nearly sixty years later. In her later years Olive began, however, to 'edit' her earliest diaries in the most ruthless way - by destroying whole volumes and tearing pages out of others. No less than eight of the fifteen volumes on which the first part of the present publication is based disappeared in this way. Of the surviving material for the period i 890-93 the editor, Barry Johnson, has used about half for what is the first of a projected three-volume set, covering the decade up to I900. The editing is skilful, the introduction informative, and the notes accurate and adequate. As a former member of the Department of Printed Books at the British Library the editor is not without an understandable sympathy with much that is described.

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