Three research articles authored by IMR's Senior Advisor Vladimir Kara-Murza have been added to the Research section of the website. They had been previously presented in Tauride Readings, an edited volume published by the Center for the History of Parliamentarianism at the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly.
B.Y. Nemtsov as a Russian Parliamentarian. The Congresses of People’s Deputies, the Supreme Soviet, the Federation Council, the State Duma. 1990–2003.
Boris Nemtsov is widely known as the first governor of the Nizhny Novgorod Region, as deputy prime minister of Russia in the 1990s, and as one of the leaders the Russian opposition in the 2000s. His parliamentary activities have not been studied as well. Yet for a total of thirteen years – from 1990 to 1997, and again from 1999 to 2003 – he has served in Russia’s national legislative bodies: as a people’s deputy of the RSFSR; as a member of the Supreme Soviet’s legislative committee; as a member of the Federation Council and later of the State Duma, where he was deputy speaker and leader of the “Union of Rights Forces” group. The article examines the legacy of Boris Nemtsov as a Russian parliamentarian.
This article appeared in Tauride Readings 2016. It is available in Russian.
P.N. Milyukov’s Visit to the U.S. in January 1908 and the Reaction in Russia
The article provides a detailed account of the visit by Pavel Milyukov, member of the Russian State Duma for St. Petersburg and leader of the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party, to the United States in January 1908. The reception organized for Milyukov in Washington, D.C. and attended by fifty-seven Members of Congress, including House Speaker Joseph Cannon, was a milestone in U.S.-Russia parliamentary relations. Yet Milyukov’s planned meeting with President Roosevelt was thwarted by the Russian ambassador, and upon his return to St. Petersburg the Kadet leader was chastised in the Duma and in the conservative press for urging “foreign interference in Russia’s affairs.” Milyukov’s trip to America prompted discussions on the nature of patriotism, and on whether criticism of the government should be equated with criticism of the country.
This article appeared in Tauride Readings 2014. It is available in Russian.
The Quest for Responsible Government in the First Russian State Duma
The article recounts the attempt by the Constitutional Democratic (Kadet) Party to form a government during the short existence of the first Russian Parliament from April to July 1906. The Kadets, who won the election and formed a majority in the State Duma, maintained that only a full-fledged parliamentary system and far-reaching political, economic, and social reforms could forestall a revolution. In its quest, the party found allies at the top levels of the Czarist regime, but their plan was disrupted by Interior Minister Pyotr Stolypin, who convinced Nicholas II to dissolve the Duma. The article, devoted to a topic rarely studied by historians, raises important questions about the political choice facing Russia in 1906 and the consequences of the monarch’s refusal to seek compromise with Parliament.
This article appeared in Tauride Readings 2013, an edited volume published by the Center for the History of Parliamentarianism at the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly (St. Petersburg, 2014). It is available in Russian.
