The North on the Pages of Encyclopediс Editions on the Civil War in Russia: Problems of Interpretation and Representation

H, ORCID:

The dramatic events of the Civil War in Russia, deep split in society, widespread foreign intervention, both armed intervention and its other forms, have always aroused great public interest and attention of historians. The centenary of the Civil War actualized this topic, caused a new round of public discussion and a lot of interest and comments from the media, which, unfortunately, did not always cover this complex issue correctly. About twenty scientific conferences were held in different parts of the country, from Arkhangelsk and St. Petersburg to Yalta, Blagoveshchensk and Vladivostok; their proceedings were published, thousands of articles and hundreds of books were issued.

Problems of historical memory of the Civil War were on the agenda and at the centre of discussions, resulting even in a kind of “memory wars”.

The centenary of the Civil War and the intervention was characterized by the implementation of three large research projects: the encyclopedia “Russia in the Civil War. 1918–1922”, Volume XII “The Civil War in Russia. 1917-1922” of the 20-volume academic “History of Russia” and

^∗ © Goldin V.I., 2023

the international project of the 11-volume publication “The Great War and the Revolution in Russia”, revealing the “crisis continuum” in Russia in 1914-1922 1. The author participates in the last two mentioned projects: as a leader in the first and as an author in the second one. In 2022, his large article describing the modern Russian and foreign historiography of the Civil War and intervention in Russia was published [1, Goldin V.I.].

The purpose of this article is to summarize the results of development and the current state of the historiography of the Civil War and intervention in the Russian North, as well as to critically analyze the consideration of this topic within the framework of encyclopedic projects, first of all, in the encyclopedia “Russia in the Civil War. 1918-1922”.

The results of development and the current state of the historiography of the Civil War in the Russian North

During the hundred years of investigations, about 200 books on this topic have been published, which is not a lot in comparison with more than 30 thousand volumes of books on the history of Russian Civil War and the country’s life in this epoch. Nevertheless, the research process was characterized by heated discussions and controversial opinions, for example, on the events in Murman in 1918, and the desire of historians to create a final and generalizing picture of the complex and contradictory era of intervention and the Civil War both in the Northern Russia as a whole, and in its separate regions.

The cooperation of researchers in the development of these topics within the northern and then northwestern sections of the Scientific Councils of the USSR Academy of Sciences and the Russian Academy of Sciences during their activity from 1989 to 2019 was productive. After the termination of the Scientific Council on the History of Social Reforms, Movements and Revolutions of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2019, the coordination of the activities of historians dealing with the problems of the Civil War is carried out by the Association of Researchers of the Civil War in Russia, established in 2012. Its center is in Arkhangelsk, and the president is the author of this article. The Almanac of the Association is published; it covers scientific life, publishes discussion materials and articles on topical problems, and characterizes the latest publications 2.

The centenary of the Civil War in Russia and the Russian North was marked by the publication of a special issue of the journal “Historia Provinciae” in Cherepovets 3, as well as by a series of scientific conferences, three of which were held in the Arkhangelsk Oblast. The most significant of them was the international scientific conference in Arkhangelsk in September 2020, held by the

Association together with the Russian Military Historical Society, with the publication of its proceedings [2, Goldin V.I., Ragozin G.S.].

The collective monograph by Arkhangelsk historians [3, Goldin V.I., Zhuravlev P.S., Sokolova F.Kh.], the book by E.I. Ovsyankin [4, Ovsyankin E.I.], as well as the project “The Russian North in the era of great upheavals. 1900–1920”, implemented by the author of this article, within which the first two volumes have already been published [5, Goldin V.I., pp. 220–623; 6, Goldin V.I.], are among the generalizing publications of recent years on the history of the Civil War in the North of Russia. Monographs of Karelian researchers [7, Korablev N.A., pp. 381–440; 8, Vitukhnovskaya-Kauppala M.A., Osipov A.Yu.] reveal the Karelian issue and relations with Finland, the features of military operations in the Murmansk-Olonets direction, social processes, life of the population and especially of the peasantry. Agrarian and peasant topics are fruitfully researched by representatives of the Vologda agrarian school [9, Sablin V.A.; 10, Sablin V.A.]. The studies of the Komi Republic highlight the peculiarities of the confrontation and the socio-political processes in the northeastern territories of the European part of Russia [11, Taskaev M.V., pp. 251–490; 12, Turubanov A.N., pp. 236–273].

Summarizing, it should be recognized that researchers, primarily northern historians, have done a lot of work to recreate the complex, controversial and deeply dramatic history of the Civil War and intervention in the North of Russia. However, it should be noted that the published literature, mostly by the colleagues not associated with the Russian North and having little knowledge of its history, contains serious distortions in the coverage of this epoch, which is reflected in the materials of the “round tables” and critical reviews [13, pp. 107–128; 14, Goldin V.I., Sokolova F.Kh., Shaparov A.E., pp. 265–272].

One should not idealize the degree of study of the problems of the Civil War in the North of Russia. Thus, the research of socio-economic processes, comparison of actions and effectiveness of policies of the opposing parties in this area, the study of wartime cultural processes, etc. should be clearly continued.

The North of Russia in encyclopedic editions about the Civil War

The first of the encyclopedias entitled “Civil War and Military Intervention in the USSR” [15] was published in 1983, and the second edition — in 1987. It was prepared by the considerable group of historians, which can be judged by the editorial board and published list of authors. This encyclopedia contained several dozens of articles related to the North of Russia: the Soviet Northern Front, armies, divisions, flotillas, military operations, the military and other figures of the Soviet camp. Their opponents were represented by a large article on Entente intervention in the North of Russia and few materials on counterrevolutionary governments and organizations, armies and their leaders, revolts, as well as some military operation.

The next encyclopedia, although it was published in 2008 in four volumes (including the topic of the revolution) [16], did not meet the expectations of specialists and readers as it included many articles from the previous edition that were practically unchanged and only slightly expanded the idea of the anti-Soviet camp. It is difficult to understand from this edition what kind of authorial team prepared it, and the name of the editor-in-chief is not known to experts on this topic.

The last and already mentioned encyclopedia, which will be the subject of analysis in this article, was published in 2021. The editorial board by fame and prestige of its members was inferior to the editorial board of the 1980s edition, but the encyclopedia was published in 3 volumes [17].

Civil war and intervention in Russian North in a new encyclopedic project

Each new encyclopedia can be evaluated on its merits. First of all, let us note the large volume of the new edition — 319.5 conventional printed sheet, 2548 pages, more than 2900 articles. Looking through its pages, one can see that many authors are well-known experts on the subject. Getting acquainted with the introduction of the encyclopedia, one can assume that it reflects all aspects of the history of the Civil War and life of the country in this era. At first glance it seems that the regions are well represented. The publication contains a lot of biographical materials, especially about representatives of the anti-Bolshevist camp and the opposition.

However, the first glance at the encyclopedia reveals some shortcomings, or, rather, inconveniences in using it and finding the necessary material. It is arranged according to the traditional alphabetic principle. Its vast volume and absence of indexes to simplify the search for necessary thematic, problematic, territorial and other materials makes it extremely difficult to get acquainted with this edition and make an overall idea of it. It would be advisable, for example, to put a glossary at the end of the edition, or even better, at the end of each volume, so that it would be easier to search.

According to the purpose of the article, the author was interested in the breadth and depth of comprehension of processes of the Civil War and intervention in the North of Russia and in the coverage of the life of people of this macro-region in the investigated period. The absence of a list of authors at the end of the publication (as was done in the encyclopedia of the 1980s) does not allow us to fully assess the qualification level of the team of authors, to find specialists on the North, as the author, being a historiographer, knows all of them, as well as those historians who professionally deal with the problems of the Civil War.

The search was started with words and phrases that characterize the region: “North”, “Russian North”, “Northern region”, “European North of Russia” and further with derivatives (“northern”). But this is where the first major disappointment awaits. The assumption that the publication covers all regions, as it should be in order to analyze Russia in the Civil War as a whole, turns out to be false. The North as a vast Russian region is simply not presented in the encyclopedia, nor is the North-West (with the exception of two articles on the anti-Bolshevist movement) or the South. But the latter can also be explained by the fact that it is divided (given the density and diversity of the region, the multinational population, the abundance of a variety of processes and

REVIEWS AND REPORTS

Vladislav I. Goldin. The North on the Pages of Encyclopediс Editions … events that took place here, the existence of various states and state formations) into separate large regions. But the absence of an independent summarizing article on Northern Russia in the encyclopedia is completely incomprehensible.

Considering that the encyclopedia contained only two word combinations derived from the word “North” — “Northern Front” and “Northern Sea Route”, we start with the first one, being well aware of its specificity, which we had to write a lot about earlier, characterizing it in all its components from the moment of formation and in the future. The author of the article A.V. Oleynikov interprets the Northern Front as the name for the operational-strategic formations of the troops of the White Movement and the Red Army during the war in the Northern strategic direction, which is an extremely narrow understanding of it. It results in the lack of a description of the battle ground in the North, its vast stretching from the borders with Norway and Finland to the Urals (with three main directions and almost ten sectors separated by dozens of kilometers, with a special course of the war on the Pechora River); the natural-climatic, topographic-geographical, military-political, social conditions of the Northern Front are not described, the features of the strategy and tactics of the warring parties, the main military operations are not explained.

The author's attempt to give a further description of the Northern Front of the Whites is non-professional and fragmentary; it fails to describe the system and state of formation of the troops, changes in their names and structure, population dynamics from August 1918 to February 1920, plans and realities of military operations etc. The ten lines of text provided do not give any insight into this front. We will further turn to the subsequent author’s mythologization of the White armed forces in the Northern region in relation to another of his articles, as well as to the invading troops in the North, mentioned by him in one line.

The Northern Front of the Red Army is considered by the same author as applied to the period of its existence from September to February 1919, but this description is even worse and shorter than in the encyclopedia of the 1980s. As for the formations of the Red Army, created and fought in the North of Russia, i.e. the North-Eastern section of the troops, the 6th Army, and after the disbandment of the Northern Front — the 6th Detached Army, they are not discussed in the encyclopedia at all.

Now let us touch the already mentioned mythologization by A.V. Oleynikov — the structure of the White forces in the North of Russia, which is given in his article under the strange title “White Guard”, because experts always talk about the White Army or White Guard armies. He represents its evolution as follows: Northern Army — Troops of the Northern Region — Northern Front. But in reality the formation called “Northern Army” never existed in the Northern Region. In August 1918, they tried to introduce the term “People's Army” or “Russian People's Army” for the troops being formed, but it did not catch on, and from that time they were officially called “Armed Forces of the Northern Region”. The fiction of the mentioned author of the same article is that in May 1919, Admiral A.V. Kolchak appointed Lieutenant-General E.K. Miller as commander of all the

Vladislav I. Goldin. The North on the Pages of Encyclopediс Editions … forces of the Northern Region, including the Northern Army. In fact, the Supreme Ruler Kolchak appointed Miller by his decree of June 10, 1919 as commander-in-chief of all land and naval forces operating against the Bolsheviks on the Northern Front. From this appointment, a formal basis for the use of the concept of “Northern Front” appeared, but it did not become widespread.

Another mythologeme, outlined by A.V. Oleynikov in the same article, concerns the White forces in the Murmansk-Olonets direction. It sounds as follows: “The Murmansk Volunteer Army — the Troops of the Murmansk Oblast (was operationally subordinate to the Northern Army; in June 1919, the Murmansk Volunteer Army was renamed to the Troops of the Murmansk Oblast and was soon united with the troops of the Olonetsk Volunteer Army under the general command of Lieutenant General V.S. Skobeltsyn); Olonetsk Volunteer Army (after its defeat by the Red Army in Karelia in July 1919, the Olonetsk Army was united with the Murmansk Volunteer Army) [17, Sorokin A.K., pp. 199–200].

In reality, there was neither the Northern Army, nor the Murmansk Volunteer Army, invented by A.V. Oleynikov and his associate O.V. Chistyakov, who wrote a completely untrue article called “Murmansk Volunteer Army”, which was allegedly formed on June 1, 1918 and was subordinate to the Northern Army (non-existing) and the commander of the British Expeditionary Force in Arkhangelsk. Further O.V. Chistyakov provides fantastic data on its size and structure in the summer of 1918 [17, p. 526].

Continuing to fantasize, Oleynikov claims that the commander of the Murmansk Volunteer Army N.I. Zvegintsov during the combat operations against the Soviet troops in July 1918 “liberated” Soroka, Kem, Onega and a number of other cities and villages [17, p. 811]. O.V. Chistyakov gives a slightly different interpretation, stating that this army, together with interventionists, captured Soroka, Solovetskiy islands and Onega in July [17, p. 526]. In fact, there was no such army under the command of Zvegintsov at that time. The mentioned settlements were occupied by the interventionists. Zvegintsov, appointed as commander of the armed forces of the Murmansk Krai on July 7 (after breaking with Moscow on June 30), actually had only a few dozen people in Murmansk. After an unsuccessful assassination attempt on July 12 on Veselago, an associate of Zvegintsev in the coup in Murmansk, both were taken under the protection of the interventionists. On July 14, a military operation was carried out here, which resulted in the interventionists capturing the flagship of the Flotilla of the Arctic Ocean, the cruiser Askold, whose crew was considered pro-Soviet. The sailors were disarmed and arrested. Interventionists disarmed and arrested a squad of railway guards in Murmansk. Those who were considered the most dangerous were thrown into prisons and concentration camps of the interventionists, some of whom died, and the rest were sent beyond the front line [5, Goldin V.I., pp. 439–442].

The order no. 8 of the Acting Commander of the Armed Forces of the Murmansk Krai, Staff Captain Gaponov on the formation of the Murmansk Army on a volunteer basis appeared only on August 1, 1918. But this plan failed. General V.V. Marushevskiy, who visited Murmansk in early November of the same year on his way to Arkhangelsk and who was appointed there to the post of commander of the armed forces of the Northern Region, indicated with regard to this “army” that it hardly exceeded two infantry companies and “had barely managed to recruit personnel for separate platoons” [18, Marushevskiy V.V., p. 187]. Therefore, by the order of November 7, 1918, the soldiers of this failed army were reorganized to the 2nd Murmansk Infantry Regiment, transformed in 1919 into the 2nd Northern Rifle Regiment. Zvegintsov was dismissed from command in November 1918 and was brought to the White Guard investigation on charges of collaborating with the Soviet government, and spent the next year and a half under threat of arrest. On the eve of the fall of Murmansk, he managed to escape abroad.

The mentioned Olonets Volunteer Army was not part of the Russian army. It was created in Finland in the spring of 1919 from the so-called “volunteers” and launched an attack to Kare-lia/Olonets province in April 1919 — the Olonets campaign. Its Finnish command, which dreamed of implementing plans to create a “great Finland from sea to sea” with the inclusion of Russian Karelia, the Kola Peninsula, and, luckily, Petrograd, categorically refused to cooperate with the Russian White Guards. The White-Finnish Guards failed to establish mutual understanding with the commander of the Entente intervention troops on Murman, British General C. Maynard, for a joint attack on Petrozavodsk. Therefore, after the defeat in Karelia, the remnants of the troops of the Olonets Volunteer Army fled to Finland. It is worth noting that the encyclopedia includes a good article about this military formation by the St. Petersburg historian V.I. Musaev, although the literature of recent years is not used in it.

In relation to the foregoing, there is a reasonable question why Oleynikov and Chistyakov needed to falsify the history of the events of the Civil War in Murman and Karelia, which is well studied and described in the literature, so rudely. This is completely incomprehensible.

Continuing the topic of intervention in the North, it should be noted that the electronic version of the reviewed encyclopedia of 2021 did not contain materials on the history of the intervention. At the end of October 2022, at the plenary session of the All-Russian conference on the Civil War in Vladivostok, a report was made by the Moscow historian, Professor A.A. Chernobaev with a description of this encyclopedia. Assessing not only its advantages, but also its shortcomings, he drew attention to the lack of materials on this topic in it.

This made it clear that the subject, which is of great importance, was ignored for some reason. The article titled “Entente”, placed there, does not bear up under scrutiny, because the intervention of this coalition in Russia, as well as colossal damage, caused to the country and Russian North, were not disclosed. Meanwhile, the Arkhangelsk province, according to estimates made in the 1920s, was in third place in the country in terms of losses incurred.

It is reasonable to ask why such an important topic as the history of international intervention in Russia (the Quadruple Alliance, the Entente and some other states) is not covered in the encyclopedia. For both Russian and foreign historians who dealt with the Russian Civil War, it has always been inseparable from foreign intervention, not only military, but in variety of its other forms and types (political, economic, ideological, etc., as well as a trade blockade). The beginning, the duration and the end of the Civil War in Russia are closely connected with the history of foreign intervention.

It should be emphasized that there has never been such a large-scale intervention (military, political, economic, etc.) of foreign powers in the history of Russia. The armies of some twenty countries (the Quadruple Alliance, the Entente, etc.) numbering over one and a half million soldiers were stationed on its territory. Not all of them were at the forefront, but their security and punitive functions in the rear, suppression of revolts and partisan movement are still preserved in the memory of Russians. Monuments to the victims of the intervention in many cities of the country still remind of this.

Moreover, during those years, Western countries tried to make Russia an outcast of the emerging system of international relations, seeking to decide its fate without it, to divide it into parts.

Over time, many representatives of the White movement, including those in the Northern region, started to understand that foreign troops were sent to Russia not so much to help them, but to realize their own goals. Thus, the already mentioned former commander of the armed forces and member of the anti-Bolshevist Northern Region government, General V.V. Marushevskiy frankly wrote: “In order to characterize the situation, it is easiest to consider it as an “occupation”. Based on this term, all relations with foreigners become understandable and explainable” [18, p. 340].

The history of international intervention in the Russian Civil War is also the first large-scale example of the struggle of the citizens of our country against the “collective West”, which Russia has again faced in recent years. Therefore, the absence of articles on the intervention in Russia of that time and its historical lessons in the reviewed encyclopedia is not just a mistake of the editorial board, but a defect of this edition, which nullifies its value.

As for the North itself, a blank space instead of intervention in this edition means that it is inferior to the encyclopedia of the 1980s, where this topic was covered in a large article. It should be emphasized that, according to the majority of Russian and foreign historians studying the intervention of the Entente countries in the North, it was the most important factor in the warmongering of the Civil War in this region. It should be noted that the encyclopedia underestimated the scale of the Entente intervention in Northern Russia and assessed the maximum number of foreign military presence at 10-12 thousand American, Italian, Serbian and English troops [17, pp. 199–200]. In fact, according to the official data of the British General Staff, 42440 military members were evacuated from Northern Russia from June 3 to October 12, 1919. At least more than 500 soldiers and military mission personnel were evacuated earlier. Several thousand sailors and marines who were on the ships of the Entente squadron in the North of Russia and in military flotillas on the Northern Dvina and Lake Onega, participating in military operations, should be added to this amount. About 1500 interventionist soldiers were killed in the North. The Entente Expeditionary Corps, which fought in the North, included citizens of more than 10 countries and national- ities [19, pp. 460–465; 20, Goldin V.I., p. 314; 21, pp. 44–45].

It should be emphasized that the interventionists were the main combatants in the North of Russia in 1918-1919, given that the process of the White Guard units formation was delayed, and they became available only in the spring of 1919. At the same time, according to the high command of the interventionists, they were unreliable, as evidenced by the revolts, which ultimately accelerated the evacuation. It should be added that the interventionists, convinced of the inability of the White Army to fight the Red Army on its own, suggested their evacuation abroad. There was a refusal from the leadership of the Northern Region. But the interventionists were right, because 4 months after their departure, the White Northern Front collapsed as a result of soldiers’ uprisings.

Another thing should be noted. From the spring of 1918, when the military raids of the White Finns started on the northern Russian territories, and throughout the entire Civil War, including the already mentioned Olonets military campaign against Karelia, Soviet Russia was under the constant threat of a big war with Finland. This country also supported the separatist movements in the Karelian territories. This topic was covered in several articles of the encyclopedia, but not sufficiently in relation to the northern territories and unsuccessful attempts of the antiBolshevist Northern region authorities to create a military alliance with Finland. There is no article in the encyclopedia about the Karelian revolt (late 1921-early 1922), which took place with the participation of Finland and Finnish “volunteers”. However, such articles were always available in previous encyclopedias, and this topic should be addressed, given the significant progress in its study in recent years.

Let us consider coverage of other issues of the Russian North in the Civil War on the pages of the encyclopedia. There is no special article on the Northern (anti-Bolshevist) region, but it contains small articles on its governmental bodies — the Supreme Administration of the Northern region (SANR) and the Provisional Government of the Northern region.

Reading the article about the SANR, one comes to the conclusion that it should not exist at all. The author reports, for example, that one of the first acts of the SANR was an invitation to the allies to enter Arkhangelsk. Apparently, he is unaware that such an “invitation” was nothing more than a demonstration and a pre-arranged action to cover up the armed invasion of the Entente forces. The intervention in Arkhangelsk, the seizure of Mudyug Island by the allied squadron on August 1, 1918 and the evacuation of Soviet forces and troops from the city, when the invaders were so close, became the signal for an anti-Soviet uprising. The leaders of the anti-Soviet conspiracy and their foreign curators admitted that in in case of revolt without interventionist support, the conspirators would be able to hold the city for no more than 1-2 days.

The author of the article briefly retells the first ten resolutions of the SANR of August 2, 1918, reports on the arrest of its members as a result of a conspiracy in early September, their deportation to the Solovetskiy Islands and their returning with help of foreign diplomats, its mem-

Vladislav I. Goldin. The North on the Pages of Encyclopediс Editions … bers resigning at the end of September of that year. No attempt to analyze, even briefly, these dramatic ups and downs and the reasons for the fleeting finale of the SANR is made in the article. The article about the Provisional Government of the Northern Region does not differ in novelty, depth of presentation. This is not surprising, because the author of the articles on the SANR and PGNR, the candidate of historical sciences S.V. Kulikov from St. Petersburg, has never dealt with this topic before and is unaware of any contemporary literature on the subject.

Activities of the Soviet authorities in the North are not disclosed in the encyclopedia. Only the article entitled “Northern Commune (Union of Communes of the Northern Region)” mentions that from April 1918 to February 1919, it comprised Soviet Northern provinces (Arkhangelsk, Vologda, Olonets, as well as Severo-Dvinsk and Cherepovets provinces, which appeared in the summer of 1918). But the author of the article, A. Rabinovich, probably, does not know what happened there, how the Northern provinces fought for their independence and getting out of the power of Petrograd, appealing to Moscow, which ended in the dissolution of this association. We do not find biographical materials about the leaders of the Soviet government in the Northern provinces, with the exception of that small group of people who previously appeared in encyclopedias.

The reviewed edition makes an explicit emphasis on biographies of outstanding personalities of anti-Bolshevist movement in Russia, and, in particular, in Northern region, though the choice of personalities is not always clear. For example, there are articles, not very original or new to the source base, about A.M. Yuryev and N.I. Zvegintsev, the leaders of the Murmansk coup in June 1918, but no article about the third key figure in those events, G. M. Veselago. There are articles about members of the government of the Northern Region, but not about all of them.

It will be in vain for an interested reader to look for materials on the agrarian-peasant issue in Russia during the Civil War in the context of regions, in order to understand its specifics in the North, which also determined the behavior of the peasantry. The encyclopedia is full of descriptions of various peasant uprisings, but mostly of an anti-Bolshevist nature. As for the North, there is an article about the Velsk uprising, which is, in essence, a retelling of the article by T.I. Troshina. However, the Shenkursk uprising, better known and associated with the beginning of the Civil War in the North, was not reflected in the publication.

The encyclopedia ignores the uprisings that took place in the Northern region and in its armed forces, which also reflected the mood of the peasants of the North. For example, it would be worthy to describe the Onega uprising (July 1919), when the Onega White Front collapsed and the 5th Northern Rifle Regiment, having arrested its command, went over to the side of the Reds. As a result, the Northern Region was split in half for almost two months, the overland communication of the Arkhangelsk and Murmansk groups of interventionists and White Guards was interrupted. During the unsuccessful summer assault, half of the city of Onega was destroyed by artillery fire from the ships of the interventionists, which is still well remembered by its citizens. Only in September the Reds left Onega due to the situation at the front.

Previously, the article about the Northern Sea Route was mentioned. Its author is the Krasnoyarsk historian A.E. Goncharov. It is, perhaps, the only worthy and original article about the North in the encyclopedia. And this is no coincidence, because the author is a member of an international team of authors who published in 2022 (with the participation of the author of this article) a voluminous collective monograph dedicated to the history of the Northern Sea Route (NSR), brought to the present and with reflections on its future 4.

The encyclopedia contains numerous factual errors. Let us point out some of them. The Arkhangelsk Whites collapsed not on February 21, but on February 19, 1920, and the leadership of the Northern region, fled on the icebreaker Kozma Minin, did not go to France but to Norway. The uprising in Murmansk took place on 21 February 1920, not 7 March. The list of such mistakes and inaccuracies can be continued.

Conclusion

Encyclopedias are considered to be a complete and carefully calibrated product of the scientific work of the best experts on the subject. This is how readers traditionally perceive them, believing that such publications can be trusted. Unfortunately, the reviewed encyclopedia, as shown by a critical analysis of its articles on the North of Russia, is the opposite. It remains only to turn readers to reading the scientific literature published earlier by northern historians, which is indicated in the article.

As a participant of the 11-volume international scientific publication indicated in the Introduction to this article, the author published there a large chapter devoted to the Civil War in the Russian North, objectively revealing the events that took place in that period [22, Goldin V.]. In addition, the author, being the executive editor of the XII volume of the 20-volume academic “History of Russia”, wrote all the chapters related to Northern Russia. It remains to point out errors and unreliable information in the reviewed encyclopedia and consider the above mentioned volume as a kind of work on the mistakes made in it.

Summing up, we note that it is difficult to call the reviewed edition with respect to Northern Russia really an encyclopedia. It is rather a collection of superficial, fragmentary, largely unreliable information, frivolous and often erroneous judgments. It remains only to address those interested in this topic to that modern scientific literature on the Civil War and intervention in the North, which has already been published and continues to be published.