Synopses & Reviews
Russian Empire offers new perspectives on the strategies of imperial rule pursued by rulers, officials, scholars, and subjects of the Russian empire. An international team of scholars explores the connections between Russia's expansion over vast territories occupied by people of many ethnicities, religions, and political experiences and the evolution of imperial administration and vision. The fresh research reflected in this innovative volume reveals the ways in which the realities of sustaining imperial power in a multiethnic, multiconfessional, scattered, and diffuse environment inspired political imaginaries and set limits on what the state could accomplish. Taken together, these rich essays provide important new frameworks for understanding Russia's imperial geography of power.
Review
"Russian Empire offers much valuable information on a wide range of significant issues... genuinely thoughtful and thought-provoking." --Dominic Lieven
Review
"[D]emonstrates brilliantly how the Russian and Soviet empires were able to survive for so long... This is a genuinely valuable and thought-provoking collection of essays and it deserves a wide readership." --European History Quarterly Indiana University Press Indiana University Press
Review
"This book makes a substantial contribution to scholarship not only on Russian history but the whole study of empire." --New Zealand Slavonic Journal
Review
"Eighteen articles, mainly by US, Russian, and British scholars, cover various aspects of the Russian Empire from its foundation under Peter the Great to the rule of Stalin. The Russian participants, mostly historians and political scientists, come from the two Russian capitals and various other cities. The major focus is the geographies of rule in Russia.... The materials are derived in large part from Russian archives, especially those in Moscow. Several good maps aid readers' comprehension.... Recommended." --Choice Indiana University Press
Synopsis
Presents a new conception of the Russian empire, growing out of the multiplicity of its peoples, spaces, and principles of governance.
Synopsis
Presents a new conception of the Russian empire
About the Author
Jane Burbank is Professor of History and of Russian and Slavic Studies at New York University.
Mark von Hagen is Boris Bakhmeteff Professor of Russian and East European Studies and Chair of the Department of History at Columbia University.
Anatolyi Remnev is Professor at Omsk State University.
Table of Contents
Contents<\>List of Illustrations
Preface and Acknowledgments
Coming into the Territory: Uncertainty and Empire Jane Burbank and Mark von Hagen
Part I: Space
1. Imperial Space: Territorial Thought and Practice in the Eighteenth Century Willard Sunderland
2. The "Great Circle" of Interior Russia: Representations of the Imperial Center in the Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries Leonid Gorizontov
3. How Bashkiria Became Part of European Russia, 1762-1881 Charles Steinwedel
4. Mapping the Empire's Economic Regions from the Nineteenth to the Early Twentieth Century Nailya Tagirova
5. State and Evolution: Ethnographic Knowledge, Economic Expediency, and the Making of the USSR, 1917-1924 Francine Hirsch
Part II: People
6. Changing Conceptions of Difference, Assimilation, and Faith in the Volga-Kama Region, 1740-1870 Paul Werth
7. Thinking Like an Empire: Estate, Law and Rights in the Early Twentieth Century Jane Burbank
8. From Region to Nation: The Don Cossacks 1870-1920 Shane O'Rourke
9. Bandits and the State: Designing a "Traditional" Culture of Violence in the Russian Caucasus Vladimir Bobrovnikov
10. Representing "Primitive Communists": Ethnographic and Political Authority in Early Soviet Siberia Nikolai Ssorin-Chaikov
Part III: Institutions
11. From the Zloty to the Ruble: The Kingdom of Poland in the Monetary Politics of the Russian Empire Ekaterina Pravilova
12. The Muslim Question in Late Imperial Russia Elena Campbell
13. The Zemstvo Reform, the Cossacks, and Administrative Policy on the Don, 1864-1882 Aleksei Volvenko
14. Peoples, Regions, and Electoral Politics: The State Dumas and the Constitution of New National Elites Rustem Tsiunchuk
15. The Provisional Government and Finland: Russian Democracy and Finnish Nationalism in Search of Peaceful Coexistence Irina Novikova
Part IV. Designs
16. Siberia and the Russian Far East in the Imperial Geography of Power Anatolyi Remnev
17. Imperial Political Culture and Modernization in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century
Sviatoslav Kaspe
18. Federalisms and Pan-movements: Re-imagining Empire Mark von Hagen
List of Contributors
Index