Bøker i NIU Series in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies-serien

The first decade of Alexander II's reign is known in Russian history as the Era of the Great Reforms, a time recognized as the major period of social, economic, and institutional transformation between the reign of Peter the Great and the Revolution of 1905. Coming directly after the notoriously repressive last decade of the Nicholas era, the appearance of such dramatic reform has led scholars to seek its causes in dramatic events. Surely some great, even cataclysmic, force must have driven Alexander II and his advisers to initiate what appears to be such an astonishing change in policy. In their search for the origins of these Great Reforms, historians generally have focused upon two phenomena. The first of these was Russia's defeat in the Crimean War by a relatively small, ineptly commanded Allied expeditionary force. The second was the serf revolts, which increased dramatically in the 1850s. From these events, most historians have concluded that the economic failings of serfdom, the problem of preserving domestic peace, and the need to restore Russia's tarnished military prestige were the major forces that convinced Alexander II's government to embark upon a new reformist path. As Lincoln's examination of the long-unstudied Russian archival evidence shows, there are good reasons to question whether such crises of policy and failings of Russia's servile economy impelled Alexander II and his advisers along a previously uncharted reformist path after the Crimean War. Further, in light of the Russian bureaucracy's slowness in drafting much less complex administrative reforms during the previous century, Lincoln argues that the Great Reform legislation simply was too complex and required too much sophisticated knowledge about the Empire's economic, administratvive, and judicial affairs to have been formulated in the brief half-decade after the war's end.

A courageous woman recounts her journey from aristocrat to revolutionary in nineteenth-century Russia.

Examines attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs about the production and consumption of food in Russia from the late 18th century through the mid 19th century. This book looks at the way individuals sought to define their nationality not only against outside influences, but also by incorporating those outside influences into a national whole.

Examines the forces that attracted many social and intellectual leaders of 18th-century Russia to Freemasonry as an instrument for change and progress. The author reveals how Freemasonry became a part of a larger social transformation that saw the development of literary circles and social clubs.

From the time the word kul-tura entered the Russian language in the early nineteenth century, Russian arts and letters have thrived on controversy. This book examines the development of a public discourse on national self-representation in nineteenth-century Russia, as it was styled by the visual arts and in popular journalism.

A prince in one of Russia's most exalted noble families, Grigorii N. Trubetskoi was a unique and contradictory figure during World War I. A lifelong civil servant and publicist, he began his diplomatic career in Constantinople, where he served as first secretary of the embassy there for several years. He became one of the leaders of an...

This interdisciplinary volume is a new introduction to area studies in the framework of whole-world thinking. Emerging in the United States after World War II, area studies have proven indispensable to American integration in the world. They serve two main purposes: to equip future experts with rich cultural-historical and political-economic...

In Life Is Elsewhere, Anne Lounsbery shows how nineteenth-century Russian literature created an imaginary place called "the provinces"-a place at once homogeneous, static, anonymous, and symbolically opposed to Petersburg and Moscow. Lounsbery looks at a wide range of texts, both canonical and lesser-known, in order to explain why the trope has...

The transformation of the Russian nobility between 1861 and 1914 has often been attributed to the anachronistic attitudes of its members and their failure to adapt to social change. Becker challenges this idea of "the decline of the nobility." He argues that the privileged estate responded positively to change and greatly influenced their nation's political and economic destiny.

Who ruled the countryside in late Imperial Russia? On the rare occasions that tsarist administrators dared pose the question so boldly, their discouraged answer was that peasants ruled. This title challenges this dominant paradigm of the closed village by investigating the ways peasants engaged tsarist laws and the local institutions.

This study of drinking provides insights into changes and continuities in everyday life among St Petersburg's revolutionary workers. Drawing on a wide range of sources, it offers insight into issues of revolutionary change, class and gender probing the resiliency of alcohol-centred culture.

Why did the imperial Russian government fail to prevent revolution in 1917? Were its security policies flawed? This broadly researched study of Russia's security police investigates the government's efforts to maintain order against political opposition and threats of violence during the decade before the Revolution.

Lovers, companions, and husband and wife, Catherine and Prince Grigory Potemkin were also close political partners. This work reveals the complexity of Catherine and Potemkin's personal relationship in light of changes in matters of state, foreign relations, and military engagements. It gives insights into Catherine's passions, and her world.