War and Peace in “Asiatic Russia”

Abstract

This special section introduces the reader to some exciting new directions in the study of conquest and counterinsurgency on the borderlands of the Russian Empire during the long nineteenth century. The three articles presented here represent move away from what Dennis Showalter famously referred to as “drum and trumpet” military history focused on tactics and operations, on battles and great men. If the reputation of military history in the Anglophone world for methodological conservatism is now somewhat dated and undeserved, Russophone scholars have by and large been slower to embrace the approaches of the “new military history.” Particularly in studies of the Caucasus and Central Asia, the mainstream of Russian military historiography continues to marry a traditional focus on battle with a strongly nationalist view of the historical and present relationship between Russia and its borderlands. The articles collected here, though, show how much can be gained by breaking both disciplinary and sub-disciplinary lines. Whether by incorporating ideas from social, cultural, and political history; by borrowing approaches from other disciplines (anthropology being especially suggestive); or simply by introducing new sources and new perspectives to the discussion, they show the complexity of violence on the imperial Russian borderlands and shed new light on the ways in which the Russian Empire was made and maintained. To focus on the role of conquest and counterinsurgency in the creation of the Russian Empire is not to argue, even implicitly, that Russian imperialism was uniquely oppressive or violent. Still less is it to argue for the existence of deep connections between the imperial warfare of the long nineteenth century and Vladimir Putin’s imperial adventurism in the twenty-first; such parallels must be made with extreme caution. Rather, such a focus emphasizes only that the Russian Empire was part of the family of European colonial empires, and shared with them certain basic strategies and ways of viewing the world. Tsarist statesmen were as willing to secure their interests by right of conquest when other approaches failed as their British or French counterparts. After conquest and annexation, officials sought to create incentives for cooperation, both to secure the RUSSIAN STUDIES IN HISTORY 2022, VOL. 60, NOS. 1–4, 49–53 https://doi.org/10.1080/10611983.2023.2175567