Pub Date : 2019-08-27DOI: 10.1163/18763316-04602008
A. Vukovich
The central question in the comparative history Rus has been its differential development vis-à-vis its western neighbours and the meaning and reasons for this difference. The recent publication by Donald Ostrowski, Europe, Byzantium, and the “Intellectual Silence” of Rus’ Culture, is a further contribution to this debate that revisits the reasons for a differential development between Rus and medieval Europe, focussing on the intellectual contributions of the Eastern Christian Church and Latin Church to their respective spheres of influence. Ostrowski’s book, along with other analogous studies, produces a regime of knowledge that shapes information about the intellectual history of Rus as diametrically opposed to that of medieval Europe. A postcolonial critique of the treatment of information about the emergence of Rus questions some of the ideas (or yardsticks) (re)produced here and suggests new critical ways to approach the study of early Rus.
{"title":"The Yardsticks by Which We Measure Rus","authors":"A. Vukovich","doi":"10.1163/18763316-04602008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04602008","url":null,"abstract":"The central question in the comparative history Rus has been its differential development vis-à-vis its western neighbours and the meaning and reasons for this difference. The recent publication by Donald Ostrowski, Europe, Byzantium, and the “Intellectual Silence” of Rus’ Culture, is a further contribution to this debate that revisits the reasons for a differential development between Rus and medieval Europe, focussing on the intellectual contributions of the Eastern Christian Church and Latin Church to their respective spheres of influence. Ostrowski’s book, along with other analogous studies, produces a regime of knowledge that shapes information about the intellectual history of Rus as diametrically opposed to that of medieval Europe. A postcolonial critique of the treatment of information about the emergence of Rus questions some of the ideas (or yardsticks) (re)produced here and suggests new critical ways to approach the study of early Rus.","PeriodicalId":43441,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763316-04602008","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45842150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-27DOI: 10.1163/18763316-04602002
C. Halperin
On the basis of 734 dated colophons in sixteenth-century Russian manuscript books, Sergei Usachev examines where the books were written, who copied them, and who ordered them. He concludes that the books were produced in all regions of Russia and that members of all social classes ordered them and copied them, although in different proportions: the former had a higher social profile than the latter. His publication of the full texts of the colophons makes it possible for historians to explore additional themes of sixteenth-century Russian social and cultural history.
Sergei Usachev根据16世纪俄罗斯手稿中的734个日期确定的colophons,研究了这些书是在哪里写的,是谁复制的,以及是谁订购的。他得出的结论是,这些书是在俄罗斯的所有地区制作的,所有社会阶层的成员都订购并复制了它们,尽管比例不同:前者的社会知名度高于后者。他出版了《哥伦布》的全文,使历史学家有可能探索16世纪俄罗斯社会和文化史的其他主题。
{"title":"“Do Not Curse Me for My Copying Errors: Sixteenth-Century Russian Manuscript Books”","authors":"C. Halperin","doi":"10.1163/18763316-04602002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04602002","url":null,"abstract":"On the basis of 734 dated colophons in sixteenth-century Russian manuscript books, Sergei Usachev examines where the books were written, who copied them, and who ordered them. He concludes that the books were produced in all regions of Russia and that members of all social classes ordered them and copied them, although in different proportions: the former had a higher social profile than the latter. His publication of the full texts of the colophons makes it possible for historians to explore additional themes of sixteenth-century Russian social and cultural history.","PeriodicalId":43441,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763316-04602002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42927090","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-27DOI: 10.1163/18763316-04602001
B. Mironov
In Russia of 1917, two-thirds of the male and female peasants age 10 and older had not had systematic schooling and were illiterate; the rest were able to read and do basic arithmetic. Only 0.1% of peasants studied in secondary or higher educational institutions. As a result, 99.9% of all peasants had a particular mode of thinking - concrete, situational, and directly related to sensations and actions. Mastery of the world in practical terms, through the window of the senses, left a deep imprint on the nature and content of peasants’ knowledge, on how they conceptualized the social and physical world, and on how they behaved.
{"title":"The Cognitive Abilities of the Russian Peasantry at the Turn of the Twentieth Century","authors":"B. Mironov","doi":"10.1163/18763316-04602001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04602001","url":null,"abstract":"In Russia of 1917, two-thirds of the male and female peasants age 10 and older had not had systematic schooling and were illiterate; the rest were able to read and do basic arithmetic. Only 0.1% of peasants studied in secondary or higher educational institutions. As a result, 99.9% of all peasants had a particular mode of thinking - concrete, situational, and directly related to sensations and actions. Mastery of the world in practical terms, through the window of the senses, left a deep imprint on the nature and content of peasants’ knowledge, on how they conceptualized the social and physical world, and on how they behaved.","PeriodicalId":43441,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763316-04602001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48445354","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-08-27DOI: 10.1163/18763316-04602003
K. Parppei
The invasion of Napoleon’s troops all the way to Moscow in 1812 has been seen as a turning point that accelerated the development of nationalistic thinking in Russia, already burgeoning at the turn of the century. Depictions of the invasion, produced from 1812–1814 indicate that perceptions of the collective past were in a state of both fermentation and formation, together with questions of Russia’s geopolitical position. The authors were leaning simultaneously on the eighteenth-century image of enlightened, imperial and European Russia, and the medieval ideas of religion as the dividing line between “us” and “them.”
{"title":"“With the Tatar Barbarism of Batu:” References to History in Russian Works Concerning Napoleon’s Campaign, 1812–1814","authors":"K. Parppei","doi":"10.1163/18763316-04602003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04602003","url":null,"abstract":"The invasion of Napoleon’s troops all the way to Moscow in 1812 has been seen as a turning point that accelerated the development of nationalistic thinking in Russia, already burgeoning at the turn of the century. Depictions of the invasion, produced from 1812–1814 indicate that perceptions of the collective past were in a state of both fermentation and formation, together with questions of Russia’s geopolitical position. The authors were leaning simultaneously on the eighteenth-century image of enlightened, imperial and European Russia, and the medieval ideas of religion as the dividing line between “us” and “them.”","PeriodicalId":43441,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-08-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763316-04602003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48334132","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-01DOI: 10.1163/18763316-04601004
B. Mironov
After the Great Reforms of the 1860s – 1870s the Russian government embarked on the construction of a modern nation-state and was faced with the need to unify all parts of the empire administratively, culturally, legally, and socially. The new ethno-confessional policy in Russian historiography is often called Russification because the order established after the Great Reforms in the Great Russian provinces served as a model for the transformation of all parts of the empire. The Russification policy included many aspects, including Russifying [obrusenie] - the introduction of the Russian language as obligatory in the record keeping of public institutions, in court and administration, in education and everyday life. While the policy of Russifying has found ample reflection in the historiography, its results have been insufficiently studied. The purpose of this article is to fill this gap and to try to assess the process of Russifying ethnic minorities at the imperial level, drawing upon the first general census of the Russian Empire in 1897. The analysis has led to the conclusion that the policy of Russifying did not provide the expected results.
{"title":"The Policy of Russifying in Late Imperial Russia and its Failure","authors":"B. Mironov","doi":"10.1163/18763316-04601004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04601004","url":null,"abstract":"After the Great Reforms of the 1860s – 1870s the Russian government embarked on the construction of a modern nation-state and was faced with the need to unify all parts of the empire administratively, culturally, legally, and socially. The new ethno-confessional policy in Russian historiography is often called Russification because the order established after the Great Reforms in the Great Russian provinces served as a model for the transformation of all parts of the empire. The Russification policy included many aspects, including Russifying [obrusenie] - the introduction of the Russian language as obligatory in the record keeping of public institutions, in court and administration, in education and everyday life. While the policy of Russifying has found ample reflection in the historiography, its results have been insufficiently studied. The purpose of this article is to fill this gap and to try to assess the process of Russifying ethnic minorities at the imperial level, drawing upon the first general census of the Russian Empire in 1897. The analysis has led to the conclusion that the policy of Russifying did not provide the expected results.","PeriodicalId":43441,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763316-04601004","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48466149","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-01DOI: 10.1163/18763316-04601002
E. Kochetkova
This article examines the nature of Soviet consumption and technological development through the history of milk and milk packaging between the 1950s and 1970s. Based on published and archival materials, the paper focuses on the role that milk played in Soviet nutrition and the role that packaging played in Soviet consumption. The article also examines the modernization of technology for making packaging as well as technology transfer from the West. It concludes that, as in many Western countries, both the Soviet state and Soviet specialists saw it as important to increase the consumption of milk after the war, but the meaning of milk changed. Milk, a basic staple for nutrition, became a matter of science and specialists sought to explain its positive effects. In addition, due to the development of the paper and chemical industries, new forms of milk packaging, more practical in their uses, were introduced in the West. Soviet leaders and specialists saw the new packaging as a desirable feature of modernity, but were unsuccessful in launching domestic technologies for manufacturing such packaging. While experimenting with domestic technology, Soviet producers also received foreign equipment for making milk packaging. Nevertheless, the capacity of such foreign equipment was not enough to satisfy growing demand and the consumption of “modern packaging” remained lower than in the West until the introduction of capitalism and, with it, foreign companies into the Russian market in the 1990s.
{"title":"Milk and Milk Packaging in the Soviet Union: Technologies of Production and Consumption, 1950s–70s","authors":"E. Kochetkova","doi":"10.1163/18763316-04601002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04601002","url":null,"abstract":"This article examines the nature of Soviet consumption and technological development through the history of milk and milk packaging between the 1950s and 1970s. Based on published and archival materials, the paper focuses on the role that milk played in Soviet nutrition and the role that packaging played in Soviet consumption. The article also examines the modernization of technology for making packaging as well as technology transfer from the West. It concludes that, as in many Western countries, both the Soviet state and Soviet specialists saw it as important to increase the consumption of milk after the war, but the meaning of milk changed. Milk, a basic staple for nutrition, became a matter of science and specialists sought to explain its positive effects. In addition, due to the development of the paper and chemical industries, new forms of milk packaging, more practical in their uses, were introduced in the West. Soviet leaders and specialists saw the new packaging as a desirable feature of modernity, but were unsuccessful in launching domestic technologies for manufacturing such packaging. While experimenting with domestic technology, Soviet producers also received foreign equipment for making milk packaging. Nevertheless, the capacity of such foreign equipment was not enough to satisfy growing demand and the consumption of “modern packaging” remained lower than in the West until the introduction of capitalism and, with it, foreign companies into the Russian market in the 1990s.","PeriodicalId":43441,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763316-04601002","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43898657","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-01DOI: 10.1163/18763316-04601001
Rustam Alexander
Drawing on fresh archival sources – a type-written appeal submission launched by a Soviet advocate in a move to overturn his client’s sodomy conviction in 1969, and a handbook for advocates with guidelines on how to defend individuals accused of sodomy, published in 1977 – this article will shed new light on how sodomy cases were handled by the police under Brezhnev and how advocates sought to overturn sentences in these cases. The article will demonstrate that quashing sodomy convictions on appeal was a challenging task for Soviet advocates. It will also seek answers to the following questions: What arguments did Soviet advocates use to defend their clients in sodomy cases? What were the authorities’ responses to these arguments? And what challenges did investigators face when dealing with those accused of sodomy?
{"title":"New Light on the Prosecution of Soviet Homosexuals under Brezhnev","authors":"Rustam Alexander","doi":"10.1163/18763316-04601001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04601001","url":null,"abstract":"Drawing on fresh archival sources – a type-written appeal submission launched by a Soviet advocate in a move to overturn his client’s sodomy conviction in 1969, and a handbook for advocates with guidelines on how to defend individuals accused of sodomy, published in 1977 – this article will shed new light on how sodomy cases were handled by the police under Brezhnev and how advocates sought to overturn sentences in these cases. The article will demonstrate that quashing sodomy convictions on appeal was a challenging task for Soviet advocates. It will also seek answers to the following questions: What arguments did Soviet advocates use to defend their clients in sodomy cases? What were the authorities’ responses to these arguments? And what challenges did investigators face when dealing with those accused of sodomy?","PeriodicalId":43441,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763316-04601001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45947094","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2019-04-01DOI: 10.1163/18763316-04601003
A. Lukin, P. Lukin
The article analyzes post-Soviet economic policy in the light of the previous periods of the Russian economic history. The authors find a striking similarity between the measures proposed by modern Russian economic liberals – as well as their consequences – and the actions taken by the Russian authorities during much earlier periods. They explain these similarities with the fact that “Western” terms can mean something very different in the context of a non-Western culture, phenomena and institutions with the same names in different types of societies can differ fundamentally and perform different functions. Furthermore, “Westernization” can be a purely superficial process intended more for show than for substance. By applying the methodology of substantivism which stresses the fundamental differences between economies based on gifts (reciprocity), redistribution, and exchange (market), they argue that Russia’s economy differs significantly from that of the countries of Western Europe and, in the typological sense, is closer to such European countries as Bulgaria, Albania, Romania, and Serbia. For this reason, similar measures of economic policy applied in Western Europe and Russia bring different results.
{"title":"Economic Policy in Post-Soviet Russia in Historical Context","authors":"A. Lukin, P. Lukin","doi":"10.1163/18763316-04601003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04601003","url":null,"abstract":"The article analyzes post-Soviet economic policy in the light of the previous periods of the Russian economic history. The authors find a striking similarity between the measures proposed by modern Russian economic liberals – as well as their consequences – and the actions taken by the Russian authorities during much earlier periods. They explain these similarities with the fact that “Western” terms can mean something very different in the context of a non-Western culture, phenomena and institutions with the same names in different types of societies can differ fundamentally and perform different functions. Furthermore, “Westernization” can be a purely superficial process intended more for show than for substance.\u0000By applying the methodology of substantivism which stresses the fundamental differences between economies based on gifts (reciprocity), redistribution, and exchange (market), they argue that Russia’s economy differs significantly from that of the countries of Western Europe and, in the typological sense, is closer to such European countries as Bulgaria, Albania, Romania, and Serbia. For this reason, similar measures of economic policy applied in Western Europe and Russia bring different results.","PeriodicalId":43441,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2019-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763316-04601003","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48603917","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-27DOI: 10.1163/18763316-04504005
Yanni D. Kotsonis
Sergei Antonov’s book argues through deep research that Russian legal and lending practices showed the Old Regime to be more coherent beneath the surface of legalese and official pronouncement. That reality exists in the everyday practices of exchange, agreement, disagreement, and litigation.
{"title":"Bankrupts and Usurers of Imperial Russia. Debt, Property, and the Law in the Age of Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, written by Sergei Antonov","authors":"Yanni D. Kotsonis","doi":"10.1163/18763316-04504005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04504005","url":null,"abstract":"Sergei Antonov’s book argues through deep research that Russian legal and lending practices showed the Old Regime to be more coherent beneath the surface of legalese and official pronouncement. That reality exists in the everyday practices of exchange, agreement, disagreement, and litigation.","PeriodicalId":43441,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763316-04504005","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42804663","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2018-11-27DOI: 10.1163/18763316-04504001
Paul J. Welch Behringer
Although historians have paid much attention to American perceptions of Russia, few have looked at Russian views of the United States, particularly in the imperial period. This paper surveys editorial cartoons in Novoe Vremia, one of the few Russian newspapers to publish illustrations as commentary on international affairs. Novoe Vremia published cartoons depicting the United States in the years between 1898 and 1912 in the late imperial period, that is, beginning with the War of 1898 and ending with the abrogation of the u.s.-Russia commercial treaty. This paper finds evidence for the argument that Russian views of American empire and race relations persisted into the Soviet period. However, the Russian Revolution swept away the strong anti-Semitic overtones in many portrayals of the United States, at least in editorial cartoons.
{"title":"Images of Empire: Depictions of America in Late Imperial Russian Editorial Cartoons","authors":"Paul J. Welch Behringer","doi":"10.1163/18763316-04504001","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18763316-04504001","url":null,"abstract":"Although historians have paid much attention to American perceptions of Russia, few have looked at Russian views of the United States, particularly in the imperial period. This paper surveys editorial cartoons in Novoe Vremia, one of the few Russian newspapers to publish illustrations as commentary on international affairs. Novoe Vremia published cartoons depicting the United States in the years between 1898 and 1912 in the late imperial period, that is, beginning with the War of 1898 and ending with the abrogation of the u.s.-Russia commercial treaty. This paper finds evidence for the argument that Russian views of American empire and race relations persisted into the Soviet period. However, the Russian Revolution swept away the strong anti-Semitic overtones in many portrayals of the United States, at least in editorial cartoons.","PeriodicalId":43441,"journal":{"name":"RUSSIAN HISTORY-HISTOIRE RUSSE","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2018-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1163/18763316-04504001","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"64396763","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}