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Ethnicity and Empire in Russia's borderland history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Peter Gatrell
Peter Gatrell
Affiliation:
University of Manchester
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Type
Review Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 38 , Issue 3 , September 1995 , pp. 715 - 727
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995

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References

1 The memoirs of Count Witte, translated and edited by Sidney, Harcave (New York, 1990), p. 373.Google Scholar

2 Mark, Beissinger and Lubomyr, Hajda, eds., The nationalities factor in Soviet politics and society (Boulder, Colorado 1990)Google Scholar; Ronald, G. Suny, The revenge of the past: nationalism, revolution and the collapse of the Soviet Union (Stanford, 1993).Google Scholar

3 Suny, R. G., Looking toward Ararat: Armenia in modem history (Indiana, 1993), p. 124.Google Scholar

4 Andreas, Kappeler, Russland als Vielvölkerreich: Entstehung, Geschichte, Zerfall (Munich, 1993)Google Scholar. There is a suggestive piece by Kristof, L. K. D., ‘The Russian image of Russia: an applied study in geopolitical methodology’, in Fisher, C. A., ed., Essays in political geography (London, 1968), pp. 345–87.Google Scholar

5 Collins, D. N., ‘Russia's conquest of Siberia: evolving Russian and Soviet historical interpretations’, European Studies Review, XII (1982), 17–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Bassin, M., ‘Expansion and colonization on the frontier: views of Siberia and the Far East in pre-Petrine Russia’, Journal of Historical Geography, XIV (1988), 3–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6 Forsyth also shows how the nauseating myth of Yermak – as independent spirit and even ‘liberator’ – was constructed in order to justify Russian conquest.

7 Catherine II outlined a scheme to give her ‘Siberian kingdom’ dominion status and its own currency, but she abandoned the idea in 1781. See Forsyth, , History, p. 199.Google Scholar

8 Donald, Treadgold, The great Siberian migration (Princeton, 1957), p. 21.Google Scholar

9 These ideas are discussed in Svatikov, S. G., Rossiia i Sibir': k istorii sibirskogo oblastnichestva v XIX veke (Prague, 1929)Google Scholar, a work overlooked by Forsyth and Wood. See also Watrous, S., ‘The regionalist conception of Siberia, 1860 to 1920’, in Diment, G. and Slezkine, Y., eds., Between heaven and hell: The myth of Siberia in Russian culture (New York, 1993), pp. 113–32Google Scholar. Some oblastniki called for an independent Siberia (or even its incorporation into the United States of America), but these radical proposals generated little enthusiasm amongst the newly-settled peasantry from European Russia.

10 On the ‘ national movement’ during 1905–6 see Ascher, A., The revolution of 1905: Russia in disarray (Stanford, 1988)Google Scholar. The quotation appears in Forsyth, , History, p. 187.Google Scholar

11 Gammer relies heavily on the classic account by Baddeley, J. F., The Russian conquest of the Caucasus (London, 1908)Google Scholar, but he provides no critical examination of his sources.

12 In a parallel contribution, Abdurahman Avtorkhanov speaks of the ‘state of Imam Shamil’, but this term is not used elsewhere in the collection.

13 See also Ivan, L. Rudnytsky, ed., Rethinking Ukrainian history, (Edmonton, Alberta, 1981)Google Scholar; idem, Essays in modern Ukrainian history (Edmonton, 1987).

14 The native population of Siberia quadrupled between 1700 and 1900, when it reached 800,000.

15 On the other hand, as Avtorkhanov notes, Russia respected the religious revival of Islam; Dagestan became renowned for the quality of Quranic schooling.

16 Kommercheskaia Rossiia, 30 Mar. 1905, cited in Robert, Weinberg, The revolution of 7905 in Odessa: blood on the steps (Bloomington, 1993), p. 3Google Scholar. Contemporaries noted similarities between Odessa and California. A modern analogy would be with Hong Kong.

17 Fortunately, there are two acute recent analyses, by Weinberg (see note 16) and Charters, Wynn, Workers, strikes and pogroms: The Donbass-Dnepr bend in late Imperial Russia, 1870–1905 (Princeton, 1992)Google Scholar. The mobilization of Russian workers, disillusioned with the lack of economic improvement during 1905, but bewildered by the pace of political upheaval, is crucial to an understanding of the revolution in Odessa.

18 There are also valuable contributions on Kievan Rus. Peter Golden argues that economic development between the tenth and mid-thirteenth centuries was conditioned more by intra-Rus conflicts than by the predatory characteristics of nomads, such as the Pechenegs and Polovtsians. Thomas Noonan emphasizes the dynamism rather than the decline of Kievan economy during the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries. Carol Stevens finds little evidence of widespread trade in grain between Muscovy and Ukraine during the later seventeenth century.

19 See also Spechler, M., ‘The economic advantages of being peripheral: subordinate nations in multinational empires’, Eastern European Politics and Societies, III (1989), 448–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

20 Some producers were able to convert grain into alcohol which could be transported more conveniently.

21 Krawchenko, B., Social change and national consciousness in twentieth-century Ukraine (London, 1985)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, ch. 1. Many of these arguments can be traced back to the work of Volobuiev during the 1920s, mentioned in Liber, , Soviet nationality policy, pp. 128–9.Google Scholar

22 Spechler, , ‘Economic advantages’, p. 459Google Scholar. Parallel arguments were advanced at the turn of the century by Siberian separatists, who maintained that the government deliberately kept cheap Siberian grain out of European Russia. They overlooked the fact that this policy encouraged Siberian peasants to diversify into dairy farming.

23 Patricia, Herlihy, in Odessa, pp. 207–27Google Scholar, denies that the imperial government bore responsibility for the failure of Ukraine to respond more energetically to the challenge of cheaper American wheat in European markets, ascribing this instead to poor quality control, inadequate marketing procedures and inefficient transport facilities. Ralph Clem points out that the population of nineteenth-century Ukraine increased rapidly not just because of in-migration, but also because of low mortality, the result of a more stable supply of food.

24 Cited in Kristof, , ‘Russian image’, p. 368.Google Scholar

25 The best introduction to this subject is Suny, R. G., ‘Nationalism and class in the Russian revolution: a comparative discussion’, in Frankel, E. G. et al. , eds., Revolution in Russia: reassessments of 1917 (Cambridge, 1992), pp. 219–46.Google Scholar

26 Forsyth, , History, p. 234Google Scholar; Channon, ‘Siberia in revolution’, in History of Siberia. See also Brovkin, V. N., Behind the front lines of the civil war (Princeton, 1994), pp. 377–82Google Scholar; Pereira, N. G. O., ‘Regional consciousness in Siberia before and after October 1917’, Canadian Slavonic Papers, XXX (1988), 112–33CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Except in Georgia, the peasants frequently became victims, both of Whites and Reds and puppet regimes, such as that administered by Skoropadsky in Ukraine.

27 Pipes, R., The formation of the Soviet Union: communism and nationalism, 1917–1923 (New York, 1954)Google Scholar; rev. edn, 1968.

28 V. Shakrai, cited in Liber, , Soviet nationality policy, p. 6.Google Scholar

29 Quoted in Krawchcnko, , Social change, p. 56.Google Scholar

30 In 1927, the government of the Ukrainian SSR controlled an estimated 80 per cent of republican industry, but by 1932 this had fallen to 38 per cent (Liber, , Soviet nationality policy, p. 171)Google Scholar. On the famine of 1932–3, see James Mace's chapter in Soviet nationality policies.

31 Kostiuk, H., Stalinist rule in the Ukraine: a study of the decade of mass terror, 1929–1939 (London, 1960)Google Scholar traces the process by which Stalin brought the Ukrainian CP under central control by appointing Postyshev as plenipotentiary, clamping down on western Ukraine and purging centres of Ukrainian culture, against the background of economic crisis and starvation, the emergence of Nazi Germany and a perceived threat from émigré nationalists and national communists (Borotbists). Postyshev himself eventually fell victim to a campaign accusing him of excessive sympathy for Ukrainian history and culture.

32 The term was coined by Suny, , in Looking toward Ararat, p. ixGoogle Scholar. In 1957 the Chechen–Ingush ASSR was re-established, but relations with Russia remained painful. Stories of wartime collaboration between Nazis and Chechens fed ancient enmities. However, some historians began to regard Shamil in a more positive light, reviving the views of M. N. Pokrovsky.

33 Raeff, M., ‘Patterns of Russian imperial policy toward the nationalities’, in Allworth, E., ed., Soviet nationality problems (New York, 1971), pp. 22–42.Google Scholar

34 Wood, , History of Siberia, p. 140.Google Scholar

35 For Russian national extremism, see Roman, Szporluk, ‘The imperial legacy and the Soviet nationalities’Google Scholar, in Hajda, and Beissinger, , The nationalities factor, pp. 1–23.Google Scholar