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Author: Catherine Evtuhov Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre ISBN: 0822977451 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 345
Book Description
Several stark premises have long prevailed in our approach to Russian history. It was commonly assumed that Russia had always labored under a highly centralized and autocratic imperial state. The responsibility for this lamentable state of affairs was ultimately assigned to the profoundly agrarian character of Russian society. The countryside, home to the overwhelming majority of the nation's population, was considered a harsh world of cruel landowners and ignorant peasants, and a strong hand was required for such a crude society. A number of significant conclusions flowed from this understanding. Deep and abiding social divisions obstructed the evolution of modernity, as experienced "naturally" in other parts of Europe, so there was no Renaissance or Reformation; merely a derivative Enlightenment; and only a distorted capitalism. And since only despotism could contain these volatile social forces, it followed that the 1917 Revolution was an inevitable explosion resulting from these intolerable contradictions—and so too were the blood-soaked realities of the Soviet regime that came after. In short, the sheer immensity of its provincial backwardness could explain almost everything negative about the course of Russian history. This book undermines these preconceptions. Through her close study of the province of Nizhnii Novgorod in the nineteenth century, Catherine Evtuhov demonstrates how nearly everything we thought we knew about the dynamics of Russian society was wrong. Instead of peasants ground down by poverty and ignorance, we find skilled farmers, talented artisans and craftsmen, and enterprising tradespeople. Instead of an exclusively centrally administered state, we discover effective and participatory local government. Instead of pervasive ignorance, we are shown a lively cultural scene and an active middle class. Instead of a defining Russian exceptionalism, we find a world recognizable to any historian of nineteenth-century Europe. Drawing on a wide range of Russian social, environmental, economic, cultural, and intellectual history, and synthesizing it with deep archival research of the Nizhnii Novgorod province, Evtuhov overturns a simplistic view of the Russian past. Rooted in, but going well beyond, provincial affairs, her book challenges us with an entirely new perspective on Russia's historical trajectory.
Author: Catherine Evtuhov Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Pre ISBN: 0822977451 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 345
Book Description
Several stark premises have long prevailed in our approach to Russian history. It was commonly assumed that Russia had always labored under a highly centralized and autocratic imperial state. The responsibility for this lamentable state of affairs was ultimately assigned to the profoundly agrarian character of Russian society. The countryside, home to the overwhelming majority of the nation's population, was considered a harsh world of cruel landowners and ignorant peasants, and a strong hand was required for such a crude society. A number of significant conclusions flowed from this understanding. Deep and abiding social divisions obstructed the evolution of modernity, as experienced "naturally" in other parts of Europe, so there was no Renaissance or Reformation; merely a derivative Enlightenment; and only a distorted capitalism. And since only despotism could contain these volatile social forces, it followed that the 1917 Revolution was an inevitable explosion resulting from these intolerable contradictions—and so too were the blood-soaked realities of the Soviet regime that came after. In short, the sheer immensity of its provincial backwardness could explain almost everything negative about the course of Russian history. This book undermines these preconceptions. Through her close study of the province of Nizhnii Novgorod in the nineteenth century, Catherine Evtuhov demonstrates how nearly everything we thought we knew about the dynamics of Russian society was wrong. Instead of peasants ground down by poverty and ignorance, we find skilled farmers, talented artisans and craftsmen, and enterprising tradespeople. Instead of an exclusively centrally administered state, we discover effective and participatory local government. Instead of pervasive ignorance, we are shown a lively cultural scene and an active middle class. Instead of a defining Russian exceptionalism, we find a world recognizable to any historian of nineteenth-century Europe. Drawing on a wide range of Russian social, environmental, economic, cultural, and intellectual history, and synthesizing it with deep archival research of the Nizhnii Novgorod province, Evtuhov overturns a simplistic view of the Russian past. Rooted in, but going well beyond, provincial affairs, her book challenges us with an entirely new perspective on Russia's historical trajectory.
Author: Juri Plusnin Publisher: Springer Nature ISBN: 303097829X Category : Social Science Languages : en Pages : 374
Book Description
This book presents a unique analysis of modern Russian provincial society. Based on detailed empirical evidence, it develops a theoretical model of Russian provincial society in the late 20th century and the early 21st century. The book explains how under the conditions of catastrophic changes, Russian provincial societies have undergone a structural transformation. It further sheds light on the transformation of the economic behavior of the population and households with regard to economic practices, crafts, and revived archaic forms of labor behavior. Summarizing the extensive empirical evidence, the book puts forward the concept of complementarity of two social structures at the local level: a ground "soft communal" structure and a "tightening with an iron hoop" estate state structure. Next, it discusses the stability and resistance of the local social structure to external political disturbances. Based on the presented analysis, the book introduces several independent criteria on the basis of which it establishes the typology of all empirically observed forms of societies. Subsequently, the book identifies six main types of Russian provincial societies. It explains how depending on the type, the different societies either adapt to political and economic changes in different ways, stay unchanged or transform their structure. The book will appeal to students, scholars, and researchers of economics, political science, sociology, and anthropology, interested in a better understanding of transformation studies, population and household economics, provincial societies, as well as Russian societal structures.
Author: Дмитрий Иванович Ростиславов Publisher: ISBN: 9780875802855 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 236
Book Description
The memoir of Dmitrii Ivanovich Rostislavov--a mathematician, teacher, and social critic--offers a rare firsthand view of provincial Russia in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Translated into English for the first time, these extraordinary observations reveal much about daily village life and the cultural milieu of the time. An acute observer, Rostislavov discusses social and ethnic relationships as well as matters pertaining to education, law enforcement, religious practice, and folk beliefs. Rostislavov's account of his own education is a harrowing description of coming of age in a Darwinian world of violence and cruelty. Coarse, impoverished schoolboys, brutal and corrupt teachers, and callous landlords formed a harsh environment characterized by sadistic corporal punishment and bitter class hatreds. Variously humorous, elegiac, and passionate, his narrative shows why even those from relatively privileged backgrounds came to detest the authoritarian order of the old regime. In a probing analysis of the Russian national order, Rostislavov found the twin evils facing Russia to be the coarseness of traditional society and the authoritarianism and corruption of the regime and its representatives. Russia's hope for the future, he believed, lay with cultural changes that would ultimately raise the society's moral level. Illustrations, maps, and an introduction illuminating the historical context accompany this remarkable account of life in provincial Russia.
Author: Tomila V. Lankina Publisher: Cambridge University Press ISBN: 1009080393 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 497
Book Description
A devastating challenge to the idea of communism as a 'great leveller', this extraordinarily original, rigorous, and ambitious book debunks Marxism-inspired accounts of its equalitarian consequences. It is the first study systematically to link the genesis of the 'bourgeoisie-cum-middle class' – Imperial, Soviet, and post-communist – to Tzarist estate institutions which distinguished between nobility, clergy, the urban merchants and meshchane, and peasants. It demonstrates how the pre-communist bourgeoisie, particularly the merchant and urban commercial strata but also the high human capital aristocracy and clergy, survived and adapted in Soviet Russia. Under both Tzarism and communism, the estate system engendered an educated, autonomous bourgeoisie and professional class, along with an oppositional public sphere, and persistent social cleavages that continue to plague democratic consensus. This book also shows how the middle class, conventionally bracketed under one generic umbrella, is often two-pronged in nature – one originating among the educated estates of feudal orders, and the other fabricated as part of state-induced modernization.
Author: Lyudmila Parts Publisher: University of Wisconsin Pres ISBN: 0299317609 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 215
Book Description
Looks at the contested place of the provinces in twenty-first-century Russia, surveying cultural discourse in journalism, literature, and film to analyze changing notions of nationalism, authenticity, and postimperial identity.
Author: Greg Simons Publisher: Routledge ISBN: 1000564169 Category : Political Science Languages : en Pages : 213
Book Description
This book examines the contemporary communicational practices of journalists and media outlets and the consumption and reception patterns of audiences in Russia’s provinces with an emphasis on the intergenerational transmission of culture and memory. Investigating the interaction and issues of contemporary identity, culture, audiences and journalism in a rapidly changing and evolving Russia, this volume goes beyond the large metropolitan centres into the provincial regions of Russia to develop a more comprehensive overview. Despite a popular image that is often projected of Russia as a homogeneous, often threatening entity, its regions are very far from being uniform, with diverse, varied geographies, ethnicities, religions, cultures, resources and economic infrastructure. The perspectives offered by a range of scholars and practitioners explore the generational, political and regional diversities that exist across this vast country and analyse local and regional media. Covering topics not often discussed, this volume offers an important contribution for everyone interested in Russian politics, culture, journalism and history and the study of local and regional communication studies.
Author: Tim McDaniel Publisher: Princeton University Press ISBN: 1400822157 Category : History Languages : en Pages : 212
Book Description
Boris Yeltsin's attempts at democratic reform have plunged a long troubled Russia even further into turmoil. This dramatic break with the Soviet past has left Russia politically fragmented and riddled with corruption, its people with little hope for the future. In a fascinating account for anyone interested in Russia's current political struggles, Tim McDaniel explores the inability of all its leaders over the last two centuries--tsars and Communist rulers alike--to create the foundations of a viable modern society. The problem then and now, he argues, is rooted in a cultural trap endemic to Russian society and linked to a unique sense of destiny embodied by the "Russian idea." In its most basic sense, the Russian idea is the belief that Russia can forge a path in the modern world that sets itself apart from the West through adherence to shared beliefs, community, and equality. These cultural values, according to McDaniel, have mainly reversed the values of Western society rather than having provided a real alternative to them. By relying on the Russian idea in their programs of change, dictatorial governments almost unavoidably precipitated social breakdown. When the Yeltsin government declared war on the Communist past, it broke with deeply held Russian values and traditions. McDaniel shows that in cutting people off from their pasts and promoting the West as the sole model of modernity, the reformers have simultaneously undermined the foundations of Russian morality and the people's sense of a future. Unwittingly, the Yeltsin government has thereby annihilated its own authority. McDaniel lived in Russia for three years during both the Communist and post-Communist periods. Basing his analysis on broad historical research, extensive travels, countless interviews and conversations, and friendships with Russians from all walks of life, McDaniel emphasizes the perils of assuming that Russians understand the world in the same way that we do, and so can and should become like us. Challenging and provocative in its claims, this book is intended for anyone seeking to understand Russia's attempts to create a new society.
Author: Catherine Evtuhov
Author: Catherine Evtuhov
Author: Juri Plusnin
Author: Marek Inglot
Author: Дмитрий Иванович Ростиславов
Author: Tomila V. Lankina
Author: Lyudmila Parts
Author: Maureen Perrie
Author: George Kennan
Author: Greg Simons
Author: Tim McDaniel