1 online resource (848 pages)

The ""national question"" and how to impose control over its diverse ethnic identities has long posed a problem for the Russian state. This major survey of Russia as a multi-ethnic empire spans the imperial years from the sixteenth century to 1917, with major consideration of the Soviet phase. It asks how Russians incorporated new territories, how they were resisted, what the character of a multi-ethnic empire was and how, finally, these issues related to nationalism

Print version record

Cover; Half Title; Title; Copyright; Contents; Translator's Note; Chronology; Introduction; 1 The Mediaeval Background; 2 The Gathering of the Lands of the Golden Horde between the Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries; 1. The Foundations of the Russian Multi-ethnic Empire: The Conquest of the Khanates of Kazan and Astrakhan; 2. The Advance to Northern Asia: The Conquest and Penetration of Siberia; 3. The Stepwise Advance into the Steppe; The Bashkirs; The Nogai Tatars; The Kalmyks; The Crimean Tatars; 4. Opening up the Steppe: The Cossacks and the German Colonists; 5. Summary

3 Westward Expansion from the Seventeenth Century to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century1. Ukraine: Reunification or Coerced Integration?; 2. The First Step to Belorussia: Smolensk; 3. A Window to the West: Estonia and Livonia; 4. The Four Partitions of Poland; 5. Autonomy for Finland; 6. Bessarabia: Romanians or Moldavians?; 7. Summary; 4 The Pre-modern Russian Multi-ethnic Empire; 1. Ethnic Division and Social Structure; 2. The Inter-ethnic Division of Labour and the Specific Functions of non-Russians in the Russian Empire; 3. Religious and Cultural Diversity; 4. Non-Russian Resistance

5. The Character of the Pre-modern Russian Multi-ethnic Empire5 Colonial Expansion in Asia in the Nineteenth Century; 1. Russia and the Ancient Transcaucasian Cultures: Georgians, Armenians and Muslims; 2. The Long War against the Mountain Peoples of the Caucasus; 3. The Stepwise Advance into the Kazakh Steppe; 4. The Conquest and Incorporation of Southern Middle Asia; 5. Reaching Out to America and the Far East; 6. Summary; 6 The National Challenge; 1. The Polish Noble Nation as Forerunner; 2. The National Emancipation of the Peasant Peoples

3. The Georgian and Armenian National Revolutionary Movements4. Islamic National Consciousness; 5. The National Awakening of the Russians; 6. Summary; 7 The Reaction of the State: Policy on Nationalities 1831-1904; 1. The Stabilization of Power through Repression under Nicholas I; 2. The Policy of Forced Integration in the West after 1863; 3. Traditional and Innovative Elements in Policy towards the Ethnic Groups in the East and the South; 4. From Integration and Assimilation to Exclusion and Discrimination: The Jews as Scapegoats; 5. Summary

8 The Late Tsarist Multi-ethnic Empire between Modernization and Tradition1. The Changes in the Socio-ethnic Structure; 2. The Economic Division of Labour and Competition in the Age of Industrialization; 3. The Growth of Literacy and the Creation of National Intelligentsias; 4. The Character of the Late Tsarist Multi-ethnic Empire; 9 The Nationalities Question and the Revolution; 1. The Revolution of 1905 as the Springtime of the Peoples; 2. Political Participation and Reactionary Backlash in the Duma Period; 3. Territorial Changes and Destabilization in the First World War

4. The Revolution of 1917 and the Disintegration of the Russian Empire

Includes bibliographical references (pages 413-427) and index

plus-circle Add Review

comment

Reviews