Description
Book SynopsisIn Children of Rus'', Faith Hillis recovers an all but forgotten chapter in the history of the tsarist empire and its southwestern borderlands. The right bank, or west side, of the Dnieper Riverwhich today is located at the heart of the independent state of Ukrainewas one of the Russian empire's last territorial acquisitions, annexed only in the late eighteenth century. Yet over the course of the long nineteenth century, this newly acquired region nearly a thousand miles from Moscow and St. Petersburg generated a powerful Russian nationalist movement. Claiming to restore the ancient customs of the East Slavs, the southwest's Russian nationalists sought to empower the ordinary Orthodox residents of the borderlands and to diminish the influence of their non-Orthodox minorities.Right-bank Ukraine would seem unlikely terrain to nourish a Russian nationalist imagination. It was among the empire's most diverse corners, with few of its residents speaking Russian as their native lang
Trade Review
Children of Rus' breaks new ground in research on both Russian and Ukrainian history. It is a must read for everyone interested in empires, borderlands and nationalism, and I am hopeful it will generate a lovely discussion and a lot of new research.
-- Serhii Plokhy * The Russian Review *
In this excellent and valuable book, Faith Hillis explores the creation of a 'Little Russian' identity and how nationalist forces were unleashed in Ukrain's right bank in the late imperial period. This idea is conceptualised as one that celebrated both Slavic unity and local identity. Going beyond the standard depictions of a conflict between liberal and illiberal political forces in the late imperial period, a new approach is suggested— to understand 'how residents of the right bank came to conceive of local society in national terms in the first place' (p. 10). The study draws on a very wide range of sources, particularly the holdings of the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Kiev, to explore the words and actions of leaders and activists who espoused the Little Russian idea in the late imperial period. Whilst there are many strengths to this work, not least the scope and rigour of the research, perhaps the most novel contribution is to show how a number of activists managed to fuse national with local factors to create a series of movements based around the Little Russian idea that proved remarkably durable, throughout the imperial period and afterwards.
-- George Gilbert * Revolutionary Russia *
In this painstakingly researched book, Faith Hillis recovers the largely forgotten yet significant page in the history of the late Imperial Russia: the development of right-wing Russian nationalism on the empire's southwestern edge. In so doing, she challenges several traditional narratives of the late Imperial period.
-- Serhy Yekelchyk * Slavic and East European Journal *
Well written and chock full of insights into the politics of late Imperial RussiaChildren of Rus' is a model of meticulous scholarship and perceptive analysis and should be essential reading for anyone interested in learning about the complexities of Russian and Ukrainian identities.
-- Robert Weinberg * Journal of Modern History *
Children of Rus' is excellent microhistory, giving readers a detailed picture of Russian nationalism among Ukrainians after the 1860s. It is definitely wanting in terms of giving the "big picture" of Ukrainian national evolution in the empire.
-- Oleh S. Ilnytzkyj, University of Alberta * H-Net: Humanities and Social Sciences Online *
Table of ContentsList of Maps
Acknowledgments
Note to the Reader
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part One: The Little Russian Idea and the Russian Empire
Chapter One: The Little Russian Idea and the Invention of a Rus' Nation
Chapter Two: The Little Russian Idea in the 1860s
Chapter Three: The Little Russian Idea and the Imagination of Russian and Ukrainian Nations
Part Two: The Urban Crucible
Chapter Four: Nationalizing Urban Politics
Chapter Five: Concepts of Liberation
Part Three: Forging a Russian Nation
Chapter Six: Electoral Politics and Regional Governance
Chapter Seven: Nationalizing the Empire
Chapter Eight: The Limits of the Russian Nationalist Vision
Epilogue
Selected Bibliography
Index
