Description
Book SynopsisThe study moves in the field of tension between autobiographical and empire research. She asks about the cohesive effect of discourses of imperial self-description. To this end, she examines memoirs, participation and travel reports on the Russian expansion into southern Central Asia after 1860. Their authors worked as military personnel, officials or scientists in the conquest and exploration of the later General Government of Turkestan. The study counters the diversity of the sources with the concept of autobiographical practices. She understands these as tools of a certain self-conception. The analysis shows how Russian actors in Turkestan developed their own forms of autobiographical narration through the varied design of existing narrative styles. For more than 60 years, they closely interwoven their personal heroic stories with the empire. In this way they contributed to the story of his success in Turkestan and contributed to its discursive stabilization.
