Description
Book SynopsisThis collection of essays addresses the challenge of modern nationalism to the tsarist Russian Empire. First appearing on the empire’s western periphery this challenge, was most prevalent in twelve provinces extending from Ukrainian lands in the south to the Baltic provinces in the north, as well as to the Kingdom of Poland.
At issue is whether the late Russian Empire entered World War I as a multiethnic state with many of its age-old mechanisms run by a multiethnic elite, or as a Russian state predominantly managed by ethnic Russians. The tsarist vision of prioritizing loyalty among all subjects over privileging ethnic Russians and discriminating against non-Russians faced a fundamental problem: as soon as the opportunity presented itself, non-Russians would increase their demands and become increasingly separatist.
The authors found that although the imperial government did not really identify with popular Russian nationalism, it sometimes ended up implementing policies promoted by Russian nationalist proponents. Matters addressed include native language education, interconfessional rivalry, the “Jewish question,” the origins of mass tourism in the western provinces, as well as the emergence of Russian nationalist attitudes in the aftermath of the first Russian revolution.
Trade Review"This volume represents a crucial and indispensable contribution to the ongoing debate on the “nationalization” of the late Russian empire, but it goes much further in problematizing the conceptual and practical entanglements between the analytical categories of “nation” and “empire,” as such. Therefore, the collection edited by Staliunas and Aoshima will be highly relevant for all students of nationalism and empire in Eurasia." https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/slavic-review/article/tsar-the-empire-and-the-nation-dilemmas-of-nationalization-in-russias-western-borderlands-19051915-ed-darius-staliunas-and-yoko-aoshima-historical-studies-in-eastern-europe-and-eurasia-vol-v-budapest-central-european-university-press-2021-400-pp-notes-tables-index-9500-hard-bound/DACF56A93B4900FB429BE112B8AF8CE4 -- Andrei Cusco * Slavic Review *
"The present volume appears at a moment perhaps timelier than the editors anticipated. Focusing on the so-called western borderlands, an area that comprised the German-dominated Baltic, the Ukrainian and Belarusian lands of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Kingdom of Poland (officially called the Vistula Land after 1863), the volume’s contributions focus on questions of nationality policy, confessional policy, education, and the Russian right in the period of the Duma monarchy. As a whole, the volume questions the significance of the constitutional changes of 1905 on nationality policy, suggesting that the willingness or unwillingness of centrally appointed officials to cooperate with nationalist politicians proved perhaps more decisive for the administration and political life of a given region than the press and religious freedoms granted along with the constitutional order." https://brill.com/view/journals/css/57/1-2/article-p238_17.xml -- Curtis G. Murphy * Canadian-American Slavic Studies *
"Insgesamt untermauern die Aufsätze die Grundthese des Sammelbands überzeugend und auf verständliche Art und Weise. Durch ihre unterschiedlichen thematischen und räumlichen Schwerpunkte vermitteln sie den Gesamteindruck eines Imperiums, welches nicht wusste, was es in seinen westlichen Territorien langfristig erreichen wollte und daher in erster Linie bemüht war, das Schiff über Wasser zu halten. Darüber hinaus erweist es sich als gewinnbringend, den Blick auf eine mittlere Untersuchungsebene zwischen dem Dorf und dem gesamten Imperium zu richten sowie zeitlich auf die Schlüsseljahre zwischen der ersten Revolution und dem Beginn des Ersten Weltkriegs zu fokussieren. Folglich ist den Beteiligten ein lesenswerter Beitrag zur Erforschung des Zarenreiches gelungen." http://www.hsozkult.de/publicationreview/id/reb-118093 -- Georgiy Konovaltsev * H-Soz-Kult *
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Transformations of Imperial Nationality Policy
Anton Kotenko: Inconsistently Nationalizing State: The Romanov Empire and the Ukrainian National Movement
Darius Staliūnas: Challenges to Imperial Authorities’ Nationality Policy in the Northwest Region, 1905–15
Malte Rolf: What Is the “Russian Cause” and Whom Does It Serve? Russian Nationalists and Imperial Bureaucracy in the Kingdom of Poland
Confessions in the Crossfire
Vilma Žaltauskaitė: Interconfessional Rivalry in Lithuania after the Decree on Toleration
Chiho Fukushima: The Struggle between Confessional and Nationalist Groups for the Chełm-Podlasian Region: the 1905 Decree on Tolerance and Former Uniates
Transformations in Education
Yoko Aoshima: Native Language Education in the Western Border Regions around 1905
Kimitaka Matsuzato: Politics around Universal Education in Right-bank Ukraine in the Late Tsarist Period
Jolita Mulevičiūtė: To Sense an Empire: Russian Education Policy and the Origins of Mass Tourism in the Northwest Region
Olga Mastianica: The Formation of Imperial Loyalty in the Education System in the Northwest Region in 1905–1915
The Problem of the Russian Right
Vytautas Petronis: Right-Wing Russian Organizations in the City of Vil’na and the Northwestern Provinces, 1905–1915
Karsten Brüggemann: Defending the Empire in the Baltic Provinces: Russian Nationalist Visions in the Aftermath of the First Russian Revolution
Vladimir Levin: Russian Jews and the Russian Right: Why There Were no Jewish Right-Wing Politics in the Late Russian Empire?
