Download or read book A History of Russia and Its Empire written by Kees Boterbloem and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-06-26 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This clear and focused text provides an introduction to imperial Russian and Soviet history from the crowning of Mikhail Romanov in 1613 to Vladimir Putin’s new term. Through a consistent chronological narrative, Kees Boterbloem considers the political, military, economic, social, religious, and cultural developments and crucial turning points that led Russia from an exotic backwater to superpower stature in the twentieth century. The author assesses the tremendous price paid by those who made Russia and the Soviet Union into such a hegemonic power, both locally and globally. He considers the complex and varied interactions between Russians and non-Russians and investigates the reasons for the remarkable longevity of this last of the colonial powers, whose dependencies were not granted independence until 1991. He explores the ongoing legacies of this fraught decolonization process on the Russian Federation itself and on the other states that succeeded the Soviet Union. The only text designed and written specifically for a one-semester course on this four-hundred-year period, it will appeal to all readers interested in learning more about the history of the people who have inhabited one-sixth of the earth’s landmass for centuries.

Download or read book Russia written by Philip Longworth and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2006-11-28 with total page 886 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Through the centuries, Russia has swung sharply between successful expansionism, catastrophic collapse, and spectacular recovery. This illuminating history traces these dramatic cycles of boom and bust from the late Neolithic age to Ivan the Terrible, and from the height of Communism to the truncated Russia of today. Philip Longworth explores the dynamics of Russia's past through time and space, from the nameless adventurers who first penetrated this vast, inhospitable terrain to a cast of dynamic characters that includes Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, and Stalin. His narrative takes in the magnificent, historic cities of Kiev, Moscow, and St. Petersburg; it stretches to Alaska in the east, to the Black Sea and the Ottoman Empire to the south, to the Baltic in the west and to Archangel and the Artic Ocean to the north. Who are the Russians and what is the source of their imperialistic culture? Why was Russia so driven to colonize and conquer? From Kievan Rus'---the first-ever Russian state, which collapsed with the invasion of the Mongols in the thirteenth century---to ruthless Muscovy, the Russian Empire of the eighteenth century and finally the Soviet period, this groundbreaking study analyses the growth and dissolution of each vast empire as it gives way to the next. Refreshing in its insight and drawing on a vast range of scholarship, this book also explicitly addresses the question of what the future holds for Russia and her neighbors, and asks whether her sphere of influence is growing.

Download or read book Russia and the Russians written by Geoffrey A. Hosking and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 776 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chronicles the history of the Russian Empire from the Mongol Invasion, through the Bolshevik Revolution, to the aftereffects of the Cold War.

Download or read book Empire written by D. C. B. Lieven and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2002-01-01 with total page 536 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Focusing on the Tsarist and Soviet empires of Russia, Lieven reveals the nature and meaning of all empires throughout history. He examines factors that mold the shape of the empires, including geography and culture, and compares the Russian empires with other imperial states, from ancient China and Rome to the present-day United States. Illustrations.

Download or read book Russia as Empire written by Kees Boterbloem and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2020-10-07 with total page 247 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Covering more than one thousand years of tumultuous history, Russia as Empire shows how the medieval empire of Kyivan Rus’ metamorphosed into today’s Russian Federation. Kees Boterbloem vividly and lucidly describes Russia’s various incarnations and considers how the concept of empire evolved from tsarist Russia to the Soviet Union, and how and why it survives today. He discusses the ideological architects of these empires and the ideas of their political leaders—the tsars, Lenin, Stalin, Boris Yeltsin, and Vladimir Putin. Russia as Empire considers the role of the various empires’ inhabitants, from nobility to clergy and communist party members, revealing how and why they adhered to, or believed in, their country’s imperial mission. What emerges is a highly original overview that illuminates the continuities and discontinuities in Russian history.

Download or read book A History of the Urals written by Paul Dukes and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-02-26 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Urals are best known as the boundary between Europe and Asia. A History of the Urals demonstrates the region's importance in its own right, as a crucible of Russia's defence industry in particular. In the first English-language book to explore the subject fully, Paul Dukes examines the region's contribution to the power of the state in tsarist, Soviet and post-Soviet times, offering a refreshing antidote to Moscow-centric interpretations of Russian history. The book contextualises more recent periods with chapters on the earlier years of the Urals and covers the key environmental as well as economic, political and cultural themes. The book contains illustrations and maps, plus lists of books and websites, as aids to further research and understanding of the subject. A History of the Urals is an important book that provides new and valuable insights for all students of Russian history.

Download or read book The Russian Empire 1450 1801 written by Nancy Shields Kollmann and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russia's imperial past has shaped modern Russian identity and historical experience. The Russian Empire 1450-1801 surveys the empire's emergence and governance, exploring how the state maintained control of defense, criminal law, taxation, and mobilization of resources, while tolerating local religions, languages, cultures, and institutions.

Download or read book Russia s People of Empire written by Stephen M. Norris and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 385 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the multicultural world of historical Russia through the life stories of 31 individuals that exemplify the cross-cultural exchanges in the country from the late 1500s to post-Soviet Russia.

Download or read book The Cambridge History of Russia Volume 1 From Early Rus to 1689 written by Maureen Perrie and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An authoritative history of Russia from early Rus' to the reign of Peter the Great.

Download or read book The Last Empire written by Serhii Plokhy and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2015-09-08 with total page 544 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On Christmas Day, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: earlier that day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took center stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush's speech and has persisted for decades -- with disastrous consequences for American standing in the world. As prize-winning historian Serhii Plokhy reveals in The Last Empire, the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the United States. On the contrary, American leaders dreaded the possibility that the Soviet Union -- weakened by infighting and economic turmoil -- might suddenly crumble, throwing all of Eurasia into chaos. Bush was firmly committed to supporting his ally and personal friend Gorbachev, and remained wary of nationalist or radical leaders such as recently elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Fearing what might happen to the large Soviet nuclear arsenal in the event of the union's collapse, Bush stood by Gorbachev as he resisted the growing independence movements in Ukraine, Moldova, and the Caucasus. Plokhy's detailed, authoritative account shows that it was only after the movement for independence of the republics had gained undeniable momentum on the eve of the Ukrainian vote for independence that fall that Bush finally abandoned Gorbachev to his fate. Drawing on recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, Plokhy presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union's final months and argues that the key to the Soviet collapse was the inability of the two largest Soviet republics, Russia and Ukraine, to agree on the continuing existence of a unified state. By attributing the Soviet collapse to the impact of American actions, US policy makers overrated their own capacities in toppling and rebuilding foreign regimes. Not only was the key American role in the demise of the Soviet Union a myth, but this misplaced belief has guided -- and haunted -- American foreign policy ever since.

Download or read book Empire of Nations written by Francine Hirsch and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2014-10-03 with total page 389 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, they set themselves the task of building socialism in the vast landscape of the former Russian Empire, a territory populated by hundreds of different peoples belonging to a multitude of linguistic, religious, and ethnic groups. Before 1917, the Bolsheviks had called for the national self-determination of all peoples and had condemned all forms of colonization as exploitative. After attaining power, however, they began to express concern that it would not be possible for Soviet Russia to survive without the cotton of Turkestan and the oil of the Caucasus. In an effort to reconcile their anti-imperialist position with their desire to hold on to as much territory as possible, the Bolsheviks integrated the national idea into the administrative-territorial structure of the new Soviet state. In Empire of Nations, Francine Hirsch examines the ways in which former imperial ethnographers and local elites provided the Bolsheviks with ethnographic knowledge that shaped the very formation of the new Soviet Union. The ethnographers—who drew inspiration from the Western European colonial context—produced all-union censuses, assisted government commissions charged with delimiting the USSR's internal borders, led expeditions to study "the human being as a productive force," and created ethnographic exhibits about the "Peoples of the USSR." In the 1930s, they would lead the Soviet campaign against Nazi race theories . Hirsch illuminates the pervasive tension between the colonial-economic and ethnographic definitions of Soviet territory; this tension informed Soviet social, economic, and administrative structures. A major contribution to the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, Empire of Nations also offers new insights into the connection between ethnography and empire.

Download or read book The Tsar The Empire and The Nation written by Darius Staliūnas and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-30 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 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.

Download or read book Russian History A Very Short Introduction written by Geoffrey Hosking and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2012-03-29 with total page 177 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading international authority discusses all aspects of Russian history, from the struggle by the state to control society to the transformation of the nation into a multi-ethnic empire, Russia's relations with the West and the post-Soviet era. Original.

Download or read book Russia in Revolution written by Stephen Anthony Smith and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the face of the Russian empire, politically, economically, socially, and culturally, and also profoundly affected the course of world history for the rest of the twentieth century. Now, to mark the centenary of this epochal event, historian Steve Smith presents a panoramic account of the history of the Russian empire, from the last years of the nineteenth century, through the First World War and the revolutions of 1917 and the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, to the end of the 1920s, when Stalin simultaneously unleashed violent collectivization of agriculture and crash industrialization upon Russian society. Drawing on recent archivally-based scholarship, Russia in Revolution pays particular attention to the varying impact of the Revolution on the various groups that made up society: peasants, workers, non-Russian nationalities, the army, women and the family, young people, and the Church. In doing so, it provides a fresh way into the big, perennial questions about the Revolution and its consequences: why did the attempt by the tsarist government to implement political reform after the 1905 Revolution fail?; why did the First World War bring about the collapse of the tsarist system?; why did the attempt to create a democratic system after the February Revolution of 1917 not get off the ground?; why did the Bolsheviks succeed in seizing and holding on to power?; why did they come out victorious from a punishing civil war?; why did the New Economic Policy they introduced in 1921 fail?; and why did Stalin come out on top in the power struggle inside the Bolshevik party after Lenin's death in 1924? A final chapter then reflects on the larger significance of 1917 for the history of the twentieth century - and, for all its terrible flaws, what the promise of the Revolution might mean for us today.

Download or read book A History of Russia Central Asia and Mongolia Volume II written by David Christian and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2018-03-12 with total page 660 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides an all-encompassing look at the history of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia Beginning with the breakup of the Mongol Empire in the mid-thirteenth century, Volume II of this comprehensive work covers the remarkable history of “Inner Eurasia,” from 1260 up to modern times, completing the story begun in Volume I. Volume II describes how agriculture spread through Inner Eurasia, providing the foundations for new agricultural states, including the Russian Empire. It focuses on the idea of “mobilization”—the distinctive ways in which elite groups mobilized resources from their populations, and how those methods were shaped by the region’s distinctive ecology, which differed greatly from that of “Outer Eurasia,” the southern half of Eurasia and the part of Eurasia most studied by historians. This work also examines how fossil fuels created a bonanza of energy that helped shape the history of the Communist world during much of the twentieth century. Filled with figures, maps, and tables to help give readers a fuller understanding of what has transpired over 750 years in this distinctive world region, A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia: Volume II: Inner Eurasia from the Mongol Empire to Today, 1260-2000 is a magisterial but accessible account of this area’s past, that will offer readers new insights into the history of an often misunderstood part of the world. Situates the histories of Russia, Central Asia, and Mongolia within the larger narrative of world history Concentrates on the idea of Inner Eurasia as a coherent ecological and geographical zone Focuses on the powerful ways in which the region’s geography shaped its history Places great emphasis on how “mobilization” played a major part in the development of the regions Offers a distinctive interpretation of modernity that highlights the importance of fossil fuels Offers new ways of understanding the Soviet era A History of Russia, Central Asia and Mongolia: Volume II is an ideal book for general audiences and for use in undergraduate and graduate courses in world history. The Blackwell History of the World Series The goal of this ambitious series is to provide an accessible source of knowledge about the entire human past, for every curious person in every part of the world. It will comprise some two dozen volumes, of which some provide synoptic views of the history of particular regions while others consider the world as a whole during a particular period of time. The volumes are narrative in form, giving balanced attention to social and cultural history (in the broadest sense) as well as to institutional development and political change. Each provides a systematic account of a very large subject, but they are also both imaginative and interpretative. The Series is intended to be accessible to the widest possible readership, and the accessibility of its volumes is matched by the style of presentation and production.

Download or read book The End of the Russian Empire written by Prof. Michael T. Florinsky and published by Pickle Partners Publishing. This book was released on 2017-07-31 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION—FROM THE TSARS TO THE SOVIETS This economic, political, and social study by a distinguished Russian authority uses a wealth of contemporary evidence—state documents, memoirs, correspondence, statistics—to analyze “the forces which brought about the fall of the Tsars and paved the way for Bolshevism” in the crucial years 1914-1917. Beginning with a survey of the state of the Russian Empire on the eve of World War I, Professor Florinsky shows how the Imperial system failed to meet the challenges raised by that conflict and why the Bolsheviks were able to assume control of the national Revolution. Every aspect of the collapse is scrutinized, from the absolutist tradition inherited by Nicholas II to the estrangement of the intelligentsia, from the peasant masses, whose only aims were peace and land. The principals are strikingly portrayed—Tsar Nicholas, Tsaritsa Alexandra, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, and Rasputin—as are the breakdown of the ministerial bureaucracy, the impotence of the Duma and Union of Zemstvos, and the colossal losses of the army. This richly documented account of the Provisional Government’s failure to meet the nation’s Revolutionary goals and of the Bolsheviks’ spectacular success in formulating and giving voice to Russian aspirations is basic to an understanding of the origins of today’s Soviet state.

Download or read book Imperial Russia written by Jane Burbank and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1998-09-22 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "On the basis of the work presented here, one can say that the future of American scholarship on imperial Russia is in good hands." —American Historial Review " . . . innovative and substantive research . . . " —The Russian Review "Anyone wishing to understand the 'state of the field' in Imperial Russian history would do well to start with this collection." —Theodore W. Weeks, H-Net Reviews "The essays are impressive in terms of research conceptualization, and analysis." —Slavic Review Presenting the results of new research and fresh approaches, the historians whose work is highlighted here seek to extend new thinking about the way imperial Russian history is studied and taught. Populating their essays are a varied lot of ordinary Russians of the 18th and 19th centuries, from a luxury-loving merchant and his extended family to reform-minded clerics and soldiers on the frontier. In contrast to much of traditional historical writing on Imperial Russia, which focused heavily on the causes of its demise, the contributors to this volume investigate the people and institutions that kept Imperial Russia functioning over a long period of time.