Commerce In Russian Urban Culture 1861 1914

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Commerce in Russian Urban Culture, 1861–1914

Author : William Craft Brumfield
Publisher : Woodrow Wilson Center Press
ISBN 13 : 9780801867507
Total Pages : 264 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (675 download)

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Book Synopsis Commerce in Russian Urban Culture, 1861–1914 by : William Craft Brumfield

Download or read book Commerce in Russian Urban Culture, 1861–1914 written by William Craft Brumfield and published by Woodrow Wilson Center Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tsarist Russia's commercial class is today receiving serious attention from both Russian and non-Russian historians. This book is a contribution to that literature. Commerce in Russian Urban Culture, 1861-1914 examines the relation between the entrepreneurial world, especially business and banking, and the cultural milieu of Russia. Going beyond the commercial-cultural connection of charitable activity, the contributors to this collaborative project also study cultural activity undertaken by enterprises for their own purposes, notably bank and commercial architecture. "Culture and commerce" encompasses two areas in this volume. The first is the business milieu itself as a social and cultural phenomenon. Class and social stratification, types of entrepreneurs, and their mentality, religious affiliations, and charitable activities and donations are covered. The second is their impact on the form of cities, including not only Moscow and St. Petersburg but Odessa and Nizhnii Novgorod. Banks, insurance companies, and large commercial firms reshaped Russian cities with the construction of buildings for their own operations and retail shops, stock exchanges, mansions, and public buildings. This book is based on a project of the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Russia in the European Context, 1789–1914

Author : S. McCaffray
Publisher : Springer
ISBN 13 : 1403982260
Total Pages : 243 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (39 download)

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Book Synopsis Russia in the European Context, 1789–1914 by : S. McCaffray

Download or read book Russia in the European Context, 1789–1914 written by S. McCaffray and published by Springer. This book was released on 2005-05-12 with total page 243 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume surveys Nineteenth-century Russian society and economy and finds that Russian institutions, practices and ideas fit the general European pattern for that period of rapid change. Even apparently distinctive Russian features deepen our understanding of 'Europeaness'. In the Nineteenth-century there were still many different ways to be European, and excessive generalization based on the experiences of one or two countries obscures the great diversity that still characterized European civilization. Moreover, these essays bring to light several points at which Russian legislation and thinking provided models and examples for others to follow. The authors focus on key elements of how Russians envisaged and constructed their economy and society. This is an important contribution that increases understanding of Russian history at a time when Russia's relationship with the 'West' is again debated.

Selling to the Masses

Author : Marjorie L. Hilton
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN 13 : 0822977486
Total Pages : 352 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Selling to the Masses by : Marjorie L. Hilton

Download or read book Selling to the Masses written by Marjorie L. Hilton and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2012-01-08 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Selling to the Masses, Marjorie L. Hilton presents a captivating history of consumer culture in Russia from the 1880s to the early 1930s. She highlights the critical role of consumerism as a vehicle for shaping class and gender identities, modernity, urbanism, and as a mechanism of state power in the transition from tsarist autocracy to Soviet socialism. Beginning in the late nineteenth century, Russia witnessed a rise in mass production, consumer goods, advertising, and new retail venues such as arcades and department stores. These mirrored similar developments in other European countries and reflected a growing quest for leisure activities, luxuries, and a modern lifestyle. As Hilton reveals, retail commerce played a major role in developing Russian public culture—it affected celebrations of religious holidays, engaged diverse groups of individuals, defined behaviors and rituals of city life, inspired new interpretations of masculinity and femininity, and became a visible symbol of state influence and provision. Through monarchies, revolution, civil war, and monumental changes in the political sphere, Russia's distinctive culture of consumption was contested and recreated. Leaders of all stripes continued to look to the "commerce of exchange" as a key element in appealing to the masses, garnering political support, and promoting a modern nation. Hilton follows the evolution of retailing and retailers alike, from crude outdoor stalls to elite establishments; through the competition of private versus state-run stores during the NEP; and finally to a system of total state control, indifferent workers, rationing, and shortages under a consolidating Stalinist state.

When Emancipation Came

Author : Sally Stocksdale
Publisher : McFarland
ISBN 13 : 1476646325
Total Pages : 261 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (766 download)

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Book Synopsis When Emancipation Came by : Sally Stocksdale

Download or read book When Emancipation Came written by Sally Stocksdale and published by McFarland. This book was released on 2022-09-21 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Linked by declarations of emancipation within the same five-year period, two countries shared human rights issues on two distinct continents. In this book, readers will find a case-study comparison of the emancipation of Russian serfs on the Yazykovo Selo estate and American slaves at the Palmyra Plantation. Although state policies and reactions may not follow the same paths in each area, there were striking thematic parallels. These findings add to our understanding of what happens throughout an emancipation process in which the state grants freedom, and therefore speaks to the universality of the human experience. Despite the political and economic differences between the two countries, as well as their geographic and cultural distances, this book re-conceptualizes emancipation and its aftermath in each country: from a history that treats each as a separate, self-contained story to one with a unified, global framework.

Portrait of a Russian Province

Author : Catherine Evtuhov
Publisher : University of Pittsburgh Pre
ISBN 13 : 0822977451
Total Pages : 345 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (229 download)

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Book Synopsis Portrait of a Russian Province by : Catherine Evtuhov

Download or read book Portrait of a Russian Province written by Catherine Evtuhov and published by University of Pittsburgh Pre. This book was released on 2011-11-13 with total page 345 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Several stark premises have long prevailed in our approach to Russian history. It was commonly assumed that Russia had always labored under a highly centralized and autocratic imperial state. The responsibility for this lamentable state of affairs was ultimately assigned to the profoundly agrarian character of Russian society. The countryside, home to the overwhelming majority of the nation's population, was considered a harsh world of cruel landowners and ignorant peasants, and a strong hand was required for such a crude society. A number of significant conclusions flowed from this understanding. Deep and abiding social divisions obstructed the evolution of modernity, as experienced "naturally" in other parts of Europe, so there was no Renaissance or Reformation; merely a derivative Enlightenment; and only a distorted capitalism. And since only despotism could contain these volatile social forces, it followed that the 1917 Revolution was an inevitable explosion resulting from these intolerable contradictions—and so too were the blood-soaked realities of the Soviet regime that came after. In short, the sheer immensity of its provincial backwardness could explain almost everything negative about the course of Russian history. This book undermines these preconceptions. Through her close study of the province of Nizhnii Novgorod in the nineteenth century, Catherine Evtuhov demonstrates how nearly everything we thought we knew about the dynamics of Russian society was wrong. Instead of peasants ground down by poverty and ignorance, we find skilled farmers, talented artisans and craftsmen, and enterprising tradespeople. Instead of an exclusively centrally administered state, we discover effective and participatory local government. Instead of pervasive ignorance, we are shown a lively cultural scene and an active middle class. Instead of a defining Russian exceptionalism, we find a world recognizable to any historian of nineteenth-century Europe. Drawing on a wide range of Russian social, environmental, economic, cultural, and intellectual history, and synthesizing it with deep archival research of the Nizhnii Novgorod province, Evtuhov overturns a simplistic view of the Russian past. Rooted in, but going well beyond, provincial affairs, her book challenges us with an entirely new perspective on Russia's historical trajectory.

Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia

Author : Richard Stites
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300128185
Total Pages : 636 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia by : Richard Stites

Download or read book Serfdom, Society, and the Arts in Imperial Russia written by Richard Stites and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Serf-era and provincial Russia heralded the spectacular turn in cultural history that began in the 1860s. Examining the role of arts and artists in society’s value system, Richard Stites explores this shift in a groundbreaking history of visual and performing arts in the last decades of serfdom. Provincial town and manor house engaged the culture of Moscow and St. Petersburg while thousands of serfs and ex-serfs created or performed. Mikhail Glinka raised Russian music to new levels and Anton Rubinstein struggled to found a conservatory. Long before the itinerants, painters explored town and country in genre scenes of everyday life. Serf actors on loan from their masters brought naturalistic acting from provincial theaters to the imperial stages. Stites’s richly detailed book offers new perspectives on the origins of Russia’s nineteenth-century artistic prowess.

A Companion to Russian History

Author : Abbott Gleason
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118730003
Total Pages : 566 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (187 download)

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Book Synopsis A Companion to Russian History by : Abbott Gleason

Download or read book A Companion to Russian History written by Abbott Gleason and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-01-28 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This companion comprises 28 essays by international scholars offering an analytical overview of the development of Russian history from the earliest Slavs through to the present day. Includes essays by both prominent and emerging scholars from Russia, Great Britain, the US, and Canada Analyzes the entire sweep of Russian history from debates over how to identify the earliest Slavs, through the Yeltsin Era, and future prospects for post-Soviet Russia Offers an extensive review of the medieval period, religion, culture, and the experiences of ordinary people Offers a balanced review of both traditional and cutting-edge topics, demonstrating the range and dynamism of the field

A Jewish Woman of Distinction

Author : ChaeRan Y. Freeze
Publisher : Brandeis University Press
ISBN 13 : 1684580013
Total Pages : 414 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (845 download)

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Book Synopsis A Jewish Woman of Distinction by : ChaeRan Y. Freeze

Download or read book A Jewish Woman of Distinction written by ChaeRan Y. Freeze and published by Brandeis University Press. This book was released on 2019-12-20 with total page 414 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Zinaida Poliakova (1863–1953) was the eldest daughter of Lazar Solomonovich Poliakov, one of the three brothers known as the Russian Rothschilds. They were moguls who dominated Russian finance and business and built almost a quarter of the railroad lines in Imperial Russia. For more than seventy-five years, Poliakova kept detailed diaries of her world, giving us a rare look into the exclusive world of Jewish elites in Moscow and St. Petersburg. These rare documents reveal how Jews successfully integrated into Russian aristocratic society through their intimate friendships and patronage of the arts and philanthropy. And they did it all without converting—in fact, while staunchly demonstrating their Jewishness. Poliakova’s life was marked by her dual identity as a Russian and a Jew. She cultivated aristocratic sensibilities and lived an extraordinarily lifestyle, and yet she was limited by the confessional laws of the empire and religious laws that governed her household. She brought her Russian tastes, habits, and sociability to France following her marriage to Reuben Gubbay (the grandson of Sir Albert Abdullah Sassoon). And she had to face the loss of almost all her family members and friends during the Holocaust. Women’s voices are often lost in the sweep of history, and so A Jewish Women of Distinction is an exceptional, much-needed collection. These newly discovered primary sources will change the way we understand the full breadth of the Russian Jewish experience.

Markets Versus Hierarchies

Author : Ekaterina Brancato
Publisher : Edward Elgar Publishing
ISBN 13 : 1848447256
Total Pages : 250 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (484 download)

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Book Synopsis Markets Versus Hierarchies by : Ekaterina Brancato

Download or read book Markets Versus Hierarchies written by Ekaterina Brancato and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2009-01-01 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have often debate why political factors have dominated economic developments in Russian history, but never as systematically as in this ambitious interdisciplinary study. . . An excellent, highly original work. It will interest a broad scholarly audience including economists, historians, free market advocates, business historians, management specialists, and public policy experts. This well-written volume is an essential holding for research libraries. Highly recommended. J.P. McKay, Choice This unique book uses a transaction cost perspective to illustrate how hierarchies influenced the structure of markets and behaviour of individual businesses and cartels in pre-revolutionary, Soviet and present-day Russia. Ekaterina Brancato exposes the devastating effects of self-interested decision-making of government officials on economic growth, and highlights the inefficiencies of the legal system in Russia. She demonstrates that throughout Russian history considerable state involvement in the economy has meant that some markets were highly regulated; for most of the 20th century, open markets were suppressed by the political regime, and entrepreneurial success has been dependent on networking. The general population, the author argues, has exhibited an inadequate propensity to self-govern. In addition, the laws of contract and private property, crucial for development of markets, have been ineffective. The book concludes that, consequently, the cost of market transactions has been high and the cost of social networking through hierarchies relatively low. This book will strongly appeal to academics and students specializing in industrial organization, public choice, transition, entrepreneurship, social networks and cultural studies as well as Russian economic history and political economy. Business and management students focusing on transition economies will also find this book to be of particular interest.

Mapping St. Petersburg

Author : Julie A. Buckler
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691187614
Total Pages : 379 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (911 download)

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Book Synopsis Mapping St. Petersburg by : Julie A. Buckler

Download or read book Mapping St. Petersburg written by Julie A. Buckler and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2018-06-05 with total page 379 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Pushkin's palaces or Dostoevsky's slums? Many a modern-day visitor to St. Petersburg has one or, more likely, both of these images in mind when setting foot in this stage set-like setting for some of the world's most treasured literary masterpieces. What they overlook is the vast uncharted territory in between. In Mapping St. Petersburg, Julie Buckler traces the evolution of Russia's onetime capital from a "conceptual hierarchy" to a living cultural system--a topography expressed not only by the city's physical structures but also by the literary texts that have helped create it. By favoring noncanonical works and "underdescribed spaces," Buckler seeks to revise the literary monumentalization of St. Petersburg--with Pushkin and Dostoevsky representing two traditional albeit opposing perspectives--to offer an off-center view of a richer, less familiar urban landscape. She views this grand city, the product of Peter the Great's ambitious vision, not only as a geographical entity but also as a network of genres that carries historical and cultural meaning. We discover the busy, messy "middle ground" of this hybrid city through an intricate web of descriptions in literary works; nonfiction writings such as sketches, feuilletons, memoirs, letters, essays, criticism; and urban legends, lore, songs, and social practices--all of which add character and depth to this refurbished imperial city.

A Modern History of European Cities

Author : Rosemary Wakeman
Publisher : Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN 13 : 135001768X
Total Pages : 393 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (5 download)

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Book Synopsis A Modern History of European Cities by : Rosemary Wakeman

Download or read book A Modern History of European Cities written by Rosemary Wakeman and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-01-23 with total page 393 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rosemary Wakeman's original survey text comprehensively explores modern European urban history from 1815 to the present day. It provides a journey to cities and towns across the continent, in search of the patterns of development that have shaped the urban landscape as indelibly European. The focus is on the built environment, the social and cultural transformations that mark the patterns of continuity and change, and the transition to modern urban society. Including over 60 images that serve to illuminate the analysis, the book examines whether there is a European city, and if so, what are its characteristics? Wakeman offers an interdisciplinary approach that incorporates concepts from cultural and postcolonial studies, as well as urban geography, and provides full coverage of urban society not only in western Europe, but also in eastern and southern Europe, using various cities and city types to inform the discussion. The book provides detailed coverage of the often-neglected urbanization post-1945 which allows us to more clearly understand the modernizing arc Europe has followed over the last two centuries.

Russian Architecture and the West

Author : Dmitriĭ Olegovich Shvidkovskiĭ
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300109121
Total Pages : 474 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (1 download)

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Book Synopsis Russian Architecture and the West by : Dmitriĭ Olegovich Shvidkovskiĭ

Download or read book Russian Architecture and the West written by Dmitriĭ Olegovich Shvidkovskiĭ and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 474 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first book to show the development of Russian architecture over the past thousand years as a part of the history of Western architecture. Dmitry Shvidkovsky, Russia’s leading architectural historian, departs from the accepted notion that Russian architecture developed independent of outside cultural influences and demonstrates that, to the contrary, the influence of the West extends back to the tenth century and continues into the present. He offers compelling assessments of all the main masterpieces of Russian architecture and frames a radically new architectural history for Russia. The book systematically analyzes Russian buildings in relation to developments in European art, pointing out where familiar European features are expressed in Russian projects. Special attention is directed toward decorations based on Byzantine models; the heritage of Italian master builders and carvers; the impact of architects and others sent by Elizabeth I; the formation of the Russian Imperial Baroque; the Enlightenment in Russian art; and 19th- and 20th-century European influences. With over 300 specially commissioned photographs of sites throughout Russia and western Europe, this magnificent book is both beautiful and groundbreaking.

Children of Rus'

Author : Faith Hillis
Publisher : Cornell University Press
ISBN 13 : 0801469252
Total Pages : 347 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (14 download)

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Book Synopsis Children of Rus' by : Faith Hillis

Download or read book Children of Rus' written by Faith Hillis and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2013-11-27 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 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 River—which today is located at the heart of the independent state of Ukraine—was 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 language or identifying with the culture of the Great Russian interior. Nevertheless, as Hillis shows, by the late nineteenth century, Russian nationalists had established a strong foothold in the southwest’s culture and educated society; in the first decade of the twentieth, they secured a leading role in local mass politics. By 1910, with help from sympathetic officials in St. Petersburg, right-bank activists expanded their sights beyond the borderlands, hoping to spread their nationalizing agenda across the empire.Exploring why and how the empire’s southwestern borderlands produced its most organized and politically successful Russian nationalist movement, Hillis puts forth a bold new interpretation of state-society relations under tsarism as she reconstructs the role that a peripheral region played in attempting to define the essential characteristics of the Russian people and their state.

Bankers and Bolsheviks

Author : Hassan Malik
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 0691202222
Total Pages : 317 pages
Book Rating : 4.6/5 (912 download)

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Book Synopsis Bankers and Bolsheviks by : Hassan Malik

Download or read book Bankers and Bolsheviks written by Hassan Malik and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2020-05-26 with total page 317 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following an unprecedented economic boom fed by foreign investment, the Russian Revolution triggered the worst sovereign default in history. Bankers and Bolsheviks tells the dramatic story of this boom and bust, chronicling the forgotten experiences of leading financiers of the age. Shedding critical new light on the decision making of the powerful personalities who acted as the gatekeepers of international finance, Hassan Malik narrates how they channeled foreign capital into Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While economists have long relied on quantitative analysis to grapple with questions relating to the drivers of cross-border capital flows, Malik adopts a historical approach, drawing on banking and government archives in four countries. The book provides rare insights into the thinking of influential figures in world finance as they sought to navigate one of the most challenging and lucrative markets of the first modern age of globalization. Bankers and Bolsheviks reveals how a complex web of factors--from government interventions to competitive dynamics and cultural influences - drove a large inflow of capital during this tumultuous period in world history. This gripping book demonstrates how the realms of finance and politics - of bankers and Bolsheviks - grew increasingly intertwined, and how investing in Russia became a political act with unforeseen repercussions.

Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams

Author : Charles King
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393080528
Total Pages : 337 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (93 download)

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Book Synopsis Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams by : Charles King

Download or read book Odessa: Genius and Death in a City of Dreams written by Charles King and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2011-02-28 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of a National Jewish Book Award "Fascinating.…A humane and tragic survey of a great and tragic subject." —Jan Morris, Literary Review From Alexander Pushkin and Isaac Babel to Zionist renegade Vladimir Jabotinsky and filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein, an astonishing cast of geniuses helped shape Odessa, a legendary haven of cosmopolitan freedom on the Black Sea. Drawing on a wealth of original sources and offering the first detailed account of the destruction of the city's Jewish community during the Second World War, Charles King's Odessa is both history and elegy—a vivid chronicle of a multicultural city and its remarkable resilience over the past two centuries.

Odessa Memories

Author : Nicolas V. Iljine
Publisher : University of Washington Press
ISBN 13 : 0295983450
Total Pages : 210 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (959 download)

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Book Synopsis Odessa Memories by : Nicolas V. Iljine

Download or read book Odessa Memories written by Nicolas V. Iljine and published by University of Washington Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 210 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Both a visual treat and a serious exploration of Odessa's rich history, culture, and social fabric, this book stands alone as a sumptuous homage to a storied city that has inspired affinity and curiosity all over the world."--BOOK JACKET.

Tales of Imperial Russia

Author : Francis W. Wcislo
Publisher : OUP Oxford
ISBN 13 : 0191613819
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (916 download)

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Book Synopsis Tales of Imperial Russia by : Francis W. Wcislo

Download or read book Tales of Imperial Russia written by Francis W. Wcislo and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2011-03-17 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: History and biography meet in Tales of Imperial Russia, a study of the late-Romanov Russian Empire, told through the figure of Sergei Witte. Like Bismarck or Gorbachev, Witte was a European statesman serving an empire. He was the most important statesman of pre-revolutionary Russia. In the Georgia, Odessa, Kyiv, and St. Petersburg of the nineteenth century, he inhabited the worlds of the Victorian Age, as young boy, student, railway executive, lover of divorcees and Jews, monarchist, and technocrat. His political career saw him construct the Tran-Siberian Railway, propel Russia towards Far Eastern war with Japan, visit America in 1905 to negotiate the Treaty of Portsmouth concluding that war, and return home to confront revolutionary disorder with the State Duma, the first Russian parliament. The book is based on two memoir manuscripts that Witte wrote between 1906 and 1912, and includes his account of Nicholas II, the Empress Alexandra, and the machinations of a Russian imperial court that he believed were leading the country to revolution. Telling the story both of a life and of the last days of the Tsarist empire, Tales of Imperial Russia will delight and inform all those interested in biography, literature, and history, as well as readers interested in the history of modern Russia.