Research Editorial Search Committee Member and Contributor
My Contributions
Review of Julia L. Mickenberg, 'American Girls in Red Russia: Chasing the Dream'. EuropeNow Vol. 13 ( December 2017)
Julia Mickenberg’s American Girls in Red Russia, touches on such diverse topics as American women’s participation in pre-1917 revolutionary movements, famine relief in during the Civil War period, the creation of an American colony in Siberia, the establishment of an American-run English language newspaper in Moscow, modern dance, African-American theater and film performances, and creating pro-Russian World War II propaganda. These disparate subjects are unified by a central theme: American women, from various cultural spheres, seeking the equality and freedom they thought redefined gender roles in the Soviet Union would give them. |
Commissioned Contributions
December 2018
Reflections on the Soviet Politics of Water in the 1930s by Cynthia Ruder
Most important Soviet power in its Stalinist incarnation seemed to control the uncontrollable: by harnessing, redirecting, and exploiting the flow of water the regime tapped into the element’s rich imagery and symbolism. For example, the image that most eloquently links the past and present of the Moscow Canal and defines its space most emphatically remains the water that flows through it. The Moscow Canal literally brought life to the center of the country, indeed the center of power, namely the Kremlin. Similarly the Moscow Canal physically and rhetorically joined Moscow not only to the rest of the Soviet Union, but the rest of the world. Just as the Moscow Canal cut through the landscape, it also continues to cut through time and space thus linking the landscape’s past, present, and future. Finally, the contradictions inherent in the metaphor of water persist as well: Water is life affirming and life taking; it simultaneously nourishes and destroys; it is impossible to live without it, yet also impossible to control completely; it can be deceptively calm or blatantly raging. Indeed this list of opposites achieves a certain strange totality not unlike that which defined Soviet space and the politics that shaped it. Vis-à-vis the Moscow Canal, the water was and can be a source of pleasure or the source of great sorrow. No matter how one perceives the water itself though, the landscape that it has, in part, shaped remains a space that helped define the image and reality of Stalinist landscapes and the Soviet Gulag two direct outgrowths of the politics of water during the 1930s.
Most important Soviet power in its Stalinist incarnation seemed to control the uncontrollable: by harnessing, redirecting, and exploiting the flow of water the regime tapped into the element’s rich imagery and symbolism. For example, the image that most eloquently links the past and present of the Moscow Canal and defines its space most emphatically remains the water that flows through it. The Moscow Canal literally brought life to the center of the country, indeed the center of power, namely the Kremlin. Similarly the Moscow Canal physically and rhetorically joined Moscow not only to the rest of the Soviet Union, but the rest of the world. Just as the Moscow Canal cut through the landscape, it also continues to cut through time and space thus linking the landscape’s past, present, and future. Finally, the contradictions inherent in the metaphor of water persist as well: Water is life affirming and life taking; it simultaneously nourishes and destroys; it is impossible to live without it, yet also impossible to control completely; it can be deceptively calm or blatantly raging. Indeed this list of opposites achieves a certain strange totality not unlike that which defined Soviet space and the politics that shaped it. Vis-à-vis the Moscow Canal, the water was and can be a source of pleasure or the source of great sorrow. No matter how one perceives the water itself though, the landscape that it has, in part, shaped remains a space that helped define the image and reality of Stalinist landscapes and the Soviet Gulag two direct outgrowths of the politics of water during the 1930s.
June 2018
Constitutionalism in Russia: A Missed Opportunity by Stephen F. Williams
The years 1905-1917 presented Russia with an opportunity to move smartly toward the rule of law and constitutionalism. In October 1905, Tsar Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, in which he promised a popularly elected legislature, the State Duma, and committed the regime to the principle that law could become effective only with approval of the Duma. The Manifesto also assured Duma members a role in supervising the legality of executive actions. It thus contained the basic idea of the supremacy of law over executive action. There followed four sets of Duma elections, yielding two radical Dumas (the First and Second, 1906 and 1907), and, as a result of an illegal change in the franchise, two conservative ones (the Third and Fourth, running to 1917). The executive branch comprised officials ranging from reformist to reactionary; the tsar himself was reactionary—but wobbly. In February 1917, Russian liberals, who believed in the rule of law (though many with hopeless naiveté on the subject), took office as virtually the entirety of the Provisional Government.
Yet, neither during the prevalence of the Dumas, when Russia had institutions that might have negotiated the way to serious enhancements of the rule of law, nor in the period of the Provisional Government, were Russia’s political figures able to advance the rule of law enough to prevent its elimination by the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917. Stephen F. Williams, author of The Reformer: How One Liberal Fought to Preempt the Russian Revolution (Encounter Books, 2017) and a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit explores why liberal, moderate, constitutional reforms failed both the Tsarist empire and the new Provisional Government.
The years 1905-1917 presented Russia with an opportunity to move smartly toward the rule of law and constitutionalism. In October 1905, Tsar Nicholas II issued the October Manifesto, in which he promised a popularly elected legislature, the State Duma, and committed the regime to the principle that law could become effective only with approval of the Duma. The Manifesto also assured Duma members a role in supervising the legality of executive actions. It thus contained the basic idea of the supremacy of law over executive action. There followed four sets of Duma elections, yielding two radical Dumas (the First and Second, 1906 and 1907), and, as a result of an illegal change in the franchise, two conservative ones (the Third and Fourth, running to 1917). The executive branch comprised officials ranging from reformist to reactionary; the tsar himself was reactionary—but wobbly. In February 1917, Russian liberals, who believed in the rule of law (though many with hopeless naiveté on the subject), took office as virtually the entirety of the Provisional Government.
Yet, neither during the prevalence of the Dumas, when Russia had institutions that might have negotiated the way to serious enhancements of the rule of law, nor in the period of the Provisional Government, were Russia’s political figures able to advance the rule of law enough to prevent its elimination by the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917. Stephen F. Williams, author of The Reformer: How One Liberal Fought to Preempt the Russian Revolution (Encounter Books, 2017) and a Senior United States Circuit Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit explores why liberal, moderate, constitutional reforms failed both the Tsarist empire and the new Provisional Government.
April 2018
Soviet Communists on the Factory Floor: 1926–1941 by Yiannis Kokosalakis
Yiannis Kokosalakis addresses the duel role of the communist party as rank-and-file as promoter of state policy and supervisor of its implementation in Leningrad’s Red Putilovite (Krasnii Putilovets, KP), later Kirov, machine building plant, a giant factory with an illustrious revolutionary history at the cutting edge of Soviet industrial technology, and how these dual roles brought them into conflict with functionaries of the state everywhere. Rank-and-file activism was inseparable from the policy implementation process, with the party leadership and government unleashing successive waves of political mobilization to generate support for their policy initiatives. Reliant as it was on the input of non-professional activists, this mode of governance gave the latter significant opportunities to pursue their own interests, thus also giving them a stake in the system. Ultimately, the grassroots organizations of the communist party were an extremely important but contradictory element of the Soviet political system, being a reliable constituency of grassroots support for the state while at the same time placing significant limits on state organs’ control of policy implementation.
Yiannis Kokosalakis addresses the duel role of the communist party as rank-and-file as promoter of state policy and supervisor of its implementation in Leningrad’s Red Putilovite (Krasnii Putilovets, KP), later Kirov, machine building plant, a giant factory with an illustrious revolutionary history at the cutting edge of Soviet industrial technology, and how these dual roles brought them into conflict with functionaries of the state everywhere. Rank-and-file activism was inseparable from the policy implementation process, with the party leadership and government unleashing successive waves of political mobilization to generate support for their policy initiatives. Reliant as it was on the input of non-professional activists, this mode of governance gave the latter significant opportunities to pursue their own interests, thus also giving them a stake in the system. Ultimately, the grassroots organizations of the communist party were an extremely important but contradictory element of the Soviet political system, being a reliable constituency of grassroots support for the state while at the same time placing significant limits on state organs’ control of policy implementation.
Imagining Russian Regions: Subnational Identity and Civil Society in Nineteenth-Century Russia by Susan Smith-Peter
Susan Smith-Peter addresses the formation of a self-aware and participatory civil society in 19th Century provincial Russia. Russians knew of the idea of civil society for nearly 150 years before the end of serfdom. In 1703, the first Russian use of the term drew upon Aristotle’s concept of a civil society that was contrasted to an uncivil, or uncivilized society. In the 1760s, Russians who had studied with Adam Smith at the University of Glasgow immediately brought back his four-stage theory of history, which argued that all countries would have to transition from an agricultural, or what we would now call “feudal,” stage to a commercial or civil society. Commercial society meant markets, competition, and the spread of knowledge. Civil society referred to more polished manners and a wider range of personal and professional contacts, including voluntary associations.
Susan Smith-Peter addresses the formation of a self-aware and participatory civil society in 19th Century provincial Russia. Russians knew of the idea of civil society for nearly 150 years before the end of serfdom. In 1703, the first Russian use of the term drew upon Aristotle’s concept of a civil society that was contrasted to an uncivil, or uncivilized society. In the 1760s, Russians who had studied with Adam Smith at the University of Glasgow immediately brought back his four-stage theory of history, which argued that all countries would have to transition from an agricultural, or what we would now call “feudal,” stage to a commercial or civil society. Commercial society meant markets, competition, and the spread of knowledge. Civil society referred to more polished manners and a wider range of personal and professional contacts, including voluntary associations.
January 2018
The Legacy of the Georgian Revolution (1918) by Eric Lee
Eric Lee discusses the Georgian Menshevik revolution in 1918 an its legacy in modern Georgia. Following Georgian independence in 1918 Mensheviks created a multi-party democracy, with free elections and a free press, and thriving trade unions, which retained their independence from the state and winning a constitutional right to strike. However, ethnic conflict, global politics and the lack of a large Georgian army meant the Georgian Social Democratic Republic soon fell to the Bolsheviks. By 1991, the country had regained its independence, and in its first acts proclaimed the 1921 Constitution, passed by the Mensheviks, as the new republic’s legal basis. May 26th was declared to be the national holiday. And the blood red flag of the first republic once again flew over Tbilisi. But this was more form than content, for there was nothing left of the Georgian Social Democratic Party. It took another twelve years before the country resumed its democratic revolution, in what became known as the “Rose Revolution” of 2003, which brought Mikheil Saakashvili to power. Saakashvili was no Menshevik, and he got rid of both the historic flag and the values of social democracy. Instead, he pursued a neo-liberal agenda which endeared him to the West even as his regime grew more corrupt. The Georgians today remember very little of what happened in the years 1918-1921, and there is little to remind them. Here and there are streets or parks named after the Mensheviks and the republic they led, but these are few and far between. The main road connecting the national capital Tbilisi to the airport is named after George W. Bush, not Noe Zhordania. |
December 2017
Depictions of Russian Culture in Cold War British Fiction: An Examination of the works of Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) by Olga Chuprakova
Despite the prevailing trend to demonize Russia, we can find sincere sympathy for and understanding of Russia and the Russian people in the fiction of the bestselling British novelist Iris Murdoch (1919-1999). Russia, Russian culture, and Russian identity are prevalent themes in twenty of her twenty-six novels. In her lifetime, Iris Murdoch repeatedly confessed her love for Russia and Russian literature, calling it great literature. In her interview for the Literary Gazette (December 2, 1992) during her visit to Moscow with her husband John Bayley, Iris Murdoch was asked: “What is Russia in your life?” She replied: “I have almost a religious feeling for Russia. It came through reading Russian novels of the 19th century and is associated primarily with Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. Literary circles in England are just crazy about them. Of course, there is still Lermontov, Turgenev … But these two are the kings. I think they are the greatest novelists of all time. They are even greater than Dickens, Proust.” |
Review of Ben Eklof and Tatiana Saburova, Дружба, семья, революция: Николай Чарушин и поколение народников 1870-х годов (Friendship, Family, Revolution: Nikolai Charushin and a Generation of Populists of the 1870s), (Новое литературное обозрение, 2016) by Aleksander Iakovlevich Gudov
Tatyana Saburova and Ben Eklof have been successfully studying various aspects of one of the most interesting and difficult to understand periods of Russian history for a long time. In their new book, the Russian and American historians are making an effort to understand the paradoxes of Russian history based on Nikolai Charushin’s life. Nikolai Charushin does not rank among the pantheon of famous historical figures, but his biography is still quite illuminating. Charushin’s story demonstrates that the revolutionary movement in the last decades of the nineteenth century recruited new members not only from the educated strata of St. Petersburg or Moscow, but from the Russian periphery as well. Following the course of Charushin's life allows the reader to be able to learn a lot about the life of a provincial Russian town, of prison and exile, and about the relationship between the authorities and the revolutionaries in the periphery. |
Editor's Pick- Newly Released Books
April 2018
Long Night at the Vepsian Museum: The Forest Folk of Northern Russia and the Struggle for Cultural Survival
By Veronica Davidov Publisher: University of Toronto Press Long Night at the Vepsian Museum is an ethnography that documents the history and current cultural struggles of the Veps people, a Finno-Ugric speaking minority community that lives in Russia’s Karelia region, on the border with Finland. Davidov uses the various exhibits of the Veps ethnographic museum in the village of Sheltozero as the framing mechanism to explore how the Veps have been entangled with Russian culture as economic and political actors from the 10th century on, how they have been viewed as a repository of “traditions”, folklore and linguistic diversity, and the modern struggles the community faces as resource extraction -the main livelihood of the community- has become increasingly international and commercialized, alienating the Veps from their traditional ties with nature and good paying jobs. |
January 2018
Imagining Russian Regions: Subnational Identity and Civil Society in Nineteenth-Century Russia
By Susan Smith-Peter Publisher: Brill In Imagining Russian Regions, Smith Peters discusses the origins of the creation of distinct provincial identities in European Russia and how this process was encouraged and even promoted by the autocracy as a way to gain information about the territories under its control, to better manage resources and collect taxes. The Tsarist administration under Nicolas I encouraged and even mandated the creation of statistical bureaus, provincial newspapers and agricultural societies, which were staffed not just by nobles, but by priests sons, merchants and in some cases even peasants as a way to get a more thorough understanding of the territories governed. This allowed people in the provinces to become acquainted with their own particularities, customs and history and to speak directly to the government. However, as Smith-Peter notes, these voices changed from merely providing information to demanding participation in government, which the autocracy rejected. This became increasingly isolating to the nobles in particular as they were cut out of decisions on emancipating serfs and the creation of local government. Smith-Peters argues that the autocracy’s fostering of civil society for economic reasons followed by its rejection of political participation by the civil society it had created caused a rift in Russian society that eventually culminated in the revolutions of 1917. An excellent read for anyone interested in the development of regional identity and politics in Russia or the USSR. |
The Reformer: How One Liberal Fought to Preempt the Russian Revolution
by Stephen Williams Publisher: Encounter Books Recommended by Samantha Lomb This book, written by legal scholar Stephen Williams, uses a biographic account of the life and career of Vasily Maklakov to explore issues of legality and rule of law in Tsarist Russia from 1905, following the promulgation of the October Manifesto, which established a legislative body for the first time since the 1600s, till the Bolshevik Revolution. Maklakov, a moderate Kadet (Constitutional Democrat) reformer and practicing defense attorney (most famous for his defense of the Jewish Menahem Beilis, sometimes considered the Russian Dreyfus), was a delegate to the Second, Third and Fourth Dumas who advocated for political compromise, the establishment of rule of law and gradual constitutional reform. He advocated for a wide range of amendments to the Tsarist legal code, especially in the realms of religious freedom, national minorities, judicial independence, citizens’ judicial remedies, and peasant rights. As such Maklakov’s policies presented vivid contrast to the political tactics of the better-known Russian Left (the Narodniks, SRs, and Social Democrats) who refused to work with the autocracy and actively engaged in terrorism, at one point killing over 300 government employees a month in 1906, and advocating for the over through of the Tsarist regime. While Maklakov and other liberal reformist Russians ultimately failed in staving off revolution, in part due to the unwillingness of their own party to compromise with the Tsarist regime and accept anything other than a fully constitutional monarchy, Maklakov’s story serves as an example for movements seeking to liberalize authoritarian countries today—both as a warning and a guide. |
The Experiment: Georgia’s Forgotten Revolution 1918-1921
by Eric Lee Publisher: Zed Books Recommended by Samantha Lomb The Experiment is about the Georgian Social Democratic/ Menshevik Revolution that took place in 1918. As the world celebrates the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Lee uses this book to explore what happened in Georgia, where the Social Democrats /Menshviks, led by Noe Zhordania remained committed to a democratic and inclusive revolution as a counterpoint to the Bolshevik notions of a strict, disciplined party and a limited, undemocratic but participatory system of government. He notes that Zhordiania and the other Georgian Mensheviks had cut their teeth in 1902-1906 in the Gurian republic, a small break-away region in Georgia, where peasant revolt had turned into democratic local government, until it was crushed by Tsarist forces. The lessons learned in Guria remained crucial for the Georgian Social Democrats, who learned to appreciate the peasants as a revolutionary class who demanded an equal seat at the table, as well as principles such as universal suffrage for men and women and the importance of involving local people in policy making, particularly to solve Georgia’s pressing agrarian question. When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1918, the Georgian Social Democrats reluctantly broke away from Russia and sought to navigate the charged political waters, trying to stave off invasion from Turkey and Denikin’s White forces with alliances with first Germany and then Britain. They also tried to apply classic Marxist principles, creating not socialism but a bourgeois industrial revolution and a corresponding democratic regime, which was elected by secret ballot and universal suffrage to run the new, tiny nation. This new democratically elected Menshvik government tried to solve issues of pressing concern, carrying out land reform and encouraging judicial reform and encouraging industrial development, while trying to maintain the sovereignty and territorial integrity of their new nation. Eventually, due to Georgia’s size and geopolitical location, this revolution failed, but Lee provides a fascinating account of what the country briefly looked like under Menshvik rule and how this compared to the regime established by Georgia’s most famous son, Stalin. |