Russia's People of Empire: Life Stories From Eurasia, 1500 to the Present

Product Description


A fundamental dimension of the Russian historical experience has been the diversity of its people and cultures, religions and languages, landscapes and economies. For six centuries this diversity was contained within the sprawling territories of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and it persists today in the entwined states and societies of the former USSR. Russia's People of Empire explores this enduring multicultural world through life stories of 31 individuals—famous and obscure, high born and low, men and women—that illuminate the cross-cultural exchanges at work from the late 1500s to post-Soviet Russia. Working on the scale of a single life, these microhistories shed new light on the multicultural character of the Russian Empire, which both shaped individuals' lives and in turn was shaped by them.


Review


"This is the first book, to my knowledge, to present such compelling, nuanced and sustained portraits of personalities stamped with the varied practices of Russian/Soviet imperial multiculturalism.... I anticipate that it will become a classic." —Roberts Crews, Stanford University (Roberts Crews, Stanford University)


"This compilation of examples that spans 500 years of history and includes both the famous and the lesser known gives readers a more in-depth, personal understanding of how the inescapable existence of diversity in Russia and the Soviet Union related to everyday life... Highly recommended." —Choice (
Choice)


"[T]his collection offers a fresh and lively approach to understanding how the various Russian empires have worked." —Slavic Review (
Slavic Review)


About the Author


Stephen M. Norris is Associate Professor of History at Miami University of Ohio. He is author of A War of Images: Russian Popular Prints, Wartime Culture, and National Identity and editor (with Helena Goscilo) of Preserving Petersburg: History, Memory, Nostalgia (IUP, 2008) and (with Zara Torlone) of Insiders and Outsiders in Russian Cinema (IUP, 2008).
Willard Sunderland is Associate Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati and author of Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe.