Russian History through the Senses: From 1700 to the Present

About the Author

Matthew P. Romaniello is Assistant Professor of History at Weber State University, USA. He is the author is the author of Enterprising Empires: Russia and Britain in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia (2019) and The Elusive Empire: Kazan and the Creation of Russia, 1552-1671 (2012). He is also the editor of The Journal of World History and five edited volumes, including two with Tricia Starks. He is currently writing Humoring Russia: Body Politics in the Eighteenth Century.

Tricia Starks is Professor of History at the University of Arkansas, USA. She is the author of Smoking under the Tsars: A History of Tobacco in Imperial Russia (2018) and The Body Soviet: Propaganda, Hygiene and the Revolutionary State (2008). She is also the co-editor, along with Matthew P. Romaniello, of Tobacco in Russian History and Culture: From the Seventeenth Century to the Present (2009). She is completing Cigarettes and Soviets: The Culture of Tobacco Use in Twentieth-Century Russia.

Product Description

Bringing together an impressive cast of well-respected scholars in the field of modern Russian studies, Russian History through the Senses investigates life in Russia from 1700 to the present day via the senses. It examines past experiences of taste, touch, smell, sight and sound to capture a vivid impression of what it was to have lived in the Russian world, so uniquely placed as it is between East and West, during the last three hundred years.

The book discusses the significance of sensory history in relation to modern Russia and covers a range of exciting case studies, rich with primary source material, that provide a stimulating way of understanding modern Russia at a visceral level.

Russian History through the Senses is a novel text that is of great value to scholars and students interested in modern Russian studies.

Review

“This study is an engaging interdisciplinary investigation of the sense in the specifically Russian context, which will be useful to those interested in sensory studies, Russian History, everyday culture, literature, and film, as well as those studying discourses on national identity, colonialism, social mobility and social engineering, personal and collective experiences, and memory.” – Slavic and East European Journal

“With its broad sweep in time and careful attention to issues lying just below the surface, Russian History through the Senses deserves to be read by scholars seeking fresh inspiration from clearly written articles based upon a close examination of new primary sources.” – Canadian Slavonic Papers

“The articles in the book are of uniformly high quality, each richly informative.” – EuropeNow

“[A] set of essays that opens doors into long familiar topics and establishes some new and exciting avenues of research … In addition to its own significant contributions to the history of sensation, this volume suggests that much more worth pursuing may be lurking within the inexpressible realm of the senses.” – The Russian Review