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HIST 327: Imperial Russia (Rev. C3 & C4) Report a Broken Link

Introduction to Part I

Part I Introduction [audio]

Whenever you see an audio file at the top of a study guide page, it's a audio version of the text that follows.

Unit 1: Climate, Geography, and Peoples

Unit 1: Overview [audio]

Unit 1: Commentary [audio]

Pipes, Richard. 1997. “The Environment and Its Consequences.” In Russia Under the Old Regime, 1–24, notes 321–322. 2nd rev. ed. London: Penguin Books.
Remnev, Anatolyi. 2007. “Siberia and the Russian Far East in the Imperial Geography of Power.” In Russian Empire: Space, People, Power, 1700–1930, edited by Jane Burbank, Mark von Hagen, and Anatolyi Remnev, 425–454. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Unit 2: The Nature of the Russian Empire

Unit 2: Overview [audio]

Unit 2: Commentary [audio]

Lieven, Dominic. 2011. “Russian Empires.” In Sovereignty After Empire: Comparing the Middle East and Central Asia, edited by Sally N. Cummings and Raymond Hinnebusch, 25–43. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Suny, Ronald Grigor. 2001. “The Empire Strikes Out: Imperial Russia, ‘National’ Identity, and Theories of Empire.” In A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin, edited by Ronald Grigor Suny and Terry Martin, 23–66. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Unit 3: Violence, Coercion, Extraction, and Extermination in Russian Empire Building

Unit 3: Overview [audio]

Unit 3: Commentary [audio]

Kreiten, Irma. 2009. “A Colonial Experiment in Cleansing: The Russian Conquest of Western Caucasus, 1856–65.” Journal of Genocide Research 11 (2–3): 213–241.
Holquist, Peter. 2001. “To Count, to Extract, and to Exterminate: Population Statistics and Population Politics in Late Imperial and Soviet Russia.” In A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin, edited by Ronald Grigor Suny and Terry Martin, 111–144. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Sherry, Dana. 2009. “Social Alchemy on the Black Sea Coast, 1860–65.” Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 10 (1): 7–30.

Unit 4: Religion, Ethnicity, and Identity Building in the Age of Nationalism

Unit 4: Overview [audio]

Unit 4: Commentary [audio]

Werth, Paul. 2007. “Changing Conceptions of Difference, Assimilation, and Faith in the Volga-Kama Region, 1740–1870.” In Russian Empire: Space, People, Power, 1700–1930, edited by Jane Burbank, Mark von Hagen, and Anatolyi Remnev, 169–195. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Werth, Paul W. 2014. “The Rhetoric and Content of ‘Religious Toleration.’” In The Tsar’s Foreign Faiths: Toleration and the Fate of Religious Freedom in Imperial Russia, 105–127. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Unit 5: Relations Between Church and State in Imperial Russia from Peter I, the Great, to Nicholas II

Unit 5: Overview [audio]

Unit 5: Commentary [audio]

Chulos, Chris. 2006. “Russian Piety and Culture from Peter the Great to 1917.” In Eastern Christianity, edited by Michael Angold, 348–370. Vol. 5 of The Cambridge History of Christianity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Engelstein, Laura. 2001. “Holy Russia in Modern Times: An Essay on Orthodoxy and Cultural Change.” Past & Present 173 (1): 129–156.

Unit 6: The Challenges Faced by Missionary Priests

Unit 6: Overview [audio]

Unit 6: Commentary [audio]

Coleman, Heather J. 2014. “Introduction: Faith and Story in Imperial Russia.” In Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia: A Source Book on Lived Religion, edited by Heather J. Coleman, 1–21. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Archpriest I. G. (c. 1850s) 2014. “The Diary of a Priest,” introduced by Laurie Manchester, translated by Heather J. Coleman. In Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia: A Source Book on Lived Religion, edited by Heather J. Coleman, 85–94. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Papshev, Panteleimon, and Ioann Goloshubin. (c. 1915 and c. 1911) 2014. “Missionary Priests’ Reports from Siberia,” introduced and translated by Aileen Friesen. In Orthodox Christianity in Imperial Russia: A Source Book on Lived Religion, edited by Heather J. Coleman, 249–261. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.

Unit 7: Patriarchy in Practice: The Russian Empire Through a Gendered Lens

Unit 7: Overview [audio]

Unit 7: Some Theoretical Insights [audio]

Unit 7: Commentary [audio]

Alpern Engel, Barbara. 2012. “Women and Urban Culture.” In Women in Nineteenth-Century Russia: Lives and Culture, edited by Wendy Rosslyn and Alessandra Tosi, 19–40. Cambridge, UK: OpenBook Publishers.
Manchester, Laurie. 2011. “Gender and Social Estate as National Identity: The Wives and Daughters of Orthodox Clergymen as Civilizing Agents in Imperial Russia.” Journal of Modern History 83 (1): 48–77.
Worobec, Christine D. 2001. “Witchcraft.” In Possessed: Women, Witches, and Demons in Imperial Russia, 86–108. DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press.

Introduction to Part II

Part II Introduction [audio]

Unit 8: Serfdom in Imperial Russia

Unit 8: Overview [audio]

Unit 8: Commentary [audio]

Purlevskii, Savva Dmitrievich. 2005. A Life Under Russian Serfdom: The Memoirs of Savva Dmitrievich Purlevskii, 1800–1868, edited and translated by Boris B. Gorshkov. Budapest: Central European University Press.

Please read:

  • Introduction, by Boris B. Gorshkov
  • My Grandfather
  • And My Adult Life Began
  • My Marriage, My Landlord, My Trade, and Other Things
  • The Bitterness of Serfdom Realized

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Unit 9: Peter I, the Great (1689–1725): The Petrine Revolution

Unit 9: Overview [audio]

Unit 9: Commentary [audio]

Cracraft, James. 2004. “Introduction.” In The Petrine Revolution in Russian Culture, 1–39. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cracraft, James. 2003. “Cultural Revolution.” In The Revolution of Peter the Great, 75–113. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Cracraft, James. 2003. “Revolution and Resistance.” In The Revolution of Peter the Great, 114–134. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Unit 10: Catherine II the Great (1762–1796)

Unit 10: Overview [audio]

Unit 10: Commentary [audio]

Hoogenboom, Hilde. 2012. “Catherine the Great (1729–1796).” In Russia’s People of Empire: Life Stories from Eurasia, 1500 to the Present, edited by Stephen M. Norris and Willard Sunderland, 81–90. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Whittaker, Cynthia Hyla. 2015. “Catherine the Great and the Art of Collecting: Acquiring the Paintings that Founded the Hermitage.” In Word and Image in Russian History: Essays in Honor of Gary Marker, edited by Maria Di Salvo, Daniel H. Kaiser, and Valerie A. Kivelson, 147–171. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press.
Proskurina, Vera. 2011. “Catherine the Healer.” In Creating the Empress: Politics and Poetry in the Age of Catherine II, 86–108. Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press.

Unit 11

Unit 11 Overview [audio]

Unit 11: Commentary [audio]

Unit 12: The Road to Revolution: Nicholas I (1825–1855), Alexander II (1855–1881), and Alexander III (1881–1894)

Unit 12: Overview [audio]

Unit 12: Commentary [audio]

Boterbloem, Kees, Steven A. Usitalo, and William Benton Whisenhunt. 2013. “Domestic Convulsions, 1855–1905.” In A History of Russia and Its Empire: From Mikhail Romanov to Vladimir Putin, 112–143. Lanham, MA:  Rowman & Littlefield.
Beer, Daniel. 2016. “Russia’s War on Terror.” History Today 66 (6): 36–44.

Unit 13: Nicholas II (1894–1917) and Revolution in Russia

Unit 13: Overview [audio]

Unit 13: Commentary [audio]