Jews, Ukrainians, and Russians in Kiev: Intergroup Relations in Late Imperial Associational Life

Slavic Review ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 65 (3) ◽  
pp. 475-501 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natan M. Meir

This article explores the associational life of late imperial Kiev to gauge the extent of Jewish participation in the city's civil society and the nature of interethnic relations in the voluntary sphere. Natan Meir demonstrates that, despite political and societal circumstances that often discouraged positive interactions between Jews and their Russian and Ukrainian neighbors, the voluntary association made possible opportunities for constructive interethnic encounters. These opportunities included a range of experiences from full Jewish integration to a segregation of Jewish interests within the sphere of activity of a particular association. While taking into account the central role of intergroup tensions and hostility in Kiev, Meir notes that the frequency of contacts between Jews and non-Jews was higher than most scholars have assumed. By placing the case of Kiev against the larger framework of the Russian empire as well as other European states, Meir contributes to our understanding of the development of late imperial civil society and of the modern Jewish experience in the late Russian empire and across urban Europe.

2021 ◽  
pp. 342-356
Author(s):  
Elena S. Sonina ◽  

Due to the literary-centric nature of Russian culture and the performance of the functions of civil society by the printed word, the role of the writer in the history of Russian literature and journalism of the Russian Empire was traditionally high. Therefore, satirical graphics constantly turned to the image of the Russian writer. The study compares the methods of depicting writers in the 19th and early 20th centuries and isolates the traditions of referring to the literary past and present. Caricature in connection with new trends in literature showed writers in the role of heroes of low and elite cultures, “tramps” (bossjaki) and modernists.


2010 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-145 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yakov M. Rabkin

This article examines the history of Israel's lingua franca as a constituent of the Zionist project. Based largely on recent scholarship, this work sheds light on the role of language in the educational and political efforts to create a New Hebrew Man who, in contradistinction to the European Jew, was to live ‘as a free man’ in his own land. Reflecting Jewish experience in the Russian Empire, these efforts alienated traditional, particularly non-Ashkenazi Jews. The article addresses the question of the uniqueness of the modern Israeli vernacular that contributes to the historical legitimacy of Zionism and the state of Israel.


2020 ◽  
Vol 73 (4) ◽  
pp. 655-682
Author(s):  
Alfrid Bustanov

AbstractThis article explores the practices of private communication of Muslims at the eclipse of the Russian empire. The correspondence of a young Kazan mullah with his family and friends lays the ground for an analysis of subjectivity at the intersection of literary models and personal experience. In personal writings, individuals selected from a repertoire of available tools for self-fashioning, be that the usage of notebooks, the Russian or Muslim calendar, or peculiarities of situational language use. Letters carried the emotions of their writers as well as evoking emotions in their readers. While still having access to the Persianate models of the self, practiced by previous generations of Tatar students in Bukhara, the new generation prioritized another type of scholarly persona, based on the mastery of Arabic, the study of the Qur’an and the hadith, as well as social activism.


2021 ◽  
pp. 32-42
Author(s):  
Sergey S. Novoselskii ◽  

The article considers the attitude of representatives of the top bureaucracy to the draft of the State Duma, developed by a Special Council chaired by the Minister of the Interior A.G. Bulygin in 1905. Particular attention is paid to the high officials assessments of the dignitaries of the place and role of the Duma in the system of state administration of the Russian Empire, the arguments that officials cited in favor of its convocation. It analyzes intellectual context of the emergence of the “bulyginskaya duma” (“Bulygin Duma”) project is analyzed, which largely determined the breadth of the actual, not declared powers of the people’s agency. The research is based on unpublished documents from the funds of state institutions, as well as materials from the personal funds of officials and public figures. The article shows that, despite the legislative nature of the Duma, it had to have significant powers. The electoral system, which was proposed and defended by the high officials, was originally modeled in such a way as to avoid the triumph of the estates principle. The monarch’s open opposition to the people’s agency was considered a politically short-sighted move, which indicated a limitation of his power. The results of the study allow considering the government policy in 1905 not as an untimely response to public demands, but as a conscious strategy for systemic political reforms.


2020 ◽  
pp. 360-374
Author(s):  
Evgeny V. Igumnov

The activities of military topographers in Western Siberia to provide cartographic information on the foreign and domestic policies of the Russian Empire in Central Asia and Siberia in the 19th century are considered in the article. The role of information in the formation of the Russian Empire is emphasized. The contribution of the state to the organization of the study of the Asian regions of Russia and neighboring countries is noted. The establishment of the military topographic service in Western Siberia can be traced taking into account data on administrative transformations in the Siberian region, and on changes in the foreign policy of the Russian Empire. The participation of military topographers in determining and designating the state border with China is described in detail. The question of the role of military topographers in the scientific study of China and Mongolia is raised. The significance of the activities of military topographers for the policy of the Russian Empire on the socio-economic development of Siberia and the north-eastern part of the territory of modern Kazakhstan is revealed. The contribution of topographers to the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, the design of river channels and new land routes is revealed. A large amount of literary sources, materials on the work of military topographers of Western Siberia, published in “Notes of the Military Topographic Department of the General Staff” is used in the article.


Author(s):  
Sergey Sergushkin

The article focuses on the role of A. E. Evert, the commander-in-chief of the armies of the Western Front, in the events of the February Revolution. Russia's top military leadership took a consolidated position on the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II from the throne, but the unity regarding the fate of the Empire's future was only an appearance. This is made clear through a detailed examination of the decisions made by Evert during the last crucial days for the Russian Empire and of his motives. The author pays particular attention to the period after the emperor’s abdication when, in the political vacuum, the commander-in-chief of the armies of the Western Front changed his line of conduct and proposed the bold project of transferring the country's real political power under military control. The methodological basis of this study is the principles of historicism, systematicity and scientific objectivity, while also using the comparative and historical-genetic methods.  Evert considered the constitutional monarchy with Mikhail Alexandrovich on the throne as a worthy alternative to the forceful suppression of the revolution in the rear, which cannot be said about his view on the Provisional Government and the prospect of elections to the Constituent Assembly during the war. In this regard, the commander-in-chief of the armies of the Western Front hoped, with the support of his colleagues, to impose his will on the rebellious capital. However, his project did not receive the necessary support, and his disloyalty to the Provisional Government led to his early resignation.


Author(s):  
Р.Р. Исхакова ◽  
А.К. Садыкова

Актуальность статьи заключается в исследовании исторического потенциала системы билингвального образования, сложившейся в России в 80-е гг. XIX- нач. XX вв. в восточной части Российской империи. Цель статьи – выявить основные факторы, повлиявшие на формирование концепции двуязычного образования, создать теоретическую модель подготовки учителей-билингвалов; выявить социокультурное и социолингвистическое значение этой системы. Выявлены основные элементы этой модели; проведена их классификация. Определена роль видного педагога и миссионера Н.И. Ильминского в формировании концепции билингвального образования учителей нового типа. Предложена компетентностная характеристика учителя-билингвала; раскрыто значение учителей этого типа в развитии начального образования для нерусского населения восточных окраин России и в формировании этнокультурных процессов в регионе. The relevance of the article lies in the analysis of the historical potential of the system of bilingual education that developed in Russia in the 80-s of the XIX-beginning. XX centuries in the Eastern part of the Russian Empire. The purpose of the article is to identify the main factors that influenced the formation of the concept of bilingual education, to create a theoretical model for the training of bilingual teachers; to identify the socio-cultural and socio-linguistic significance of this system. The main elements of this model are identified and their classification is carried out. The role of a prominent teacher and missionary N.I. Ilminsky in the formation of the concept of bilingual education of teachers of a new type is determined. A competence characteristic of a bilingual teacher is proposed, and the importance of this type of teacher in the development of primary education for the non-Russian population of the Eastern suburbs of Russia and in the formation of ethno-cultural processes in the region is revealed.


Author(s):  
James Schwoch

This chapter discusses the failed efforts of the government, military, and Western Union to build a telegraph route in the 1860s across Alaska, beneath the Bering Strait, and into Europe via the Russian Empire. One central theme is the role of Robert Kennicott and the Smithsonian Institution as a scientific team of natural historians participating in this expedition. The ambiguous corporate-military entanglements of expedition members raises questions about whether the expedition was also some sort of occupying force on the ground in Russian Alaska prior to the Alaska Purchase in 1867.


Author(s):  
Liubov Zhvanko ◽  
Oleksiy Nestulya

The Ukrainian lands became an epicentre of the movement of refugees who were assisted by a range of organisations. This chapter considers the role of governmental bodies in the Russian Empire and the new entities that appeared on Ukrainian territory following the February 1917 Revolution: the Ukrainian Central Rada, and the Ukrainian National Republic (UNR). It discusses the developing framework and implementation of public policy in relation to refugees, the activity of local government and non-governmental organisations which supported refugees. The chapter considers refugees’ life in Ukraine in 1914-18. During the peace negotiations in Brest-Litovsk in February 1918, Ukrainian delegates took the initiative in organizing the re-evacuation of refugees; the agreement between Ukraine and Austro- Hungarian, German, Polish and Russian representatives concerning repatriation was an early example of inter-governmental regulation of a new humanitarian problem.


Author(s):  
Aleksandr S. Stykalin ◽  

Reorganisation of the Austrian Empire into the dual Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1867 was followed by an attempt to cancel the special status of the Grand Principality of Transylvania, which had a long tradition of autonomous statehood, and absorb it into the Kingdom of Hungary. This caused a reaction by the Romanian nationalist movement in the region that intensified decade by decade. That this movement became a threat to the integrity of Austria-Hungary could not help but become an object of observation for Russian diplomats in the neighbouring Kingdom of Romania, where the issue of the status of Transylvanian Romanians was gaining more and more political attention. In this essay, based on archival and published sources, it is shown how Russian observers, first and foremost Russian diplomats in Bucharest, described not only the complex interethnic relations at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, but also the attitude of the Romanian political elite and Romanian public opinion towards the status of Romanians in Transylvania - subjects of the Habsburgs. The author comes to the conclusion that a glace thrown from outside on this remote region, loosely con-nected with Russia, nevertheless allows conclusions to be drawn that help to reassess issues that concerned the Russian Empire (such as the Bessarabia question).


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