Catherine the Great and the Russian Nobility
Author: Paul Dukes
Publisher: London : Cambridge U.P.
Published: 1967
Total Pages: 296
ISBN-13:
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Emancipation of Russian Nobility, 1762-1785
Author: Robert E. Jones
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2015-03-08
Total Pages: 339
ISBN-13: 1400872146
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCatherine the Great's treatment of the Russian nobility has usually been regarded as dictated by court politics or her personal predilections. Citing new archival sources, Robert Jones shows that her redefinition and reorganization of the Russian nobility were in fact motivated by reasons of state. In 1762, Peter III had "emancipated" the nobility from obligatory state service, and in the early years of her reign Catherine attempted to govern Russia through a bureaucratic administration. Although this threatened the provincial nobles with social and economic decline, the government was oblivious to their plight until the peasant revolt of 1773-1775 convinced Catherine that she could not provide Russia with a government capable of defending and promoting the national interest without them. This realization led to the formation of a new alliance between the state and the nobility, based on a mutual fear of peasant revolt and expressed first in the provincial reforms of 1775 and finally in Catherine's Charter to the Nobility of 1785. In the 1760's Catherine had hoped to forestall peasant uprisings by improving the lot of the serfs and limiting the authority of the serf-owners. But faced with the choice between controlling the serfs in a way open to abuses and eliminating abuses in a way that might lead to loss of control, Catherine chose the former. Her Charter committed the state to the preservation of serfdom and the reactionary ancien régime. Originally published in 1973. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Former People
Author: Douglas Smith
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2012-10-02
Total Pages: 763
ISBN-13: 1466827750
DOWNLOAD EBOOKEpic in scope, precise in detail, and heart-breaking in its human drama, Former People is the first book to recount the history of the aristocracy caught up in the maelstrom of the Bolshevik Revolution and the creation of Stalin's Russia. Filled with chilling tales of looted palaces and burning estates, of desperate flights in the night from marauding peasants and Red Army soldiers, of imprisonment, exile, and execution, it is the story of how a centuries'-old elite, famous for its glittering wealth, its service to the Tsar and Empire, and its promotion of the arts and culture, was dispossessed and destroyed along with the rest of old Russia. Yet Former People is also a story of survival and accommodation, of how many of the tsarist ruling class—so-called "former people" and "class enemies"—overcame the psychological wounds inflicted by the loss of their world and decades of repression as they struggled to find a place for themselves and their families in the new, hostile order of the Soviet Union. Chronicling the fate of two great aristocratic families—the Sheremetevs and the Golitsyns—it reveals how even in the darkest depths of the terror, daily life went on. Told with sensitivity and nuance by acclaimed historian Douglas Smith, Former People is the dramatic portrait of two of Russia's most powerful aristocratic families, and a sweeping account of their homeland in violent transition.
Noble Subjects
Author: Bella Grigoryan
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2018-02-20
Total Pages: 257
ISBN-13: 1609092325
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRelations between the Russian nobility and the state underwent a dynamic transformation during the roughly one hundred-year period encompassing the reign of Catherine II (1762–1796) and ending with the Great Reforms initiated by Alexander II. This period also saw the gradual appearance, by the early decades of the nineteenth century, of a novelistic tradition that depicted the Russian society of its day. In Noble Subjects, Bella Grigoryan examines the rise of the Russian novel in relation to the political, legal, and social definitions that accrued to the nobility as an estate, urging readers to rethink the cultural and political origins of the genre. By examining works by Novikov, Karamzin, Pushkin, Bulgarin, Gogol, Goncharov, Aksakov, and Tolstoy alongside a selection of extra-literary sources (including mainstream periodicals, farming treatises, and domestic and conduct manuals), Grigoryan establishes links between the rise of the Russian novel and a broad-ranging interest in the figure of the male landowner in Russian public discourse. Noble Subjects traces the routes by which the rhetorical construction of the male landowner as an imperial subject and citizen produced a contested site of political, socio-cultural, and affective investment in the Russian cultural imagination. This interdisciplinary study reveals how the Russian novel developed, in part, as a carrier of a masculine domestic ideology. It will appeal to scholars and students of Russian history and literature.
The Russian Nobility in the Age of Alexander I
Author: Patrick O’Meara
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-05-30
Total Pages: 401
ISBN-13: 1788315677
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe reign of Alexander I was a pivotal moment in the construction of Russia's national mythology. This work examines this crucial period focusing on the place of the Russian nobility in relation to their ruler, and the accompanying debate between reform and the status quo, between a Russia old and new, and between different visions of what Russia could become. Drawing on extensive archival research and placing a long-neglected emphasis on this aspect of Alexander I's reign, this book is an important work for students and scholars of imperial Russia, as well as the wider Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic period in Europe.
Catherine the Great and the Russian Nobility
Author: Paul Dukes
Publisher: CUP Archive
Published:
Total Pages: 292
ISBN-13:
DOWNLOAD EBOOKRussia's Western Borderlands, 1710-1870
Author: Edward C. Thaden
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-07-14
Total Pages: 292
ISBN-13: 1400854954
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book examines Russian policies in the western borderlands during the main period of expansion of the imperial system. Originally published in 1985. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Patrons of Enlightenment
Author: Colum Leckey
Publisher: University of Delaware
Published: 2011-08-16
Total Pages: 225
ISBN-13: 1611493439
DOWNLOAD EBOOKPatrons of Enlightenment is the first English language study of the St. Petersburg Free Economic Study, one of the most prestigious and influential public associations in Imperial Russian history. Established in 1765 under the personal protection of Catherine the Great, its mission was to enlighten the villages and country estates of the Russian Empire by spreading the gospel of scientific agriculture to noble landowners and the peasants working their land. Emulating the patriotic associations of Western and Central Europe, it also sought to put the finishing touches on the cultural westernization of Russia initiated by the reforming tsar Peter the Great. Within the walls of its meeting house in St. Petersburg, it offered a neutral space where people of different rank, status, and lineage assembled to debate the great issues of the day, above all else the role of a privileged and enlightened nobility in a society anchored in serfdom. For its network of readers and correspondents in the provinces, it provided an opportunity to earn distinction on Russia's public stage through its voluminous publications and its flagship journal, the Transactions of the Free Economic Society. The Society provided the template for public activity and initiative in Imperial Russia, as hundreds of other organizations in the nineteenth century would emulate its example.
Ruling Russia
Author: John P. LeDonne
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2014-07-14
Total Pages: 428
ISBN-13: 1400855780
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book explores thoroughly the reforms of Russian administration from 1775 to 1785, this work also reaches beyond Catherine's reign to challenge established opinions on the nature of eighteenth-century Russian government and the autocracy of the tsars. Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
A Concise History of Russia
Author: Paul Bushkovitch
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2011-12-05
Total Pages: 517
ISBN-13: 1139504444
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAccessible to students, tourists and general readers alike, this book provides a broad overview of Russian history since the ninth century. Paul Bushkovitch emphasizes the enormous changes in the understanding of Russian history resulting from the end of the Soviet Union in 1991. Since then, new material has come to light on the history of the Soviet era, providing new conceptions of Russia's pre-revolutionary past. The book traces not only the political history of Russia, but also developments in its literature, art and science. Bushkovitch describes well-known cultural figures, such as Chekhov, Tolstoy and Mendeleev, in their institutional and historical contexts. Though the 1917 revolution, the resulting Soviet system and the Cold War were a crucial part of Russian and world history, Bushkovitch presents earlier developments as more than just a prelude to Bolshevik power.
