The Fragile Empire: A History of Imperial Russia - Softcover

Chubarov, Alexander

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0826413080 ISBN 13: 9780826413086

Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group, 2001

Synopsis

With the fall of communism and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the tsarist past has caught up with Russia's present with a vengeance. The process of rethinking the past is not without its pitfalls: the negative evaluations of tsarist Russia, obligatory in the former Soviet Union, have given way to uncritical romanticizing. There has never been a greater need for a fair, balanced interpretation of the tsarist record. This book re-examines Russia's imperial past from the reign of Peter the Great to the collapse of tsarism in 1917. It presents pre-revolutionary Russia as an empire of great internal contradictions. A colossus that extended over one-sixth the earth's landmass, it was ever vulnerable to foreign invasion. It possessed one of the world's largest populations, the majority of whom lived in poverty and discontent. It commanded the world's richest natural resources, yet its productive forces were constricted by the remnants of feudalism. It strove to cement its multiethnic population by systematic Russification, which only stimulated nationalist movements. It gloried in being a people's autocracy' at a time when the regime was increasingly detached from its people.

About this title

About the Author

Alexander Chubarov is Senior Lecturer in Russian Studies at the School of International Studies and Law, Coventry University.

Review

"With the fall of Communism, the era of the Soviet Union is increasingly viewed as an aberrant phase in the centuries of Russian history; conversely, there has been a resurgence of interest in the pre-Soviet, Czarist past. Chubarov . . . has written a relatively brief but thorough and balanced account of Russia from the reign of Peter the Great to the Bolshevik Revolution. He offers some interesting perspectives on the geographic and demographic factors that influenced Russian development. . . . Chubarov does an outstanding job of surveying the critical accomplishments and failures of Peter the Great, Alexander II, and, especially, of the Populist movement of the nineteenth century. This is a sound, scholarly work that effectively covers three centuries of Russian history."-Booklist

"A good introduction to Russia's Imperial period." -Library Journal

"Russian history buffs and novices will appreciate Chubarov's ability to condense a wealth of details while keeping the book accessible."-Publishers Weekly

"[R]ecent works by Russian historians, many of them 'corrective' or reinterpretive in nature, have demonstrated remarkably innovative readings of the Russian past. In this case, they seem to be significantly ahead of their Western counterparts, who are often still beholden to worn-out historical (read 'imperial') cliches. The present volume reflects this most welcome trend. Starting with the premise that post-Soviet Russia cannot escape from its imperial past and that the once-maligned tsarist legacy is far more relevant to Russia's age-long quest for modernization than the recent Soviet experience, Alexander Chubarov provides a concise, yet compelling, account of an imperial order gone astray....This is not yet another comprehensive textbook on imperial Russia, inasmuch as it focuses on specific themes and their institutional, social, and ideological contexts, with little on what may pass for 'culture' or similar topics (not unlike Richard Pipes's classic Russia Under the Old Regime). The material is presented directly, yet sparsely, at times in the form of textual 'bullets' and summaries. The author does not sugarcoast his narrative and is brutally frank with his historical concepualization and terminology....Students will find the contents, charts, and various summariess of this book very useful, particularly when cramming for final examinations. Conversely, their teachers, who were brought up on their Florinsky or Riasanovsky primers, will find it equally useful by being forced toi reconsider some ogf their long-held truisms."
—The Historian
"Refreshing... This concise history is a welcome addition to the literature... an interesting and well-written account of a fascinating period in Russian history." —Canadian Slavonic Papers, December 2000

Edition details

• Publisher: Continuum Intl Pub Group
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0826413080
• ISBN 13: 9780826413086
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 256