The provincial, particularly the rural and agrarian, aspects of Russian history have received ren... more The provincial, particularly the rural and agrarian, aspects of Russian history have received renewed attention of late. In many ways, the book under review fits well with two other recent publications by Catherine Evtuhov and Tracy Dennison (Tracy Dennison, The Institutional Framework of Russian Serfdom [Cambridge, 2011]; Catherine Evtuhov, Portrait of a Province: Economy, Society and Civilization in Nizhnii Novgorod [Pittsburgh, 2011]), contributing greatly to our understanding of provincial life and peasant economy in imperial Russia. Miller’s thorough study puts Kursk province under a microscope in search of an explanation of the socio-economic causal factors that contributed to violent peasant rebellions in Kursk province during the course of the 1905 Revolution. Making use of a wide variety of provincial and central archival sources, as well as the statistical studies published by the provinces zemstvo, Miller teases out an explanation of why some villages erupted in violence ...
The provincial, particularly the rural and agrarian, aspects of Russian history have received ren... more The provincial, particularly the rural and agrarian, aspects of Russian history have received renewed attention of late. In many ways, the book under review fits well with two other recent publications by Catherine Evtuhov and Tracy Dennison (Tracy Dennison, The Institutional Framework of Russian Serfdom [Cambridge, 2011]; Catherine Evtuhov, Portrait of a Province: Economy, Society and Civilization in Nizhnii Novgorod [Pittsburgh, 2011]), contributing greatly to our understanding of provincial life and peasant economy in imperial Russia. Miller’s thorough study puts Kursk province under a microscope in search of an explanation of the socio-economic causal factors that contributed to violent peasant rebellions in Kursk province during the course of the 1905 Revolution. Making use of a wide variety of provincial and central archival sources, as well as the statistical studies published by the provinces zemstvo, Miller teases out an explanation of why some villages erupted in violence ...
Many have portrayed death and taxes as life’s only certainties. Yanni Kotsonis’ book masterfully ... more Many have portrayed death and taxes as life’s only certainties. Yanni Kotsonis’ book masterfully disrupts many of our certainties about Russian history by examining taxation as a nexus of key categories (state, economy, and people), and the role taxation played in the mutually constitutive processes whereby the modern state, the modern economy, and the modern population came into existence. In Russia, perhaps even more than in other states, ‘new kinds of taxes helped define [create] these categories, introduced a fundamental duality to each of them, and put each in tension with the others’ (8). The modern imperial state thrived on these dualities (particularly those involving personhood) and the new Bolshevik regime attempted to eliminate them once and for all (thereby acting as a truly new regime built upon the foundation prepared by the fiscal practices of the old)
and, finally, the media and structures they use for the purpose. While some authors rely on secon... more and, finally, the media and structures they use for the purpose. While some authors rely on secondary sources only, others investigate academic and journalistic works on history, some of which include even data obtained from conducted opinion polls. A consecutive reading of the area studies publications, however, quickly reveals a rather uniform pattern in the production and distribution of stereotype national narratives, at least as far as the former “national periphery” is concerned (neatly summarised by D. Oleinikov and T. Filipova in their final comments, p. 332-333). Exhausted by abundant absurdities of post-Soviet historical literature, the reader is rather thankful when some of the contributors take a closer look at the techniques with the help of which historical symbols and myths are constructed or at their plausibility and public success. Indeed, in their investigation of the “Russian idea” such authors as Zubkova and Kupriyanov reject the simple topdown approach and present a view of a more complex relationships between the nationalisation of postSoviet politics and historical mass consciousness. All in all, the volume supplies the reader with a descriptive overview of national historiographies from the mid-80’s to the mid-90’s. Individual historians can be “located” with the help of an index. “Natsional’nye istorii” features useful documents and suggestions on further readings. Western readers might find it particularly interesting to see how their colleagues from Russia and the NIS assess “the historian’s craft” in post-Soviet academia. Finally, the book provides an excellent opportunity to familiarise the readership of such works with the terminology of recent post-Soviet reflections on historiography. The fact that such coinages as the Shafarevich’s notorious “russophobia” have seemingly made their way into the scientific lexicon within a decade is only one revealing moment.
Silver, "The Ethnic and Language Dimensions," 72. lxxxv TsSK, Obshchii svod po imperii, Chast' II... more Silver, "The Ethnic and Language Dimensions," 72. lxxxv TsSK, Obshchii svod po imperii, Chast' II, ii. Gozulov claimed that data on native language over-represented the number of Russians in the population, especially as Udmurts, Mordvinians, Komi and others were undergoing linguistic Russification. See Gozulov, Perepisi naseleniia SSSR i kapitalisticheskikh stran, 201-2 Silver, "The Ethnic and Language Dimensions," 72.
A census is an example of the social construction of knowledge and the politics of measurement. M... more A census is an example of the social construction of knowledge and the politics of measurement. Measuring people assumes a political significance because it entails converting heterogeneous populations into numbers – stable pieces of knowledge that can be easily combined and manipulated. In constructing such numerical representations, census officials claim to be creating an objective portrait of the population. Censuses, however, also contribute to something less tangible by playing a key role in the creation of what Benedict Anderson has termed an " imagined community. " 1 General censuses provide states with a unique opportunity to unify space and populations with a single instrument. Furthermore, in their quest to secure a statistical portrait of what their polity " is " census officials shape the resultant outcome on the basis of categories derived from their own conceptions of what their polity has been. Measurers' agendas and biases become objecti-fied in the construction of the census form, the creation of census categories, and the publication of census data. The census-taking component of the imagining process is itself divided between central census administrators (those who create census forms, rules for their completion, etc.) and census workers in the field – local census authorities and enumerators whose own conceptions of what is being counted intrude into the interpretation of rules
Categorization plays an integral part in how we see and interpret the world. This is especially t... more Categorization plays an integral part in how we see and interpret the world. This is especially true when we attempt to comprehend the complexities of human society, where the heterogeneity of human activity across time and space de- mands that some criterion (class, gender, age, profession, etc.) be used to re- duce the number of variables examined. From the mid-nineteenth century—as statistics evolved from the simple "political arithmetic" of tax collectors and army recruiters into a potential science of human behavior—categorizing the population became a contentious issue that reflected the social and political agendas of data collectors. 1 At the same time, when data refused to be molded to researchers' assumptions, the task of putting people and their activities into analytical categories challenged the validity of the categories themselves. In this way, statistical representations and categories became socially constructed knowledge. Attempts by Russia's zems...
The provincial, particularly the rural and agrarian, aspects of Russian history have received ren... more The provincial, particularly the rural and agrarian, aspects of Russian history have received renewed attention of late. In many ways, the book under review fits well with two other recent publications by Catherine Evtuhov and Tracy Dennison (Tracy Dennison, The Institutional Framework of Russian Serfdom [Cambridge, 2011]; Catherine Evtuhov, Portrait of a Province: Economy, Society and Civilization in Nizhnii Novgorod [Pittsburgh, 2011]), contributing greatly to our understanding of provincial life and peasant economy in imperial Russia. Miller’s thorough study puts Kursk province under a microscope in search of an explanation of the socio-economic causal factors that contributed to violent peasant rebellions in Kursk province during the course of the 1905 Revolution. Making use of a wide variety of provincial and central archival sources, as well as the statistical studies published by the provinces zemstvo, Miller teases out an explanation of why some villages erupted in violence ...
The provincial, particularly the rural and agrarian, aspects of Russian history have received ren... more The provincial, particularly the rural and agrarian, aspects of Russian history have received renewed attention of late. In many ways, the book under review fits well with two other recent publications by Catherine Evtuhov and Tracy Dennison (Tracy Dennison, The Institutional Framework of Russian Serfdom [Cambridge, 2011]; Catherine Evtuhov, Portrait of a Province: Economy, Society and Civilization in Nizhnii Novgorod [Pittsburgh, 2011]), contributing greatly to our understanding of provincial life and peasant economy in imperial Russia. Miller’s thorough study puts Kursk province under a microscope in search of an explanation of the socio-economic causal factors that contributed to violent peasant rebellions in Kursk province during the course of the 1905 Revolution. Making use of a wide variety of provincial and central archival sources, as well as the statistical studies published by the provinces zemstvo, Miller teases out an explanation of why some villages erupted in violence ...
Many have portrayed death and taxes as life’s only certainties. Yanni Kotsonis’ book masterfully ... more Many have portrayed death and taxes as life’s only certainties. Yanni Kotsonis’ book masterfully disrupts many of our certainties about Russian history by examining taxation as a nexus of key categories (state, economy, and people), and the role taxation played in the mutually constitutive processes whereby the modern state, the modern economy, and the modern population came into existence. In Russia, perhaps even more than in other states, ‘new kinds of taxes helped define [create] these categories, introduced a fundamental duality to each of them, and put each in tension with the others’ (8). The modern imperial state thrived on these dualities (particularly those involving personhood) and the new Bolshevik regime attempted to eliminate them once and for all (thereby acting as a truly new regime built upon the foundation prepared by the fiscal practices of the old)
and, finally, the media and structures they use for the purpose. While some authors rely on secon... more and, finally, the media and structures they use for the purpose. While some authors rely on secondary sources only, others investigate academic and journalistic works on history, some of which include even data obtained from conducted opinion polls. A consecutive reading of the area studies publications, however, quickly reveals a rather uniform pattern in the production and distribution of stereotype national narratives, at least as far as the former “national periphery” is concerned (neatly summarised by D. Oleinikov and T. Filipova in their final comments, p. 332-333). Exhausted by abundant absurdities of post-Soviet historical literature, the reader is rather thankful when some of the contributors take a closer look at the techniques with the help of which historical symbols and myths are constructed or at their plausibility and public success. Indeed, in their investigation of the “Russian idea” such authors as Zubkova and Kupriyanov reject the simple topdown approach and present a view of a more complex relationships between the nationalisation of postSoviet politics and historical mass consciousness. All in all, the volume supplies the reader with a descriptive overview of national historiographies from the mid-80’s to the mid-90’s. Individual historians can be “located” with the help of an index. “Natsional’nye istorii” features useful documents and suggestions on further readings. Western readers might find it particularly interesting to see how their colleagues from Russia and the NIS assess “the historian’s craft” in post-Soviet academia. Finally, the book provides an excellent opportunity to familiarise the readership of such works with the terminology of recent post-Soviet reflections on historiography. The fact that such coinages as the Shafarevich’s notorious “russophobia” have seemingly made their way into the scientific lexicon within a decade is only one revealing moment.
Silver, "The Ethnic and Language Dimensions," 72. lxxxv TsSK, Obshchii svod po imperii, Chast' II... more Silver, "The Ethnic and Language Dimensions," 72. lxxxv TsSK, Obshchii svod po imperii, Chast' II, ii. Gozulov claimed that data on native language over-represented the number of Russians in the population, especially as Udmurts, Mordvinians, Komi and others were undergoing linguistic Russification. See Gozulov, Perepisi naseleniia SSSR i kapitalisticheskikh stran, 201-2 Silver, "The Ethnic and Language Dimensions," 72.
A census is an example of the social construction of knowledge and the politics of measurement. M... more A census is an example of the social construction of knowledge and the politics of measurement. Measuring people assumes a political significance because it entails converting heterogeneous populations into numbers – stable pieces of knowledge that can be easily combined and manipulated. In constructing such numerical representations, census officials claim to be creating an objective portrait of the population. Censuses, however, also contribute to something less tangible by playing a key role in the creation of what Benedict Anderson has termed an " imagined community. " 1 General censuses provide states with a unique opportunity to unify space and populations with a single instrument. Furthermore, in their quest to secure a statistical portrait of what their polity " is " census officials shape the resultant outcome on the basis of categories derived from their own conceptions of what their polity has been. Measurers' agendas and biases become objecti-fied in the construction of the census form, the creation of census categories, and the publication of census data. The census-taking component of the imagining process is itself divided between central census administrators (those who create census forms, rules for their completion, etc.) and census workers in the field – local census authorities and enumerators whose own conceptions of what is being counted intrude into the interpretation of rules
Categorization plays an integral part in how we see and interpret the world. This is especially t... more Categorization plays an integral part in how we see and interpret the world. This is especially true when we attempt to comprehend the complexities of human society, where the heterogeneity of human activity across time and space de- mands that some criterion (class, gender, age, profession, etc.) be used to re- duce the number of variables examined. From the mid-nineteenth century—as statistics evolved from the simple "political arithmetic" of tax collectors and army recruiters into a potential science of human behavior—categorizing the population became a contentious issue that reflected the social and political agendas of data collectors. 1 At the same time, when data refused to be molded to researchers' assumptions, the task of putting people and their activities into analytical categories challenged the validity of the categories themselves. In this way, statistical representations and categories became socially constructed knowledge. Attempts by Russia's zems...
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