History

In the last generation a large body of new empirical information has challenged the inherited views of early modern Russia. Much of this new information has been about the state, its administration, practices, and relations with society. Old ideas and terminology need to be rethought, concepts such as westernization, autocracy, or centralization. The amount and pace of change in the...

In 1917—that is, in the midst of the First World War—Madeleine Z. Doty, a feminist, lawyer, prison reformer, peace activist, and journalist, was commissioned by the magazine Good Housekeeping to travel “around the world” to get a view “behind the battle line” of how people on the home front, especially women, were responding to the war. Traveling on the Trans-Siberian...

In April 1917, Walter Crosley assumed the position of naval attaché to Petrograd and brought his wife, Pauline, with him. Over the next eleven months, the Crosleys witnessed the last gasps of the Russian Empire and the emergence of the new Bolshevik-led communist regime. Throughout this period, Pauline wrote letters describing the changing political landscape and the challenges of daily...

Arthur Bullard’s The Russian Pendulum (1919) is a personal and political analysis of the Russian Revolution, from the Revolution of 1905 through the beginning of the Civil War in 1918. It reflects Bullard’s own perspective, as an advocate for change in Russia with American help. Bullard’s experience as an advisor to Colonel House and Woodrow Wilson as a key staffer for...

Pioneer war photographer Donald Thompson arrived in Petrograd on the eve of the February Revolution of 1917. Since the outbreak of World War I, Thompson had worked on every front in Europe, shooting motion-picture footage and stills for US and British newspapers and magazines, carefully fashioning his reputation as a free spirit who defied danger, death, the elements, and the...

At the turn of the 20th century, the Russian Empire's 5.2 million Jews were in crisis. Having quintupled in number since 1800, they were substantially impoverished and crammed into Russia's 25 westernmost provinces. Some pinned their hopes on emigration, others on being granted permission to live in the Russian interior. Some labored with hand tools in dingy workshops, but most...

Of all of the books by American witnesses of the Russian Revolution, John Reed's Ten Days That Shook the World was and still is the best known. Even though Reed arrived in Russia in September 1917 and left in the spring of 1918, his enthusiastic account focuses on the ten key days of the revolution itself, bringing to life the...

Dmitry Prigov (1940–2007), the most prominent figure in Moscow Conceptualism, is not well known in the West because of a lack of English translations of his work and scholarship in English. This collection of articles by some of the most devoted experts on his work aims to change that by providing detailed discussions in English of Prigov’s broad-based...

Seeing Muscovy Anew: Politics—Institutions—Culture: Essays in Honor of Nancy Shields Kollmann brings together nineteen thought-provoking essays from an international group of specialists in medieval and early modern Russian and Ukrainian studies to honor the inspiring scholarship of Nancy Shields Kollmann. The contributions are grouped into thematic categories that reflect Kollmann’s wide-ranging interests: 1) the politics of rule, 2) conflicted belief,...

Louise Bryant and her husband John Reed were among a relatively small group of Americans who participated in one of the most important events of the twentieth century, the Russian Revolution of 1917. As first-hand observers, they attended meetings of the revolutionaries, were present at the Winter Palace as it was under attack, and witnessed the surrender of the palace guards. Over...