Empire Speaks out Libraryrussian Ofhistory Economic and Culturehistory
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Empire Speaks Out LibraryRussian ofHistory Economic and CultureHistory GeneralVOLUME Editors 1 Peer Vries, University of Vienna Regina Grafe, Northwestern University, Evanston VOLUME 1 Empire Speaks Out Languages of Rationalization and Self-Description in the Russian Empire Edited by Ilya Gerasimov, Jan Kusber and Alexander Semyonov LEIDEN • BOSTON 2009 Cover illustration: It is a historic document from the 19th century: a folk picture— lubok. It speaks to the heart of the volume, showing the multiplicity of speaking agents, whose position is structured by the Empire’s attempt to fi nd for itself a lan- guage of expression, the famous Minin and Pozharsky monument. In the center is not the monument per se, but its discussion by the surrounding people. And since it is lubok, it does divert attention from the conventional story of monarchy, offi cials, and generals who are usually taken as speaking and acting on behalf of empire. Th is book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Empire speaks out : languages of rationalization and self-description in the Russian Empire / edited by Ilya Gerasimov, Jan Kusber, and Alexander Semyonov. p. cm. — (Russian history and culture, ISSN 1877-7791 ; v. 1) “Published . within the collective research project Languages of Self-Description and Representation in the Russian Empire”—T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-17571-6 (hbk.) 1. Russia—Ethnic relations. 2. Russia—Social conditions. 3. Russia—Politics and government. 4. Russia—History—Sources. 5. Cultural pluralism—Russia—History. 6. Imperialism—Social aspects—Russia—History. 7. Rationalization (Psychology)— Political aspects—Russia—History. 8. Self-perception—Political aspects—Russia— History. 9. Language and culture—Russia. 10. Discourse analysis—Russia. I. Gerasimov, Il’ia. II. Kusber, Jan. III. Semyonov, Alexander. IV. Title. V. Series. DK113.E48 2009 947—dc22 2009012418 Th is book is published with support from Volkswagen Foundation, within the collective research project “Languages of Self-Description and Representation in the Russian Empire.” ISSN 1877-7791 ISBN 978 90 04 17571 6 Copyright 2009 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, Th e Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to Th e Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands CONTENTS PART ONE DEFINING EMPIRE IN A DIALOGUE New Imperial History and the Challenges of Empire ................. 3 Ilya Gerasimov, Sergey Glebov, Jan Kusber, Marina Mogilner, Alexander Semyonov Considerations on Imperial Comparisons .................................... 33 Ann Laura Stoler PART TWO THE CHALLENGE OF UNIFICATION AND RESISTANCE Governance, Education, and the Problems of Empire in the Age of Catherine II ....................................................................... 59 Jan Kusber “Us” and “Th em”? Polish Self-Descriptions and Perceptions of the Russian Empire between Homogeneity and Diversity (1815–1863) .................................................................................... 89 Hans-Christian Petersen Siberian Middle Ground: Languages of Rule and Accommodation on the Siberian Frontier ................................ 121 Sergey Glebov vi contents PART THREE THE CHALLENGE OF TRANSFORMATION AND RATIONALIZATION Russian Physical Anthropology of the Nineteenth–Early Twentieth Centuries: Imperial Race, Colonial Other, Degenerate Types, and the Russian Racial Body ..................... 155 Marina Mogilner “Th e Real and Live Ethnographic Map of Russia”: Th e Russian Empire in the Mirror of the State Duma ........... 191 Alexander Semyonov Redefi ning Empire: Social Engineering in Late Imperial Russia ............................................................................................... 229 Ilya Gerasimov Name Index ........................................................................................ 273 PART ONE DEFINING EMPIRE IN A DIALOGUE NEW IMPERIAL HISTORY AND THE CHALLENGES OF EMPIRE Ilya Gerasimov, Sergey Glebov, Jan Kusber, Marina Mogilner, Alexander Semyonov Empire: Th e Eff ect of “Defamiliarization” In 1917, Viktor Shklovsky, a founding father of the Russian Formalist tradition of literary criticism, coined the concept of “defamiliarization” (literally, “estrangement”), which describes the process of enhancement of the perception of an object’s deeper meaning by alienating it and making the object look strange, unfamiliar, or unpredictable.1 Analyzing a range of recent studies of empires that can be loosely termed “new imperial histories,” we see this mechanism working in both directions: a more nuanced and perceptive analysis of imperial contexts produces a picture of a strikingly strange, indeed, an unfamiliar and alien world. In fact, from our point of view, this world appears to be irrational or at least motivated by a very diff erent type of rationality. Empire expressed itself through its “tensions” and “scandal of empire”; it pro- duced “carnal knowledge,” and was itself, paradoxically, acquired in a state of “absent-mindedness.” Without overextending this argument, we suggest that one common theme of a new variety of otherwise very diff erent studies of historic empires is exactly the “defamiliarization” of empire as a cultural context and a sociopolitical order. Th is novel trend constitutes a departure from the tradition of negativity in the defi nition of empire, which perceived social reality through a framework defi ned by the characteristics of the modern world of nation-states and its historicity.2 Empire within this old trend has been defi ned as the opposite and the subordinate: a historical archaism before the advent 1 Viktor Shklovsky, “Iskusstvo kak priem,” in Sborniki po teorii poeticheskogo iazyka, Vol. 2 (Petrograd, 1917), 3–14; English translation: Viktor Shklovskij, “Art as Tech- nique,” in Literary Th eory: An Anthology, ed. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan (Malden: Blackwell, 1998), 15–21. 2 For more on the tradition of negativity in conceptualization of empire as an analytic category, see Ilya Gerasimov, Sergei Glebov, Aleksandr Kaplunovskii, Marina Mogilner, and Alexander Semyonov, “In Search of New Imperial History,” Ab Imperio, 4 gerasimov, glebov, kusber, mogilner, semyonov of the age of nationalism, a peripheral manifestation of the main route of historical development of modern state and society, the power for institutionalization of order and maximization of control invited by the gray zones of the modern system of international relations and “seeth- ing cauldrons” of interethnic strife in such regions as the Balkans and Caucasus, a by-product of a capitalist economy and a bourgeois society, or the function of an indispensable nest for the emergence of modern nation-states out of the ethnic and regional mosaic of ancient imperial conglomerates. By recognizing empire as a historical phenomenon sui generis, modern historians struggle with the need to express the specifi c imperial experience in the language of post- and anti-imperial social sciences that emerged in the wake of World War II. At the same time, the estrangement of imperial historical experience seems to produce an enlightening eff ect on the understanding of present-day realities, and the more we think that classical categories of international relations, territorial state, standardized culture, and national economy do not apply to the twenty-fi rst century, the more familiar and instructive the world of empires appears to be.3 Whether this insight is right or wrong, its verifi cation also requires a scrutiny of the analytical language that scholars use to translate imperial historical experience into insights about and answers to contemporary concerns. Empire: In Search of a Formula Despite the upsurge of interest in “empire,” it remains the least refl ected- upon category of modern social sciences, especially when compared with that of “state” or “nation.” Th e latter categories generated a considerable number of traditions of their conceptualization in political theory, social thought, and cultural canons. Contemporary trends prompt an attempt to forge the analytical category of “empire” in order to account for the unprecedented movement of capital, commodities, and population, the restructuring of international relations along the lines of power of no. 1 (2005): 33–56; Alexander Semyonov, “Empire as a Context Setting Category,” Ab Imperio, no. 1 (2008): 193–204. 3 Th e critique of thinking about empire as an analogy or metaphor for present-day dilemmas may be found in Craig Calhoun, Frederick Cooper, and Kevin W. Moore, eds., Lessons of Empire: Imperial Histories and American Power (New York: New Press, 2006), 1, 2. new imperial history and the challenges of empire 5 the world hegemon and international intervention, the emergence or reemergence of regional powers such as the Russian Federation, and the evolution of forms of political organization such as the European Union (EU) that