Patterns of Governance in the Western Borderlands of the Tsarist Empire
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University of Massachusetts Amherst ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst Doctoral Dissertations Dissertations and Theses Spring October 2014 Imperial Janus: Patterns of Governance in the Western Borderlands of the Tsarist Empire Nicklaus Laverty University of Massachusetts Amherst Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2 Part of the Other History Commons, and the Political Science Commons Recommended Citation Laverty, Nicklaus, "Imperial Janus: Patterns of Governance in the Western Borderlands of the Tsarist Empire" (2014). Doctoral Dissertations. 148. https://doi.org/10.7275/dntd-d758 https://scholarworks.umass.edu/dissertations_2/148 This Open Access Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Dissertations and Theses at ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Imperial Janus: Patterns of Governance in the Western Borderlands of the Tsarist Empire A Dissertation Presented by NICKLAUS LAVERTY Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts Amherst in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY February 2014 Department of Political Science © Copyright by Nicklaus Laverty 2014 All Rights Reserved Imperial Janus: Patterns of Governance in the Western Borderlands of the Tsarist Empire A Dissertation Presented By NICKLAUS LAVERTY Approved as to style and content by: _________________________________________________ Jillian Schwedler, Chair _________________________________________________ Sergey Glebov, Member _________________________________________________ Amel Ahmed, Member __________________________________________ Brian Schaffner, Department Head Department of Political Science DEDICATION To my wife, Mikaela, and my daughter, Annika. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Jillian Schwedler, for her years of help and support as I worked on this project. I would also like to thank my other committee members, Dr Amel Ahmed and Dr. Sergey Glebov, for their specific contributions as the project developed and matured. In particular, I would like to thank Dr. Glebov for his aid in ensuring the accuracy of the historiography and for generally helping me to gain a keener appreciation of Imperial history. I am also indebted to Dr. Ahmed for some crucial contributions to the theoretical framework of the project. In addition, I would like to thank Dr. Kevin Pallister for reading over earlier versions of the dissertation and providing valuable feedback. Thanks also go to Dr. Ray La Raja for his general professional support over the last few years, even if the contributions were not to the substantive content of the research. Finally, I would like to acknowledge Dr. James Warhola for initially sparking my interest in Russian politics and history. Without his help and guidance, this project would never have happened. v ABSTRACT IMPERIAL JANUS: PATTERNS OF GOVERNANCE IN THE WESTERN BORDERLANDS OF THE TSARIST EMPIRE FEBRUARY 2014 NICKLAUS LAVERTY, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF MAINE Ph.D., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Jillian Schwedler Why did the Tsarist Empire opt for different governance strategies in each of the territories of the Western Borderlands (here defined as Poland-Lithuania, the Baltic territories, Finland, and Hetman Ukraine)? The existing political science literature tends to reduce such a question to a distinction between direct and indirect rule, usually developing in the context of a Western European maritime empire. This literature falls short of explaining the Tsarist case and requires the addition of intervening variables concerning the role of local elites and leadership choice. Employing an interdisciplinary literature combining sources from political science, sociology and history, this dissertation develops a structural-institutional approach to explaining patterns of direct and indirect rule that emphasizes the strength and cohesion of local elites, their orientation towards the dominant unit, and the role of leadership choice in the dominant unit. In addition to better accounting for the policy trajectory of the Tsarist Empire, such an explanation can also be applied to other historical and contemporary political systems deciding between centralized and decentralized rule. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS .................................................................................................. v ABSTRACT ....................................................................................................................... vi CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................... 1 States and Empires .......................................................................................................... 6 The "Imperial Turn" ...................................................................................................... 31 Direct and Indirect Rule ................................................................................................ 38 Structure of the Study .................................................................................................... 49 II. BUILDING A “BEAUTIFUL AUTOCRACY” .......................................................... 52 Constructing the Petrine State ....................................................................................... 54 The Evolution of the Gentry.......................................................................................... 58 Toward the End of the 18 th Century .............................................................................. 61 The Era of Alexander .................................................................................................... 64 The Decembrist Revolt.................................................................................................. 67 Nicholas’ Reign to 1848 ................................................................................................ 73 The Third Section .......................................................................................................... 74 Censorship ..................................................................................................................... 79 The Official Nationality ................................................................................................ 82 1848-1855: The “Long Night” ...................................................................................... 84 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................... 87 III. THE INCORPORATION OF THE WESTERN BORDERLANDS .......................... 90 The Incorporation of the Ukrainian Hetmanate ............................................................ 94 The Incorporation of the Baltic Provinces and Finland .............................................. 105 The Polish Partitions and the Congress Kingdom ....................................................... 112 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 125 IV. THE INFLUENCE OF LOCAL ELITES IN THE WESTERN BORDERLANDS 129 vii The Starshyna of Cossack Ukraine ............................................................................. 133 The Baltic Germans and Finnish Elites ....................................................................... 141 The Polish Szlachta ..................................................................................................... 151 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 161 V. CENTRALIZATION AND REPRESSION IN THE BORDERLANDS .................. 164 The Dissolution of Hetman Ukraine ........................................................................... 168 Inconsistent Centralization in the Baltics and Finland ................................................ 177 Repression and Control in Poland-Lithuania .............................................................. 194 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 207 VI. RUSSIFICATION AND THE END OF IMPERIAL AUTONOMY ...................... 211 Creating "Little Russians" ........................................................................................... 217 National Awakening in the Baltics and Finland.......................................................... 227 Erasing Poland............................................................................................................. 239 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 251 VII. CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................... 255 Where do we go from here? ........................................................................................ 261 Historical Comparisons ............................................................................................... 262 Contemporary Comparisons ........................................................................................ 266 Conclusion ..................................................................................................................