‘The province…But, indeed, that is Russia!’ : The Imagined Province in War and Revolution

“The Imagined Province” investigates the shifts in what the “idea of the province” in the period of world war and the Russian revolution and civil war. I argue that the mental and emotional valence of Russia’s map changed markedly over these nine years as regionalist and provincial pride came into literary culture, urging a fresh view of central Russia outside the capital cities. This change of perspective emerges in essays, stories, and poetry throughout Central Russia, though this article focuses mainly on the Volga Region. Authors of many different political stripes contributed to this shift—among them, regionalists like Evgenii Chirikov and Nikolai Kliuev, pro-revolutionary socialists such as Maksim Gor’kii and Matvei Dudorov, and Bolsheviks like Aleksei Dorogoichenko and Fedor Bogorodskii. As the Bolsheviks regathered Russia, these provincial voices were overpowered by more prominent voices from the center. Nonetheless, they established a “usable history” that remains a substrate of Russian culture even today, challenging the simplistic binary juxtaposing “capital” and “province.”‘The Imagined Province’ investigates the shifts in the ‘idea of the province’ in the period of world war and the Russian revolution and civil war. I argue that the mental and emotional valence of Russia’s map changed markedly over these nine years as regionalist and provincial pride came into literary culture, urging a fresh view of central Russia outside the capital cities. Though this change of perspective emerged in essays, stories, and poetry throughout Central Russia, this article focuses mainly on the Volga Region. Authors of many different political stripes contributed to this shift – among them, regionalists like Evgenii Chirikov and Nikolai Kliuev, pro-revolutionary socialists such as Maksim Gor’kii and Matvei Dudorov, and Bolsheviks like Aleksei Dorogoichenko and Fedor Bogorodskii. As the Bolsheviks regathered Russia, these provincial voices were overpowered by more prominent voices from the center. Nonetheless, they established a ‘usable history’ that remains a substrate of Russian culture even today, challenging the simplistic binary juxtaposing ‘capital’ and ‘province.

Panikin's Micro-Worlds: Building a Positive Image of the Grassroots Entrepreneur

2005 Hall Center Faculty Seminar lecture on "Capitalism and Culture." Discusses Aleksandr Panikin's (1950- ) vision of entrepreneurship in Russia after the fall of the Soviet Union

Introduction to Aleksandr S. Panikin, Private Wealth--National Vision: The Memoirs of a New Russian Entrepreneur

Introduction to Edith W. Clowes translation from Russian to English of Panikin's book Private Wealth--National Vision: The Memoirs of a New Russian Entrepreneur.Copyright held by Edith W. Clowes, licensed to KU Scholarworks digital repository for open access