Weinberg, Robert

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Swarthmore College 
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History Faculty Works History 
Winter 1999 
Review Of "Imperial Russia: New Histories For The Empire" Edited 
By J. Burbank And D. Ransel 
Robert Weinberg 
Swarthmore College, rweinbe1@swarthmore.edu 
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Robert Weinberg. (1999). "Review Of "Imperial Russia: New Histories For The Empire" Edited By J. 
Burbank And D. Ransel". Slavic Review. Volume 58, Issue 4. 910-911. DOI: 10.2307/2697227 
https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history/92 
This work is brought to you for free by Swarthmore College Libraries' Works. It has been accepted for inclusion in 
History Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact 
myworks@swarthmore.edu. 
 
Review
Author(s): Robert Weinberg
Review by: Robert Weinberg
Source: Slavic Review, Vol. 58, No. 4, Special Issue: Ten Years after 1989: What Have We
Learned? (Winter, 1999), pp. 910-911
Published by: Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2697227
Accessed: 11-04-2016 13:59 UTC
 
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
http://about.jstor.org/terms
 
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted
digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about
JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.
Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies is collaborating with JSTOR to
digitize, preserve and extend access to Slavic Review
This content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Mon, 11 Apr 2016 13:59:12 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 910 Slavic Review
 Much of the work is based on an exhaustive study of the approximately 308 Old Rus'
 coins currently known. Two hoards (at Nizyn and Kiev) account for all but 68 of these
 coins. The coins are grouped by reigns, types, and every other conceivable arrangement.
 Fourteen pages of high-gloss illustrative plates provide extraordinarily clear pictures of
 every feature that Pritsak discusses. I am not aware of better use of such illustrative mate-
 rials anywhere else.
 As might be anticipated, Pritsak goes to some length to demonstrate that there were
 two parallel monetary systems in Rus', one in the south (the Kiev region, influenced by
 Byzantium) and the other in the north (the Novgorod region, "in response to the German-
 Scandinavian economic challenge," 52). Thus numismatically there was no unified Kievan
 Russian state-and presumably on at least that score there is no historical basis for a
 unified Ukrainian-Great Russian state. Pritsak does not deny, of course, that there was in-
 tercourse between Kiev and Novgorod along the route from the Varangians to the Greeks.
 Along the way, many other issues are discussed. Pritsak does much to demonstrate
 that the Khazars had a monetary economy. The Old Russian kuna primarily means
 "money" and not "pelt"; bel' means "pure silver coin," not "squirrel skin." The spelling on
 coins of Kiev's two most important rulers was always '"ladimir," not "Volodimer," the
 Ukrainian preference (93-94).
 The appearance of this work (on which Pritsak began working in 1977) renews my
 hope that the projected volumes 2 through 6 of the author's magisterial Origins of Rus' will
 someday see the light of day.
 RICHARD HELLIE
 University of Chicago
 Imp erialRussia:New HistoriesfortheEmpire. Ed.Jane Burbank and David L. Ransel. Indiana-
 Michigan Series in Russian and East European Studies. Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
 sity Press, 1998. xxiii, 359 pp. Notes. Index. Photographs. $39.95, hard bound. $24.95,
 paper.
 Culled from a series of workshops held during the first half of the 1990s, the essays in this
 volume seek to reenvision the history of the Russian empire from the time of Peter the
 Great through the era of the Great Reforms. The essays are impressive in terms of re-
 search, conceptualization, and analysis. They succeed in forcing the reader to rethink the
 accepted story lines and narratives about many characteristics and dynamics of imperial
 Russian society, culture, and politics. Each essay stands on its own individual merits, but as
 a whole the assembled collection demonstrates the benefits of imaginatively interrogating
 sources and wisely borrowing from other academic disciplines and methodologies.
 Space does not permit me to provide a summary of the twelve essays that make up the
 book. Nor can I do justice to the stimulating and nuanced analyses offered by the volume's
 contributors, established and junior scholars alike. All kinds of historical inquiry-cul-
 tural, political, social, institutional, economic, and intellectual-are represented in this
 collection. The volume does not pretend to treat all aspects of imperial Russian society,
 culture, and politics, and not all social groups are represented in the essays.
 Part 1 has articles on kinship and autocratic politics in the early eighteenth century
 (Valerie A. Kivelson), the idea of autocracy among eighteenth-century Russian historians
 (Cynthia Hyla Whitaker), and the imperial family as political symbol (Richard Wortman).
 Part 2, entitled "Imperial Imagination," contains articles on proposals for a Russian na-
 tional museum in the nineteenth century (Kevin Tyner Thomas) and on the role of eth-
 nography in the activities of the Russian Geographical Society on the eve of the Great Re-
 forms (Nathaniel Knight). Part 3 is less unified in theme than the previous sections. Two
 essays concentrate on imperial rule, empire building, and colonization (Thomas M. Bar-
 rett and Willard Sunderland), one on the serf economy and family structure (Steven L.
 Hoch), and a final article on the Orthodox Church and popular religiosity (Gregory L.
 Freeze). The last section has contributions on the history of an eighteenth-century provin-
 cial merchant family (David L. Ransel), Freemasonry and the emergence of public opin-
This content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Mon, 11 Apr 2016 13:59:12 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms
 Book Reviews 911
 ion in Catherinian Russia (Douglas Smith), and the journalistic discussion of suicide in the
 era of the Great Reforms (Irina Paperno).
 Jane Burbank and David Ransel have written a valuable introduction that prepares
 readers for what they will encounter in the articles. Burbank's excellent conclusion not
 only draws together the common threads joining the disparate essays but also highlights
 questions unanswered by these essays. Graduate students and others in quest of research
 topics should find much in this volume to stimulate them and suggest potentially fruitful
 fields of inquiry.
 Unfortunately, readers may be familiar with many of the arguments presented in the
 collection because some of the authors have already published their results elsewhere.
 Still, it is useful that Indiana University Press has gathered distilled versions of their re-
 search under one cover. Imperial Russia: New Histories for the Empire should find a welcome
 home in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses that seek to introduce students to
 recent trends in the literature on the history of imperial Russia. As these articles attest, the
 study of Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is alive and well. The editors
 point out that historians no longer have to contend with the official, Soviet ideological and
 interpretive framework that frequently shaped their research agendas and influenced
 the questions they asked, as well as their accessibility to materials. As Burbank and Ransel
 write:
 For historians eager to move out from the long shadow cast over the tsarist period
 by the Soviet project and, at the same time, willing to investigate revisionist nar-
 ratives before proclaiming them, the 1990s offered a chance to reexcavate the his-
 toric site of imperial Russia with new imagination and attentiveness. If the "road
 to revolution" and "crisis of the old regime" could be jettisoned as blueprints for
 research . .. historians could then ask a variety of new questions and produce
 fresh, even if explicitly tentative, interpretations of the imperial past (xii).
 The dissolution of Soviet power and the opening of archives in the former Soviet
 Union ensure the sustenance of the study of imperial Russian society, culture, and politics
 for the foreseeable future.
 ROBERT WEINBERG
 Swarthmore College
 Russian Corporate Capitalism from Peter the Great to Perestroika. By Thomas C. Owen. New
 York: Oxford University Press, 1995. xii, 259 pp. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. In-
 dex. Map. $55.00, hard bound.
 This is an interesting book, although one that gives the appearance of being somewhat un-
 balanced. It contains four substantive chapters, an introduction, a lengthy conclusion, and
 a description of a very extensive database in the appendix. The book spans an enormous
 period, but it does not cover this period evenly. Two chapters are devoted to the pre-
 World War I period-"Corporations in the Russian Empire, 1700-1914" and "Corporate
 Entrepreneurs and Managers, 1821-1914"-and then there is a great leap forward to
 chapters on "Perestroika and the Failure of Soviet Capitalism, 1985-1990" and on "Capi-
 talism and Xenophobia in Russia." The most superficial reader is tempted to ask what hap-
 pened to Russian corporate capitalism during World War I and the period of the provi-
 sional government, when some of its leading figures controlled much of the government.
 The exclusion of these critical periods is difficult to justify in a survey that claims to span
 the period from Peter the Great to perestroika. There is also the question of whether ele-
 ments of corporate capitalism were present in the Soviet period in state capitalism and the
 New Economic Policy (NEP). The reader cannot help getting the impression that this is a
 book that cobbles together the author's prime interest in prerevolutionary corporate his-
 tory with his interest in modern developments and that it conveniently ignores the rest.
 This is strange, because Owen's admirable book, The Corporation under Russian Law, 1800-
This content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Mon, 11 Apr 2016 13:59:12 UTC
All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms


Review Of  Imperial Russia: New Histories For The Empire  Edited By J. Burbank And D. Ransel

Swarthmore College Works History Faculty Works History Winter 1999 Review Of "Imperial Russia: New Histories For The Empire" Edited By J. Burbank And D. Ransel Robert Weinberg Swarthmore College, rweinbe1@swarthmore.edu This work is brought to you for free and open access by . It has been accepted for inclusion in History Faculty Works by an authorized administrator of Works. For more information, please contact myworks@swarthmore.edu. Follow this and additional works at: https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history  Part of the History Commons Let us know how access to these works benefits you  Recommended Citation Robert Weinberg. (1999). "Review Of "Imperial Russia: New Histories For The Empire" Edited By J. Burbank And D. Ransel". Slavic Review. Volume 58, Issue 4. 910-911. DOI: 10.2307/2697227 https://works.swarthmore.edu/fac-history/92  ReviewAuthor(s): Robert WeinbergReview by: Robert WeinbergSource: Slavic Review, Vol. 58, No. 4, Special Issue: Ten Years after 1989: What Have WeLearned? (Winter, 1999), pp. 910-911Published by: Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2697227Accessed: 11-04-2016 13:59 UTC Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available athttp://about.jstor.org/terms JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusteddigital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information aboutJSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies is collaborating with JSTOR todigitize, preserve and extend access to Slavic ReviewThis content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Mon, 11 Apr 2016 13:59:12 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 910 Slavic Review Much of the work is based on an exhaustive study of the approximately 308 Old Rus' coins currently known. Two hoards (at Nizyn and Kiev) account for all but 68 of these coins. The coins are grouped by reigns, types, and every other conceivable arrangement. Fourteen pages of high-gloss illustrative plates provide extraordinarily clear pictures of every feature that Pritsak discusses. I am not aware of better use of such illustrative mate- rials anywhere else. As might be anticipated, Pritsak goes to some length to demonstrate that there were two parallel monetary systems in Rus', one in the south (the Kiev region, influenced by Byzantium) and the other in the north (the Novgorod region, "in response to the German- Scandinavian economic challenge," 52). Thus numismatically there was no unified Kievan Russian state-and presumably on at least that score there is no historical basis for a unified Ukrainian-Great Russian state. Pritsak does not deny, of course, that there was in- tercourse between Kiev and Novgorod along the route from the Varangians to the Greeks. Along the way, many other issues are discussed. Pritsak does much to demonstrate that the Khazars had a monetary economy. The Old Russian kuna primarily means "money" and not "pelt"; bel' means "pure silver coin," not "squirrel skin." The spelling on coins of Kiev's two most important rulers was always '"ladimir," not "Volodimer," the Ukrainian preference (93-94). The appearance of this work (on which Pritsak began working in 1977) renews my hope that the projected volumes 2 through 6 of the author's magisterial Origins of Rus' will someday see the light of day. RICHARD HELLIE University of Chicago Imp erialRussia:New HistoriesfortheEmpire. Ed.Jane Burbank and David L. Ransel. Indiana- Michigan Series in Russian and East European Studies. Bloomington: Indiana Univer- sity Press, 1998. xxiii, 359 pp. Notes. Index. Photographs. $39.95, hard bound. $24.95, paper. Culled from a series of workshops held during the first half of the 1990s, the essays in this volume seek to reenvision the history of the Russian empire from the time of Peter the Great through the era of the Great Reforms. The essays are impressive in terms of re- search, conceptualization, and analysis. They succeed in forcing the reader to rethink the accepted story lines and narratives about many characteristics and dynamics of imperial Russian society, culture, and politics. Each essay stands on its own individual merits, but as a whole the assembled collection demonstrates the benefits of imaginatively interrogating sources and wisely borrowing from other academic disciplines and methodologies. Space does not permit me to provide a summary of the twelve essays that make up the book. Nor can I do justice to the stimulating and nuanced analyses offered by the volume's contributors, established and junior scholars alike. All kinds of historical inquiry-cul- tural, political, social, institutional, economic, and intellectual-are represented in this collection. The volume does not pretend to treat all aspects of imperial Russian society, culture, and politics, and not all social groups are represented in the essays. Part 1 has articles on kinship and autocratic politics in the early eighteenth century (Valerie A. Kivelson), the idea of autocracy among eighteenth-century Russian historians (Cynthia Hyla Whitaker), and the imperial family as political symbol (Richard Wortman). Part 2, entitled "Imperial Imagination," contains articles on proposals for a Russian na- tional museum in the nineteenth century (Kevin Tyner Thomas) and on the role of eth- nography in the activities of the Russian Geographical Society on the eve of the Great Re- forms (Nathaniel Knight). Part 3 is less unified in theme than the previous sections. Two essays concentrate on imperial rule, empire building, and colonization (Thomas M. Bar- rett and Willard Sunderland), one on the serf economy and family structure (Steven L. Hoch), and a final article on the Orthodox Church and popular religiosity (Gregory L. Freeze). The last section has contributions on the history of an eighteenth-century provin- cial merchant family (David L. Ransel), Freemasonry and the emergence of public opin-This content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Mon, 11 Apr 2016 13:59:12 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Book Reviews 911 ion in Catherinian Russia (Douglas Smith), and the journalistic discussion of suicide in the era of the Great Reforms (Irina Paperno). Jane Burbank and David Ransel have written a valuable introduction that prepares readers for what they will encounter in the articles. Burbank's excellent conclusion not only draws together the common threads joining the disparate essays but also highlights questions unanswered by these essays. Graduate students and others in quest of research topics should find much in this volume to stimulate them and suggest potentially fruitful fields of inquiry. Unfortunately, readers may be familiar with many of the arguments presented in the collection because some of the authors have already published their results elsewhere. Still, it is useful that Indiana University Press has gathered distilled versions of their re- search under one cover. Imperial Russia: New Histories for the Empire should find a welcome home in advanced undergraduate and graduate courses that seek to introduce students to recent trends in the literature on the history of imperial Russia. As these articles attest, the study of Russia in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is alive and well. The editors point out that historians no longer have to contend with the official, Soviet ideological and interpretive framework that frequently shaped their research agendas and influenced the questions they asked, as well as their accessibility to materials. As Burbank and Ransel write: For historians eager to move out from the long shadow cast over the tsarist period by the Soviet project and, at the same time, willing to investigate revisionist nar- ratives before proclaiming them, the 1990s offered a chance to reexcavate the his- toric site of imperial Russia with new imagination and attentiveness. If the "road to revolution" and "crisis of the old regime" could be jettisoned as blueprints for research . .. historians could then ask a variety of new questions and produce fresh, even if explicitly tentative, interpretations of the imperial past (xii). The dissolution of Soviet power and the opening of archives in the former Soviet Union ensure the sustenance of the study of imperial Russian society, culture, and politics for the foreseeable future. ROBERT WEINBERG Swarthmore College Russian Corporate Capitalism from Peter the Great to Perestroika. By Thomas C. Owen. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995. xii, 259 pp. Appendixes. Notes. Bibliography. In- dex. Map. $55.00, hard bound. This is an interesting book, although one that gives the appearance of being somewhat un- balanced. It contains four substantive chapters, an introduction, a lengthy conclusion, and a description of a very extensive database in the appendix. The book spans an enormous period, but it does not cover this period evenly. Two chapters are devoted to the pre- World War I period-"Corporations in the Russian Empire, 1700-1914" and "Corporate Entrepreneurs and Managers, 1821-1914"-and then there is a great leap forward to chapters on "Perestroika and the Failure of Soviet Capitalism, 1985-1990" and on "Capi- talism and Xenophobia in Russia." The most superficial reader is tempted to ask what hap- pened to Russian corporate capitalism during World War I and the period of the provi- sional government, when some of its leading figures controlled much of the government. The exclusion of these critical periods is difficult to justify in a survey that claims to span the period from Peter the Great to perestroika. There is also the question of whether ele- ments of corporate capitalism were present in the Soviet period in state capitalism and the New Economic Policy (NEP). The reader cannot help getting the impression that this is a book that cobbles together the author's prime interest in prerevolutionary corporate his- tory with his interest in modern developments and that it conveniently ignores the rest. This is strange, because Owen's admirable book, The Corporation under Russian Law, 1800-This content downloaded from 130.58.65.20 on Mon, 11 Apr 2016 13:59:12 UTCAll use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms

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Review Of Imperial Russia: New Histories For The Empire Edited By J. Burbank And D. Ransel

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