"A sixth part of the world." This spatial metaphor for the largest political entity on earth (in geographic terms) had its start well before Dziga Vertov's famous documentary film tried to reimagine multiethnic identity for a (postimperial?) Soviet setting. This course will examine how the Romanov empire consolidated its vast territories as Russian, and how that unmanageable vastness came to be seen as crucial to imperial self-definition, rather than a fundamental obstacle to "civilizing" processes. We begin in the eighteenth century, when, after several centuries of Muscovite expansion, Russia's rulers still possessed limited knowledge (topographical or ethnographic) about the territories they governed. We follow the main developments in the northern Eurasian space until the early twentieth century, with the imperial embrace of a Russian "continent" as a unitary political space coming into repeated conflict with the competing modernizing impulses of its many subject peoples. Whether "Russia" was part of "the West" or not (and whether that was a good thing or not) remain crucial questions for any student of modern history. We will explore themes from geographical, political, legal, social, cultural, and intellectual history to grasp the improbable staying power of this autocratic empire.
- Instructor: Karl Hall