Buch, Englisch, 448 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 492 g
Economy, Society, and Civilization in Nineteenth-Century Nizhnii Novgorod
Buch, Englisch, 448 Seiten, Paperback, Format (B × H): 159 mm x 241 mm, Gewicht: 492 g
ISBN: 978-0-8229-6171-0
Verlag: University of Pittsburgh Press
<P>Several stark premises have long framed our approach to Russian history. It was generally assumed that Russia had always laboured under a highly centralised and autocratic imperial state. The responsibility for this lamentable state of affairs was ultimately assigned to the profoundly agrarian character of Russian society. The countryside, with the overwhelming majority of the nation’s population, was considered a harsh world of cruel landowners and ignorant peasants, and a strong hand was required for such a crude society.</p><p>A number of significant conclusions flowed from this understanding. Deep and abiding social divisions obstructed the evolution of modernity, as experienced “naturally” in other parts of Europe, so of course there was no Reformation, no Enlightenment, and little capitalism. And since only despotism could contain these volatile social forces, it followed that the 1917 Revolution was an inevitable explosion resulting from these in- tolerable contradictions—and so too were the blood-soaked realities of the Soviet regime that followed. In short, the sheer immensity of its provincial backwardness could ex- plain almost everything backward or terrible about the course of Russian history.</p><p>This book shatters these preconceptions. Through her close study of the province of Nizhnii Novgorod in the nineteenth century, Catherine Evtuhov demonstrates how nearly everything we thought we knew about the dynamics of Russian society was wrong. Instead of peasants ground down by poverty and ignorance, we find skilled farmers, talented artisans and craftsmen, and enterprising trades people. Instead of a centrally administered state, we discover effective and participatory local government in abundance. Instead of pervasive ignorance we are shown a lively cultural scene and a thriving middle class. In short, instead of a defining Russian exceptionalism, we find a world recognisable to any historian of nineteenth-century Europe.</p><p>Drawing on a wide range of Russian social, environmental, economic, cultural, and intellectual history, and synthesising it with deep archival research of the Nizhnii Novgorod province, Evtuhov overturns our simplistic view of the Russian past. Rooted in, but going well beyond provincial affairs, her book challenges us with an entirely new perspective on Russia’s historical trajectory.</P>
