HIS 439:  Russia’s Empire

Course Description:

For centuries, the Russian capital, whether Moscow or St. Petersburg, has served not only as the center of the Russian nation, but also as the center of a large, multi-ethnic, contiguous empire.  In this course, students will examine various issues facing the rulers of this unusual empire, focusing on two regions: the “old” empire of the west, and the “new” empire of Central Asia. 

Marking Scheme:

1. class participation (15%)
2. service as discussion leader for one class (10 %)
3. weekly reaction papers (1 page each week) (10 %)
4. one 4-5 page book review (15 %)
5. one 1-page research paper proposal (5%)
6. one 12-15 page term-long research paper (see here for more details) (45 %)

Marking of written assignments is based on accuracy and use of historical evidence, statement and development of a strong thesis, style, and grammar.

Be warned that plagiarism is a serious offense.  Read the university’s policies on academic dishonesty, located at http://www.utoronto.ca/govcncl/pap/policies/behaveac.html.  In this course, plagiarism (ask if you’re confused about what that means) can lead to failure, not on a single paper, but for the class as a whole.

Furthermore, normally, students will be required to submit their course essays to Turnitin.com for a review of textual similarity and detection of possible plagiarism. In doing so, students will allow their essays to be included as source documents in the Turnitin.com reference database, where they will be used solely for the purpose of detecting plagiarism. The terms that apply to the University's use of the Turnitin.com service are described on the Turnitin.com web site.

Unexcused late papers or missed exams are also not acceptable.  If you find yourself in dire straits, or anticipate a conflict, discuss the matter with me ahead of time.  The night before something is due is not ahead of time.  Do not simply fail to turn in a paper and assume I’ll accept something late.  At a minimum, the penalty for late work is three percentage points per day.

Texts  (available at the University Bookstore):
Dominic Lieven, Empire:  The Russian Empire and Its Rivals
Nikolai Gogol’, Taras Bulba
Frederick Burnaby, A Ride to Khiva
Additional materials are available online (see links below)

Schedule of assignments/topics:

September 10:      Empires and Nations

September 17:    Russia and nationalism

• Alexei Miller, “The Empire and the Nation in the Imagination of Russian Nationalism,” in Imperial Rule, A. I. Miller and Alfred J. Rieber, eds.
• Ronald Grigor Suny, “The Empire Strikes Out: Imperial Russia, ‘National’ Identity, and Theories of Empire,” in A State of Nations: Empire and Nation-Making in the Age of Lenin and Stalin, 23-67 (available through portal)

September 24:    Dominic Lieven, Empire, Parts One and Two

October 1:    Dominic Lieven, Empire, Chapters 6-8

Week 5:          Background:  Travel Narratives

October 8:    Travel Narratives as Historical Sources

• Irena Gurdzinska Gross, “The Tangled Tradition:  Custine, Herberstein, Karamzin, and the Critique of Reason,” Slavic Review 50, no. 4 (Winter 1991): 989-998
• Anthony Cross, "From the Assassination of Paul I to Tilsit: The British in Russia and their Travel Writings (1801-1807)," Journal of European Studies 42, no. 1 (March 2012): 5-21
• Katya Hokanson, “Russian Women Travelers in Central Asia and India,” Russian Review 70, no. 1 (January 2011): 1-19
• book reviews due electronically by 5pm, Friday, October 11

Weeks 6-8:     The Oldest Empire:  the West

October 15:  The literary Ukraine

• Nikolai Gogol’, Taras Bulba
• one-page project proposal due electronically by 5pm, Friday, October 18

October 22:         Memory and the Empire

• Mark von Hagen, “Does Ukraine Have a History?” Slavic Review 54, no. 3 (Autumn 1995): 658-673
• Forum: Memory and the Shaping of Ukrainian National Identity, in Eighteenth-Century Studies 35, no. 1 (Fall 2001)

October 29:       The Crimea:  Old and New

• Sara Dickinson, “Russia’s First ‘Orient’: Characterizing the Crimea in 1787,” Kritika 3, no. 1 (Winter 2002): 3-25
• Andreas Schonle, “Garden of the Empire:  Catherine’s Appropriation of the Crimea,” Slavic Review 60, no. 1 (Spring 2001): 1-23

Weeks 9-11:       The Farther Empire:  Siberia, Central Asia and the Caucasus

November 5:       Siberia in the Russian Imagination

• Mark Bassin, “Inventing Siberia: Vissions of the Russian East in the Early Nineteenth Century,” American Historical Review 96, no. 3 (June 1991): 763-94
• Claudia Weiss, “Representing the Empire: The Meaning of Siberia for Russian Imperial Identity,” Nationalities Papers 35, no. 3 (July 2007): 439-56

November 19:       Travels in the new Russia

• Frederick Burnaby, A Ride to Khiva

November 26:            Empire and Religion

• Heinz-Dietrich Löwe, “Poles, Jews, and Tartars: Religion, Ethnicity, and Social Structure in Tsarist Nationality Policies,” Jewish Social Studies 6, no. 3 (Spring 2000): 52-96
• Robert Crews, "Empire and the Confessional State: Islam and Religious Politics in Nineteenth-Century Russia," The American Historical Review 108, no. 1 (February 2003): 50-83
• Juliette Cadiot, “Searching for Nationality: Statistics and National Categories at the End of the Russian Empire (1897-1917),” Russian Review 64, no. 3 (July 2005): 440-455

December 3: Wrap up and project presentation

FINAL PROJECTS DUE MONDAY, December 9, 5:00 PM, ELECTRONICALLY