The thesis examines how the Russian army interpreted and what lessons it learned from the wars in Europe between 1859 and 1871 and the American Civil War. This was a time marked by rapid change - political, social, economic and technological. By raising the question of learning from foreign wars the thesis attempts to fill a gap in the historiography of the Russian army. The army was one of the pillars on which the Russian regime built its power, and it was crucial for the survival of the regime both in domestic and foreign affairs. The reactions and thinking of the military at a time of rapid social, political, economic, and technological change, therefore, tell a lot about the regime's ability to adjust, develop, and ultimately survive. Furthermore, the influence of foreign wars on Russian strategic war planning is analysed with the use of the first Russian war plan of 1873 and the proceedings from the strategic conference, chaired by Alexander II, in 1873. The influence of foreign wars on the General Staff officer education is also investigated. The thesis is largely based on extensive research in Russian archives. Special attention is given to the military attaches and, thus, the thesis fills a gap in the historiography of the Russian army. It uncovers the development of the military attache institution with the use of new archival material. The Russian military attache reports from the European Great Powers 1859-71 and the observer reports from the different war scenes are also examined. In addition, extensive use has been made of the military press and contemporary military literature with regard to the wars.

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The Russian narodnik movement is of peculiar interest. In the first place, - it marks the beginning of the revolutionary movements which culminated in the Russian Revolution, and a survey of the years 1861-1881 must therefore throw light on recent events, if only because it does so much to sum up the character and traditions of the revolutionaries themselves. In the second place, the ideal which inspired the narodnik movement has constantly striven to find expression in the social movements of almost every nation.

Attitudes towards Tsar Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Fedorovna can be characterised by extremes, from hostility to sentimentality. A great deal of what has been written about the imperial couple (in modern times) has been based on official records and with reference to the memoirs of people who knew the tsar and empress. This thesis recognises the importance of these sources in understanding British perceptions of Nicholas and Alexandra but it also examines reactions in a wider variety of material; including mass circulation newspapers, literary journals and private correspondence. These sources reveal a number of the strands which helped form British understanding of the tsar and empress. In particular, perceptions were influenced by internal British politics, by class and by attitudes to the role of the British Empire in world affairs, by British propaganda and by a view of Russia and her society which was at times perceptive and at others antiquated. This thesis seeks to evaluate diverse British views of Nicholas and Alexandra and to consider the reasons behind the sympathetic, the critical, the naïve and the knowledgeable perceptions of the last tsar and empress of Russia.

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This thesis examines what the response to the 1891-92 famine by the provincial authorities of Tambov province tells us about the role of the province and, more generally, about how the imperial Russian state functioned in the late nineteenth century. Contrary to the dominant historiography about Russian provinces, they were not chaotic and incapable of responding to a crisis. Under-resourced and with severe structural and strategic limitations, Tambov’s officials nevertheless performed to the best of their abilities, driven by a strong sense of moral and provincial responsibility. The tension between arbitrariness (proizvol) and legality (zakonnost’) that created a flawed and fragmented structure also provided for the flexibility that offered a partial solution. Tambov province repurposed the ad hoc structures, either created within the province or imposed by St. Petersburg, to meet its own needs as the crisis developed. Tambov province was not merely a passive actor in relation to the imperial ‘centre’, but instead innovated within certain boundaries while the relationship between provincial and uezd institutions often mirrored that of the centre and the provinces. Over five chapters this thesis explores the relationships between centre and province and province and uezds, via the two concepts of dialogue and ‘provincial identity’. A comparison between institutional decision making and the reality of the crisis on the ground shows that Tambov province was a far from passive place in which uezd and provincial officials used the relief effort to develop and articulate a strong sense of provincial identity.

The Jewish Social Democrats who founded the Bund in 1897 were russified intellectuals who saw the Jewish labour movement as an integral part of the Russian revolutionary movement. Thanks to the greater deprivations and higher revolutionary potential of the Jewish workers, the Jewish Social Democrats made contact with the masses earlier than their Russian counterparts. The turn to mass agitation for economic demands as a means of awakening the political consciousness of the masses was given theoretical justification by a leading Vilna Social Democrat, Arkadi Kremer, in Ob Agitatsii (1894) By the mid-nineties a politically led labour movement, centred on Vilna, had developed in the north-west region of the Jewish Pale of Settlement, The leaders of this movement were closely associated with the Social Democrats of St. Petersburg and those in exile abroad. From the mid-nineties, the Vilna Social Democrats made deliberate efforts to spread their experience to other cities in Russia. The founding of the Bund in September 1897 was a formalization of the existing labour organization. It was hastened by the imminent prospect of the formation of the ail-Russian Social Democratic Party and by the activities of Arkadi Kremer. Kremer, by his contacts with Social Democrats in Petersburg and Kiev, and with the Plekhanov Group abroad, was also partly instrumental in summoning the First Congress of the RSDRP held in March 1898. The main initiative for this, however, belongs to the Kiev Social Democrats. The Congress was held in Minsk, the seat of the Bund's Central Committee who were responsible for the technical arrangements for the Congress. Kremer became one of the three members of the new Party's Central Committee, and through his association with Plekhanov arranged that the new Party should be represented abroad by the Union of Russian Social Democrats. The Congress unanimously agreed to the Bund's request for autonomy in all matters pertaining to the Jewish proletariat. [continued in text ...]

Between 1896 and 1917 the Russian Empire controlled two small territories, known as concessions, in the Chinese treaty ports of Hankou and Tianjin. Imperialism in the treaty ports was a multinational phenomenon: the Russian concessions existed alongside those of several other empires, simultaneously competing and cooperating as they sought to further their own political and economic aims while maintaining a united front against their unwilling hosts. This thesis explores the origins and development of these little-known outposts of Russian empire, positing that they cannot be understood without reference to contemporary debates about the nature of Russia and its ambiguous intellectual relationship with Europe. Drawing on diplomatic correspondence, administrative records of the concessions and a range of contemporary Russian writing about the treaty ports, the thesis argues that abstract concepts of identity shaped day-to-day policymaking in the concessions by means of a process of constant comparison between Russia and other empires .

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No description available.