<p> This dissertation shows how firm organization affected factory performance in the Russian Empire. The first chapter documents the impact of incorporation on firms' production technology and productivity. The second chapter studies the effect of a change in Russia's commercial code in 1901, a reform that improved the rights of small corporate shareholders. In the third chapter, I show how geography and legal forms of organization determined horizontal and vertical integration in the Russian cotton textile industry. The dataset at the heart of the project allows for a rare empirical study of the effect of organization on production at the factory level.</p><p> <b>Chapter 1: Factory Productivity and the Concession System of Incorporation in Late Imperial Russia, 1894-1908</b> In late Imperial Russia, long-term capital was scarce. Incorporation in the Russian Empire required a time-consuming and expensive Imperial concession, yet over four thousand Russian firms incorporated before 1914. I identify the characteristics of firms that chose to incorporate and measure the gains in productivity and growth in machine power enjoyed by corporations using a newly-constructed panel database of manufacturing enterprises I compiled from Imperial Russian factory censuses conducted in 1894, 1900, and 1908. Factories owned by corporations were larger, more productive, and grew faster. Higher productivity factories were more likely to incorporate, and after incorporating, they added machine power and became even more productive. Results from an instrumental variables regression suggest that selection into incorporation was not determined solely by productivity and could be influenced, for example, by connections to government officials. Comparing two kinds of corporations shows that firms sought not just access to stock markets but the corporate form's full set of capital advantages.</p><p> <b>Chapter 2: Shareholder Rights and Share Capital: The Effect of the 1901 Russian Corporation Reform, 1890-1905</b> The Russian 1901 corporation reform increased the rights of small shareholders and removed bankers from corporations' boards of directors. The reform affected one type of corporation (the A-Corporation) more than another type (called the Share Partnership) because one provision of the law created a loophole for Share Partnerships. I thus apply a differences-in-differences approach, studying the differences in corporations of these groups founded before vs. after the reform. The RUSCORP Database (Owen 1990) provides initial charter information from all Russian corporations and from all surviving Russian corporations in 1905. I find that, in response the reform, A-Corporations increased the par value of their shares, reduced their total capitalization, and reduced the number of shares they issued. The reform increased the cost to the firm of having small shareholders; thus, corporations affected by the reform began to resemble the more closely held Share Partnerships.</p><p> <b>Chapter 3: Vertical and Horizontal Integration in Imperial Russian Cotton Textiles, 1894-1900</b> When do firms produce their own inputs instead of purchasing them on the market? In one explanation firms engage in vertical integration to save the cost of transacting on the market, especially when markets are thinner and therefore price risk is greater (Coase 1937). On the other hand, firms that wish to vertically or horizontally integrate may be unable to do if they face financial constraints, because integration requires additional capital. In the third chapter, I find evidence for a thin markets explanation of integration within the Russian cotton textile industry in 1894 and 1900. The 1894 data provide especially rich information on firms' horizontal and vertical integration: the data list a complete description of each factory's internal activities and final products. Both vertically and horizontally integrated factories and firms were larger in terms of number of workers and tended to be located outside of European Russia, where markets were thinner. Vertically integrated firms were older, had more workers and machine power, and produced more revenue per worker given the same machine power. Corporations produced more revenue per worker than non-corporations, even controlling for vertical integration.</p><p> <b>Data Appendix: Imperial Russian Manufacturing Establishments Database: 1894, 1900, and 1908</b> The dissertation includes an appendix in which I describe the formation of a new database of manufacturing establishments in the Russian Empire based on manufacturing censuses conducted in 1894, 1900, and 1908. The database will allow for new studies of the Russian economy and of factory performance in developing economies. This appendix provides a codebook with variable definitions and a description of the censuses' sampling frame. The database matches factories over time, so I include an analysis comparing matched to unmatched factories. Finally, I describe differences in results that use the enterprise-level data and the aggregate data.</p>

<p> This thesis examines the political work produced by a little-known Russian Realist, Vladimir Makovsky (1846-1920), while he was a member of the nineteenth-century art collective <i>Peredvizhniki.</i> Increasingly recognized for subtle yet insistent opposition to the tsarist regime and the depiction of class distinctions, the work of the <i>Peredvizhniki</i> was for decades ignored by modernist art history as the result of an influential article, "Avant-Garde and Kitsch," written by American art critic Clement Greenberg in 1939. In this article, Greenberg suggests the work of Ilya Repin, the most renowned member of the <i>Peredvizhniki</i>, should be regarded not as art, but as "kitsch"--the industrialized mass culture of an urban working class. Even now, scholars who study the <i>Peredvizhniki</i> concern themselves with the social history of the group as a whole, rather than with the merits of specific artworks. Taking a different approach to analyzing the significance of the <i>Peredvizhniki</i> and of Makovsky specifically this thesis harnesses the powerful methodologies devised in the 1970s by art historians T.J. Clark and Michael Fried, two scholars who are largely responsible for reopening the dialogue on the meaning and significance of Realism in the history of modern art.</p>

<p> The Russian Civil War is an incredibly complex topic that is frequently oversimplified to a Red vs White framework, where the Bolshevik forces face a perceived monolithic &lsquo;White&rsquo; opposition. While this conceptualization can be useful, the reality is much more complex; various factions, some controlling far-flung territories or even no territory, formed and broke alliances with each other and fought furiously to achieve their ends. The &lsquo;White&rsquo; forces are frequently presented as an amalgamation of different factions and armies that had differing, sometimes opposing, views. The typical view of the Russian civil war is clearly oversimplified, but recent scholarship attempting to reassess the Civil War has brought new insight and understanding to the conflict. In particular, the designation of certain White elements as &lsquo;warlords&rsquo; has become more common. The warlord argument provides an alternative to the older, more traditional view of monolithic &lsquo;White&rsquo; against &lsquo;Red&rsquo; by showing that not all White commanders fought for the same ends, and many were motivated by selfish desires or goals. Similarly, since warlords tend not to work well together, it helps explain the disunity of the White movement. The warlord paradigm has its flaws, namely that the warlords of the Civil War were not common; in fact, the only commanders which truly qualified for the moniker were in the Far East, and barely participated in the Civil War. The warlord framework proves to be quite useless when applied to individual commanders of the White movement, and therefore a better means of reclassification is required. To that end, the White forces, after careful assessment of whether they are warlords, should instead be classified by new criteria. The result is a new dichotomy within the White movement: Western Whites and Eastern Whites. The dichotomy offered is based on orientation, rather than geography. Western White forces were focused on capturing Western Russia, specifically Moscow and Petrograd, while the Eastern Whites were more interested in consolidating their own power base in the Far East. The Western and Eastern White forces were nominally allies and anti-Bolshevik, but practically had very different goals and worked to achieve different ends. The Western Whites were the remnants of the Tsarist military elites, fighting to restore Russia and defeat Bolshevism, while the Eastern Whites were warlords in the employ of foreign powers primarily concerned with their own selfish ends. The main thesis of this work is that the warlord paradigm does not apply to most White commanders, and should be abandoned in favor of a broader Western/Eastern dichotomy.</p>

<p> The Volga Germans assert a particular ethnic identity to articulate their complex history as a multinational community even in the absence of traditional practices in language, religious piety, and communal lifestyle. Across multiple migrations and settlements from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, the Volga Germans&rsquo; self-constructed group identity served historically as a tool with which to navigate uncertain politics of belonging. As subjects of imperial Russia&rsquo;s eighteenth-century colonization project the Volga Germans held a privileged legal status in accordance with their settlement in the Volga River region, but their subsequent loss of privileges under the reorganization and Russification of the modern Russian state in the nineteenth century compelled members of the group to immigrate to the Midwest in the United States where their distinct identity took its full form. The Volga Germans&rsquo; arrival on the Great Plains coincided with an era of mass global migration from 1846 to 1940, yet the conventional categories of immigrant identity that subsumed Volga Germans in archival records did not impede their drive for community preservation under a new unifying German-Russian identity. A contingent of Midwest Volga Germans migrated in 1881 to Albina, a railroad town across the Willamette River from Portland, Oregon where the pressures of assimilation ultimately disintegrated traditional ways of life&mdash;yet the community impulse to articulate its identity remained. Thus, while Germans are the single largest ethnic group in the U.S. today numbering forty-two million individuals, Portland&rsquo;s Volga German community nevertheless continues to distinguish itself ethnically through its nostalgia for a unique past.</p><p>

<p> This dissertation focuses on the relatively little-known and highly remote 18^th and 19^th century Russian colonies established in North America, attempts to gain a clearer vision of mostly undefined daily lifeways in the settlements via a search for traditional Russian behaviors, and weighs the impact of cultural isolation on those behaviors. In so doing, lessons-learned are considered as they apply to the enhancement of social justice in the isolated communities of the future, whether they be on this planet or beyond the gravitational pull of Earth.</p><p> Drawing upon a previously researched inventory of 18^th and 19^th century traditional Russian behaviors (which serves as a primary database for the study), two selected settlements are examined for possible traditional behavioral characteristics for Russian America as a whole. One of these is Novo-Arkhangel'sk (present-day Sitka, Alaska)&mdash;the colonial capital and Russian America's primary seaport&mdash;and the other is Kolmakovsky Redoubt, a small trading post located in the interior of Southwestern Alaska. The cultural isolation of each colony is made clear, as is the fact that Kolmakovsky Redoubt has been viewed as perhaps the most isolated community in all of Russia's North American possessions.</p><p> The research for this study has led to exciting results. A high percentage of traditional Russian behaviors found at each of the two sites was revealed to be in unmodified form, despite the settlements' cultural isolation from the motherland and resulting potential for acculturative activity. Specifically, out of 45 traditional behaviors identified for Novo-Arkhangel'sk, 41, or 91%, were seen to be unmodified; of the 25 traditional behaviors uncovered at Kolmakovsky Redoubt, 23, or 92%, were also determined to be unmodified. These high percentages are perhaps all the more surprising when one considers the potential of acculturative pressures surrounding the two Russian enclaves and emanating from indigenous Native societies.</p><p> The bottom line is that this study has opened a view of a part of Russian America not previously available, and endorses the use of the data retrieved for planning future isolated communities characterized by social justice-friendly environments.</p><p>

<p> The American Expeditionary Force, sent to Siberia in 1918, conducted operations other than war. The rationale for sending the American Expeditionary Force to Siberia was vague, but Wilson&rsquo;s instructions were to be as neutral as possible. The AEF&rsquo;s objectives were relatively ambiguous and therefore the chances for success were minimal. Nevertheless, the AEF proved to be surprisingly adept at the diplomacy required to maintain neutrality. The commanders of the AEF demonstrated the tact and skill necessary to prevent dangerous situations from escalating out of control. The success of the AEF offers a unique opportunity to learn what ground forces can accomplish without actively engaging in war. The overall failure of the intervention also shows the importance of detailed objectives and exit strategy prior to the start of any military operations.</p><p>

This dissertation defines aspects of Russian culture which bear the marks of French influence and explores the historical origins of that influence. While it is generally acknowledged that Russia’s culture has been influenced by France, no systematic history of the origins of this influence has been written. Previous research has dealt only superficially with the topic, focusing almost exclusively on the Francophile preferences of society’s elite. The present study examines Russian society more broadly and explores those elements of French cultural influence still relevant today through an historical analysis of the Russian language. French loanwords found in dictionaries from the time of Peter the Great to the present are analyzed chronologically and topically, yielding the conclusion that the most significant period of long-lasting French influence was the turn of the nineteenth century and was primarily cultural in nature—including the areas of fashion, cuisine, the arts, interior design and etiquette—but was also in areas related to technology and official administration. Following this lexical analysis, other primary sources—archival documents, military memoirs, and periodical publications from the resultant period—are searched for influences in these areas, especially during the period’s two major Franco-Russian events: the wave of immigration to Russia following the French Revolution and Russia’s war with Napoleon. The former facilitated deep cultural enrichment as native Frenchmen and French women, engaged in various occupations, acted as cultural mentors to the Russian nobility. The latter facilitated broad cultural immersion as tens of thousands of Russian troops—noble and common alike—marched into France and experienced French culture firsthand. This dissertation concludes that both of these explosive events, though by no means the beginning of French influence, were unique in the depth and permanence of their mark upon Russia’s culture.