In the course of the long 19th century, the Eastern Carpathians – as a borderland of two imperial and several national projects – became a contested landscape through the conjunctures of ethnic thinking. Political ideologies approaching the multilateral contact zone facilitated different approaches to the production of knowledge, which led to highly complex knowledge topographies. Thereby, the Ruthenian-Ukrainian population of the borderland appears as a plaything of surrounding ideological projects, which instrumentalized ideas of ethnic diversity and/or uniformity according to their own ideological perceptions. This article examines these topographies in a synthetic approach to uncover the regional co-production of knowledge, which led to several interconnections of these ideological projects. However, knowledge as a circulating good could be instrumentalized by actors not belonging such networks, as the problem of circulating type photographs illustrates. Thereby, the author argues that frontier sciences were not solely tools of national enmities, even in one of the more contested spaces of East-Central Europe. Rather, cooperations which allowed involved actors to pursue their self-interests are observed. Methodologically, the paper argues that approaches of imperial histories, borderland studies, and transcultural contact zones should be seen as loose concepts, which can greatly enrich one another.

Im Russischen Zarenreich waren Drohungen ein zentrales Instrument der Machtausübung. Die Androhung von Gewalt erlaubte es dem Staat, seine Untertanen in Schach zu halten, ohne Gewalt tatsächlich anwenden zu müssen. Als während der Gewaltexzesse der Revolution von 1905 die Drohkulisse des Zarenreiches in sich zusammenfiel, geriet das System in eine elementare Krise. In dieser Arbeit wird anhand einer Fallstudie untersucht, wie die imperiale russische Armee als zentraler politischer Akteur neue Praktiken entwickelte, die das Überleben des Zarenreichs sicherten. In Zusammenarbeit von Militäreinheiten vor Ort und dem Ministerium in St. Petersburg wurden Regelungen ausgearbeitet, mit denen die symbolische Androhung von Gewalt durch den tatsächlichen, realisierten Gewaltakt ersetzt werden sollte. Hierzu wollten die Militärs zunächst, dass die Differenz zwischen Soldaten und Zivilisten wieder sichtbar gemacht werden sollte. Soldaten sollten sich nur noch in Extremsituationen auf den Strassen blicken lassen um dann „schnell und entschieden“, wie eine der zentralen Forderungen jener Zeit lauerte, zur Waffe zu greifen. Diese Taktiken hatten kurzfristig Erfolg. Langfristig führten sie jedoch zur Erosion des russischen Zarenreichs: Die Revolution von 1905 hatte die Grenzen der Drohpotentiale des Zaren aufgezeigt. / In Tsarist Russia, the threat was an important instrument of rule. Threats of violence enabled the state to subdue its subjects without the need to resort to the actual use of violence. But when the Tsar’s threats lost their effectiveness during the excessive violence of the revolution of 1905, Russia endured a fundamental crisis. My work uses Warsaw as a case study to examine how the Imperial Russian Army secured the survival of Tsarist Russia by developing new practices of threat. Units on the ground and the military bureaucracy in St. Petersburg developed new regulations that aimed at replacing the symbolic threat of violence with its actual and finely regulated application. As a precondition for this, the military command wanted to reestablish the symbolic boundaries between soldiers and civilians. Soldiers were allowed to leave their barracks only in situations when this was absolutely necessary. However, they then had to use violence “quickly and decisively,” as a popular phrase described it. In the short term, these tactics proved successful. In the longer run, however, they led to the erosion of the Tsarist regime during its next fundamental moment of crisis. The revolution of 1905 had shown to the people the limitations of the Tsar’s threat potential.

Diese Dissertation befasst sich mit räumlichen Wahrnehmungen und Diskursen, mit denen man den Raum und seine Bestandteile behandelte. Die Eroberung Sibiriens im 17. Jahrhundert bewirkte einen tiefgreifenden Wandel in den russischen Vorstellungen über die weit entfernte Peripherie sowie deren Ressourcen. Die neuen Denkweisen kristallisierten sich in einer diskursiven Formation heraus, die Macht über Raum und Rohstoffe Sibiriens symbolisierte und organisierte. Dieser „Berg-Diskurs“ trug moderne Züge, denn er bedurfte sich neuer Formen der Kontrolle über die Raumsproduktion. Diese Einstellung wurde allmählich zu einer erstaunlich überlebensfähigen räumlichen Ideologie und zum festen Bestandteil des russischen Bodenschätzediskurses der Zukunft. Die Rolle der Wissensproduzenten wechselte zwischen den zentralen und regionalen Institutionen und Netzwerken. Der „Altai“, der den kaiserlichen Bergbau-Bezirk und die Gebirgslandschaft umfasste, wurde auf Grund seines Rohstoffreichtums von Repräsentanten des russischen Staates als Region erfunden. Die Dissertation stellt die imaginären und realen Geographien des Altai in drei unterschiedlichen Dimensionen dar. Dabei geht es um den Wandel der Repräsentationen von geographischen Räumen und der Berglandschaften in Russland insgesamt (Makroebene), die Mehrschichtigkeit des russischen Diskurses über Bergregionen und Gebirgslandschaften (Mesoebene) und den Altai als facettenreiches Konzept einer komplexen imperialen geographischen Imagination (Mikroebene). Die Beschreibung des Altai faßte in sich zahlreiche inkohärente Bilder verschiedener sozialer Gruppen. Der Ort wurde durch mentale Geographien erfolgreich instrumentalisiert, z.B. „die Goldenen Gebirge“ und „die sibirische Schweiz“. Diese Bilder machten die Region sichtbar, sowohl für nationalistisch gesinnte Gruppen als auch die breiteren Bervölkerungsschichten. / This dissertation focuses on the production of imperial space with a particular emphasis on the role of power discourses concerning mineral resources. By relying on published materials, it aims to establish a new conceptual framework for the examining of cultural patterns and practices of imagining of space and mineral wealth. For that purpose, it introduces a concept of the ”Berg-Discourse” that expands our understanding of the Russian engagement with geographical space. It begins by exploring Russian exposure to the mountains and mineral resources of Siberia in terms of the spatial knowledge production. It then examines how Russian imperial strategies and aspirations were embedded in the making of the Altai, a vast mining territory in West Siberia that once formed a private domain of the Russian rulers. The dissertation argues that the making of the Altai was in many ways part of the same imperial impulse towards mineral exploitation. It explores the ways in which the Altai was imagined through its enormous mineral endowment; how the imagined place became real; and how this real place became imagined from various vantage points. As the study shows, the region acquired multiple mental representations, enjoying a near mythological presence across imperial culture. Finally, the dissertation concludes by showing how this landscape was incorporated into imperial and national myths in the course of production and consumption of spatial knowledge about the remote location.

This master thesis is focused on problematics of biblical themes in works of the Jewish artists on the territory of The Russian Empire at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries. The introduction of the work deals with socio-political and cultural conditions of the Jewish community, which lived in the pre-revolutionary Imperial Russia. The following part, on the basis of archive materials, remained daily press, periodic press and memoirs, presents two important cultural centres: Jewish Societies for the Encouragement of Arts in Saint-Petersburg and in Moscow, notably their significant support for development of the Jewish arts in Russian culture of that time. The main, third part of the research presents the creative activity of the most prominent representatives of the Jewish art scene and analysis key trends in choosing biblical themes for their art production. Keywords Jews, Jewish culture, Jewish art, Jewish Societies for the Encouragement of Arts, The Russian Empire, Bible, biblical themes, St. Petersburg, Moscow, Vitebsk

1 Abstract Thesis title: The legal status of minorities in Russia This work is an overview of the legal status of minorities in Russia and their mutual interaction with the dominant nation in individual historical stages. Its subject is to explore changes in the status of minorities in political, cultural, linguistic, religious and fundamental human rights. This is put in the historical context and the influence of the state's minority policy on state integrity is examined, including the assessment of the adequacy of the state-legal arrangement for the needs of national minorities. The space is also devoted to the administrative division of the country, which plays an important role in Russian terms. The pros and cons of period legislation are evaluated. Its impact on the practical life of minorities is illustrated by examples of specific minorities. The work is structured chronologically, presenting the history of Russia primarily in terms of milestones relevant to national minorities. The first part devoted to the Russian Empire monitors its gradual expansion and differences in the legal status of the conquered nations. Approximately from the middle of the 19th century, the Russian legislation has been directed towards unification, resp. Rusification of the whole empire, while the causes and effects of...

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Drawing on the methods of feminist art history and my own knowledge of the field, this PhD gives an overview of “Russian” (Russian Empire, Soviet, post-Soviet) art history with women at its center. Starting in the late 18th century and spanning to the present-day, I critically examine women’s artworks, the social contexts in which those women find themselves, as well as their biographies. Thus, this thesis extends beyond strict media analysis as a central concern of feminist criticism. This text consist of five chapters. Chapter One begins at the end of the 18th century and covers women artists working throughout the Russian Empire up through the beginning of the 20th century. Thesis looks at specific women artists and how the path to professionalization opened up new doors while women were still largely excluded from elite artistic circles. This overview demonstrates how this occurred both in explicit social exclusion as well as implicitly – specifically in the ways that the portrayals of women in professional art shifted throughout the 19th century. The ambivalent nature of women’s simultaneous inclusion and exclusion from leading art institutions and groups serves as a defining feature of the art world of the Russian Empire. Chapter Two examines women’s roles in the avant-garde at the beginning of the 20th century. As has been recognized in much popular scholarship, women served as key players in the so-called “Russian Avant-Garde”. For instance, while many Western European artists at the time turned to the colonies of their respective empires for stimulation, many Russian avant-garde artists turned to local peasants. Precisely because of their more differentiated relationships, Chapter Two argues that these women artists produced very dissimilar work from their Western European counterparts. This was due both to questions of gender as well as power and colonialism. From there, thesis shows the ways in which women avant-garde artists made use of various media – especially textiles, porcelain, and book design. Chapter Three revolves around women artists in the Soviet Union. At first it examines how women were portrayed in Socialist Realism, which followed largely three archetypes: the collective farm woman, the sportswoman, and the ballerina. In this chapter focus is on how women navigated the slippery terrain of the social world of Socialist Realism by highlighting the role of its most successful example – Vera Mukhina. Tracing through Mukhina’s path from the avant-garde to Socialist Realism’s most famous female artists, the text reveals continuities between the two genres that have typically been overlooked in the literature. Indeed, Mukhina’s development suggests much more in common between the avant-garde and Socialist Realism than most male artists’ careers would indicate. Finally, this chapter discusses women artists who rejected Socialist Realism and produced so-called “unofficial” art – focusing on the (in)famous Bulldozer Exhibition of 1974. Chapter Four illuminates how women artists negotiated the enormous socio-political changes during Perestroika through past the dissolution of the Soviet Union. In the 1990’s, three prominent all-women art collectives emerged: the Factory of Found Clothes, the Cyber-Femin Club, and the Fourth Height. Based largely on interviews with the women who participated in the groups, text sketches out a general history of how they formed, produced art, and confronted questions of gender and society. Then, chapter four turns to women artists who worked mostly individually throughout the same period. In this thesis women artists from the 90’s are categorized based on their concepts of gender – women who flipped gender dynamics through their art, women who took radical stances toward gender through their art, and women who did not clearly challenge ideas of gender. In the text they are called the “flip-floppers”, the “radicals”, and the “quietists”, respectively. In Chapter Five, there is a break with the chronological approach of the previous chapters. Instead, first part compares the trial of Iuliia Tsvetkova in 2019 and the trial of Natalia Goncharova in 1910. Both women were accused of producing pornography and thus subject to prosecution. Through this comparison, one can see the continuities and ruptures of the gender dynamics in broader society then and now, particularly in relationship to art and art production. Second part of the chapter five, compares the so-called “Leningrad Feminists” of the 1970’s and Pussy Riot from the 2010’s. By highlighting how these two collectives used the imagery of the Virgin Mary in their work, the text draws out parallels between the two that have gone unnoticed, even by the artists themselves. This dissertation is thus fundamentally about connections. Connections, both visible and invisible, define the social constellations in which women artists participate. By drawing out these connections, this thesis reimagines Russian art history and propose new, albeit imperfect, in the words of Amelia Jones, genealogies. Such genealogies open the space for a deep reckoning with the canon.:Table of Contents Introduction But What is a Russian Woman Artist Anyway? Literature Review & Methodology Chapter Outline Chapter 1: Woman as Artist in the Russian Empire Imperialism and Internal Colonization Bridging Art Histories: Between the Russian Empire and the Western Empires The “Russian Empire” periods of Marie-Anne Collot, Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun, and Kristina Robertson Independent Foreign Women Artists, Operating Beyond Royal Patronage: Maria Gomion and Julie Hagen-Schwarz Representations of Local and European Women Artists in the Russian Empire: Comparing article “Russkie Khudozhnitsy” [Russian Women Artists] and Somov’s article “Zhenshchiny Khudozhnitsy” [Women Artists] Paths to Professional Art for Women Artists in the late Russian Empire Variety of Professional Strategies for Women Artists in the Russian Empire Challenges Faced by Women in the Imperial Academy of Arts: Marfa Dovgaleva, Avdotia Mikhailovna Bakunina, Sofia Sukhovo-Kobylina, and Katerina Khilkova Women Artists from the Russian Empire in the Académie Julian: Maria Bashkirtseff, Princess Maria Tenisheva, Maria Iakunchikova, and Elizaveta Zvantseva Female and Male Paths to Becoming an Artist: The Cases of Elena Polenova and Vasilii Polenov Women in the Wanderers and the World of Art Two Women Wanderers: Emily Shanks and Antonina Rzhevskaia Women in the World of Art and Related Circles: Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Elizaveta Kruglikova, Elena Polenova, Maria Yakunchikova, and Zinaida Serebriakova Between Artist, Mother, and Model: Self-Representations of Women Artists Insisting on the Professional Self: Katerina Dolgorukaia, Katerina Chikhacheva, Sofia Sukhovo-Kobylina, Maria Bashkirtseff, Elizaveta Kruglikova, Anna Ostroumova-Lebedeva, Marianne Werefkin, and Teresa Ries The Fe[male] Gaze: Ol’ga Della-Vos-Kardovskaia, Tamara de Lempicka, and Zinaida Serebriakova Chapter 2: Women Artists Shaping the Avant-Garde Conceptualizing Avant-Garde in the Russian Empire Framing the “Feminine”: Noble and Peasant Femininities Women Artists and Religion: Natalia Goncharova and Marianne Werefkin Women Artists and Lubok: Sofia Kalinkina, Elizaveta Bem, and Maria Siniakova The Case of Natalia Goncharova: Between Two Worlds Looking West: Goncharova and Gauguin Looking East: Goncharova and Peasant Culture Craft in the Foreground: Women in Textile, Porcelain, and Book Design Women in Textile Design, Embroidery, and Factory Production: Natalia Davidova, Sonia Delaunay-Terk, Nadezhda Udaltsova, Vera Pestel, Ol’ga Rozanova, Varvara Stepanova, and Lubov Popova Women in Costume Design in the Early Soviet Union: Natalia Goncharova, Nina Genke-Meller, Alexandra Exter, Nadezhda Lamanova, Varvara Stepanova, Sonia Delaunay-Terk, and Vera Mukhina Women Artists and Futurist Books: Elena Guro, Natalia Goncharova, and Ol’ga Rozanova Women Artists and Children’s Book Illustration: Vera Ermolaeva, Elena Safronova, Alisa Poret, Tatjana Glebova, Maria Siniakova, Galina and Ol’ga Chichagovy, and others Women artists and Small Sculptural Forms (porcelain and ceramics): Natalia Danko and Alexandra Shekotikhina-Potozkaia Chapter 3: Women Artists in Socialist Realism and Unofficial Art Aligning Art History of the Soviet Union and Gender Studies Official Images of Women in the Soviet Union Kolkhoznitsa [Collective Farm Woman] Sportsmenka [Sportswoman] Balerina [Ballet Dancer] Socialist Realist Women Painters Women Artists in the Moscow School of Socialist Realism: Vera Orlova, Ekaterina Zernova, and Serafima Riangina Women Artists and the Leningrad School of Painting: Nadezhda Steinmiller, Evgenia Antipova, Vera Nazina, and others Women Socialist Realist painters from the Soviet Republics: Tetiana Iablonska, Vaiiha Samadova, the Sisters Aslamazian, Elene Akhvlediani, and others Women Artists as Soviet Sculptors Women as Sculptors before the Soviet Union: Elena Luksch-Makovskii, Maria Dillon, Teresa Ries, and Anna Golubkina A Case Study: Vera Mukhina the Soviet Sculptor – Between the Street and the Household Women Artists in Unofficial Art Some Aspects of Canonization of Women Artists of the Bulldozer Exhibit: Nadezhda Elskaia and Lydia Masterkova Artistic Couples in Soviet Unofficial Art and Their Visions of Eden Chapter 4: Women Artists in the Late Soviet Union and after Its Dissolution The Emergence of Women-Only Groups in the Post-Soviet Space: the Factory of Found Clothes (FFC), Cyber-Femin Club, the Fourth Height The Factory of Found Clothes (FFC): Ol’ga Tsaplia-Egorova and Natalia Gluklia-Pershina-Yakimanskaia The Cyber-Femin-Club: Alla Mitrofanova, Irina Aktuganova, Lena Ivanova, and Ol’ga Levina Chetvertaia Vysota [The Fourth Height]: Ekaterina Kameneva, Dina Kim, and Galina Smirnskaia Resisting Erasure: Women Artists from the 1990’s The Mirror Game or the Flip-Floppers: Anna Alchuk and Tania Antoshina The Radicals: Alena Martynova and Elena Kovylina The Quietists: Marina Perchikhina and Liza Morozova Curating the “Gender Turn” in the post-Soviet art: Natalia Kamenetskaia and others Chapter 5: Creating Parallel Histories Unacceptable Bodies: Trials against Natalia Goncharova in 1910 and Iuliia Tsvetkova in 2019 Bogoroditsa stan’ Feministkoi? Comparing the Leningrad Feminists and Pussy Riot Conclusion Illustrations Bibliography Additional Materials. Interviews.