Department of Slavonic Studies

Paper Ru 7

Russia in Revolution 1861 - 1917

Course Adviser: Dr Chris Ward

The Paper

In the fifty-six years between the abolition of serfdom in 1861 and the collapse of the autocracy in 1917 Russia underwent a series of far-reaching changes that have often been called ‘revolutionary’. However problematic, this concept will be used to give some shape to the lectures that inform the course.

Throughout the year we will examine the major economic, social and political dilemmas of change in late-Imperial Russia, and we shall try to discover why this process absorbed so much of the state’s attention. No tsar and no minister could escape the challenge of reform, and the whole period might be described as one characterized by a series of central initiatives that surpassed anything attempted elsewhere in Europe and rival the activities of later authoritarian systems, fascist and socialist. Looked at in this way the late-Romanov autocracy was far from being the moribund, absurdity portrayed in the pages of so many textbooks. But we shall also have to try to find out why fundamental reform turned out to be so difficult (and perhaps even futile) and why an increasing proportion of the ‘political nation’ came to regard the country’s social, economic and political systems precisely as moribund and absurd, and was prepared to contemplate violence and revolution to change things.

Additionally, we must bear in mind that, ‘revolution’ notwithstanding, traditional, quasi-feudal mentalities and structures remained characteristic of Russian society right up to the end of the century. As a consequence the vast majority of the population has left few traces in the historical record. The lives and aspirations of the peasantry, and of the small but growing number of factory operatives, are no less valid than those of the elite, and require our attention, but they are extraordinarily difficult to reconstruct.

Texts and Topics

The end of serfdom
Controlling society
Industrialization
Aleksandr III and Nikolai II
крестьянство and дворянство
Workers
The bourgeoisie
народничество and terror
Marxism and socialism
Economic and political crisis 1905-6
1907-14: Stolypin’s gamble
Russia and world war: 1914-16
On the eve of Revolution?: 1914-16
February 1917

Выставка русской промышленности 1896 г. and С. Ю. Витте, О положении русской промышленности.
Программа исполнительного комитета партии «Народной воли» and Письмо исполнительного комитета партии «Народной воли» к Александру III.
Манифест об усовершенствовании государственного порядка (Манифест 17 Октября 1905 г.) and С. Ю. Витте, Письмо о Манифесте 17 Октября 1905 г.
Доклад начальника Петербургского охранного отделения Министру Внутренних Дел о ходе массовой забастовки в Петербурге в июле 1914 г.

See course handbook for full details (available July 2013)

Preparatory Reading

Hobsbawm, E. J. The Age of Empire 1875-1914 (1988)
Kochan, L. Russia in Revolution 1890-1918 (1970)
Stone, N. Europe Transformed 1878-1919 (1983)
Westwood, J. Endurance and Endeavour: Russian History 1812-1917 (4th ed., 1993)

Teaching

Sixteen lectures one-hour lectures once a week, eight in Michaelmas and eight in Lent, plus four one-hour seminars in Easter, also once a week, and ten one-hour supervisions bi-weekly, four in Michaelmas, four in Lent and two in Easter.

See course handbook for full details.

Assessment

Three-hour unseen paper divided into three sections. All candidates must answer three questions, one from each section.

Individuals with Raven passwords may download copies of recent examination papers from the Faculty CamTools site here.