Anton Fedyashin

Russia in Flames: War, Revolution, and Civil War, 1914–1921, written byLaura Engelstein

This behemoth chronicle brings up important questions about how to write histories of world-historical events. Should the author approach them in a strictly chronological, chronicle-like manner? This has the advantage of showcasing the bewildering complexity of simultaneity—events occurring in different parts of the former empire overwhelming first the Provisional Government and then the Bolsheviks as they struggle to retain power. The thematic approach to history loses the immediacy of the chronicle but offers in-depth analysis of trends and contexts. Unfortunately, Engelstein artificially reorganizes her meticulous chronicle into

Book Review: Peter Waldron, Governing Tsarist Russia, Palgrave Macmillan: Basingstoke, 2007; 210 pp.; 9780333717172, £55.00 (hbk); 9780333717189 £19.99 (pbk)

To local aristocrats, Austrian Nazis were so obviously steeped in a priest-baiting, anti-clerical tradition that they preferred the German takeover in 1938 to a pseudo-independent Austria run by the local Nazis, who would be too radical; Hitler had at least signed a Concordat with the Vatican. In his essay on Germany, Eckart Conze asserts that large sections of the aristocracy turned radically right-wing after 1918, andmany aristocrats interpretedmilitary defeat as a result of an illegitimate coup d’etat. Soon, numerous German aristocrats believed that only a dictator could solve the nation’s problems. Since a charismatic monarch, their preferred choice, was unlikely to emerge, they quickly settled for an authoritarian political leader who would restore order, unify the people behind him, and lead the Reich to new greatness. Many aristocrats shared a kind of cultural antimodernism (including hostility to big cities, anti-Americanism, and anti-capitalism) which, in turn, was closely connected to the völkisch anti-modernism of the new Right. The connection between the two was anti-Semitism, to which aristocrats subscribed in increasing numbers. For parts of the German aristocracy, Conze argues, the Nazis’ anti-Semitism was not wholly unfamiliar. The essays on Belgium, Holland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania are all of an equally high calibre. The editor is to be congratulated on her success in assembling a group of first-rate scholars whose path-breaking research will hopefully serve as a springboard for further scholarly work on the European aristocracy.

Humane Modernization as a Liberal Ideal: Late Imperial Russia on the Pages of theHerald of Europe, 1891–1904

In the last decade of the nineteenth century, Russian Finance Minister Sergei Witte (1849–1915; in office 1892–1903) launched an unprecedented industrialization campaign, which became known as the Witte System. It aimed to propel Russia into the modern age through a combination of protectionist measures, a massive railroad construction project, enormous subsidies for heavy industry, acceptance of the gold standard, and a positive trade balance to encourage and pay back foreign investments. In large part, the Russian peasantry ended up defraying the costs of Witte’s economic modernization, which inspired a fascinating debate over economic development alternatives between the Russian Marxists and Populists. Marxism entered Russia not in opposition to capitalism, but on its coattails, because the Marxists supported Witte’s program believing that it would usher in capitalism, give birth to a conscious proletariat, and thereby expedite a revolution. The Populists, however, opposed the Witte System because it favored industry at the expense of agricultural development and rural welfare. Although historians have covered this debate, few have paid attention to the views of the Russian liberals who also articulated a development program. This

Rossiia i russkie v mirovoi istorii [Russia and the Russians in World History], and: Russkii mir [The Russian World], and: Za chto i s kem my voevali [For What and With Whom We Fought] (review)

In December 2008, most Russian television channels and the press took note of Nataliia Alekseevna Narochnitskaia’s 60th birthday. A self-described, proud, and articulate conservative, Narochnitskaia is at the apex of her popularity that has thoroughly eclipsed other prominent non-liberals such as Aleksandr Dugin, Gleb Pavlovskii, Aleksandr Prokhanov, and Mikhail Leont ́ev. Although she does not identify herself with the Putin–Medvedev government, she was the first and only prominent intellectual to analyze the August 2008 Russo-Georgian conflict and justified the invasion on Russia’s central television channel (ORT) just hours after the fighting began. Narochnitskaia was in her element, since geopolitical analysis is a family tradition—her father, Aleksei Leont ́evich Narochnitskii, was a prominent Soviet foreign policy scholar who won the Stalin Prize in 1942 for his contributions to Istoriia diplomatii (The History of Diplomacy). While some may call Narochnitskaia a nationalist, she describes herself as a patriot—it is all a question of perspective. Regardless, national pride is currently on the rise all over the world despite globalization’s triumphant march. One knows a trend to have reached critical mass when popular international relations authors register it. In his most recent book, Fareed Zakaria wrote: “[The] desire for recognition and respect is surging throughout the world. It may seem paradoxical that globalization and economic modernization are breeding political nationalism, but that is so only if we view nationalism as a backward ideology, certain to be erased by the onward march of progress.”

Review: Serhii Plokhy, Ukraine & Russia: Representations of the Past, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008; 391 pp.; 9780802093271, £48.00 (hbk)

ment which makes it obvious that Germany was usually more advanced, whether in terms of the resources dedicated to higher education, the beginning of social welfare legislation, the organizational strength of the women’s and the Socialist movements or the degree of industrialization. In some chapters, such as the one on xenophobia and the Dreyfus affair or in the discussions on demography, the author’s attempt to draw attention to the important role played by Germany in shaping French affairs works well. In other chapters, he is not really able to prove that post-1870 developments in France, such as the establishment of the republican system, were a direct response to the German challenge. The author is certainly right when he argues that France’s deep-rooted liberalism and individualism was a natural antidote to the state interventionism which marked German developments in the fields of economics, welfare legislation and public health initiatives such as inoculation. Yet, this liberalism predates the German challenge, which only emerged after 1870. The same scepticism against an all-prevailing state can be found in nineteenth-century Britain, but no one would argue that this was a reaction against a despised German path to modernity. Strangely enough, the two aspects where a history of German influence on French affairs would have been most convincing, namely foreign and defence policies, are left out altogether. The book also concentrates mostly on the period up until 1914, whereas the 1920s and 1930s only receive scant attention in the last two chapters. There are also some factual errors which unfortunately diminish the book’s usefulness as an otherwise good introduction for undergraduates wishing to study French history in a European context (for example, the fascist leader Jacques Doriot was a fallen Communist, not Socialist; and in 1919 a Communist uprising took place in Munich, not in Hamburg).