Janet Hartley

Imperial policies and perspectives towards Georgia, 1760-1819

Note on transliterations, terms, and translations setting the stage embassy of Teimuraz II Russia and Georgia during the Turkish War (1768-1774) the treaty of Georgievsk (1783) and its aftermath Georgia abandoned (1787-1797) the incorporation of eastern Georgia into the Russian Empire Tsitsianov and the consolidation of imperial power in Georgia solidifying the Russian presence in Georgia final consolidation thoughts.

The Patriotism of the Russian Army in the ‘Patriotic’ or ‘Fatherland’ War of 1812

In general, it is probably fair to say that the term ‘popular resistance’ conjures up visions of the reaction of populaces to invasion and occupation. But in the Napoleonic Wars — a period, after all, of mass armies — the peoples of Europe were conscripted for military service in immense numbers, thereby providing us with an alternative focus for the study of popular resistance. What justification is there for the study of the Russian army as opposed to the Russian people in 1812? The military performance of the Russian army in 1812 has been examined extensively but the ‘mood’, if you can call it that, of the army has not been the subject of the same level of investigation. Scholarship has focused on the so-called ‘people’s war’ (in Russian, the narodnaia voina); that is, the resistance by ordinary people, by which is meant essentially the peasants, or, in fact, the serfs, to the invaders and the contribution that this made to the defeat of the Napoleonic forces.1 The extent to which this popular resistance can be seen as ‘patriotic’ or ‘nationalistic’ has been the subject of extensive debate.2 On the whole, Western historians have dated the emergence of modern forms of Russian nationalism to the later nineteenth century and have characterized peasant resistance during the Napoleonic invasion as ‘xenophobic’ rather than ‘nationalistic’ but, nevertheless, the events of 1812 are regarded as an important stage in this development.

Russia and the Napoleonic wars

Russia played a key part in the military campaigns and the ultimate defeat of Napoleon. At the same time the Napoleonic Wars affected almost every aspect of Russian life – economically, politically, socially and ideologically. This volume brings together the most important and new research on Russia and the Napoleonic period by Russian and non-Russian historians. Their work demonstrates why this period is so significant both for internal Russian developments and for an understanding of Russias relationship with Europe. The Wars not only shaped early nineteenth-century Europe but also have a contemporary relevance for understanding Russian perceptions and international relations today.

“A Land of Limitless Possibilities”: British Commerce and Trade in Siberia in the Early Twentieth Century

This article looks at the prospects and the reality of British commercial activity in Siberia in the early twentieth century, before the outbreak of the First World War, and is based on contemporary comments by travellers, businessmen and commercial agents. Contemporaries agreed that the dynamic Siberian economy opened up opportunities for British exports and trade. British firms, however, lagged behind her commercial rivals, in particular Germany, and the United States. The article explores the reasons for this and also looks at the subjects of the British empire who went to Siberia and the conditions under which they worked. The artilce demonstrates the vibrancy of Siberian economic development in this period and the active participation of Western powers in this process.

Russia as a great military power, 1762–1825

The two centuries that chronologically bind the topics in this volume span a period in which Europe was in its global ascendancy. The projection of imperial powers reflected the increasing centralization of states. The ability of state institutions to control and pay for the acquisition, protection and maintenance of empires could only be achieved when internal threats abated and centralized bureaucratic states emerged. Expansion, however, was not uniform, and the desire to export power was often limited by economic considerations and internal political and social conflict. Nevertheless, between 1618-1850 hegemonic empires were established and yet, the incidence of conflict between them declined in the years after 1815. This volume explores the various factors related to the projection and limitation of imperial powers in the western world.

Andrew A. Gentes, Exile, Murder and Madness in Siberia, 1823–61:

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The Russian Empire: military encounters and national identity

In 1767, the preamble to Catherine II’s ‘Instruction’ stated that ‘Russia is a European State’. She was making a political and cultural statement rather than a geographical one. The ‘European’ expansion and strategic concerns of the Russian Empire, and for that matter the Soviet Union, have always concerned both Russia’s rulers and her international rivals more than her Asiatic ambitions. The expansion within Europe in the Napoleonic period was substantial and, at least in part, threatening to other states. To the north, Finland was taken over in 1809, after the south of the country had been acquired in 1721 and 1743. To the south, Georgia was absorbed in 1801 and Bessarabia in 1812, while Ukraine and the Crimea had become part of the empire between 1649 and 1792. To the west, the Congress Kingdom of Poland was ruled from Russia after 1815, after the eastern lands of the Polish-Lithuanian state had been acquired in the three partitions of Poland in 1772, 1793 and 1795. Nevertheless, it was an empire which had expanded even more rapidly eastwards than in other directions in the two centuries before the period discussed in this volume, to the extent that Russian settlers had reached not only the far eastern seaboard but had also settled on the coasts of California and Alaska. In the 1730s the Ural mountains had come to be regarded as the border between European and Asiatic Russia, and a border which was a low range of mountains was—for troops, settlers and a whole range of deserters, fugitive serfs and others who wished to lose their identities—far easier to cross than an ocean.

Governing the City: St Petersburg and Catherine II’s Reforms

St Petersburg was unique. As far as administration is concerned, it was the unique composition of the population of the city which was most significant. The most obvious point of distinctiveness of St Petersburg compared with other Russian towns was the presence of the following: the court and courtiers; large numbers of bureaucrats, officials and clerical staff who were employed in the offices of state; the wealthiest nobles and their serf retinues; army and naval officers resident in the city between campaigns or employed in ministries; foreigners in many professions; the scholars, scientists and artists associated with the academies; a small number of very wealthy merchants. Contemporary statistical information on city population in late eighteenth-century Russia has to be treated with caution but it at least demonstrates something of the oddity of St Petersburg. In 1801 it has been estimated that the ‘townspeople’ of the city (the merchants and the artisans, the meshchane) numbered some 38,000 persons, but they were collectively outnumbered by 13,200 members of the nobility, 26,100 servants, 39,100 soldiers and officers and over 50,000 peasants.1 In addition, the transience of the population of the city was also distinctive, not only in the number of wealthy nobles who retired for the summer months to their country estates, and in the movement of foreign and Russian merchants back and forth from the city but also the army of transient peasants and workers who supplied a city without a natural economic hinterland with foodstuffs, hand-made goods and labour.

Russia and Napoleon: State, Society and the Nation

Russia’s Napoleonic experience was traumatic but brief. Obviously, I am drawn to the impact of a single year or, rather, of six months — June to December 1812 — the time in which Napoleonic forces were on the territory of the Russian Empire. Napoleon had no plans to occupy any part of Great Russia permanently; necessity obliged him to set up a temporary administration in Smolensk, but this was purely an attempt to maintain order and to secure supplies;1 there was no attempt to challenge the social or legal order, and in particular the institution of serfdom. Napoleon wanted to force Alexander to conform to the terms of the Treaty of Tilsit, and in particular to enforce the Continental System. He did not want to overthrow the Russian regime or the social order. Nevertheless, Russia’s Napoleonic experience was not irrelevant; on the contrary, this period marked a significant stage in the development of the relationship between society and the state and in the growth of the concept of Russian nationhood.