Paul W. Werth's Books

At the Margins of Orthodoxy

Mission, Governance, and Confessional Politics in Russia's Volga-Kama Region, 1827–1905

By: Paul W. Werth

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At the Margins of Orthodoxy

Mission, Governance, and Confessional Politics in Russia's Volga-Kama Region, 1827–1905

By: Paul W. Werth

In a period of dramatic social change, when Orthodoxy and nationalism were the twin pillars of the Russian state, how did the tsarist bureaucracy govern an expansive realm inhabited by the peoples of many nations and ethnicities professing various faiths? Did the nature of tsarist rule change over time, and did it vary from region to region? Paul W. Werth considers these large questions in his survey of imperial Russian rule in the vast Volga-Kama region. First conquered in the sixteenth century, the Volga-Kama lands were by the nineteenth century both part of the Russian heartland and resolutely "other"—the home of a mix of Slavic, Finnic, and Turkic peoples where the urge to assimilate was always counterbalanced by determined efforts to preserve cultural and religious differences. The Volga-Kama thus poses the dilemmas of empire in especially complex and telling ways. Drawing on a wide range of printed and archival sources, Werth untangles and reconstructs this complicated history, focusing on the ways in which the tsarist state and Orthodox missions used conversion in their ongoing (and regularly frustrated) efforts to transform the region's Muslim and animist populations into imperial, Orthodox citizens. He shows that the regime became less concerned with religion and more concerned with secular attributes as the marker of cultural differences, an emphasis that would change dramatically in the early years of Soviet rule.

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Page Count

291

Publisher

Cornell University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1501711695

ISBN 13

9781501711695

1837

Russia's Quiet Revolution

By: Paul W. Werth

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1837

Russia's Quiet Revolution

By: Paul W. Werth

Historians often think of Russia before the 1860s in terms of conservative stasis, when the "gendarme of Europe" secured order beyond the country's borders and entrenched the autocratic system at home. This book offers a profoundly different vision of Russia under Nicholas I. Drawing on an extensive array of sources, it reveals that many of modern Russia's most distinctive and outstanding features can be traced back to an inconspicuous but exceptional year. Russia became what it did, in no small measure, because of 1837. The catalogue of the year's noteworthy occurrences extends from the realms of culture, religion, and ideas to those of empire, politics, and industry. Exploring these diverse issues and connecting seemingly divergent historical actors, Paul W. Werth reveals that the 1830s in Russia were a period of striking dynamism and consequence, and that 1837 was pivotal for the country's entry into the modern age. From the romantic death of Russia's greatest poet Alexander Pushkin in January to a colossal fire at the Winter Palace in December, Russia experienced much that was astonishing in 1837: the railway and provincial press appeared, Russian opera made its debut, Orthodoxy pushed westward, the first Romanov visited Siberia—and much else besides. The cumulative effect was profound. The country's integration accelerated, and a Russian nation began to emerge, embodied in new institutions and practices, within the larger empire. The result was a quiet revolution, after which Russia would never be the same.

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