Reading Russian Sources: A Student's Guide to Text and Visual Sources from Russian History

Description

"This is an accessible and comprehensive guide that introduces students to the wide range of sources that can be used to engage with Russian history from the early medieval to the late Soviet periods. The book begins by considering approaches that can be taken towards the study of Russian history using primary sources. It then moves on to assess such sources as memoirs, autobiographies, journals, newspapers, art, maps, film and TV. Chronologically wide-ranging and supported by further reading, as well as suggestions to help students guide their own enquiries, it is the ideal resource for any student undertaking research on Russian history"-- Cover Half Title Series Page Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of illustrations List of contributors Acknowledgements List of abbreviations A note on names, translations and dates Introduction: reading Russian sources Sources in the Russian context Organization and scope Problems of interpretation Notes Further reading PART I: Contexts and approaches 1. Early medieval sources Notes Further reading 2. Primary sources and the history of modern Russia Notes Further reading 3. The power of positionality?: researching Russian history from the margins A sense of connection Towards the ethics of researching vulnerable populations Notes Further reading PART II: Varieties of sources and their interpretation 4. Imperial maps Map reading as historical practice An example: The Map of Russia and Her Tribes Conclusion Notes Further reading 5. “It’s only a story”: what value are novels as a historical source? Realism in history and literature Realism and the role of the writer in Russia Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina as a historical source The reception of Anna Karenina Conclusion Notes Further reading 6. The late Imperial press Introduction In search of the press Historiography Interpretation Case study: Novoe vremia and the murder of Grand Duke Sergei A leksandrovich Conclusion Notes Further reading Online sources 7. Surveillance reports Introduction The use of svodki in historical scholarship Historical context: surveillance and svodki in the Russian Revolution and Civil War Case study: svodki from the Civil War in Ekaterinburg, 1919–20 Conclusion Notes Further reading 8. Soviet autobiographies Introduction The subject Authenticity Narratives Audience Notes Further reading 9. ‘Read all about it!’: Soviet press and periodicals ‘No news in Pravda …’ ‘Read all about it’: history as experience New words, new worlds Conclusion: working with printed sources now Notes Further reading 10. Visual culture as evidence of the Soviet past The different uses of and approaches to visual traces Methodology The traps of Soviet art and historiography Conclusion Notes Further reading 11. Film and TV as a source in Soviet history: challenges and possibilities Methodological reflections Death and martyrdom in Soviet cinema Wartime film Notes Further reading 12. The diary as source in Russian and Soviet history Introduction Diary as genre Theories and their application Homosexual and Soviet: reading the diary of Vadim Kozin Conclusion Notes Further reading 13. Soviet memoir literature: personal narratives of a historical epoch ‘Truth’ and the challenges of memoir literature Unpacking Soviet memoirs Case study: Agrippina Kalugina’s Life in Silence Conclusion Notes Further reading 14. Prisoner memoirs as a source in Russian and Soviet history Introduction Prisoner memoirs as a genre Theories and their application: reconstructing the ‘underlife’ of the Gulag Janusz Bardach’s Man is Wolf to Man Conclusion Notes Further Reading 15. Soviet letters Introduction A history of public letters in Russia Historiography of letters and letter-writing Interpreting public letters Case study: V. Pristavkin to Komsomol’skaia pravda Conclusion Notes Further reading Index