Russia in Motion: Cultures of Human Mobility since 1850

by John Randolph PhD (Editor), Eugene M. Avrutin (Editor), Eugene M. Avrutin (Contribution by), Alexandra Bekasova (Contribution by), Faith Hillis (Contribution by)

Overview

Since its rapid imperial expansion in the seventeenth century, Russia's politics, society, and culture have exerted a profound influence on movement throughout Eurasia. The circulation of people, information, and things across Russian space transformed populations, restructured collective and individual identities, and created enduring legacies. This volume represents the latest discoveries of scholars attempting to rediscover this experience, and to understand its lasting meaning for today.
 
These gathered essays tell a broad range of stories, involving a remarkable cross-section of historical actors: imperial visionaries, stage-coach entrepreneurs, religious pilgrims, tourists, disability activists and metropolitan police, among others. The book illuminates three major themes: the role of human mobility in Russian governance; the processes by which people decide where and how to move; and the political and cultural power of different kinds of movement.
 
A strong contribution to our understanding of the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, this volume offers new models of research for historians, sociologists, political scientists, and others who are seeking to integrate the study of human mobility into their work.
 
Contributors are Eugene M. Avrutin, Alexandra Bekasova, Faith Hillis, Gijs Kessler, Diane P. Koenker, Chia Yin Hsu, Eileen Kane, Anne Lounsbery, Matthew Light, Sarah D. Phillips, John Randolph, Anatolyi Remnev, Jeff Sahadeo, Frithjof Benjamin Schenk, Charles Steinwedel, Willard Sunderland, and Elena Tyuryukanova.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780252037030
Publisher:	University of Illinois Press
Publication date:	06/21/2012
Series:	Studies of World Migrations
Edition description:	1st Edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.40(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

John Randolph is an associate professor of history at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Eugene M. Avrutin is an assistant professor of modern European Jewish history and Tobor Family Scholar in the Program of Jewish Culture and Society at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii

Introduction 1

Part I Governing Mobility

Preface Charles Steinwedel 19

1 Human Mobility, Imperial Governance, and Political Conflict in Pre-Revolutionary Kiev Faith Hillis 25

2 Frontier Urban and Imperial Dreams: The Chinese Eastern Railroad and the Creation of a Russian Global City, 1890-1917 Chia Yin Hsu 43

3 The Origins of Soviet Internal-Migration Policy: Industrialization and the 1930s Rural Exodus Gijs Kessler 63

4 Migration Controls in Soviet and Post-Soviet Moscow: From "Closed City" to "Illegal City" Matthew Light 80

Part II Social Horizons

Preface Willdrd Sunderland 101

5 Odessa as a Hajj Hub, 1880S-1910S Eileen Kane 107

6 Russians as Colonists at the Empires Asian Borders: Optimistic Prognoses and Pessimistic Assessments Anatolyi Remnev 126

7 Druzhba Narodov or Second-Class Citizenship? Soviet Asian Migrants in a Postcolonial World Jeff Sahadeo 150

8 "Job Wanted! (No) Relocation, Please!": Barriers to Geographical Mobility in Post-Soviet Russia Elena Tyuryukanova 172

Part III Model Mobility

Preface Anne Lounsbery 191

9 The Making of Passengers in the Russian Empire: Coach-Transport Companies, Guidebooks, and National Identity in Russia, 1820-1860 Alexandra Bekasova 199

10 "This New Means of Transportation Will Make Unstable People Even More Unstable": Railways and Geographical Mobility in Tsarist Russia Frithjof Benjamin Schenk 218

11 Pleasure Travel in the Passport State Diane P. Koenker 235

12 Citizenship and Human Mobility: Disability and the "Etatization" of Soviet and Post-Soviet Space Sarah D. Phillips 253

List of Contributors 273

Index 275

Editorial Reviews

"Highly recommended. Randolph and Avrutin have done much to place mobility into the mainstream of Russian historiography."—The Russian Review

“An important contribution to Russian history.”—Revolutionary Russia

"A meritorious contribution."—Journal of Transport History

"This is an absorbing collection of essays that will repay reading by historians and social scientists. . . . A good introduction to the latest scholarship on the rewards but also the discontents and hidden injuries of migration."—Slavic Review

"New ways of looking at Russian society are well exploited, and hitherto ignored or unnoticed facts are revealed about individuals or institutions. This is a book that really does repay its reader."—The Slavonic and East European Review

"This well-crafted collection of essays brings together a comprehensive selection of new research on mobility in Russia from the Tsarist Empire's westernmost provinces to the Far East. Of worldwide interest to scholars in migration studies as well as Eastern European studies."—Dirk Hoerder, author of Cultures in Contact: World Migrations in the Second Millennium“An important contribution to Russian history.”—Revolutionary Russia

From the Publisher