I chose this photo because I wanted to look into how these people farming were affected by the growing change to industrialization. While reading the assigned chapter in Russia A History, I became interested in the famine that started in 1891. Twenty provinces were affected, with hundreds of thousands of deaths (Freeze, 238). While the […]
Week 1 Posts
Week 1 Posts
Emancipation Declination
by Anna •
After suffering defeat in the Crimean War, late Imperial Russia underwent many reforms in an effort to reestablish national confidence and internal stability. Some of these reforms included changes to the judicial and educational system as well as installing zemstvo- an elected … Continue reading →
Comrades' Corner, Week 1 Posts
A Band-aid that didn’t stick: Russian reform in the 1860s and 70s
by gracehemmingson •
Reform. Counter-reform. One step forward and two steps back. This pattern can be seen in many places throughout history, and usually leads to a period of explosive reform started by the people. Examples of this pattern are the reforms begun by Qing Russia before the 1911 Revolution and even the connection between post-civil war […]
Red Star, Week 1 Posts
A famous vacation spot for criminals in Bukhara
by mikegancio •
Although the Soviet Union traditionally claims superiority when it comes to jailing and exiling people in deplorable conditions, this photo places the Emirate of Bukhara as a notable competitor. Perhaps only a mere footnote compared to the notorious purges of Joseph Stalin, the prison at Zindan certainly doesn’t seem any more appealing than a Soviet gulag […]
Red Star, Week 1 Posts
How the W̶e̶s̶t̶ Steppes were won.
by jslattery •
Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky was well known in the late Imperial, and even early Soviet, period of Russia for his work in photography. He spent ten years of his life chronographing Russia in color photographs. Prokudin-Gorsky often photographed different people of Russian. … Continue reading →
Week 1 Posts
Does Religion Matter Anymore?
by jmhawkins •
The Russian Orthodox Church has been a major factor in Russian culture, economics, and politics since its origin in 988 AD. In 1589, Moscow was named the patriarch for the Russian Orthodox Church, but there would be no separation of … Continue reading →
Week 1 Posts
19th/20th Century Russian Ag.
by phillip5 •
The caption of this photo says it depicts monks planting potatoes in fields reclaimed from conifer forest. This got me thinking about all the different times I had learned about clearing land for agricultural use, and for that matter all the different countries it takes place in. This could spark a debate over many controversial […]
Week 1 Posts
Transportation and Industrialization
by jenniferh •
http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/prk2000002466/ The photo captioned, “Trans-Siberian Railway metal truss bridge on stone piers, over the Kama River near Perm, Ural Mountains Region” included in the Prokudin-Gorskiĭ collection, gives a look into the longest rail line in the world. The picture … Continue reading →
Week 1 Posts
From Zindan to Black Dolphin
by katiewells9 •
This photo shows a zindan, a traditional Central Asian prison, with prisoners and a Russian guard. A zindan is “in essence a pit in the earth with a low structure built on top.” I chose this photo because one day over the summer I came home to my three siblings watching a Netflix documentary titled Russia’s Toughest Prisons. They […]
Week 1 Posts
Agricultural Crisis
by kathaskew •
The emancipation of the serfdom left profound consequences in its wake. This post will, in particular, focus on the effects that the emancipation had wrought on Russia’s agricultural industry between the years of 1855 and 1890. To compound on this, … Continue reading →