Week 2 Flashcards
What was Russia’s imperial expansion primarily driven by?
Military, economic, and ideological motives to dominate and integrate steppe territories.
What made peace on the Russian steppe frontier nearly impossible?
Fundamental incompatibility between Russia’s centralized state and nomadic societies.
What were the social structures of the steppe nomadic societies like?
Kinship-based, decentralized, rural, and war-centred.
What was the significance of captives in Russian-steppe relations?
Captives were used as slaves, traded for ransom, and central to the economic dynamics.
What role did trade play in steppe-Russian relations?
It was essential for nomads and tightly controlled by Russian authorities.
Who founded St. Petersburg and when?
Peter the Great in 1703.
Why was St. Petersburg’s location significant?
It was built on inhospitable marshland, symbolizing Peter’s ambition and forceful modernization.
What did St. Petersburg symbolize in Peter’s reforms?
A window to Europe and a tool of Europeanization of Russian elite culture.
How was the city of St. Petersburg different from traditional Muscovite cities?
It followed Western urban planning, classicist architecture, and Enlightenment ideals.
What was the cultural goal behind Peter’s reforms?
To align Russia with Western Europe and modernize its institutions and elites.
Was Europeanization widely accepted in Russia?
No, it was largely top-down and often resisted by the broader population.
What does Figes argue about Russia’s cultural identity?
It was split—European on the surface, but deeply rooted in Slavic and Orthodox traditions.
How did Peter enforce Europeanization?
Through laws regulating dress, behavior, and education, often with violence and coercion.
What role did the Russian peasantry play in European Russia?
They were largely excluded from the reforms and retained traditional lifestyles.
What lasting impact did St. Petersburg have on Russian identity?
It became a symbol of Russia’s internal cultural conflict between East and West.
What does the term ‘Orientalism’ refer to in this context?
The cultural and ideological stylization of Crimea as exotic, Eastern, and different from Western norms.
How did Russia use ‘triangulation’ in constructing its identity?
By positioning itself as more European than the Orient while emulating Western views to define its colonial periphery.
What role did Catherine the Great’s 1787 journey to Crimea play?
It served as a theatrical and symbolic assertion of Russia’s imperial control and Western-style authority.
Who were key literary contributors to the Crimea’s imagined geography?
Figures like Prince de Ligne and Nassau-Siegen, who wrote accounts of the journey.
Why was the Crimea seen as Russia’s ‘first Orient’?
It was the first region within the empire to be elaborately imagined using Western Orientalist motifs.
What classical figure was frequently associated with the Crimea?
Iphigenia, linking the region to ancient Greek mythology and elevating its classical prestige.
How did Catherine the Great frame Crimea culturally?
As both an exotic periphery and a site of classical heritage tied to ancient Greece.
What was the significance of ‘Parthenizza’?
A symbolic site associated with Iphigenia’s temple, gifted to Prince de Ligne, evoking deep romantic and classical themes.
How did this Orientalist portrayal influence Russian literature?
It inspired later Russian writers like Pushkin to depict the south as a site of beauty, exoticism, and poetic reflection.
