Slavophile Empire

Laura Engelstein

Description

Twentieth-century Russia, in all its political incarnations, lacked the basic features of the Western liberal model: the rule of law, civil society, and an uncensored public sphere. In Slavophile Empire, the leading historian Laura Engelstein pays particular attention to the Slavophiles and their heirs, whose aversion to the secular individualism of the West and embrace of an idealized version of the native past established a pattern of thinking that had an enduring impact on Russian political life. Imperial Russia did not lack for partisans of Western-style liberalism, but they were outnumbered, to the right and to the left, by those who favored illiberal options.In the book's rigorously argued chapters, Engelstein asks how Russia's identity as a cultural nation at the core of an imperial state came to be defined in terms of this antiliberal consensus. She examines debates on religion and secularism, on the role of culture and the law under a traditional regime presiding over a modernizing society, on the status of the empire's ethnic peripheries, and on the spirit needed to mobilize a multinational empire in times of war. These debates, she argues, did not predetermine the kind of system that emerged after 1917, but they foreshadowed elements of a political culture that are still in evidence today.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USSR
• Soviet Union
• Russia
• History of Europe
• Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques
• Russie

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801459450
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 8 Mo

Extrait

slavophile empire

slavophile empire Imperial Russia’s Illiberal Path

Laura Engelstein

cornell university press

Ithaca & London

Copyright ©2009by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512East State Street, Ithaca, New York14850.

First published2009by Cornell University Press First printing, Cornell Paperbacks,2009

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Engelstein, Laura.  Slavophile empire : Imperial Russia’s Illiberal path / Laura Engelstein.  p. cm.  Includes index.  ISBN9780801447402(cloth : alk. paper) —  ISBN9780801475924(pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Russia—Politics and government—1801–1917.2. Political culture— Russia—History—19th century.3. Slavophilism—Russia—History—19th century.4. Liberalism—Russia—History—19th century.5. Russians—Ethnic identity—History—19th century.6. Nationalism—Russia—History—19th century.7. Religion and state—Russia—History—19th century.8. Russia— Intellectual life—1801–1917Title.. I.  DK189.E542009 947.08—dc222009023344

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Cloth printing10987654321 Paperback printing10987654321

In memory of Reggie Zelnik

Contents

 Preface  Acknowledgments  Introduction: The Discordant Choir 1 Combined Underdevelopment  Discipline and the Law in Imperial and Soviet Russia 2and the Theater of Public Life Revolution  The Triumph of Extremes 3Dream of Civil Society The  The Law, the State, and Religious Toleration 4Russia in Modern Times Holy  The Slavophile Quest for the Lost Faith 5 Orthodox SelfReflection in a Modernizing Age  The Case of Ivan and Natal ' ia Kireevskii 6 Between Art and Icon  Aleksandr Ivanov’s Russian Christ 7Old Slavophile Steed The  Failed Nationalism and the Philosophers’ Jewish Problem  Index

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Preface

Twentiethcentury Russia—imperial, Soviet, or postSoviet—lacked the basic features of the Western liberal model: rule of law, civil society, and an uncensored public sphere. The autocracy and the Soviet regime rejected the model outright. It was adopted, briefly and ineffectually, between Feb ruary and October1917. After1991the Russian Federation again broke step, embracing a market economy, an unregulated press, and government by election. Under Putin, Russia has turned back, limiting freedom of ex pression, manipulating the laws, creating a form of statecentered capital ism, under a neonationalist flag. Even in negation, however, the Western model has exerted an obvious pull: nineteenthcentury Russian intellectu als measured their case against it; the1936Stalin Constitution claimed to grant the most absolute freedoms of all. Critics of the West held it to its own professed standards. In the last decades of the autocracy, however, voices endorsing the Western liberal perspective were outnumbered, to the right and to the left, by those who favored illiberal options. How Russia’s identity as a cultural nation at the core of an imperial state came to be defined, following the nineteenthcentury Slavophile model, in terms of an antiliberal consensus is the story at the heart of this book. Focusing on the center of the political spectrum, it examines debates on religion and secularism, on the role of culture and the law under a traditional regime presiding over a modernizing society, on the status of the empire’s ethnic peripheries, and on the spirit needed to mobilize a multinational empire in time of war. Such debates did not predetermine what emerged after 1917, but they foreshadowed elements of a political culture that are still in evidence today.

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