The Second Chapter : A Brief Survey Of The Aspects Of Russian Culture

Princess Ekaterina Dashkova was an intelligent, impressive woman who, at 18 years old (an age when many modern teenagers are still living at home with their parents), helped to stage a coup d’ etat for Catherine Alexeyvna, who was destined to become Catherine the Great.1 Ekaterina was actually called Catherine the Little2, because both women held the same saint namesake and both were considered intelligent and instrumental in the change of the government from Peter III to Catherine the Great. Princess Ekaterina Dashkova’s memoir addresses power struggles, gender inequality, and the disparities between different ethnicities in a

The speaker is Baron de Breteuil, a French diplomat from Moscow. The speaker is credible because even though he acknowledges how certain aspects of her reign will flourish and how her passion proves useful in Russian society, he does mention negative vices that will inflict havoc upon her sovereignty and ultimately lead to internal faults in her empire.

The last Tsar Nicholas II ascended the throne in 1894 and was faced with a country that was trying to free itself from its autocratic regime. The serfs had recently been emancipated, the industry and economy was just starting to develop and opposition to the Tsar was building up. Russia was still behind Europe in terms of the political regime, the social conditions and the economy. Nicholas II who was a weak and very influenced by his mother and his wife had to deal with Russia’s troubles during his reign. In order to ascertain how successfully Russia dealt with its problems by 1914, this essay will examine the October Manifesto and the split of the opposition, how the Tsar became more reactionary after the 1905 revolution, Stolypin’s

However, Nicholas’s personality was not the sole reason why the Old Regime collapsed. Chubarov argues that “another Peter the Great could have saved the Romanovs and Imperial Russia. It is obvious though that the last tsar could not” . Nicholas’s lack of

Aleksander Nikitenko is notable for an extraordinarily detailed dairy kept from a very early age that provides an intimate view of Russian culture during the early 1800s. Aleksander’s written account, Up from Serfdom, offers a first-hand account of Russian history, making a rather insightful contribution to slave literature. This book is among one of the very few autobiographies ever written by a pre-existing serf. Despite being a bright child, Nikitenko was nevertheless one of the three hundred thousand serfs that were the personal property of the Sheremetiv family in Voronezh Province, whom possessed legal authority to dispose of the serfs as they wished. Nonetheless, through a remarkable turn of events, Aleksander, unlike other serfs

This essay shall address the issue of how the far the brutality of Bolshevik Regime ensured the maintaining of it’s power between the years of 1917-24. This essay shall explore topics concerning the ‘Dictatorship Of The Proletariat’, The Cheka, War Communism, The Red Terror and other potential reasons for the Bolsheviks remaining in power. This essay shall also explore the various views put forth by various Historians such as Robert Conquest and Richard Pipes.

In The Reforming Tsar: The Redefinition of Autocratic Duty in Eighteenth  Century Russia, Cynthia Whittaker argues that depending on the historical, cultural and contextual period, there can be demarcated two types, both distinctive and contrasting, of Russian sovereigns, namely the “good tsar” and the “reforming tsar”. The scholar juxtaposes the two models of monarchs against the backdrop of “medieval” versus “modern” type of governance. According to it the “good tsar” typology, which is typical for the earlier Muscovy realm, defines the ruler as pious and inert, characterized by its liturgical form and static nature of the rule. The “good tsar” is bound to uphold Orthodoxy, preserve and control public order, help the poor and the underdogs

The topic of this investigation is to analyze to what extent did the personal influence of Grigori Rasputin lead to the fall of the Russian Empire. The analysis will investigate the relationship of Rasputin to those in positions of power, starting from the time when Rasputin first treated Alexei to the last days of the Romanov Dynasty. Statements from those acquainted with Rasputin and

“Days of a Russian Noblewoman” is a translated memoir originally written by a Russian noblewoman named Anna Labzina. Anna’s memoir gives a unique perspective of the private life and gender roles of noble families in Russia. Anna sees the male and female gender as similar in nature, but not in morality and religiosity. She sees men as fundamentally different in morality and religiosity because of their capability to be freely dogmatic, outspoken, and libertine. Anna implies throughout her memoir that woman in this society have the capacity to shape and control their lives through exuding a modest, submissive, and virtuous behavior in times of torment. Through her marriage, Labzina discovers that her society is highly male centered.

Inspired after Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from the House of the Dead and the many accounts left by exiles, Beer illuminates the horrific past of the exile system through his work. Using sophisticated vocabulary he vividly describes and brings to life the torture and injustice suffered by the victims of this cruel fate. Despite the use of professional, educated language, the message Beer projects, unlike the words, are easily understood. What is not so clear to readers may be the time line Beer follows. Throughout the book, Beer often jumps around the timeline; he may be covering events for Tsar Nicholas II, but then moves to Catherine the Great. The order is quite peculiar and is not chronologically placed. Each historical event is placed into its respective chapter covering a category pertaining to that event.

The book The Family Romanov: Murder, Rebellion and the Fall of Imperial Russia by Candace Fleming is an eye opening biography about one of Russia's most famous families. Since 1613, the Romanov family had ruled Russia, and were the last imperial dynasty to ever take the throne. Tsar Nicholas and Tsarina Alexandra had five children, consisting of only one eligible heir to Russia. The author's purpose of writing this book was to explain the downfall of one Russia’s most important families. Candace Fleming wrote the book to give insight and share her knowledge on how the Romanov family witnessed and committed horrible acts of violence and stupidity which ultimately lead to their murders.

This essay is on Ivan IV or more commonly known as “Ivan the terrible”. He is recognized known as the one who ordered the building of St. Basil’s cathedral and the one who started the reign of terror.

The Russian Revolution is a widely studied and seemingly well understood time in modern, European history, boasting a vast wealth of texts and information from those of the likes of Robert Service, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Allan Bullock, Robert Conquest and Jonathan Reed, to name a few, but none is so widely sourced and so heavily relied upon than that of the account of Leon Trotsky, his book “History of the Russian Revolution” a somewhat firsthand account of the events leading up to the formation of the Soviet Union. There is no doubt that Trotsky’s book, among others, has played a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of the events of The Revolution; but have his personal predilections altered how he portrayed such paramount

One object, a paradox embodied in a Russian revolutionary plate interested me, primarily due to my limited knowledge of the revolution therefore arousing curiosity, but also due to the irony of the plate. Illustrating an egalitarian realm of the proletariat yet, peculiarly, the plate made from porcelain; the luxury material providing historic connotations with aristocratic culture and status. This interest drove me to attend a lecture at LSE on the origins of the revolution, and question whether Marxism was in any sense native to Eastern Europe. Further lectures by John Merriman on the topic made me consider why this cruel anti-Semite, Nicholas II was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church. I found the matter challenging, however the further I explored, the more I became engrossed in the subject and so continued to broaden my understanding with Smith’s ‘The Russian Revolution: A very short introduction’. This self-motivated inquisitiveness drives me forward; an important attribute of a prospective

When we hear the term Russian culture many Americans tend to have negative thoughts like the cold war, their government ruling with an iron hand, and the Red Scare. These thoughts do not do the justice to the Russian people or to their long history as a people dating back to INSERT DATE. One of the major themes throughout Russian history and this course is the idea that the Russian people value intangible things more than the tangible. The Russian people have a long rich heritage, they are deep in there Christian faith, and they pride themselves on hospitality and value there community, families, and fellow Russian people. They have learned how to sacrifice from the constant invasions and being forced farther and