Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840–1865 by Mark Bassin (review)

572 Рецензии/Reviews Emilian KAVALSKI Mark Bassin, Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840–1865 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006). xvi+330 pp. ISBN: 978-0-52102674 -1 (paperback edition). Mark Bassin’s Imperial Visions offers an accessible, captivating and extremely well-researched study of the intricate interplay between national imaginations and impe- приятного образа Кенигсберга” для советского Калининграда. На примере трудов ученых Кали- нинградского университета автор анализирует несколько показа- тельных попыток историков-ре- визионистов вписать Кенигсберг в историю Калининграда. В статье также рассмотрен пример пере- писывания региональной истории с опорой на индивидуальные воспоминания. В данном случае речь идет о проекте “Поселенцы”, реализованном в 1990 – 1991 гг. исследователями исторического факультета Калининградского университета. Проект представ- лял собой материалы 320 интер- вью, в которых люди вспоминали о своих первых впечатлениях от прибытия в область. Таким образом, здесь мы наблюдаем некоторую солидарность с приве- денными выше высказываниями Гернера: для того чтобы стать элементом исторической памяти и коллективной идентичности, история не обязательно должна быть научным текстом. Полностью отдаем себе отчет в том, что все вышеизложенное напоминает скорее реферирова- ние, чем полноценную научную рецензию. Весьма сложно аргу- ментированно спорить сразу по столь широкому кругу проблем, исследуемых авторами статей. В заключение хотелось лишь отметить, что обнаруженные в материалах сборников авторские идеи и концепции относительно трактовки событий и явлений не- далекого прошлого представляют значительный интерес для ис- следователей, давая возможность посмотреть на все происходившее глазами “постороннего”, глубже проникнуть в суть происходящего в наши дни, сравнить и приложить полученные результаты к ситуа- циям в разных регионах и государ- ствах. Подобные научные издания помогают ученым обнаружить не только некие закономерности, но и увидеть спонтанность истори- ческого процесса на всем постсо- ветском пространстве. 573 Ab Imperio, 1/2007 rial conquest in nineteenth-century Russia. As Bassin points out, one of the most interesting facets of this linkage is the fact that “nation and empire could coexist in what can be almost called a symbiotic relationship, and for most people there was almost no point for trying to disengage them” (P. 15). The understanding and the explanation of the perceptions underwriting national self-identifications usually tend to focus on shared values, beliefs , attitudes, norms, and roles. In this respect, the interaction of selfregarding individuals leads to the construction of collective conceptualizations of the past, the present, and the possible future(s).Therefore, the dynamic aspects of these interpretations articulate the boundaries that distinguish the members of one particular national community from others. These boundaries, however, are not only dependent on subjective interpretations. Instead, they play a central part in molding an awareness of the appropriate territorial expanse of a nation. In this respect, the patterns of identity construction inform the outlines of state frontiers. Imperial Visions addresses this ambiguous relationship between the constructed and the geographical expansion of national imagination. Bassin’s book focuses on the narratives of Russia’s acquisition of territory in the “Far East” along the Amur and the Ussuri rivers in the mid-nineteenth century. As such, Bassin’s study is not merely interested in an empire’s expansion into a particular geographical region and the historical occurrences involving this region. Instead, his investigation is informed by an interpretative endeavor to understand just what the “Amur euphoria” (P. 3) meant, where it came from and why it petered out. In other words, Imperial Visions traces the unexpected spotlight on a remote (if not obscure) region, whose discursive constructions seemed to animate Russian society for two decades. As Bassin points out, the fervor of those years led a number of intellectuals to refer to the region as the “Siberian Mississippi” or the “Russian Mississippi” (P. 143), the “Russian Kentucky” (P. 159), the “Crimea of the Far East” (P. 175) and the “Russian America” (Pp. 6065 ). In this respect, incorporating the Amur region into the Russian Empire was constructed in terms of the possibilities that it makes available. For instance, it was envisioned that it would provide Russia with access to the “Mediterranean of the future” (P. 144) – the Pacific Ocean – and, thereby, would mark “one of civilization’s most important steps forward” (P. 2). However, just twenty years after its emergence, the enthusiasm and the excitement that prompted the grandiloquence of the period evaporated. Thus, the prom- 574 Рецензии/Reviews ises and the prospects articulated within the narratives of the distant Amur region seemed to disappear. Such focus on the “Far East” seems to have been informed by the defeat in the Crimean War, which caused Russian nationalists to alter their perspective. As Bassin points out, the focus of their endeavors relocated from Europe towards Asia. As a Russian scholar wrote at the time, “Let the European peoples live as they know how and arrange themselves in their own countries as they wish, while half of Asia – China, Tibet, Bukhara, Khiva, Persia – belongs to us if we want” (P. 67). The volume indicates that such shift of vision reflected a deeper urge to re-legitimize the geographical aspirations of the national self in the post-Crimean War period. In this context, the prospect and desire for territorial expansion in theAmur region was intended not so much out of thirst for the possession of foreign lands, but as a reassuring sign of positive national qualities. The “Amur euphoria,” therefore, assumed significance for the national psychology of Russia since the narratives of conquest and incorporation could be read as discursive articulations of a contested self and a “mechanism of compensation for backwardness” (P. 13). The assessment of the Russian drive into the “Far...