-
From the Series Editors
- Slavica Publishers
- Chapter
- Additional Information
From the Series Editors The Wildman Group arose during the mid-1990s as an informal discussion forum for those interested in labor and social history, with special emphasis on the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917. The Allan K. Wildman Group for the Study of Russian Workers and Society, as it eventually called itself, came to encompass many persons whose scholarly interests revolved around the Russian Revolution and related phenomena at a time when academic publishers , journals, and those who led graduate programs had often moved to other research priorities. The group's interest in promoting continued research in revolutionary studies led to the 2002 publication by Slavica of New Labor History: Worker Identity and Experience in Russia, 1840-1918, a collection of new research about labor history from American and Russian scholars under the editorship of Michael Melancon and Alice Pate. The studies contained in the volume and the responses to them in the field demonstrated the continued vitality of late 19th- and 20th-century social history and its ability to place familiar historical episodes and phenomena in new perspectives. This factor gave rise to the idea of the Allan K. Wildman Group Historical Series, which Slavica agreed to publish. In order to broaden its scope to one more appropriate for a series, the group also renamed itself The Allan K. Wildman Group for the Study of Russian Workers, Peasants, and Intelligentsia during the Revolution and the Soviet Era. The Wildman Series now focuses on the entire revolutionary experience, especially in terms of the broad social strata most involved in making the Revolution and sustaining the state and society that resulted. The Wildman Series' fourth volume, The Making of Russian History: Society , Culture, and the Politics of Modern Russia. Essays in Honor of Allan K. Wildman , edited by John W. Steinberg and Rex A. Wade, represents the wideranging research of Allan Wildman's students. TI1e studies explore themes that stretch from the second half of the 19th century through the late Soviet era. What unites them and identifies them as reflective of Wildman's approach to decoding Russia's history is their status as impassioned social history . For the pre-1917 period, individual studies examine the effects of Dmitrii Miliutin's reforms on the officer corps (John Steinberg), aspects of the 1905- 07 revolution in Poland (Matthew Schwonek), worker involvement in May Day celebrations (Alice Pate), and peasant migration into Viatka Province (Aaron Retish). For the later period, chapters explore the early Soviet state's worker health policies (Tricia Starks), the role of families during Stalinism (Greta x A LICE K. PATE AND MI CHAEL MELANCON Bucher), Komsomol mobilization for metro construction (William Wolf), and late Soviet literary policies and the role of intellectuals in Western Ukraine (William Risch). Each study utilizes new data and makes telling contributions to the scholarship. In an introductory essay, Rex Wade and Eve Levin provide insights into Wildman's life as a scholar and editor of the Russian Review. ...