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Introduction
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Introduction John w. Steinberg and Rex A. Wade Allan K. Wildman was a man of broad intellect and scholarly interests who encouraged everyone to maintain a wide-ranging intellectual curiosity; the articles by his former students in this collection reflect his enthusiasm about all aspects of Russian history. He made it clear that in his mind the three groups that made Russian history great were workers, soldiers, and peasants, but he nonetheless required his students to learn the entire scope of Russian history, from ancient Slavic tribes to contemporary affairs, from social/cultural to intellectual to political/military history. Allan was a mentor who did not merely assign research projects to his students, but rather pushed his students to set their own research agenda. Once a research agenda was set, he demanded rigorous standards in research and demonstrated what those standards should be every time he wrote or critiqued articles and books. It should come as no surprise, therefore, that the essays in this collection range across the Imperial and Soviet eras of modern Russian history and reflect a broad array of thematic concerns, while also resting on strong archival research. What gives the articles unity, given their chronological breadth, thematic diversity, archival strength, and methodological sophistication, are the rigorous professional standards that stand as testimony to Allan's legacy as a teacher. His own publications and scholarly achievements, discussed in the essay on Wildman by Rex A. Wade and Eve Levin, are ample testimony to his own scholarly rigor. Soldiers, workers, and peasants were major issues of Russian history for Wildman, in his own publications and reflected in some of the articles here. John Steinberg's article focuses on D. A. Miliutin's revolutionary restructuring of the cadet corps academies, Russia's elite military educational institutions as part of the State's effort to reorganize the military establishment during the Great Reforms. Created in the early 18th century to reward and be the preserve of Russia's traditional military elite, the officers of the Imperial guard, by the mid-19th century they needed radical reform. In tracing the history of the reform of the cadet corps academies, Steinberg is able to reveal that the army's modern requirements-mass conscript soldiers armed with rapid fire weapons- forced change on the Russia's long time military elites. Miliutin had the experience and wisdom to understand that Imperial guardsmen could no longer control the officer corps, that for the army to have enough officers educated and trained to succeed on a modern battlefield, the cadet corps academies not only had to have their curriculum overhauled, but they The Making of Russian History : Society, Culture, and the Politics of Modern Russia. Essays in Honor of Allan K. Wildman. John W. Stein berg and Rex A. Wade, eds. Bloomington, IN: Siavica Publishers, 2009, 1- 5. 2 JOHN W. STEI NBERG AN D REX A. WADE also had to admit all members of society who could gain admission, ideally through a selective process. The lasting tribute to Miliutin's visionary reforms is the principles he instilled into Russian military education, which remained in place well after his enforced retirement. The most compelling argument traditional military society had against reforming its elite institutions centered on questions of knowledge, the use of that knowledge, and loyalty to the regime. Change was essential for regime survival, but raised its own dangers. This dilemma is well illustrated by Matthew Schwonek's article on Kazimirez Sosnkowski. His article begins by offering readers a lens through which to view the events of 1905 in Polish territory . Then, and more significantly, it reveals the formative experience of a revolutionary who became disenchanted with the chaos of the rebellion organized by revolutionaries and students. He responded to this experience by becoming a close collaborator of J6zef Pilsudski. His shift from revolutionary activist to military officer culminated with his promotion to General within days of independence in 1918. Sosnkowski became a mainstay of the cabinets of the early republic and helped shape Poland's system of national defense. Elevated to commander in chief at the height of the Second World War, he directed the overseas and underground forces of the Government in Exile through the tragic Warsaw Uprising of 1944. In other words, by studying Sosnkowski's early "seminal" political experience, this article helps us better understand the biography of a key political and military leader of independent Poland. The peasantry was another major scholarly concern of Allan Wildman during his later years...