The Russian Nation Imagined: The Peoples of Russia as Seen in Popular Imagery, 1860s–1890s

This essay traces changing representations of ethnic Russians and other peoples of the empire in popular prints (lubok), illustrated weeklies, and the art of the Itinerants (Peredvizhniki) from the 1860s through the 1890s. The author describes the role of the expanding print culture in an emergent Russian national identity. After 1861, cheerful images of Russian common people in popular prints and weekly magazines clashed with elite artists’ and writers’ stress on peasants’ noble suffering. During the next three decades, however, images in all three lenses converged to form a positive view of ordinary ethnic Russians, particularly peasants. Similarly, negative stereotypes of non-Russian nationalities in illustrated magazines in 1860s gave way in the 1880s and 1890s to positive views of a multiethnic nation.