Азиатская Россия: Люди и структуры империи: сборник научных статей. К 50-летию со дня рождения профессора А. В. Ремнева ред. по Н. Г. Суворовой (review)

454 Рецензии/Reviews Scott C. BAILEY Азиатская Россия: Люди и структуры империи: сборник на- учных статей. К 50-летию со дня рождения профессора А. В. Рем- нева / Под ред. Н. Г. Суворовой. Омск: Издательство Омского государственного университета, 2005. 603 с. ISBN: 5-7779-0629-Х. This festschrift was done in honor of Professor Anatolii Remnev’s fiftieth birthday celebration. Remnev is a Professor of History at Omsk State University, and is recognized as a leading authority both internationally and within Russia and the former Soviet Union for his studies of the history of the Russian Empire in Asia. Although he is only now at middle age, his academic accomplishments are staggering, and are recounted in a biographical essay in the back matter of this volume. This collection of papers range somewhat widely in terms of time periods, methodological approaches, and subject matter, but all relate to the history of the Russian Empire in Asia, broadly defined. The Caucasus , CentralAsia, the grand expanse of Siberian Russia, the Russian Far East, and the Arctic each receive attention. Central Asia, Siberia, and the Far East are the primary focus, though, reflecting the fact that many of the junior scholars seem to have been trained by Remnev and that 1865 г., ...акцент делался не на слиянии литовцев и русских, а на восстановлении “исторической связи, существовавшей между Литвой и Русью”” (C. 192) (курсив мой. – Д. С.). Как термин “вос- соединение”, так и термин “сли- яние” типичны для российского дискурса того времени. Термин “воссоединение” был связан с идеологизированной историче- ской концепцией, утверждавшей, что все или почти все население Северо-Западного края изначаль- но приняло православие и только позднее часть была “совращена” в католичество. Поэтому чинов- ники “возвращали” католиков в православие. Термин “слияние” употреблялся в различных кон- текстах и был многозначным, что на примере “еврейского вопроса” показал Клиер.14 Использование той же риторики, которая была характерна для имперской бюро- кратии в научном тексте (т.е. без кавычек), создает впечатление, будто позиции автора и имперских чиновников схожи. Несмотря на эти критические замечания, книгу можно реко- мендовать всем, кто интересуется историей Российской империи в XIX в., в особенности политикой имперских властей в Северо-За- падном крае. 14 J. Klier. Imperial Russia’s Jewish question, 1855 – 1881. Cambridge, 1995. Pp. 72-83. 455 Ab Imperio, 2/2007 context which do not marginalize out-of-the-region, yet no-less crucial , historical actors or essentialize the region under study. Miller rightly calls for Russian imperial historians to embark on regional studies not for the sake of studying a particular geographic area, but to instead first choose a theme and work deductively to establish geographical parameters based on their relevance to that theme. Vladimir Bobrovnikov’s “Orientalism in the Literature and Politics of the Northern Caucasus” references Susan Layton’s work on literary elites and the Caucasus, and extends the assumption of a stagnated view of the region beyond Russia’s literary masters. He finds that similar assumptions were held by many individuals, like General A. V. Komarov, who carried out ethnographic research alongside his military duties in the region. Sergei Abashin’s thoroughly-researched and deliberately-argued article on the career of Turkestan orientalist Vladimir Nalivkin is a contribution to the debate on the applicability of Edward Said’s Orientalism to the Central Asian/Russian imperial case.Abashin argues that Nalivkin’s biography is exemplary of the multiple discourses that Russian orientalists of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries were forced to negotiate. His article is a substantive contribution to the main standard-bearers of the debate, Naseveral others are his colleagues in Omsk. Some of the essays overstep, in a most encouraging way, the immediate borders of Russia and the former imperial possessions and engage with the many international issues that one must deal with in writing histories of borderlands. Contributions to this collection are done mostly by academics trained and employed in the Russian Federation and Kazakhstan. The responsibility of editing this hefty volume of twenty-four articles was put on the shoulders of Natalia Suvorova, also of Omsk State University. Professor Suvorova deserves a great deal of credit for organizing such a massive study into a coherent fashion, though the volume lacks any sort of introductory or summarizing essay that would have brought clearer focus to the study. Asiatic Russia is divided into four major sections. The first section , titled “In the Search for New Historical Narratives,” is the most theoretical section of the book, and the articles here also make the greatest effort to engage with contemporary North American and Western European historiography on the Russian Empire.Aleksei Miller’s article, “The Russian Empire’s New History,” focuses on the benefits and potential pitfalls of doing regional history. He argues that the best potential for regional studies is when they are approached from a thematic 456 Рецензии/Reviews thaniel Knight and Adeeb Khalid, and engages with the argument in a way that does not fall into the trap of oversimplifying it as a question of either/or. Abashin finds that the application of Said’s classification of orientalists in the Russian case is in part justified, but Nalivkin’s turbulent life under a crumbling empire and an ascending ideological movement defies simple pigeonholing. The second section is titled “Imperial Institutions of Power: The Asian Context.” In this...