Imagining Russian Regions: Subnational Identity and Civil Society in Nineteenth-Century Russia by Susan Smith-Peter (review)

In this study of nineteenth-century rural society, Smith-Peter examines the ways in which provincial elites in Russia tried to carve out a separate identity for themselves, drawing on Western ideas of "civil society," particularly those of Smith and Hegel.¹ The initiatives undertaken ranged from the formation of local societies to bolster trade and development to the establishment of local newspapers and public spaces like museums. The book creates an impression of lively regional subcultures within the empire, many of which have been largely overlooked by the historical literature. Smith-Peter also argues that these subcultures formed the basis for local political engagement—to differing ends—with the tsarist administration during the era of the great reforms, particularly the agrarian reform of the 1850s and 1860s.

Methodologically, this book is a kind of Kulturgeschichte. It relies primarily on primary and secondary texts related to various aspects of provincial politics, economy, and society, especially those for Vladimir province, the main focus of the book's first three chapters (the last two include evidence from Riazan' and Tver' as well). In order to "imagine" subnational identity and the formation of civil society in these provinces, Smith-Peter draws from the writings of provincial elites themselves (the avid consumers of Smith and Hegel), alongside more descriptive nineteenth-century regional histories. She uses them, in conjunction with primary documents and secondary texts related to initiatives from the crown, to indicate the ways in which the provincial nobility attempted to shape their identity vis-à-vis the center in the period leading up to, and immediately following, the abolition of serfdom.

Smith-Peter's approach has its limits. The study is at least implicitly interdisciplinary; intellectual history, political and cultural history, and economic history at the local, regional, and imperial levels are all part of the larger narrative. Yet, a more consistent attempt to link the ideas with realities on the ground might have shed interesting light on the appeal of Smith and Hegel, two highly individual thinkers, for Russians. Moreover, network analysis could have helped to show the extent to which the circles of educated elites overlapped, as well as the paths via which their chosen ideas spread. A deeper discussion of the Russian interpretation of these ideas would also have been helpful for understanding what made them so compelling. Were the proponents of Smith and Hegel aware that the philosophies of these two men were conceived in social circumstances much different from those in Russia? What was it about their particular conceptions of civil society that resonated with provincial elites?

Related to a broader Smithian theme of political economy, an explicitly political-economic framework for thinking about elites' motivations for adopting certain ideas or rhetoric about civil society could help to explain the projects and political stances that elites selected, as well as the apparent contradictions between their words and deeds. It might also help to identify the concrete interests motivating their various political outlooks relative to the center, which have been attributed, in Smith-Peter's approach, mainly to abstract ideas about the role of elites in government and society.

Smith-Peter's book treats an important subject relevant to historians working in a variety of subfields, including intellectual history, political thought, social and economic history, and the history of localities and regions. It does not, however, engage all of these aspects consistently; its natural interdisciplinarity remains undeveloped, in a way bound to frustrate readers of this journal. But the interdisciplinary questions that it raises provide fertile ground for future research.