In this Book
- Russia's People of Empire: Life Stories from Eurasia, 1500 to the Present
- Book
- 2012
- Published by: Indiana University Press

A fundamental dimension of the Russian historical experience has been the diversity of its people and cultures, religions and languages, landscapes and economies. For six centuries this diversity was contained within the sprawling territories of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and it persists today in the entwined states and societies of the former USSR. Russia's People of Empire explores this enduring multicultural world through life stories of 31 individuals—famous and obscure, high born and low, men and women—that illuminate the cross-cultural exchanges at work from the late 1500s to post-Soviet Russia. Working on the scale of a single life, these microhistories shed new light on the multicultural character of the Russian Empire, which both shaped individuals' lives and in turn was shaped by them.
Table of Contents

- Title Page, Copyright
- pp. i-vi
- Acknowledgments
- pp. ix-x
- Chronology of the Russian Empire
- pp. xi-xviii
- 1 Ermak Timofeevich
- pp. 16-25
- 2 Simeon Bekbulatovich
- pp. 26-35
- 3 Timofei Ankudinov
- pp. 36-45
- 4 Gavril Romanovich Nikitin
- pp. 46-57
- 5 Boris Ivanovich Korybut-Kurakin
- pp. 58-69
- 6 Mikhail Lomonosov
- pp. 70-79
- 7 Catherine the Great
- pp. 80-91
- 8 Petr Ivanovich Bagration
- pp. 92-103
- 9Johannes Ambrosius Rosenstrauch
- pp. 104-115
- 10 Imam Shamil
- pp. 116-127
- 11 Zalumma Agra, the “Star of the East”
- pp. 128-137
- 12 Adam Mickiewicz
- pp. 138-147
- 13 Archbishop Innokentii
- pp. 148-157
- 14 Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
- pp. 158-167
- 15 Anton Rubinstein
- pp. 168-177
- 16 Aleksandr Borodin
- pp. 178-187
- 17 Kutlu-Mukhammad Batyr-Gireevich Tevkelev
- pp. 188-197
- 18 Petr Badmaev
- pp. 198-209
- 19 Ekaterina Sabashnikova-Baranovskaia
- pp. 210-219
- 20 Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
- pp. 220-231
- 21 Mathilde Kshesinskaia
- pp. 232-241
- 22Joseph Stalin
- pp. 242-253
- 23Anna Akhmatova
- pp. 254-263
- 24 Aleksandr Germano
- pp. 264-273
- 25 Lazar' Moiseevich Kaganovich
- pp. 274-281
- 26 Dziga Vertov
- pp. 282-295
- 27 Mukhtar Auezov
- pp. 296-307
- 28 Jahon Obidova
- pp. 308-317
- 29 Olzhas Suleimenov
- pp. 318-325
- 30 Boris Akunin
- pp. 326-337
- 31 Vladislav Surkov
- pp. 338-350
- Contributors
- pp. 351-352