How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself

How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself PDF Author: Emily D. Johnson
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271030372
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
In the bookshops of present-day St. Petersburg, guidebooks abound. Both modern descriptions of Russia’s old imperial capital and lavish new editions of pre-Revolutionary texts sell well, primarily attracting an audience of local residents. Why do Russians read one- and two-hundred-year-old guidebooks to a city they already know well? In How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself, Emily Johnson traces the Russian fascination with local guides to the idea of kraevedenie. Kraevedenie (local studies) is a disciplinary tradition that in Russia dates back to the early twentieth century. Practitioners of kraevedenie investigate local areas, study the ways human society and the environment affect each other, and decipher the semiotics of space. They deconstruct urban myths, analyze the conventions governing the depiction of specific regions and towns in works of art and literature, and dissect both outsider and insider perceptions of local population groups. Practitioners of kraevedenie helped develop and popularize the Russian guidebook as a literary form. Johnson traces the history of kraevedenie, showing how St. Petersburg–based scholars and institutions have played a central role in the evolution of the discipline. Distinguished from obvious Western equivalents such as cultural geography and the German Heimatkunde by both its dramatic history and unique social significance, kraevedenie has, for close to a hundred years, served as a key forum for expressing concepts of regional and national identity within Russian culture. How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself is published in collaboration with the Harriman Institute at Columbia University as part of its Studies of the Harriman Institute series.

How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself

How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself PDF Author: Emily D. Johnson
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 0271030372
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 322

Get Book Here

Book Description
In the bookshops of present-day St. Petersburg, guidebooks abound. Both modern descriptions of Russia’s old imperial capital and lavish new editions of pre-Revolutionary texts sell well, primarily attracting an audience of local residents. Why do Russians read one- and two-hundred-year-old guidebooks to a city they already know well? In How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself, Emily Johnson traces the Russian fascination with local guides to the idea of kraevedenie. Kraevedenie (local studies) is a disciplinary tradition that in Russia dates back to the early twentieth century. Practitioners of kraevedenie investigate local areas, study the ways human society and the environment affect each other, and decipher the semiotics of space. They deconstruct urban myths, analyze the conventions governing the depiction of specific regions and towns in works of art and literature, and dissect both outsider and insider perceptions of local population groups. Practitioners of kraevedenie helped develop and popularize the Russian guidebook as a literary form. Johnson traces the history of kraevedenie, showing how St. Petersburg–based scholars and institutions have played a central role in the evolution of the discipline. Distinguished from obvious Western equivalents such as cultural geography and the German Heimatkunde by both its dramatic history and unique social significance, kraevedenie has, for close to a hundred years, served as a key forum for expressing concepts of regional and national identity within Russian culture. How St. Petersburg Learned to Study Itself is published in collaboration with the Harriman Institute at Columbia University as part of its Studies of the Harriman Institute series.

The Siege of Petersburg

The Siege of Petersburg PDF Author: John Horn
Publisher: Savas Beatie
ISBN: 1611212170
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 384

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Book Description
A revised and expanded tactical study General Grant’s Fourth Offensive during the American Civil War. The nine-month siege of Petersburg was the longest continuous operation of the American Civil War. A series of large-scale Union “offensives,” grand maneuvers that triggered some of the fiercest battles of the war, broke the monotony of static trench warfare. Grant’s Fourth Offensive, August 14–25, the longest and bloodiest operation of the campaign, is the subject of John Horn’s revised and updated Sesquicentennial edition of The Siege of Petersburg: The Battles for the Weldon Railroad, August 1864. Frustrated by his inability to break through the Southern front, General Grant devised a two-punch combination strategy to sever the crucial Weldon Railroad and stretch General Lee’s lines. The plan called for Winfield Hancock’s II Corps (with X Corps) to move against Deep Bottom north of the James River to occupy Confederate attention while Warren’s V Corps, supported by elements of IX Corps, marched south and west below Petersburg toward Globe Tavern on the Weldon Railroad. The move triggered the battles of Second Deep Bottom, Globe Tavern, and Second Reams Station, bitter fighting that witnessed fierce Confederate counterattacks and additional Union operations against the railroad before Grant’s troops dug in and secured their hold on Globe Tavern. The result was nearly 15,000 killed, wounded, and missing, the severing of the railroad, and the jump-off point for what would be Grant’s Fifth Offensive in late September. Revised and updated for this special edition, Horn’s outstanding tactical battle study emphasizes the context and consequences of every action and is supported by numerous maps and grounded in hundreds of primary sources. Unlike many battle accounts, Horn puts Grant’s Fourth Offensive into its proper perspective not only in the context of the Petersburg Campaign and the war, but in the context of the history of warfare. “A superior piece of Civil War scholarship.” —Edwin C. Bearss, former Chief Historian of the National Park Service and award-winning author of The Petersburg Campaign: Volume 1, The Eastern Front Battles and Volume 2, The Western Front Battles “It’s great to have John Horn’s fine study of August 1864 combat actions (Richmond-Petersburg style) back in print; covering actions on both sides of the James River, with sections on Deep Bottom, Globe Tavern, and Reams Station. Utilizing manuscript and published sources, Horn untangles a complicated tale of plans gone awry and soldiers unexpectedly thrust into harm’s way. This new edition upgrades the maps and adds some fresh material. Good battle detail, solid analysis, and strong characterizations make this a welcome addition to the Petersburg bookshelf.” —Noah Andre Trudeau, author of The Last Citadel: Petersburg, June 1864–April 1865

Petersburg

Petersburg PDF Author: Николай Алексеевич Некрасов
Publisher: Northwestern University Press
ISBN: 0810125730
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 426

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Book Description
This collection of short works forms a documentary of life in the mid-nineteenth-century metropolis.

The Truth of the Russian Revolution

The Truth of the Russian Revolution PDF Author: Konstantin Ivanovich Globachev
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438464649
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 366

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Book Description
Bronze Medalist, 2018 Independent Publisher Book Awards in the World History Category Gold Winner, 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards in the History category Major General Konstantin Ivanovich Globachev was chief of the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police, in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in the two years preceding the 1917 Russian Revolution. This book presents his memoirs—translated in English for the first time—interposed with those of his wife, Sofia Nikolaevna Globacheva. The general's writings, which he titled The Truth of the Russian Revolution, provide a front-row view of Tsar Nicholas II's final years, the revolution, and its tumultuous aftermath. Globachev describes the political intrigue and corruption in the capital and details his office's surveillance over radical activists and the mysterious Rasputin. His wife takes a more personal approach, depicting her tenacity in the struggle to keep her family intact and the family's flight to freedom. Her descriptions vividly portray the privileges and relationships of the noble class that collapsed with the empire. Translator Vladimir G. Marinich includes biographical information, illustrations, a glossary, and a timeline to contextualize this valuable primary source on a key period in Russian history.

A Jewish Woman of Distinction

A Jewish Woman of Distinction PDF Author: ChaeRan Y. Freeze
Publisher: Brandeis University Press
ISBN: 1684580013
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
Zinaida Poliakova (1863–1953) was the eldest daughter of Lazar Solomonovich Poliakov, one of the three brothers known as the Russian Rothschilds. They were moguls who dominated Russian finance and business and built almost a quarter of the railroad lines in Imperial Russia. For more than seventy-five years, Poliakova kept detailed diaries of her world, giving us a rare look into the exclusive world of Jewish elites in Moscow and St. Petersburg. These rare documents reveal how Jews successfully integrated into Russian aristocratic society through their intimate friendships and patronage of the arts and philanthropy. And they did it all without converting—in fact, while staunchly demonstrating their Jewishness. Poliakova’s life was marked by her dual identity as a Russian and a Jew. She cultivated aristocratic sensibilities and lived an extraordinarily lifestyle, and yet she was limited by the confessional laws of the empire and religious laws that governed her household. She brought her Russian tastes, habits, and sociability to France following her marriage to Reuben Gubbay (the grandson of Sir Albert Abdullah Sassoon). And she had to face the loss of almost all her family members and friends during the Holocaust. Women’s voices are often lost in the sweep of history, and so A Jewish Women of Distinction is an exceptional, much-needed collection. These newly discovered primary sources will change the way we understand the full breadth of the Russian Jewish experience.

St Petersburg Dialogues

St Petersburg Dialogues PDF Author: Joseph de Maistre
Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP
ISBN: 0773563806
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 444

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Book Description
Written and set on the banks of the Neva, St Petersburg Dialogues is a startlingly relevant analysis of the human prospect in the twenty-first century. As the literary critic George Steiner has remarked, "the age of the Gulag and of Auschwitz, of famine and ubiquitous torture ... nuclear threat, the ecological laying waste of our planet, the leap of endemic, possibly pandemic, illness out of the very matrix of libertarian progress" is exactly what Joseph de Maistre foretold. In the Dialogues Maistre addressed a number of topics that are discussed briefly or not at all in his other works already available in English. These include an apologetic for traditional Christian beliefs about providence, reflections on the social role of the public executioner and the "divinity" of war, a critique of John Locke's sensationalist psychology, meditations on prayer and sacrifice, and a mini-course on "illuminism." The literary form is that of the "philosophical conversation" – one that allowed Maistre to be deliberately provocative and to indulge his taste for paradox, a "methodical extravagance" that he judged particularly appropriate for the eighteenth-century salon. Translator and editor Richard Lebrun provides a full scholarly edition of this classic work, complete with an introduction, chronology, critical bibliography, and generous explanatory notes. The Dialogues will be of interest to scholars of literary history as well as the history of ideas.

Critical Thinking Using Primary Sources in World History

Critical Thinking Using Primary Sources in World History PDF Author: Wendy S. Wilson
Publisher: Walch Publishing
ISBN: 9780825150098
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
Develops critical-thinking and writing skills Prepares students for document-based assessment Includes options for mock trials and debates

The State of Russia, Under the Present Czar

The State of Russia, Under the Present Czar PDF Author: John Perry
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description


The Library of Original Sources

The Library of Original Sources PDF Author: Oliver Joseph Thatcher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Encyclopedias and dictionaries
Languages : en
Pages : 488

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Book Description


The Memoirs of Catherine the Great

The Memoirs of Catherine the Great PDF Author: Catherine the Great
Publisher: Modern Library
ISBN: 0307432432
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
Empress Catherine II brought Europe to Russia, and Russia to Europe, during her long and eventful reign (1762—96). She fostered the culture of the Enlightenment and greatly expanded the immense empire created by Czar Ivan the Terrible, shifting the balance of power in Europe eastward. Famous for her will to power and for her dozen lovers, Catherine was also a prolific and gifted writer. Fluent in French, Russian, and German, Catherine published political theory, journalism, comedies, operas, and history, while writing thousands of letters as she corresponded with Voltaire and other public figures. The Memoirs of Catherine the Great provides an unparalleled window into eighteenth-century Russia and the mind of an absolute ruler. With insight, humor, and candor, Catherine presents her eyewitness account of history, from her whirlwind entry into the Russian court in 1744 at age fourteen as the intended bride of Empress Elizabeth I’s nephew, the eccentric drunkard and future Peter III, to her unhappy marriage; from her two children, several miscarriages, and her and Peter’s numerous affairs to the political maneuvering that enabled Catherine to seize the throne from him in 1762. Catherine’s eye for telling details makes for compelling reading as she describes the dramatic fall and rise of her political fortunes. This definitive new translation from the French is scrupulously faithful to her words and is the first for which translators have consulted original manuscripts written in Catherine’s own hand. It is an indispensable work for anyone interested in Catherine the Great, Russian history, or the eighteenth century.