This collection of recent work on historical consciousness and practice in late Imperial Russia provides the foundations for a fundamental reconceptualization of Russian history.

This collection of the best new and recent work on historical consciousness and practice in late Imperial Russia assembles the building blocks for a fundamental reconceptualization of Russian history and history writing.

It is commonly held that a strict divide between literature and history emerged in the 19th century, with the latter evolving into a more serious disciple of rigorous science. Yet, in turning to works of historical writing during late Imperial Russia, Frances Nethercott reveals how this was not so; rather, she argues, fiction, lyric poetry, and sometimes even the lives of artists, consistently and significantly shaped historical enquiry. Grounding its analysis in the works of historians Timofei Granovskii, Vasilii Klyuchevskii, and Ivan Grevs, Writing History in Late Imperial Russia explores how Russian thinkers--being sensitive to the social, cultural, and psychological resonances of creative writing--drew on the literary canon as a valuable resource for understanding the past. The result is a novel and nuanced discussion of the influences of literature on the development of Russian historiography, which shines new light on late Imperial attitudes to historical investigation and considers the legacy of such historical practice on Russia today.

What was the role of historians and historical societies in the public life of imperial Russia? Focusing on the Society of Zealots of Russian Historical Education (1895–1918), Vera Kaplan analyzes the network of voluntary associations that existed in imperial Russia, showing how they interacted with state, public, and private bodies. Unlike most Russian voluntary associations of the late imperial period, the Zealots were conservative in their view of the world. Yet, like other history associations, the group conceived their educational mission broadly, engaging academic and amateur historians, supporting free public libraries, and widely disseminating the historical narrative embraced by the Society through periodicals. The Zealots were champions of voluntary association and admitted members without regard to social status, occupation, or gender. Kaplan's study affirms the existence of a more substantial civil society in late imperial Russia and one that could endorse a modernist program without an oppositional liberal agenda.

What happens when you measure an economy? How does measurement impact policy? In Tsardom of Sufficiency, Empire of Norms David Darrow responds to these broad questions by looking at the application and profound consequences of statistical measurement to the peasant economy in Russia, from the eighteenth century to the Civil War. Nearly all studies of Russia make reference to the land allotment, or "nadel," as a measure of peasant wellbeing. This is the first work examining the origins of the nadel, how statistical measurement converted it into a modern entitlement, and how it framed the state–peasant relationship. Land, Darrow argues, was life – peasants needed it and the state, most everyone believed, had an obligation to provide it. The question, however, was how much land was enough. Statistics supplied the answer but also locked policy-makers and society into a particular way of seeing peasants and their economy. Even the empire's final attempt to reform the peasant economy after 1905 remained locked within the old regime category of the nadel. Statistical measurement strengthened, rather than weakened, the nadel as a category of peasant economic wellbeing such that it persisted beyond 1917 into the early years of Soviet power. Based on archival sources and rural councils' statistical studies, Tsardom of Sufficiency, Empire of Norms shows how the state constructed both an image and a measure of peasant wellbeing from which it could not escape, and how the resultant perception that peasants were entitled to a sufficient allotment became a major obstacle to successful agrarian reform.

A chronological scholarly survey of the history of historical writing in five volumes. Each volume covers a particular period of time, from the beginning of writing to the present day, and from all over the world.

The fifth volume of The Oxford History of Historical Writing offers essays by leading scholars on the writing of history globally since 1945. Divided into two parts, part one selects and surveys theoretical and interdisciplinary approaches to history, and part two examines select national and regional historiographies throughout the world. It aims at once to provide an authoritative survey of the field and to provoke cross-cultural comparisons. This is chronologically the last of five volumes in a series that explores representations of the past across the globe from the beginning of writing to the present day.