Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union (Culture and Society After Socialism)

When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, they set themselves the task of building socialism in the vast landscape of the former Russian Empire, a territory populated by hundreds of different peoples belonging to a multitude of linguistic, religious, and ethnic groups. Before 1917, the Bolsheviks had called for the national self-determination of all peoples and had condemned all forms of colonization as exploitative. After attaining power, however, they began to express concern that it would not be possible for Soviet Russia to survive without the cotton of Turkestan and the oil of the Caucasus. In an effort to reconcile their anti-imperialist position with their desire to hold on to as much territory as possible, the Bolsheviks integrated the national idea into the administrative-territorial structure of the new Soviet state. In Empire of Nation s, Francine Hirsch examines the ways in which former imperial ethnographers and local elites provided the Bolsheviks with ethnographic knowledge that shaped the very formation of the new Soviet Union. The ethnographers―who drew inspiration from the Western European colonial context―produced all-union censuses, assisted government commissions charged with delimiting the USSR's internal borders, led expeditions to study "the human being as a productive force," and created ethnographic exhibits about the "Peoples of the USSR." In the 1930s, they would lead the Soviet campaign against Nazi race theories . Hirsch illuminates the pervasive tension between the colonial-economic and ethnographic definitions of Soviet territory; this tension informed Soviet social, economic, and administrative structures. A major contribution to the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, Empire of Nations also offers new insights into the connection between ethnography and empire. Francis Hirsch Examines The Ways In Which Former Imperial Ethnographers And Local Elites Provided The Bolsheviks With Ethnographic Knowledge That Shaped The Very Formation Of The Soviet Union. Empire, Nation, And The Scientific State -- Toward A Revolutionary Alliance -- The National Idea Versus Economic Expediency -- Cultural Technologies Of Rule And The Nature Of Soviet Power -- The 1926 Census And The Conceptual Conquest Of Lands And Peoples -- Border-making And The Formation Of Soviet National Identities -- Transforming The Peoples Of The Ussr : Ethnographic Exhibits And The Evolutionary Timeline -- The Nazi Threat And The Acceleration Of The Bolshevik Revolution -- State-sponsored Evolutionism And The Struggle Against German Biological Determinism -- Ethnographic Knowledge And Terror. Francine Hirsch. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 337-354) And Index. Contents 8 List of Figures and Maps 10 Acknowledgments 12 Note on Transliteration and Dates 16 Terms and Abbreviations 18 Introduction 22 Part One. Empire, Nation, and the Scientific State 40 1. Toward a Revolutionary Alliance 42 2. The National Idea versus Economic Expediency 83 Part Two. Cultural Technologies of Rule and the Nature of Soviet Power 120 3. The 1926 Census and the Conceptual Conquest of Lands and Peoples 122 4. Border-Making and the Formation of Soviet National Identities 166 5. Transforming “The Peoples of the USSR”: Ethnographic Exhibits and the Evolutionary Timeline 208 Part Three. The Nazi Threat and the Acceleration of the Bolshevik Revolution 250 6. State-Sponsored Evolutionism and the Struggle against German Biological Determinism 252 7. Ethnographic Knowledge and Terror 294 Epilogue 330 Appendixes 348 Bibliography 358 Index 376 1991 was a year of phenomenal events-bearing witness to the collapse and dissolution of the Soviet Union and the official end of the Cold War.