Imperial Boundaries (New Studies in European History)
Cambridge University Press, 10/1/2009
EAN 9780521514637, ISBN10: 0521514630
Hardcover, 270 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 1.9 cm
Language: English
Imperial Boundaries is a study of imperial expansion and local transformation on Russia's Don Steppe frontier during the age of Peter the Great. Brian Boeck connects the rivalry of the Russian and Ottoman empires in the northern Black Sea basin to the social history of the Don Cossacks, who were transformed from an open, democratic, multiethnic, male fraternity dedicated to frontier raiding into a closed, ethnic community devoted to defending and advancing the boundaries of the Russian state. He shows how by promoting border patrol, migration control, bureaucratic regulation of cross-border contacts and deportation of dissidents, Peter I destroyed the world of the old steppe and created a new imperial Cossack order in its place. In examining this transformation, Imperial Boundaries addresses key historical issues of imperial expansion, the delegitimization of non-state violence, the construction of borders, and the encroaching boundaries of state authority in the lives of local communities.
Introduction
1. Beyond borders, between worlds
Russian Empire and the making of the Don Steppe Frontier
2. People and power on the frontier
liberty, diversity, and de-centralization in the Don region to 1700
3. A middle ground between autonomy and dependence
the raiding economy of the Don Steppe Frontier to 1700
4. Boundaries of integration or exclusion? Migration, mobility, and state sovereignty on the southern Frontier to 1700
5. Testing the boundaries of imperial alliance
co-operation, negotiation and resistance in the era of Razin (1667–81)
6. Between Rus' and Rossiia
realigning the boundaries of Cossack communities in a time of migration and transition (1681–95)
7. The era of Raskol
religion and rebellion (1681–95)
8. Incorporation without integration
the Azov Interlude (1695–1711)
9. From frontier to borderland
the demarcation of the Steppe and the delegitimation of raiding (1696–1710)
10. Boundaries of land, liberty, and identity
making the Don region legible to imperial officials (1696–1706)
11. The Bulavin uprising
the last stand of the old Steppe (1706–9)
12. Reshaping the Don in the imperial image
power, privilege, and patronage in the post-Bulavin era (1708–39)
13. Closing the Cossack community
recording and policing the boundaries of group identity (1708–39)
14. A borderline state of mind
the closing of the Don Steppe frontier (1708–39)
Afterword.