From people harvesting tea in Georgia, to railway construction in the northern city of Murmansk, this first round of posts highlights the ethnic and geographic diversity of Imperial Russia at a time when the world seemed both very traditional and in flux. This first edition of our course digest includes an abundance of featured content, touching on everything from sword making, bridge construction and industrialization to the changing fortunes of peasant women in central Russia and modern day Turkmenistan.
The semester’s first student’s choice award goes to a marvelous discussion of the lived experiences and imagined futures of a peasant girl holding a bowl of strawberries. Please enjoy these posts and the whole weekly edition. We’ll be back with news about the life after the 1917 revolutions in a few weeks!
