Information and Empire: Mechanisms of Communication in Russia, 1600-1854 - cover image

Copyright

Simon Franklin; Katherine Bowers; Copyright of each chapter is maintained by the author.

Published On

2017-11-27

ISBN

Paperback978-1-78374-373-5
Hardback978-1-78374-374-2
PDF978-1-78374-375-9
HTML978-1-80064-541-7
XML978-1-78374-452-7
EPUB978-1-78374-376-6
MOBI978-1-78374-377-3

Language

  • English

Print Length

440 pages (vi + 436)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 23 x 234 mm(6.14" x 0.9" x 9.21")
Hardback156 x 25 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback1365g (48.15oz)
Hardback1757g (61.98oz)

Media

Illustrations48
Tables2

OCLC Number

1167489297

LCCN

2017433308

BIC

  • HBTB
  • JFC

BISAC

  • HIS032000

LCC

  • P92.R8
  • I54

Keywords

  • Russian Empire
  • communication
  • information
  • postal service
  • news circulation
  • maps and atlases
  • signs and monuments
  • history of communication
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Information and Empire

Mechanisms of Communication in Russia, 1600-1854

From the mid-sixteenth to the mid-nineteenth century Russia was transformed from a moderate-sized, land-locked principality into the largest empire on earth. How did systems of information and communication shape and reflect this extraordinary change?

Information and Mechanisms of Communication in Russia, 1600-1850 brings together a range of contributions to shed some light on this complex question. Communication networks such as the postal service and the gathering and circulation of news are examined alongside the growth of a bureaucratic apparatus that informed the government about its country and its people. The inscription of space is considered from the point of view of mapping and the changing public ‘graphosphere’ of signs and monuments. More than a series of institutional histories, this book is concerned with the way Russia discovered itself, envisioned itself and represented itself to its people.

Innovative and scholarly, this collection breaks new ground in its approach to communication and information as a field of study in Russia. More broadly, it is an accessible contribution to pre-modern information studies, taking as its basis a country whose history often serves to challenge habitual Western models of development. It is important reading not only for specialists in Russian Studies, but also for students and non-Russianists who are interested in the history of information and communications.

Reviews

A short review cannot do justice to the many felicitous discoveries that can be made in this volume.[..] I think the most interesting memory the volume will leave with its readers is of how seventeenth-century Russia operated as a society. We may vaguely imagine that before Peter the Great all was backwardness, chaos, inefficiency and sloth. Here we see, by contrast, a rather well-organized realm, able to meet big challenges; even its famously numerous chanceries did not function badly. This is an unusual work, often demanding but we can be grateful to Open Book Publishers for it.

Prof. Robin Milner-Gulland

"Book Review: Simon Franklin and Katherine Bowers (eds): Information and Empire: Mechanisms of Communication in Russia 1600–1850". Journal of European Studies (1740-2379), vol. 48, no. 2, 2018. doi:10.1177/0047244118773894i

Full Review

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Notes on Contributors

Introduction by Simon Franklin

I. MAP-MAKING

1. Early Mapping: The Tsardom in Manuscript by Valerie Kivelson

2. New Technology and the Mapping of Empire: The Adoption of the Astrolabe by Aleksei Golubinskii

II. INTERNATIONAL NEWS AND POST

3. Muscovy and the European Information Revolution: Creating the Mechanisms for Obtaining Foreign News by Daniel C. Waugh and Ingrid Maier

4. How Was Western Europe Informed about Muscovy? The Razin Rebellion in Focus by Ingrid Maier

III. NEWS AND POST IN RUSSIA

5. Communication and Obligation: The Postal System of the Russian Empire, 1700–1850 by John Randolph

6. Information and Efficiency: Russian Newspapers, ca.1700–1850 by Alison K. Smith

7. What Was News and How Was It Communicated in Pre-Modern Russia? by Daniel C. Waugh

IV. INSTITUTIONAL KNOWLEDGE AND COMMUNICATION

8. Bureaucracy and Knowledge Creation: The Apothecary Chancery by Clare Griffin

9. What Could the Empress Know About Her Money? Russian Poll Tax Revenues in the Eighteenth Century by Elena Korchmina

10. Communication and Official Enlightenment: The Journal of the Ministry of Public Education, 1834–1855 by Ekaterina Basargina

V. INFORMATION AND PUBLIC DISPLAY

11. Information in Plain Sight: The Formation of the Public Graphosphere by Simon Franklin

12. Experiencing Information: An Early Nineteenth-Century Stroll Along Nevskii Prospekt by Katherine Bowers

Selected Further Reading

List of Figures

Index


Contributors

Simon Franklin

(editor)
Professor of Slavonic Studies at University of Cambridge
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0514-7314

Katherine Bowers

(editor)
Assistant Professor of Slavic Studies at University of British Columbia