Dear Colleagues,
Ab Imperio’s 2022 annual program “The Rise and Fall of the State as an Institution and an Analytical Concept” is aimed at deconstructing totalized ahistorical narrative of the “Russian state” as the main subject of Russian history. The current issue, “The Role of the State in Projects of Social Improvement”, differentiates the state from other forms of political groupness and agency by focusing on social engineering efforts.
“Methodology and Theory” section:
“Disentangling the State, the Empire, and the Nation” by the Editors.
“The Russian Imperial Situation: Before and after the Nation-State” by Ilya Gerasimov.
“History” section:
“‘From the Seeds Sown in the Soil’: The Boxer Rebellion and the Awakening of Russian Missionary Activity in China (1900–1917)” by Anastasiia Akulich.
“Border Control and Early Soviet Statehood: The Case of the Soviet-Finnish Frontier in the 1920s” by Oksana Ermolaeva.
“Stalin's Hidden Eugenic Agenda: Debating and Practicing Eugenic Abortion in the Soviet Union, 1920–1951” by Björn M. Felder.
“Archive” section:
“The Diary of a Border Guard” by Klimentii Fedevich.
“From Ch*v’s Diary, 1940–1944.”
“Newest Mythologies” section:
“Boris Akunin's Political Novel: Russian Musketeers on a Path to the Promised Land” by Elena Baraban.
The issue also contains an extended section of book reviews.