Research and fieldwork highlights
Social network analysis, Russian urban society on the eve of the Bolshevik Revolution. The graph is based on examination of the white-collar stratum of roughly 4,000 employees and professionals in the city of Samara, a booming entre of trade and enterprise on the Volga, in 1916.
The analysis, supplemented with archival and biographical sources, illustrates the highly networked society and public sphere, but one dominated by privileged elite of nobles, merchants, some clergy and meshchane.
The social network analysis image illustrates the most and the least networked organizational sites if we examine individuals co-participating in the initiatives of, or formally employed by, several organizations or civil society groups.
It demonstrates that some of the most networked sites are enlightenment-type public organizations and civic societies, while some of the least networked are Imperial bodies like police authorities.
The least networked ones like police faced the revolutionaries' axe, while the most networked sites are the ones that survived the Bolshevik onslaught. The robust social networks of the enlightened bourgeoisie would shape the educated stratum's resilience, enable adaptation to Bolshevik rule, and secure reincarnation as white-collar stratum of Soviet Russia.
Map with present-day and Imperial borders, illustrating the heterogeneity in the predominance of the largest "bourgeois" stratum of meshchane, based on the 1897 district-level census data. The analysis is based on joint work with Aleksander Libman.
The meshchane, which in my book I conceptualize as the bulk of the bourgeoisie and future middle class, were the largest estate after peasants, yet they have been largely neglected or misrepresented in historiography and political science alike.
Visit to my ancestral village of Tyagloye Ozero with Samara historians Ulyana Kulyanina and Andrey Arefyev.
This is a remote steppe village and I am not surprised that Russian "sects" like my ancestors, the Molokans, found it a safe place to practice their faith and get on with their lives.
Lutheran Church in Samara, restored to its former beauty in the post-communist period. It is a cultural hub for a small, but very active and thriving community of historical Wolgadeutsche.
Monument to soldiers from the village of Tyagloye Ozero who died in WWII. The plaque has quite a few surnames "Lankin" -- there were many Lankins in the village, dating back to the XIX century, and even the mayor of the district when I visited in 2017 was a Lankin.
The Lankins, along with other settlers, have lived in this village since at least the mid-XIX century, and I interviewed a few recently.
This is a personal family illustration of continuities in society in space. Soviet Russia would not become the "quicksand" or the "melting pot" that many observers believed it to be given the shattering and coercive aspects of communist development.
Samara has many beautiful mansions in the art nouveau, also referred to in Russia as moderne, style, built by merchants at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Most are decaying despite their obvious historical significance. This one is an example of a restored monument, which is now the Museum of Moderne (Muzey moderna).
Another restored mansion.
The banks and promenade of the River Volga, City of Samara.
Samara has an active community of historians, professional and amateur. I was invited to speak to the historical society of youth in the city of Toliatti and presented with some mementoes.
Samara has a rich Jewish heritage. Despite the emigration of historically rooted communities in the region during the 1990s, there remains a vibrant Jewish cultural and associational life. During one of my first trips to Samara I visited the synagogue where I received a warm welcome from Samara's Chief Rabbi Moshe Estrin and Mrs Estrin, who took me on a tour of Jewish Samara.
Another restored mansion in central Samara (left). Note the art nouveau detail on the balcony. Many beautiful old buildings are crumbling, however, as the note below concerning a balcony on another building illustrates.
Courtyard, Samara.
Stalin Bunker, Samara city centre. Samara became a substitute capital during WWII and a secret bunker was built for Stalin.
A happy couple who have lived all their lives in their ancestral Tyagloye Ozero village.
A decaying landmark building in the centre of Samara, German Fachwerk architectural style. The sign on the building reads that the authorities take no notice. . .
Many villagers from my paternal ancestral village of Tyagloye Ozero converted to Baptism in the late Imperial and early Soviet period, in the 1920s. Many found the doctrinal aspects of Baptism similar to the native Molokan religious precepts.
The Church in the City of Samara is thriving now despite the closure and persecution of believers during the communist period.
Evangelical Baptist Church sign in Samara. The region has many Baptists.
Main street, village of Tyagloye Ozero, my ancestral village in Samara
Lake Tyagloye