Russia's People of Empire Life Stories from Eurasia, 1500 to the Present [Paperback]

A fundamental dimension of the Russian historical experience has been the diversity of its people and cultures, religions and languages, landscapes and economies. For six centuries this diversity was contained within the sprawling territories of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and it persists today in the entwined states and societies of the former USSR. Russia's People of Empire explores this enduring multicultural world through life stories of 31 individualsfamous and obscure, high born and low, men and womenthat illuminate the cross-cultural exchanges at work from the late 1500s to post-Soviet Russia. Working on the scale of a single life, these microhistories shed new light on the multicultural character of the Russian Empire, which both shaped individuals' lives and in turn was shaped by them.

[S]tudents of Russian empire would be well served with this work, given its snapshots of diverse imperial milieus and their attendant multicultural dialogues at the personal level. . . . this text will be a welcome tool for undergraduate use, especially for a survey course, since it spans Russian history even up to the twenty-first century.This compilation of examples that spans 500 years of history and includes both the famous and the lesser known gives readers a more in-depth, personal understanding of how the inescapable existence of diversity in Russia and the Soviet Union related to everyday life . . . Highly recommended.

Acknowledgments
Chronology
Maps
Introduction by Stephen M. Norris and Willard Sunderland
1. Ermak, 1530s/40s-1585 Willard Sunderland
2. Simeon Bekbulatovich, ?-1616 Donald Ostrowski
3. Timofei Ankudinov, 1609-1653 Maureen Perrie
4. Gavril Romanov Nikitin, -1698 Erika Monahan
5. Boris Kurakin, 1676-1727 Ernest Zitser
6. Mikhail Lomonosov, 1711-1765 Michael Gordin
7. Catherine the Great, 1729-1796 Hilde Hoogenboom
8. Petr Bagration 1765-1812 Sean Pollock
9. Johannes Ambrosius lSR