Best Historical Research of 2022: Ab Imperio and KRES Poliskola finalize the competition and award the winners
KRES Poliskola is pleased to present to your attention the results of the VI Annual Ab Imperio competition for the best research on new imperial history of Northern Eurasia, diversity and nationalism in the post-Soviet space until the end of the 20th century.
A lot of extremely interesting works were submitted for the competition, among which the International Contest Committee comprised of the Ab Imperio’s editorial board and editors selected the following:
1) Best book:
Andrii Portnov, Dnipro: An Entangled History of a European City. Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2022. ISBN: 9798887190310 (hardback) / 9798887191027 (paperback)
Andriy Portnov is the only professor of Ukrainian studies in Viadrina (Frankfurt an der Oder, Germany). Mr. Portnov spent ten years writing this book, which was supposed to be published in Moscow, but everything changed after the war started. This work is an attempt to write Ukrainian history not within the narrow Ukrainian framework, but actively inscribing it into the common historical context.
Special mention:
Claire P. Kaiser, Georgian and Soviet: Entitled Nationhood and the Specter of Stalin in the Caucasus. Cornell University Press, 2022.
Ms. Kaiser draws a new model of Sovietness more clearly: for example, instead of a “titular nation”, she uses the concept of “entitled nation”, since in Soviet reality it was a system of privileges and varying degrees of citizenship. That is why the cult of Stalin in late-Soviet Georgia is a consequence of upholding their privileged position, which de-Stalinization deprived them of. At the end, the author proposes the formula “nationalization through …” However, you can find out about this by reading this book
2) Best article in a peer-reviewed academic journal or chapter in a scholarly collection:
Edyta M. Bojanowska “Was Tolstoi a Colonial Landlord? The Dilemmas of Private Property and Settler Colonialism on the Bashkir Steppe”. Slavic Review, published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 October 2022
Ms. Bojanowska is a literary critic, but she did something that historians did not do at all before her, or did not study in such detail: in the local archives, Ms. Bojanowska studied bills of sale, receipts, legal documents and wrote an article on how to read Tolstoy, and even moreover, to what extent did the Russian Empire practice genocidal “settler colonialism” in the context of US and Australian policies. This article is only the beginning of an important conversation, but the target level is very high.
Special mention:
Robert Kindler, “American Russia: Fur Seals, Empire, and Conflict in the Northern Pacific after 1867″. Ab Imperio 1/2022.
After this article, many learned for the first time that, for example, after the sale of Alaska and some islands, as well as the departure of the Russian-American Company, it turned out that the real administration in the Russian Pacific Islands was carried out by an American company (of which Kohl’s is today the heirs), although nominally this was under Russian jurisdiction…
3) Best dissertation chapter:
Roy Bar Sadeh, “Recasting Minority: Islamic Modernists between South Asia, the Middle East, and the World, 1856-1947″.
Thesis written at Columbia University by an Israeli graduate student whose family is from Iranian Azerbaijan, who knows Georgian, Aramaic, Tatar, Russian, Urdu and Arabic. Undoubtedly, both the cultural background and the knowledge of languages helped Mr. Bar Sadeh to begin in detail the study of how various actors dealt with the population around Mecca and Medina during the interwar period. The composition of the population, religion, lifestyle and political views – all this one way or another influenced the perception by the local population of both the Soviet ideology and other views brought from the other side of the world.
Special mention:
Anastasiia Strakhova, “Selective Emigration: Border Control and the Jewish Escape in Late Imperial Russia, 1881-1914”.
This round of competition is over! The call for nominations for the 2023 publication awards will be announced in the fall.
For the announcements of the 2023 competition, please follow the website of the AB Imperio magazine and subscribe to the news of our KRES Poliskola.
Good luck!
