Presents an interdisciplinary collection of essays on the social and cultural life of late imperial Russia. This book describes the struggle of elites to take up a "middle position" between the tsar and people. It analyzes the attempt of educated Russians to forge new identities, and the social, cultural, and regional fragmentation of the times.
In this exploration of the social and cultural landscape of late imperial Russia, the contributors attempt to transcend conventional Eurocentric notions, such as 'middle class' and 'bourgeoisie, ' in order to see the emergent social classes of educated Russia as their members saw them.
"A short review cannot do justice to the importance of this collection of essays ... the work of a rising middle generation and several more senior historians of Russia. Centering on the theme of the interrelationship between social change and the search for new patterns of social identity that could define and perhaps unite emerging 'middling' groups in Russian society in the late Imperial period."
