1. State and the Society on the Russian Frontier

2. What was Russian Imperialism?
Contiguous Land Empire and Expansion: Incorporation of ethnic, religious, national difference
Autocracy as native ‘Russian’ government, the expression of the narod; Tsar as ‘Russian’
Method/goal: unite Empire through National Principle
Cultural Russification (Russia and borderlands): Language (Use of Russian as official language); Orthodox Church (religious education; church-building; conversion; canonizations); Reverence for past, culture, traditions of Russia (history, schooling, monuments, celebrations)

3. Russian Imperialism in Asia

4. Russia and the Caucasus
Russia and the Caucasus Russo-Persian War ( ) culminates in Treaty of Gulistan. Along with Treaty of Turkmenchai in 1828, it cedes Persian control of South Caucasus and Dagestan to Russia
– long running ‘Caucasian Wars’. Russia gradually conquers North Caucasus, but only after prolonged fighting
Led to mass expulsions, for e.g. of the Circassian population who were deemed an Ottoman ‘third column’

5. Russia and Central Asia
Russians increasingly trying to gain sphere of influence in Central Asia by subjugating the Khanates of Khiva, Khokand and Emirate of Bukhara in nineteenth century (very roughly, this is the area that is now Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan)
Wished to create their own ‘India’ like the British
1865: against orders of Tsar, General Cherniaev launched attack on, and conquered, Tashkent, in the Khanate of Kokand
1867: Governor-Generalship of Turkestan created, with capital in Tashkent
Colonization leads to the mass movement (encouraged by the Russian state) of millions of Slavic, Orthodox Christian settlers in Central Asia between 1880 and 1917 (pereselenie).
1916: Basmachi revolt: revolt of Central Asians against Russian colonizers and imperial rule

6. Russia and the far East
Priamur Region (today, the strip above the Russia-China border) – previously agreed as part of Qing empire in 1689 Treaty of Nerchinsk
C19- Russians increasingly push against this treaty – Governor General of Far East region, Muraviev, stations troops in Amur in defiance of Nerchinsk
China weakened by the Second Opium War; Muraviev seized opportunity and insisted on Treaty of Aigun of 1858, taking all land north of the Amur river for Russia
Treaty allowed for extensive trade across the Amur border
From late C19-early C20 Russians also push into Mongolia and Manchuria, with the building of the Chinese Eastern Railway (linking Chita with Khabarovsk across Manchuria)

7. Trans-Siberian and Chinese Eastern Railways
Sergei Witte: Minister of Finance and Minister for Transport from
Saw railways as keys to Russia’s modernization – and Trans-Siberian was most important
Trans-Siberian inaugurated in 1891 and building (conducted by soldiers and prisoners from Sakhalin) took until 1916

8. Initially, the railway had to confront Lake Baikal; a ferry system took the train across the lake but it was slow and arduous. Solved by the (slow) building of the Circum-Baikal railway The next ‘problem was getting around Northern China; one option was to cut across to Vladivostok, but that would require building through Manchuria The Russian state received concession from China to build the railway, with the ‘Chinese Eastern Railway Zone’ administered from the Chinese city of Harbin

9. Russo-Japanese War
The building of the Chinese Eastern Railway became a major ‘causus belli’ for the Russia Japanese War
The Japanese were worried about Russian influence in what they saw as their traditional sphere of influential, i.e. Manchuria
Also resented Russian meddling in Korea, then a Japanese colony

10. Port Arthur 8-9 February 1904

11. Manchuria Under Occupation 1904-1905
Russian soldiers occupy Manchuria while engaged in land skirmishes with the Japanese during the Russo- Japanese War
Cossacks including Ungern occupied Manchuria during the War

12. Meanwhile in St Petersburg
Assassination of Minister of Interior, von Plehve: July 1904
Banquet Movement and Anti-War Protests: Autumn 1904
Bloody Sunday: January 1905; Assassination of the Grand Duke Sergei Aleksandrovich: February 1905
Culminates in the October Manifesto of 17 October 1905 – grants a State Duma elected by universal male suffrage
Unrest in the countryside continues in to 1906 and even 1907

13. Battle of Tsushima
1904 and 1905 saw many land battles, especially in Manchuria (the Battle of Mukden of February 1905, for eg, involved over half a million men fighting)
However, it was the naval battles that were decisive
Most famous (and disastrous for the Russians) was the Battle of Tsushima
Baltic Fleet: sailed all the way from Kronshtadt around Africa (Britain refused to allow them to use Suez Canal), through south Pacific, up towards Vladivostok
Tried to sail between Korea and Japan unnoticed but was seen and blocked in the Tsushima straits by Japanese Navy
Resulted in the complete destruction of the fleet, and the end of the War: Russia sued for peace.

14. Treaty of Portsmouth Signed September 5 1905 in Portsmouth, USA
Terms: immediate end to the war, Japanese control of Korea recognised, Russians had to remove military from Manchuria, and also end leases on Treaty ports on southern Manchuria.
Japanese control of Sakhalin recognised, but Russians allowed to keep Chinese Eastern Railway in Northern Manchuria and no reparations to be paid by Russians.
Terms viewed as favorable to Russians, in light of the fact that they were the losing party

15. Post-Portsmouth: An Uneasy Peace
Protecting the Chinese Eastern Railway serves as a pretext to keep Russian military presence in the Far East, including in Manchuria and Mongolia
It is in this context that Ungern serves in the Far East in the Trans-Baikal Cossacks and later the Amur and Ussuri Hosts
By the late C19/early C20, Cossacks have lost much of the mythical freedom and essentially serve as farmer-soldiers guarding the imperial frontier, in exchange for official recognition as an ‘estate’ (soslovie) in the Russian empire

16. Stenka Razin (1908) https://youtu.be/yZYDEjLA8hA

17. The Russian Far East

18. The Great Siberian Migration
Resettlement (colonization) of millions of Slavic peasants in Siberia and the Far East between 1885 and 1914.
In 1907 Prime Minister Stolypin created a special Resettlement Commission’ to oversee this process
Fundamentally changed and remade the population of the Far East and permanently altered dynamics between Slavic settlers and native peoples
‘Siberia and the Settlers’ 1892

19. Orientalism/Vostokovedenie
Imperialism in the Far East occurs in the context of increasing fascination of Russian intellectuals with ‘the East’
While some Russians thought that modernity would be achieved through identifying with the West (Westernizers) others thought Russia had its own ‘Slavic soul’ (Slavophiles)
Still other intellectuals and commentators thought Russia should embrace the ‘East’ as its natural home; that Russia was more Asian than European and that this was what defined its special path
Many of the latter were ‘Orientalists’ – people who studied and expressed fascination with the ‘East’
This Orientalism could often manifest in racist tropes about what Asia was, even when its supporters professed to reject the West in favor of the East
We see this tension in Ungern’s ‘Orientalism’ as well…he wants to champion, but also rule over, native peoples of the Far East. The Amur border regime he helps to shore up is both part of a new, explicitly racial colonial order AND an example of more tolerant multinational cohabitation and cooperation