Introduction: Steppe Building1. Frontier Colonization
The Rus' Land and the Field
The Wild Field and the Tsardom
The Empire and the Steppe2. Enlightened Colonization
Reason's Territory
Reason’s Process3. Bureaucratic Colonization
The Vastness and the Nation
The Bureaucrats and the Settlers4. Reformist Colonization
The System and the Peasants
The Pioneers and the Public5. "Correct Colonization"
Colonizing Capacities and the Russian Element
The Dwindling Prairie and the Growing BorderlandConclusion: Steppe
Building and Steppe DestroyingNote on Archival Sources
Index
Willard Sunderland is Associate Professor of History at the University of Cincinnati.
As Willard Sunderland points out in this pioneering study of the
colonization of the Russian steppe, the 'wild field' in his title,
historians have been largely as prone as Russian rulers to accept
the vision of the eighteenth-century cartographers that the steppes
were an empty space awaiting to be peopled.... Sunderland offers a
fresh perspective from which to appreciate history's multiple
experiences with decolonization.
*Journal of World History*
In this sweeping survey, Sunderland details processes of Russia's
colonization of the steppe that highlight its particularities as
well as place the country within a larger western imperial pattern
of expansion.... He thoughtfully considers the complexity of steppe
expansion, and what it tells us about educated society, the state,
and empire in Russia, as well as fitting this expansion into a
global pattern from the sixteenth to the end of the nineteenth
century.
*Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History*
The 'wild field' was the name given by the early forest-dwelling
Eastern Slavs to the immense grasslands (also known as the steppe)
that stretched north of the Black Sea from the Danube River to the
Ural Mountains.... In this excellent book, Sunderland examines the
expansion of Russia into this area.... Using extensive local and
national archives, the author shows that this colonization changed
over time and established a multifaceted imperialism that involved
empire building, state building, society building, and nation
building. Sunderland makes frequent comparisons to the history of
similar regions such as the North American Great Plains. Highly
recommended.
*Choice*
This book provides an engaging and provocative account of the role
of popular and state initiatives in Russian colonization of the
Black Sea-Caspian steppe from the sixteenth century to the late
nineteenth century.... Taming the Wild Field makes the case for
reasserting the importance of late Muscovite and Imperial Russian
history by placing them within the larger contexts of the history
of Inner Eurasia and the comparative study of empire.
*Russian Review*
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