Kshesinskaia's Mansion: High Culture and the Politics of Modernity In Revolutionary Russia
Krista Sigler uc.academia.edu
Kshesinskaia's Mansion: High Culture and the Politics of Modernity In Revolutionary Russia
This review essay focuses on the new monograph by S. A. Smith Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928 (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017). As a leading expert in the social history of the Russian Revolution of 1917, Smith provides a comprehensive political, social, and cultural narrative of one of the central events in the global history of the twentieth century. Directed at a general readership, the book offers an excellent overview of existing Russian and Western scholarship, outlines the main course of events, introduces most important actors, and contains thought-provoking conclusions about the revolution. As seen from the title, Smith takes a longish view on the political rupture and includes a comprehensive analysis of social and political life of the Russian Empire, a brief overview of the First Russian Revolution (1905–1907) and the economic and political crisis of the First World War (1914–1918) before discussing the Russian Revolution of 1917, the Russian Civil War, and the period of the New Economic Policy (NEP). The book’s conclusion is a comprehensive essay attempting to comprehend the revolution and its consequences as a whole. As a nuanced social, political, and cultural history, Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928 outlines the Revolution of 1917 as a tectonic shift which cannot be reduced to a simple change of the elites in the Russian imperial formation. Smith’s brilliant work will be invaluable for the students of history, both in Russia and abroad, and all those who are interested in global history in general and the Russian Revolution in particular.

The rich historiography of the revolution has tended to focus around urban and political elites, labour history and events in Petrograd and to a lesser extent Moscow. The collapse of the Soviet Union opened previously inaccessible archives and shifted the ideological battlegrounds ranged over by scholars of the Russian revolution. New archivally based research is shifting its focus away from the capitals and political elites, and draws together social and political approaches to the revolution. By investigating revolutionary events outside the capitals, and lived experiences of revolution for Russia's ordinary people, most of whom were rural, not urban dwellers, current research draws a complex and multifaceted picture of revolutionary events. Explanations for the failure of democratic politics in Russia can now be found not only in the ineptitudes of Nicholas II, the failings of Kerensky, or the machinations of Lenin and his cohort. Instead, ordinary people, outside the capitals and in the countryside, defined and determined revolutionary events.

This paper is based on the New Historical reading to Alice Murno‘s narrative, Too Much Happiness. It‘s a historical short story, based on the life of Sofia Kovalevskaya (January 15, 1850 - February 10, 1891). Being true to history, the narrative has managed to represent the Franco- Prussian war, political changes in Russia and its traditions. It portrays a cultural change, revealing the industrious nature of the Germans, information that relates to the French Commune. It further documents and provides parallel comparisons from the period of Sophia, proving the authenticity of the information presented therein. For, through the narrated event the reader tends to relive the historical period projected and at the same time understands the social, political and economic factors that influenced an individual contributing to his fears, anxieties and happiness. Thus, the literature functions as a workshop for the reader as it offers a realistic experience of life, transporting them into the narrative and giving an understanding of the age, politics, life of people, and the difficulties they had experienced at different stages in their lives, their relationships, divisions, segregation and the discrimination that existed in their society. Key: New Historicism, T