Imagined Geographies II: Prostranstvo: The Vision of Space in Russian Culture

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Brief Description

Geographical space has played a central, if often obscure role in framing how Russians conceive of their country and articulate their own identities.  This sustained negotiation of space—the inclination to valorize it and imbue it with a meaning of some sort for national life—can be followed literally through centuries and across a broad range of sources, from works of high culture such as art or literature, to scholarly studies in the human and natural sciences,  political discourses and even popular culture.  In recent years, the 'spatial turn' has become a popular vector for research on Russia, unpacking the manifold and contradictory perceptions and valorizations of the spatial factor for Russian national life.  The topic of the proposed roundtable intersects with a number of different sub-fields—imperial history, environmental history, historical geography, cultural history, and the history of Russian nationalism—and I believe it has the potential to attract a great deal of interest.  The roundtable format is particularly appropriate insofar as the point is to collect a number of different summary viewpoints on a single question, in order to stimulate a more general discussion.

Sub Unit

• History: Russian and Eurasian, 1800-1924

Chair

• Mark Bassin, Södertörn U (Sweden)

Roundtable Members

• Edyta Bojanowska, Yale U

• Edith W. Clowes, U of Virginia

• Frithjof Benjamin Schenk, U of Basel (Switzerland)

• Willard Sunderland, U of Cincinnati

• Sören Urbansky, German Historical Institute DC