Constructing Narratives about Russia’s Historical Struggle for the Western Krai: The Case of Nikolai Shcher`bina’s Pchela (1865–1881) as a Nation-Building Project

• In Event: Empire, Identity, and Epic: Reimagining Poetry in the Slavic World

Abstract

This paper examines the anthology Pchela: A collection for popular reading (1865–1881) compiled and published by the Russian poet Nikolai Shcherbina, and situates it within the context of Russia’s search for national self-identification. My analysis foregrounds the role of Pchela as a vehicle for fostering political loyalty among the lower-class readers of the Western provinces in the aftermath of the Emancipation Reform of 1861 and the Polish Insurrection of 1863. Based on unpublished archival materials, I argue that Shcherbina’s ideological and educational publishing project should be considered in the paradigm of the disciplinary and civilising formation of the narod as a subject, including as a reader category. With the extensive state support, Shcherbina’s anthology substantiated and justified the policy of Alexander II and the ambition to retain Western lands that were considered primordially Russian, to Russify or return to the Russian roots the population of these territories (for those who had been subjected to Polish influence), to unify them culturally and religiously, and to integrate them into a single (all-Russian) ethnocultural and ideological imperial space. By exploring how Scherbina’s project sought to promote the Russian idea and the belief in the Slavic brotherhood in the Western and Southwestern provinces of the empire, this article makes a timely contribution to our critical understanding of the implication of literature in the consolidation of Russian imperial identity from the 19th century to the present day.

Author

• Anastasiia Oleshchuk, U of Oxford (UK)