Bob Geraci, September 13
The Russian History Seminar will hold its first meeting of the 2013-2014 academic year on Friday, September 13 at 5 pm in ICC 662 on the Georgetown campus. We will discuss the following paper by Bob Geraci (University of Virginia), "Economic Nationalism and Economic ‘Ethnicism’ in Imperial Russia."
Professor Geraci is presently researching and writing a book called Imperial Bazaar: Ethno-National Dimensions of Commerce in Russian Eurasia. The book explores the implications of the extraordinary ethnic diversity of Russia’s urban trading and entrepreneurial classes primarily from the 18th century to the 1917 revolution, with an epilogue on the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. It addresses the ways in which ethnic Russians often struggled in the world of commerce to hold their own against successful merchants and producers from minority groups such as Germans, Tatars, Jews, Armenians, Greeks, and foreigners; the expression of economic nationalism to support Russians’ putative role as the empire’s dominant group; stereotypes about the commercial capabilities and behavior of different ethnic groups; and state policies defining the commercial rights of these groups. The book also compares the ethnic dimensions of commercial life in several major cities of the empire. Research on the project has taken Professor Geraci to archives and libraries not only around the Russian Federation but also (so far) in Ukraine, Latvia, Georgia, and Azerbaijan.