“Picturesque Russia” (1878/1881–1901) As a Method of Constructing the Russian Imperial Identity (On the Example of the Poles)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the landmark publication Picturesque Russia. Our Fatherland in its geographical, historical, tribal, economic and everyday significance (1879/1881–1901), which was the first and only example of its time of a detailed and comprehensive description of Russia in a popular scientific form, but with strict reliance on scientific literature. The initiator and first publisher was M. O. Wolf, one of the most successful book publishers and booksellers in Russia. Many prominent representatives of science and culture took part in the preparation of the 19-volume edition. Particularly significant amongst them were N. I. Kostomarov, I. E. Zabelin, D. I. Ilovaisky, P. A. Kulish, and V. V. Chuiko. The editor-in-chief of the publication was P. P. Semenov (from 1906, P. P. Semenov-Tyan-Shansky). Volumes of Picturesque Russia consisted of essays devoted to all regions of the Russian Empire and were mainly of an ethnographic, geographical, and statistical nature. The importance of the volumes about the Kingdom of Poland is that they contain historical information to a greater extent than other volumes of the publication. From the point of view of the stated topic, essays of particular interest are those of author V. V. Chuiko focusing on the periods of Polish history before, during, and after the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The essays on state and political history allows us to analyse, from the point of view of the authors, their place and role in the context of Russian historical Polonistics and the Polish question. In addition, the work was an attempt to construct imperial identity, which was supposed to supersede – or replace – national identity in the modern history of the Russian Empire. The author of the article comes to the conclusion that Picturesque Russia, especially the Polish historical essays, is fertile material, the content of which it is advisable to analyse from the point of view of widespread (or just emerging) technologies of power in the empire.