Zaokeanskie partnery: Amerikai Rossiiav 1830-1850-e gody (Transoceanic partners: America and Russia from the 1830s through the 1850s)

Abstract

Given that the field of diplomatic history in the United States is, for the most part dominated by what the Russians would call noveishaia (recent) diplomatic history, it is refreshing to encounter a work of diplomatic history by a Russian historian that can fairly be categorized as firmly grounded in the past. Ivan I. Kurilla, who holds a teaching position at Volgograd State University, is one of several researchers inspired by Academician Nikolai N. Bolkhovitinov to take up the study of early Russian-American relations. Zaokeanskie partnery is divided into three parts comprised of seven chapters. In the first part, Russia and the United States are viewed as strategic allies over two periods, 1832–1847 and 1848–1860. The first chapter examines Russian-American relations in the context of the Pax Britannica, with analysis of the attitudes of the two powers toward the Canadian situation in the late 1830s, Russian efforts to mediate between the United States and Great Britain in connection with the Maine and Oregon boundary disputes, and Russian reactions to American continental expansion. The second chapter covers Russian-American relations during and immediately after the 1848 revolutions in Europe and during and after the Crimean War. The third chapter deals primarily with technology transfer, including the construction of steamboats in Russia, the building of the Moscow-St. Petersburg railroad, and the navigation by steam of Russian rivers.