Imperial Service Research Articles

‘Subalterns’ in the Russian Imperial Service

The text examines one of the most important aspects of Russian imperialism, namely its multiculturalism. The practice of exiling politically uncertain people to the east of the Empire, as well as opening the possibilities for some privileged compradors to pursue careers, were only a tiny fraction of the strategies used by the Russian authorities to involve representatives of various national minorities in (co)building the Empire. It allowed the Russian Empire to use those people’s physical and intellectual potential to expand the state’s borders, including during warfare. The encounter of the Polish exile Bronisław Zaleski and the translator of Tatar origins, Iskander Batyrshyn, during the military campaign against the Khoqand fortress Aq Masjid will serve as an example. By comparing their diaries, which both of them kept throughout the entire expedition, we can gain insights into the intricate nature of their positions within the imperial structure, their reasons for participating in the venture, the impact the hostilities had on the local population, and their perception of this conflict. These documents also reveal patterns of relationship-building between imperial subjects and authorities as well as the role of imperial power in stimulating, restricting or regulating relations between different nations.

Epistolary Strategies of Negotiation: Reading a Fraternal Dispute at the Mughal Court, 1593–1594

Abstract This article examines a dispute between the Mughal emperor Akbar and his foster brother Mirzā ʿ⁠Azīz Koka in the late sixteenth century through a study of two epistolary compositions (inshāʾ) – a royal mandate (farmān) issued by Akbar and a petition (ʿ⁠arẓ-dāsht) from the mirzā in response. By focusing on the language of negotiation in these letters, I argue that epistolary practices were critical for reconfiguring kinship bonds, imperial service, and courtly disposition that were central to the rupture in fraternal and courtly relations. Letters served as the discursive site to reiterate norms of courtly comportment, register complaints against controversial actions, express emotions, and record reactions to exigent situations. Finally, the correspondence reveals the ways in which the complex dynamics of a court society were deeply intertwined with global power contestations and could have far-reaching implications on the imperial competition between early modern Islamic empires.

Woman’s Work is Never (Un-)Done: A Response to “Contemplating Women’s Imperial Service: Mabel Bent as Photographer, Travel Writer, and Collector,” by Esther Wetzel

A Woman’s Work is Never (Un-)Done: A Response to “Contemplating Women’s Imperial Service: Mabel Bent as Photographer, Travel Writer, and Collector,” by Esther Wetzel

Contemplating Women’s Imperial Service: Mabel Bent as Photographer, Travel Writer, and Collector

Despite a growing body of literature on women’s roles within the British Empire as settlers, teachers, nurses, missionaries, activists, and ‘adventuresses,’ their contribution to Victorian knowledge production remains underexamined. In particular, the labor of married women has often been subsumed under their husband’s work and, as a result, has largely gone unrecognized. Treating them as emblematic of a shadow archive of married women’s cultural production in the late 19th century, I interrogate Mabel Bent’s diaries, photographs, and ethnographic collecting strategies to show that she exercised epistemic power through the imperial practices of representation and appropriation. I locate her productive and reproductive work within a complex web of service relationships between herself, the British Empire, and her husband, and show that while Bent related ambiguously to her service, she exploited it to defy gender conventions without risking her reputation.

Legacies of a martial race: Sikh investment and implication in the US police state

British colonization in India had devastating social, psychological, and political consequences for Sikhs in nineteenth-century Punjab. Still, much of the diasporic community remains nostalgic for this era of the Sikh “martial race”—a British-crafted racial category through which Sikhs were constructed as biologically and culturally suited for imperial service and consequently received privileged status within the colonial hierarchy. Today, this nostalgia emerges as a commemorative mechanism in US Sikh advocacy projects to incorporate the Sikh turban and unshorn hair into US military and police uniform. Through an analysis of community narratives around publicized Sikh deaths, this article explores the impact of martial race commemoration on Sikh subjectivity formation. Delineating when and how private grief is transformed into public remembrance, I argue such commemorative frameworks in US Sikh advocacy projects inform which Sikh bodies are worthy of collective mourning by suturing Sikh bodies’ value to their service to US imperialism.

Universities, imperialism and the collective work ahead.

Universities, imperialism and the collective work ahead.

Scribes (šōṭerîm) in Deuteronomy

ABSTRACT A review of the seven uses of šōṭēr in Deuteronomy and the eighteen occurrences elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible indicates that the best translation in all cases is “scribe.” By the Hellenistic period and the writing of Chronicles, šōṭerîm were classified as Levites, i.e. those “bound” by oath to royal or imperial service but based in principle in the temple, even though, like judges and possibly some gate-keepers, many worked “externally.” The temple cult is of little interest to those whose ideology is reflected in most of Deuteronomy. Nevertheless, it is possible to suggest that the Levites, who may contrast with the priests and the Levitical priests in the book, were conceived of more specifically as scribes, šōṭerîm, by profession.

Tacitus' Germania. An otherness at the service of Roman imperialism

La lectura de la Germania ha pasado por avatares diversos, procedentes tanto de las propias proyecciones del presente como de la naturaleza imprecisa del texto. Su ‘imperfecta’ etnografía provocó una minusvaloración que llevó a ignorar la intencionalidad política subyacente al discurso erudito. Sin embargo, presentar el texto como una mera descripción, o el divertimento académico de un estudioso, contradice la incuestionable implicación pública de su autor. Tácito es un genuino representante de una facción senatorial que, además de añorar el pasado, pretende influir en la política imperial, promover un impulso expansionista que la lógica estratégica defensiva parecía ya desaconsejar

Dharmaśāstra in Aurangzeb’s India: A Persian Translation of the Yājñavalkya Smṛti and Mitākṣarā

Abstract This article explores the use of dharmaśāstra in Mughal India through the case of a little-known seventeenth-century Persian translation of a dharmaśāstra text entitled Aḥkām-i awāmir wa nawāhī-yi mazhab-i hunūd (Legal rulings on commanding [right] and forbidding [wrong] of the legal school of the Hindus). The work, apparently completed in 1658 by a Kāyastha named Lāl Bihārī Bhojpurī, is a translation of the Yājñavalkya Smṛti together with the Mitākṣarā and includes lavish praise of Aurangzeb ʿĀlamgīr (d. 1707). I investigate the broader context in which the Aḥkām was produced and argue that this work represents an effort to delineate the boundaries of a separate legal space for Hindus from the standpoint of a munshī committed to Persianate culture and the ethos of Mughal imperial service. Persian dharmaśāstra translations later came to play a role in British colonial efforts to codify Hindu law for use in the administration of justice. The prior engagements with dharmaśāstra in the Persian language are suggestive of a more complex background to such colonial enterprises than modern scholarship has hitherto identified.

Performing an Imperial Career: Hamilton Goold-Adams in Southern Africa, Cyprus and Queensland

ABSTRACT This article examines the mobile yet chequered imperial career of Hamilton Goold-Adams. Initially serving as a military officer in the India, Ireland, Malta and the West Indies, Goold-Adams rose to distinction in the British imperial administration after serving in Bechuanaland and in the South African War. He then became Governor of the Orange River Colony (1901–1907), High Commissioner of Cyprus (1911–1914), and Governor of Queensland (1915–1919). Rarely considered in imperial history, little is known about the dynamics of Goold-Adams’ imperial mobility, actions and public reflections. It has been argued that explorations into imperial careers have foregrounded alternative ways of approaching historical biography while enhancing historical understandings of intersecting imperial discourses, movements, and identities. Providing insight into the spatiality of empire, as well as of imperial subjectivity, this article charts Goold-Adams’ military and administrative imperial service in southern Africa and Cyprus and then analyses how he performatively reflected on these imperial appointments while serving in Queensland. Through an examination of a series of public lectures delivered by Goold-Adams in Brisbane, we argue, that his pervious imperial appointments were performatively drawn upon to encourage an interested settler colonial audience to continue thinking of themselves as loyal and well-informed British imperial subjects.

The Punjabi Pioneers

On a warm day in Imperial Valley California, visitors and residents alike can indulge in a fascinating cross-cultural dining experience: chicken curry enchiladas. The only aspect of this dish more enticing than its expert mix of flavors lies in its rich cultural history. Each bite conveys a story, stories of enterprising migrants from Punjab who married Mexican-American women and fiercely defended their ability to establish roots in their new homeland, despite a host of discriminatory legislation and the barriers of a foreign legal system. Building on primary source material uncovered by renowned anthropologist Karen Leonard in her book “Making Ethnic Choices,” I argue that the Punjabis achieved their success by pulling from a host of familiar strategies, including litigation, marriage, and cross-cultural networking, all learned from their interactions with the British Raj. I chart a path through historiography by examining how Punjabi farmers navigated a unique system of land ownership within Punjab before drawing on the experiences of Punjabi soldiers and laborers in the imperial service. I then delve deep into the lives of Punjabi immigrants in the United States, in which critical relationships with Hispanic women and local officials allowed them to circumvent the Alien Land Laws and maintain their status as landowners. This paper will illuminate how the unique experience of being a colonial subject has influenced, and continues to directly influence, how South Asian immigrants establish deep economic and agricultural roots in the Western United States.

Встреча императора Петра I и калмыцкого хана Аюки на Волге в 1722 г.: мифы и реальность

Introduction. The article deals with an understudied — though essential — episode in the history of the Kalmyk Khanate — the 1722 meeting of Peter I of Russia and Khan Ayuka of Kalmyks on the banks of the Volga. The issue proves not only topical but is also as interesting since personal written memoirs to have somewhat covered the event are scarce enough, even the latter often being controversial. Goals. The article analyzes little known private materials to attempt a clarifying insight into the actual historical circumstances of the meeting. The former are accounts of those to have attended and witnessed the event, such as the Operations Record Book of the 1722 Campaign by Peter the Great, travel notes of J. Bell (a Scotch physician in the Russian imperial service), Kalmyk-to-Russian translator V. Bakunin, and reports by hydrographer and navigator F. Soimonov. Results. The examination of the mentioned private 18th–19th century sources shows those often contradict each other, and eyewitness accounts need further detailed investigation. Unfortunately, such private sources dated to the 18th and 19th centuries provide no clear answers to multiple questions but rather tend to give rise to new ones and complicate any historical reconstruction of the 1722 meeting. However, the source base is extensive enough and requires meticulous analysis. Most significantly, those are archival documents that may contain additional details and put an end to arguments over the revealed controversial facts.

‘Perhaps the Highlanders May Imitate Them’. Highland Identity and the British Empire, from the Forty‐Five to the Seven Years War

AbstractParticipation in imperial service has been seen as a means through which Highlanders, once regarded as a threat to the British state, were assimilated, allowing Highland and British identities to coexist. This was not an uncomplicated process. Reports of Highland soldiers' conduct in the Seven Years War echo earlier accounts of the Jacobite rising and compare Highlanders to Native Americans. Such accounts reflect Enlightenment concerns about the nature of social development. They demonstrate that Highland soldiers in the British Army continued to be regarded as ‘others’ whose supposedly untamed nature remained but was now regarded as useful to the Empire.

Switzerland, Borneo and the Dutch Indies: Towards a New Imperial History of Europe, c.1770–1850

Abstract When Switzerland was created in 1848, one of its founding fathers went by the name of ‘Borneo Louis’. Before becoming a Swiss state builder, he had served as a mercenary in the Dutch East Indies. There he had founded a family with his native ‘housekeeper’, Silla. In Switzerland, he continued to benefit from Silla’s exploited labour. Stories such as these seem unusual today, not for historical but for historiographical reasons. Borneo Louis was only one of c.70,000 mercenaries from all over Europe in Dutch imperial services. Silla was one of the countless ‘native concubines’ who were forced to support these men and thereby help the Dutch build their nineteenth-century empire in South East Asia. Other empires, too, depended on auxiliary services from Europeans hailing from regions with intra-European or short-lived empires, or none at all. Recent new imperial histories, however, have remained conceptually limited to the study of interconnections within national empires (mostly the British Empire). Pan-European dimensions of colonial histories have continued to lie outside their focus. Explaining how Switzerland became part of the Dutch imperial project, this article therefore calls for a renewed new imperial history: a history that explains how Europe emerged out of continuous connections across the boundaries of national empires.

Predstava o Panoncima u narativnim izvorima od 1. do 4. veka

The Pannonians (as well as other ethnic groups from Illyricum) were depicted as primitive barbarians in ancient historiography. Ancient writers emphasize their bodily strength and military prowess, but also attribute boorishness and cruelty to them. A particularly unfavorable image of Pannonians can be found in testimonies from the 4th century. According to Ammianus Marcellinus, the Pannonian dignitaries in imperial service under Valentinian I were people of "the most despicable kind". They are bloodthirsty and often compared to wild beasts in Ammianus' work. In this paper we will show the general representation of barbarians in Greco-Roman world, and then we will go through some important testimonies about the Pannonians from 1st to 4th century. In the end, we will try to shed more light on 4th-century events that made an impact on, without any doubt, exaggeratedly negative image of the Pannonians in the historiography of the Late Antiquity.

“The Middle Ages on Imperial service”: Czech, Hungarian and Polish historical images in works by Franz Grillparzer, 1825–1830

The paper deals with historical images of non-Germanic peoples living in the Austrian empire and presented in romanticist fiction. The author analyzed several narratives from the heritage of Franz Grillparzer, the Austrian writer and dramatist. He referred to images of Czech, Hungarian and Polish medieval and early modern history. The chosen dramas are “Fortune and Fall of the king Ottokar” and “A Faithful servant to his Lord”, and the novella “A monastery in Sandomir”. They had a significant role in forming the image of non-Germanic Habsburg realms medieval history for subjects of the Empire. Romanticism and medievalism dominating in the European and Austrian public opinion and politics have put an impact on perception of Czechs, Hungarians and Poles by the German community of Austria. Despite the fact, that medieval narratives got the attention from national movements, Grillparzer referred to them basing on the Austrian conservatism. In this way his works enforced the Habsburg myth and “organic constitution” for the state. The author came to a conclusion that images of Czech, Hungarian and Polish medieval and early modern history presented in works by Grillparzer have filled the gap in official historical memory. It became possible due to overweighting Austro-German and Habsburg emphasis in official discourse, what gave a certain ground for national movements and became a disadvantage for official historiography. Appeal to dynastic patriotism and legitimism has got a certain enforcement with reflections on disunity of Hungarian, Czech and Polish elites. According to the author, the mobilization of the elites was to illustrate the thesis and to promote the official version of the Habsburg empire history.

Social Mobility in the Environment of the Roman Senatorial Aristocracy (The Age of Diocletian and Constantine I)

This article discusses the social mobility among the Roman senatorial aristocracy in the late third and early fourth centuries. According to the accounts of narrative, legislative, and epigraphic sources and applying the methods of prosopography, the author analyzes the possibilities that the Roman senators had for their rise. The Roman aristocracy can be divided into several subgroups. Particularly closed and privileged was the group of patrician senators. The main channels of their social mobility were the conclusion of legal marriage, the birth within the legal marriage, the adoption of “new persons” by a representative of the patrician family, and, to a lesser extent, the procedure of the imperial adlectio. The modes of social mobility of other subgroups of the Roman senatorial aristocracy were more variable due to their activities in the imperial service. For senators who were not patriciates, the emperor acted as the main regulator of the influx of “new persons” and the rise of existing aristocrats. Under Emperors Diocletian and Constantine I, the promotion of aristocrats was situational, depending on state tasks. The only targeted reform to increase the total number of the senatorial aristocracy of Rome was carried out from 312 to 326; in result, the number of senators significantly increased for the first time in a long period and amounted to 2,000. In contrast to the interpretation established in historiography, in the late third and early fourth century, the senatorial aristocracy kept its privileged position in relation to other social groups. Having recovered from the consequences of the third-­century crisis, the Roman senators managed to rally; they represented a political force that the rulers had to reckon with. In result, the aristocrats got real opportunities to realize their political potential.

The Russia Company and Russo-British Trade after 1600

The Russia Company and Russo-British Trade after 1600 Kevin Gledhill Maria Salomon Arel, English Trade and Adventure to Russia in the Early Modern Era: The Muscovy Company, 1603–1649. 363 pp. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2019. ISBN-13 978-1498550239. $121.00. Matthew P. Romaniello, Enterprising Empires: Russia and Britain in Eighteenth-Century Eurasia. 308 pp. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2019. ISBN-13 978-1108703086. $35.99. The British Russia Company (also called the Muscovy Company; henceforth, the Company), founded in the mid-16th century, provided significant economic links between Russia and England in the early modern period, and it was a crucial institution structuring Anglo-Russian relations. Its history offers insights into the bonds between early modern Russia and both its Asian neighbors and Western Europe. For many years, scholars' understanding of this company was limited, focused on the 16th century and a narrative of its failure to compete against Dutch rivals after the Time of Troubles (1598–1616).1 This story culminates in the 1649 ban on its activity in the interior of Russia, restricting its members to Arkhangel´sk. Since the 1990s, new works have reassessed the Company's history, seeking to understand its membership and operations, its internal political functions, and its continuing role in the Russian economy in the Romanov era.2 Recent works by Maria Salomon Arel and Matthew Romaniello [End Page 885] contribute significantly to the reassessment of the Company and to a deeper understanding of its later history. Each work considers the role of the individual merchant and their networks, placing their operations in Russia in wider contexts. Despite these shared features and arguments for the continuity of Company endeavors, these are substantially different works in terms of methodology and conceptualization of the relationship between British merchant and Russian state. Arel's book addresses the volume and flows of trade in much greater detail in order to challenge claims of Dutch supremacy over the White Sea route after 1600. This analysis relies on state documents—including petitions, diplomatic correspondence, edicts, court records, and the remaining import-export books of the ports of London and Amsterdam. Romaniello eschews a focus on the statistical data, preferring to track individuals moving between Britain and Russia from the late 17th to early 19th centuries. Embracing a framework of entangled histories linked through highlighted individuals, Romaniello's Enterprising Empires makes the case that a merchant could fill many roles within both states, pursuing personal commercial interests while acting as an informant for the Company or entering Russian imperial service. The fate of negotiations between Russia and Britain over commercial treaties was inseparable from their networks and colored by the rhetorical strategies employed by merchants pursuing multiple sets of priorities in Eurasia. Despite these differences, these books are in some ways complementary. In chronological terms, Arel's analysis continues up to the mid-1600s, where Romaniello begins. More significantly, each addresses the impact of the politics of the Romanov court, of the growth of the Russian domestic marketplace, and of the competition between European states on the Company's fortunes. _____ Maria Salomon Arel's English Trade and Adventure to Russia in the Early Modern Era draws upon and updates the author's dissertation on the Russia Company in the first half of the 17th century. Arel's first major claim challenges the [End Page 886] notion of declining English trade in Russia due to a failure to compete with Dutch rivals, arguing that the impression of English failure can be traced to qualitative descriptions in much later pamphlets. The idea of failure in competition with the Dutch are at odds with the statistical data of the London and Amsterdam port books. Despite the traditional view of Dutch supremacy in the White Sea trade after the Troubles, Arel argues that English trade expanded significantly until 1649. The growth of this trade derived from a combination of factors, including Russia's place in the global economic networks of English merchant companies. Its members invested in numerous other overseas commercial ventures, including those in India and North America, and connected them through their personal and familial bonds. The Company's place in the market was embedded in Anglo...

Изучение истории Государственного контроля Российской империи в период думской монархии

After the establishment of constitutional monarchy in Russia as a result of the 1905–1906 reforms, the position of the Russian State Control (imperial audit service) changed. Formerly relatively independent, the State Control, whose head was directly accountable to the Emperor, now found itself in the united government, i.e. the Council of Ministers. The undermined independence of the State Control provoked a wide public discussion, which involved Duma deputies, employees of the State Control as well as competent Russian economists and financial experts, who made relevant recommendations calling for reducing the number of state institutions that were unaccountable to the audit service and giving the latter more independence. This paper analyses the key works of pre-revolutionary authors published in the early 20th century and devoted to the history of the State Control of the Russian Empire. Both in the imperial period and today, the Russian audit institution, in contrast with political, historical and military topics, has been of primary interest not to historians, but to economists, financiers and lawyers, since it requires special knowledge of the State Control’s technical mechanisms. Based on this, the author selected the following works that require thorough examination: How People’s Money Is Spent in Russia by I.Kh. Ozerov, On the Transformation of the State Control by Yu.V. Tansky, an official anniversary edition State Control. 1811–1911, and Essays on the Russian Budget Law. Part 1 by L.N. Yasnopolsky. The author of this article considers these works to be the highest quality studies on the Russian State Control at the beginning of the 20th century and their analysis to be of unquestionable importance for contemporary research into the history of the Russian audit institution.

Горец на русской службе в годы Кавказской войны (1801–1864 гг.): посредник, маргинал, предатель

В статье рассматриваются особенности жизни и служебной деятельности горцев Кавказа на российской службе в годы Кавказской войны (1801–1864 гг.). При этом в статье исследуются служебные траектории не только крупных исторических личностей, но и судьбы менее известных фигур. Именно на их примере можно увидеть закрепляемые империей функциональные роли, наличие или отсутствие ментальных границ, восприятие имперской службы местными сообществами. Целью исследования является историко-антропологический анализ службы горцев в российских военно-политических институтах на основе источников личного происхождения и материалов делопроизводства. Исследование позволило предположить, что для горцев на русской службе приоритетным являлся мотив повышения собственного статуса внутри локального сообщества, а не продвижение по общеимперской лестнице чинов и званий. Горцы зачастую рассчитывали с помощью империи поднять собственный политический и/или моральный престиж среди соотечественников. В случае если служба империи не приводила к повышению «общинного» статуса или наоборот подрывала и отягощала репутацию горца, то он начинал сомневаться в правильности своего выбора. Такой подход позволяет описать и объяснить частые случаи смены политической идентичности, «неожиданных» измен и побегов горцев с российской службы, которыми наполнена история Кавказской войны.