Late Imperial Research Articles

Prohibited Mountains and Forests in Late Imperial China

This essay explores the various types of spaces, primarily montane forested areas, where human access was restricted, either conditionally or entirely, during late imperial times. The range of restrictions always included felling trees, but often also encompassed other forms of extraction from local ecosystems. Based on the motivations for setting up and regulating such zones, it proposes a typology that includes imperial parks and graves, sacred sites, military exclusion zones, and certain forested commons. Based on some commonalities between these types, it concludes by reflecting on the place of notions of sacrality in local policies that directly impacted forested areas.

Причины и особенности проявления насильственных форм аграрного движения накануне Первой российской революции (по материалам Саратовской губернии)

The article examines the violent forms of the agrarian movement of late Imperial Russia as the most dangerous and destructive ways of peasant protest in socio-political, legal and economic terms. Using the example of the Saratov province, the author identifies the causes, motivations and delinquent methods of expressing various illegal excesses in the peasant environment. The main content of the study is the analysis of violent forms of the agrarian movement in Russia at the beginning of the XX century, as varieties of agrarian terror. According to the results of the study, it was concluded that the specifics of the agrarian movement on the eve of the First Russian Revolution in the whole country, and in the Saratov province, in particular, werecharacterized by an escalation of extreme forms of violent actions of peasants against landowners.

Long-Term Expansion of Regional Museums in Russia: A Quantitative Analysis of Historical Dynamics

Museums help to conserve regional heritage and sustain regional identity, which is especially important in large countries. Russian regional museums constitute a whole phenomenon. Indeed, this phenomenon is a large field for research, and it cannot be comprehended by any single study. This is why attention should be paid for its particular aspects such as a historical dynamics of the expansion of regional museums in Russia. The information from the official websites of 76 regional museums sensu stricto of the entire country and 10 smaller museums of the Vologda Region was analyzed to measure the dynamics of their foundation and the relative importance of the different founders. It was established that regional museums were created in the Imperial, Soviet, and Modern periods of the Russian history, and the majority of them appeared in 1861–1935. Governmental founders prevailed, although private and societal initiatives also mattered, especially in the particular time slices. The smaller museums of the Vologda Region were created chiefly in the Soviet period, and both governmental and private initiatives were important. The results of this analysis were interpreted regarding attention to the broad public education and activity of so-called intelligentsia in the late Imperial and Soviet periods. It is hypothesized that the regional museum foundation can be brought in correspondent to the idea of a wise state and society development. Importantly, major transformations of the Russian society (particularly, in the beginning of the 20th century) did not interrupt the expansion of regional museums. It is proposed that the existing national network of regional museums itself has a heritage value, which can be important to tourism development.

Historical Moralism and the Law: Judicial Statements (panyu) in Late Imperial Civil Service Examinations

Historical Moralism and the Law: Judicial Statements (panyu) in Late Imperial Civil Service Examinations

“Rotting Away Into A Woman”: Castration, Gender and Biological Sex in Late Imperial Fiction

In the aftermath of the Ming-Qing transition, philosopher Tang Zhen 唐甄 (1630–1704) wrote of eunuchs: “If a castrated individual can become a female, then [the eunuch] is acceptable, but if they cannot do this, then they remain a male” 奄若化為女子則可，不然，固男也. Here, Tang suggests the topical question: without sexual potency, does a castrated male become female? And if not, what is to be made of an emasculated male? Due to their perceived part in the dynastic fall of the Ming, eunuchs were a subject of curiosity and unease among Qing scholars like Tang, who began to question the effects of castration upon the male body. Castration, beginning with its earliest usage as a commutation for the death sentence, signaled not only social death but an entrance into the yin 陰, the cosmological force associated with the feminine and counteracted by the masculine yang 陽. Through the removal of the entire sexual organ, the castrated male was removed from Confucian society and sexually neutered in a way that was thought to render him more female than male. Eunuchs, who were also often illiterate, possessed neither sexual or social determiners of masculinity. As my following analysis of fictional Ming-Qing castration narratives will show, the presence of literally or metaphorically castrated men threatened masculine identity. A masculinity that is defined by its opposition to a constructed femininity is necessarily a fragile existence, at all times endangered by a fall into the feminine. Narratives of castration, whether of eunuchs, transformation into the female or male-male relationships, offer a compelling glimpse into late imperial definitions of gender, by illustrating when and how a male body was no longer considered that of a man.

A Symbol of ‘Gender Transformation’: Cross-Dressing in Female Tanci of Late Imperial China

Abstract Tanci was one of the most popular literary forms among classical Chinese women writers, emerging in the middle of the Ming dynasty (1368–1644) and becoming extremely prominent during the Qing dynasty (1636–1912). This article explores five tanci stories centred on female-to-male cross-dressing inspired by Judith Butler’s performative theory. It discusses the varied applications of it by the authors and uncovers the commonalities hidden between the differences. In these works, cross-dressing is a common symbol of an attempt to cross the boundaries of gender identity and personal values outside the home. The meaning given to this symbol by female writers is a form of escape from their limited social living spaces. Their stories reflect their efforts to experience the same freedom and personal values outside the home as men had in Confucian society at the time. However, their resistance conforms to the existing social constructs of gender.

The Northwestern Outskirts of Russia in the Policies of the Russian Authorities and Social Thought of the Late Imperial Period: A Historiographical Aspect

The Northwestern Outskirts of Russia in the Policies of the Russian Authorities and Social Thought of the Late Imperial Period: A Historiographical Aspect

Military censorship in Russia in 1914‒1918: structure, features of work, documentary legacy

The relevance of the research topic is related to the continuing problems of control and access to information in the modern information society.The purpose of the study is to provide a systematic understanding of military censorship in Russia in 1914-1918 in the context of the development of the late Imperial state mechanism. Objectives analysis of the structure, activities, and personnel of military censorship in Russia during the First World War; concentration of currently available information on documents of military censorship stored in various Russian and foreign archives.Methodology. The historical and typological method was used to analyze the structure and functions of military censorship, and the historical and genetic method was used to study its development during the First World War. The study of the personnel, the peculiarities of the work of different areas of censorship was carried out using the historical and comparative method.Results. The paper analyzes the legislative framework, structure and directions of military censorship in Russia during the First World War. It is shown that military censorship was a complex, multi-level structure that had no unity of command and included representatives of different, sometimes conflicting departments. These features led to the «scattering» of the documentary heritage of the military censorship authorities in numerous collections of Russian and foreign archives.Conclusions. The complexity of the structure of military censorship created numerous difficulties in the practice of censorship control. The chronic disadvantages of Russian censorship during the First world war years were contradictory decisions, inconsistency and insufficient elaboration of the regulatory framework, which often led to the use of military censorship for purely political purposes (for example, to censor speeches by opposition Duma deputies). The problems of military censorship were aggravated by a chronic shortage of funding, shortage and high turn-over of personnel. As a result, instead of becoming an effective tool in the hands of the government, military censor-ship became one of the factors of the political crisis in Russia on the eve of the Russian revolution.

The Labor movement and Revolutionary Social Democracy in the borderlands of late Imperial Russia

A review of a new monograph by Professor Eric Blanc of Rutgers University (USA) is presented. The book is devoted to the history of the labor movement and the development of revolutionary social democracy on the outskirts of the Russian Empire from 1882 (the year of the creation of the first social democratic organization in Poland) to the revolutionary 1917. Blanc focuses specifically on the "non-Russian" socialist parties in the territory of modern Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic States, Georgia and Armenia. The author concludes that the development of the socialist and labor movement in the border areas of late Imperial Russia was characterized by greater radicalism, a more developed structure and popularity among the local working class. At the same time, the situation in Finland with its autonomy and legalized party struggle, which could include socialists, differed from the virtually illegal life of social democracy in Poland and the Caucasus.

Midwifing Modernity: Popularizing Modern Health Care for Women in Late Imperial Russia

AbstractThis article examines the discourse on Russian women’s health care in the late Imperial period within the context of modernization. One of the hallmarks of modernity, health care is also one of the most intimate areas of contact between the agents of modernity and the public at large. The discussion was starkly divided between those concerned with peasant women and those concerned with educated women, but both were firmly situated in the overarching project of healthification (ozdorovlenie). While the authors concerned with peasant women’s health sought to overcome traditional beliefs and practices and replace them with the findings of modern science, the literature directed at the educated public illustrates the anxiety that accompanied the modernity project. The authors writing to and about educated society were far more conflicted about the array of problems they observed developing as traditional beliefs and practices were challenged by changes in society. The article explores the development and role of women’s health care, the tensions between professional and popular health care practitioners, and their relationships with the population from cultural, political and gendered perspectives, and analyzes modernization as a site of contention over women’s agency as well as a social and cultural process.

Economic Aspects of the Development of Civil Society Institutions in the Late Imperial Period on the Example of the Smolensk House of Diligence

The study of the history of charity makes it possible to more accurately identify the initial period of the creation of the foundations of civil society in Russia. The article is devoted to the analysis of the activities of the Smolensk House of Diligence as an example of charitable practice in the Russian Empire of the late XIX – early XX century. Using a specific example, the author examines the history of the creation and development of houses of diligence in the regional plane, their role in public life and their influence on the formation of basic narratives of civil society in the imperial reality of that period. Special attention is paid to the analysis of economic aspects within the framework of the Smolensk House of Diligence and their role in the formation of new principles of “non-pedigree” communication in the society of post-reform Russia. The study allows the author to conclude that the study of projects such as the activities of charitable societies through the prism of economic history makes it possible to more fully assess them in the context of the power aspirations of local social groups and the importance of these actors in the formation of civil society in the late Imperial period.

Concretising the Legal Professional Community in Late Imperial China, c. 1700–1900

Concretising the Legal Professional Community in Late Imperial China, c. 1700–1900

State power and society of Late Imperial Russia in the assessments of V. A. Maklakov

The article describes the publication of part of the memoirs of a prominent political and public figure in Russia at the beginning of the twentieth century, one of the leaders of the Kadet Party, the famous lawyer Vasily Alekseevich Maklakov. The excellent style and content of the memoirs are noted, reflecting the development of the social movement in Russia, the relationship between government and society, the fate of the Kadet Party, and vivid portraits of contemporaries through a biographical context. This publication is very important for the study of the social movement and Russian liberalism of the early twentieth century.

Legitimacy and Hegemony in Late Imperial China

Canonical international relations research treats international orders as systemic, long-term projects of hegemons. However, orders can also provide valuable domestic political capital for leaders. Hegemonic leaders have stronger incentives to invest in hegemony when doing so potentially enhances their political legitimacy. Using a new dataset of over 8,000 Ming and Qing dynasty tribute exchanges between 1368 and 1895, I assess whether emperor legitimacy needs help explain China’s engagement in tribute diplomacy, a central institution of Chinese hegemony. The findings show that new emperors, particularly those following “irregular” entry into power, invested heavily in tribute to pursue legitimacy among internal and external audiences. This behavior was most common with “high-value” counterparts. An illustrative case documents how the Yongle Emperor deployed tribute to legitimize his right to rule. The findings demonstrate the importance of domestic politics and leader legitimacy for understanding the nature and persistence of hegemonic order in early modern Asia.

The Mtkvari River’s Many Faces: Symbolism, Space and Agency in Late Imperial Tiflis

The Mtkvari (Kura) river framed urban life in Tiflis (contemporary Tbilisi) under tsarist rule in the nineteenth-early twentieth centuries. This paper examines how the river acted as a symbol of an evolving Georgian and played critical roles in local society and culture. Flowing through the middle of Tiflis, the Mktvari, its banks, and the infrastructure built to accommodate it, affected all city residents. They drank its water, used it for local food supplies and entertainment, and dealt with its strong currents and frequent floods. The river acted as an agent in its own right alongside human efforts to control and transform it. Unlike elsewhere in the tsarist and European empires, efforts to modernize riverine life in Tiflis stalled. The reclamation of the Mtkvari’s legacy takes a step to recognize urban (in)equality and the multiethnic nature of late imperial Tiflis, where the roots of Soviet and independence-era projects were envisioned if not enacted. Les multiples visages du fleuve Mtkvari : symbolisme, espace et agentivité dans le Tiflis de l’époque impériale tardive Le fleuve Mtkvari (Koura) encadrait la vie urbaine de Tiflis (actuelle Tbilissi) au dix-neuvième siècle et au début du vingtième siècle, sous le règne des tsars. Cet article examine comment le fleuve a agi en tant que symbole d’une nation géorgienne en pleine évolution et les rôles importants qu’il a joués dans la société et la culture locales. Coulant au milieu de Tiflis, le Mtkvari, ses rives et les infrastructures construites autour de lui ont affecté tous les résidents de la ville, quoique de manière inégale. Ils ont bu son eau, l’ont utilisée pour la nourriture locale et pour les loisirs, ils ont dû faire face à ses courants forts et à ses crues fréquentes. Le fleuve a agi comme un agent à part entière en parallèle des efforts humains pour le contrôler et le transformer. Au contraire de ce qui pouvait se voir autre part dans l’empire tsariste ou les empires européens, les efforts de modernisation de la vie riveraine ont stagné à Tiflis. La réappropriation de l’héritage du Mtkvari est une étape dans la reconnaissance de l’inégalité urbaine et de la nature multi-ethnique de la Tiflis de l’époque impériale tardive, où les racines des projets soviétiques et des projets de l’ère de l’indépendance ont été envisagées, sinon mises en œuvre.

Street Children in European Cities during the Late Nineteenth and the Early Twentieth Centuries: Looking into the Pages of the Late Imperial Austrian Press

Street Children in European Cities during the Late Nineteenth and the Early Twentieth Centuries: Looking into the Pages of the Late Imperial Austrian Press

Corporations and partnerships: Factory productivity in late Imperial Russia

Using factory-level data from an official manufacturing census, I examine productivity among two forms of enterprise in the Russian Empire from around 1908. I find that despite having 60 times more financial capital, factories owned by corporations did not outperform those owned by ordinary and limited partnerships. Although corporations were more mechanized per worker, both enterprise forms attained equal capital and labor productivity and total factor productivity. Corporations attained higher labor productivity than partnerships only in the metals and machinery industry. These findings suggest that Russian factories used the corporate form's unique advantages in a rather limited way: to build larger factories and undertake larger projects, but not to enhance productivity beyond the level of the partnership form. I also find that there were fewer accidents per worker at partnership-owned factories than at corporations.

Stealthily Breaching Dikes and the Bare Sticks Substatute: Notes on Some Legal Aspects of River Hydraulics in Late Imperial China

Stealthily Breaching Dikes and the Bare Sticks Substatute: Notes on Some Legal Aspects of River Hydraulics in Late Imperial China

Quality Regulation in the Global “Wine Periphery”: The Case of Late Imperial Rio de Janeiro (1880–1889)

ABSTRACT This article explores the consequences of the phylloxera crisis on Rio de Janeiro’s wine market, the resulting public health debate, and the administrative problem of quality regulation and consumer protection. As a peripheral market with relatively low purchasing power, the Brazilian capital became a destination for many cheap imitation wines from Europe and also developed its own artificial wine industry. By the mid-1880s this led to a fierce competition on Rio’s wine market, which in turn provoked an unprecedented public debate about wine qualities and public health. Thus, the article shows that the problem of food safety, brought to public attention by the wine question, occupied a central place on the health agenda of the medical profession as well as the government and health authorities in late Imperial Brazil, triggering regulatory interventions that followed European models.

Political Practices of Late Imperial Russia: S.Yu. Witte and His Financial Reform

This article examines S.Yu. Witte’s perception of certain political practices in late Imperial Russia, with a special focus on his memoirs. The financial reform introduced by him and the «struggle» for its implementation, both in the bureaucratic field and public political communication, are considered in detail. The primary sources used in the analysis include S.Yu. Witte’s «Memoirs», accounts from his contemporaries, periodicals, correspondence, and unpublished materials stored in the archives of Moscow and St. Petersburg. The results obtained reveal that the Russian Empire pursued contradictory political practices during the studied period. Key algorithms of the political behavior of public officials and their characteristics in the «Memoirs» as a valuable source are outlined.