Welcome to the Eighteenth-Century Russian Empire Studies Association. The ECRESA, an affiliate of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES), aims to facilitate and expand the study of eighteenth-century Russia across the disciplines. This site is designed as a resource for ECRESA members to learn about events, conferences, and colleagues’ recent publications and research in progress. Members are encouraged to submit information to the webmaster for inclusion in the site (hilde.hoogenboom@asu.edu).
Winner of the 2026 Marc Raeff Book Prize
Karol Łopatecki and Paweł Krokosz. Adam Weyde and the Modernization Process in the Russian Army during the Reign of Peter I. Białystok, PL: Instytut Badań nad Dziedzictwem Kulturowym Europy, 2026.
The “fledglings of Peter’s nest” are figures of near-legendary renown, yet much remains to be discovered about them. The outstanding new book by Paweł Krokosz and Karol Łopatecki introduces us to one “fledgling” who played a key role in the Petrine reforms but is hardly known even to specialists: Adam Weyde.
Weyde (1660s-1720) was a leading architect of Peter’s military reforms. A professional soldier and one of Peter’s trusted advisors, he took part in Peter’s early military campaigns, accompanied him on the Grand Embassy of 1697-98, and was sent by him to observe European armies. The Military Instruction (Voinskii Ustav) that he wrote in 1698, a translation of which forms the second part of the book, provided the blueprint for Peter’s modernization of the Russian army. Weyde was captured by the Swedes at the battle of Narva and spent a decade as a POW; then he returned to Russia and resumed his place in “Peter’s nest” as a Senator and as Menshikov’s number two at the College of War.
Krokosz and Łopatecki’s book is a remarkable accomplishment. Weyde is little-known to historians because the records about him are spotty: other than one tiny painting, we don’t even know how he looked. Krokosz and Łopatecki have consulted a stunning array of archival and printed primary sources and a rich secondary literature, and as a result, their book brings Weyde and his world to life. The reader learns about his biography, his military and diplomatic activities, and his role in reforming Russia’s army and state institutions. The authors use actor-network theory to explore such topics as social mobility, the marriage patterns of foreigners in Russia, and Peter’s relations with his “fledglings,” and they restore military history to a central position in the study of the Petrine reforms and the larger process of empire-building in the eighteenth century. The book is a model of meticulous scholarship and forms a major contribution to our understanding of the Petrine era.
The prize will be awarded at the meeting of the Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies Association at the ASEEES conference virtually at a date and time to be determined.
2026 ECRESA Prize Selection Committee: Prof. Alexander Martin, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA; PD Dr. Tilman Plath (Committee Chair), Köln, Germany; Prof. Vera Proskurina, Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Prof. Endre Sashalmi, Kincsesbánya, Hungary; Prof. Dr. Iskra Schwarcz, Vienna, Austria; and Prof. Elise Wirtschafter, Beverly Hills, CA, USA.
ВИВЛIОθИКА: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Empire Studies
ВИВЛIОθИКА: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies (ISSN: 2333-1658)—the flagship journal of the Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies Association—is a peer-reviewed, scholarly, online publication devoted to the culture and history of the Russian Empire during ‘the long eighteenth century’ (1660-1830). We define ‘Russian’ broadly, meaning more-or-less the Russian Еmpire, inclusive of non-Russian ethnicities, nationalities, and confessions. The journal is open to submissions in all relevant disciplines and in all the major languages in which eighteenth-century Russian studies is researched. It is intended to provide a forum for the promotion, dissemination and critical analysis of original scholarly research on eighteenth-century Russian studies, based on a spirit of internationalism and a belief in the principle of accessibility. Authors interested in submitting items for inclusion in forthcoming volumes should consult the the submission guidelines on the journal’s website. Inquiries can also be addressed to individual members of the journal’s editorial board.
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ВИВЛIОθИКА Editorial Board
Ernest Zitser, Duke University (USA): ernest.zitser@duke.edu
Robert Collis, The University of Helsinki (Finland): robert.collis@helsinki.fi
Olga Tsapina, The Huntington Library (USA): otsapina@huntington.org
Gary Marker, State University of New York at Stony Brook (USA): gmarker@notes.cc.sunysb.edu
Elena Smilianskaia, National Research University-Higher School of Economics (Russian Federation): esmilian@mail.ru
Igor Fedyukin, National Research University-Higher School of Economics (Russian Federation): fedyukin@yahoo.com
Vladislav Rjéoutski, The University of Bristol (United Kingdom): vladislav.rjeoutski@bristol.ac.uk
Ingrid Schierle, The University of Tübingen, (Germany): ingrid.schierle@uni-tuebingen.de