Welcome to the Eighteenth-Century Russian Studies Association. The ECRSA, 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 ECRSA 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 2023 Marc Raeff Book Prize
Endre Sashalmi. Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter’s Reign. Boston, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2022.
Sashalmi’s work meticulously chronicles the genesis and evolution of Russia’s modern state, and the notions behind its meaning and power—becoming an essential reference point for scholars of the long eighteenth century. True to the spirit of Marc Raeff’s The Well-Ordered Police State (1983), Sashalmi focuses on Petrine reforms as the watershed moment in the crafting of Russia’s autocracy, which takes places against the backdrop of the deep medieval roots of Muscovite political culture. The work successfully demonstrates that, prior to Peter I, Russia had no state in the Western sense of the term, just as it demonstrates that rise of the state in Europe was also a result of cataclysmic reforms and changes spanning the long seventeenth century. Therein lies the highlight of the work – the tandem development of the European and the Russian state narratives, culminating in the transfer of Western political notions to Russia in the early eighteenth century. Sashalmi’s parallel study of early modern jurisprudence in Russia and the West leaves virtually no stone unturned – including historical documents in nine different languages and covering everything from the system of international relations, the question of sovereignty, and the laws of succession to the linguistic vernacularization of politics, constitutionalism, church canons, separation of powers, and the natural law. Among the existing English-language literature, this is the most extensive commentary on the influence of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) in Petrine Russia, yet the author’s treatment of the impact of Gottlieb Treuer (1683-1743) and Hugo Grotius (1583-1645) is equally innovative and insightful. Finally, the work establishes Feofan Prokopovich [Teofan Prokopovych] - Sashalmi’s most quoted author! - as the legal architect of Petrine state as well as the godfather of its nascent absolutism.
The three finalists, ranked by the committee:
[1] Sashalmi, Endre. Russian Notions of Power and State in a European Perspective, 1462-1725: Assessing the Significance of Peter’s Reign. Academic Studies Press, 2022.
[2] Akel'ev, Evgenii. Russkii Misopogon. Petr I, bradobritie i desiat' millionov "moskovitov". Izd-vo NLO, 2023.
[3] Blakesley, Rosalind P. Women Artists in the reign of Catherine the Great. Lund Humphries UK, 2022.
2023 ECRSA Prize Selection Committee: Andrey Ivanov (Committee Chair), Platteville, Wisconsin, USA; Kirill Kochegarov, Moscow, Russia; Erica Camisa Morale, Los Angeles, CA, USA and Milan, Italy; and Prof. Dr. Ricarda Vulpius, Münster, Germany
ВИВЛIОθИКА: E-Journal of Eighteenth-Century Russian 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.
We would welcome feedback and comments on our recent issue.
Yours sincerely,
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