Abstract
Regional historiography of Russia’s empires has been so consistently productive that it is somewhat surprising that Russia’s Crucible is the first dedicated English-language history of the Urals. However, Professor Dukes’ focus is not on the mountainous ‘stone belt’ that has provided a popular conceptual boundary between Europe and Asia since classical antiquity, but on the surrounding area: a shifting yet relatively stable, widely perceived but often legally non-existent ‘Ural region’ stretching from the Arctic Ocean to the Kazakh steppe. Russia’s Crucible is styled as ‘an analytical narrative of the development of the [Ural] region through Tsarist, Soviet and post-Soviet times, with the conclusion to each chapter putting forward some associated ideas’ (p. 4). Across this vast chronology, the overriding theme is the struggle, subjugation and adaptation of the Ural population against the continued exploitation of its human and material resources – moving from metals, minerals and small arms to tanks, atomic energy and petrochemicals – by central Russian governments. However, Dukes claims that it was through this same exploitation and resistance that isolated industrial and urban ‘nests’ such as Ekaterinburg and Perm developed a unique ‘mining-industrial culture’ (gornozavodskaia kul’tura), and so transformed the Urals from an alien borderland to the core of Russia’s military-industrial power.
In practical terms, the chronological and thematic scope of the book entails much more narrative than sustained argument or analysis. It is densely factual and moves at a hectic pace, as inside 200 pages Dukes brings order to a bewildering breadth of change to local administration, social relations, cultural expression, industry, the Russian Orthodox Church, the justice system, schooling and other areas. The book is split into eight chapters, each covering a sizeable historical period as dictated by events in the centre, rather than the Ural ‘periphery’. Dukes does not seek to marginalize or exaggerate the significance of either, but to connect them. Major local and global developments such as the Great Reforms and Gosplan are recounted and given due importance, but we see their relation to and impact on the Urals. Similarly, we also see the wider impact of Ural industry as its rifles armed Alexander I’s armies against Napoleon, or the trajectory of locally born, internationally significant figures such as Boris Yeltsin. This approach works better for discussions of, say, the Pugachev rebellion or Soviet secret cities than Catherinian reforms, but it complements Dukes’ aim of showing the literal and rhetorical incorporation of the Urals across five centuries of Russian rule. Indeed, this is very much a ‘Russian’ history. Everything before the ascension of Ivan IV is compacted into a few pages, and Dukes limits his discussion of native peoples to occasional paragraphs and directing readers to existing historiography.
That being said, Russia’s Crucible is not narrowly focused. In keeping with transnational scholarship, Dukes is keen to situate Russian imperialism in a global context. He portrays it as equally significant to world history as Columbus’s arrival in America or the rise of the British Empire, and highlights the extent to which foreign expertise and capital played a key role in the industrial and cultural development of the Urals. While his statement that ‘the history of the Urals is a microcosm of modern world history, moving from hunting, farming and commercial stages through the industrial’ somewhat labours the point, the intent is clear. For those seeking theoretical exposition, the chapter-ending ‘associated ideas’ provide tantalizing allusions to transnational connections, cultural coexistence, ‘frontier’ theory and global imperial comparisons. They often beg further explanation, but it would be unfair to criticize Russia’s Crucible as something it is not intended to be. Moreover, there are copious footnotes for those still curious. Although it is not a work of primary research, extensive use is made of the established field of Russian-language studies on the Urals and of English-language works on Russian imperialism. As a tightly formed, easily referenced example of the unpicking and remaking of centre and periphery over five centuries, and in adding to the diversity of regional Russian historiography, Russia’s Crucible is a valuable addition to the field for students and researchers.