9781800085916
9781800085923
Distributed for UCL Press
Reconnoitring Russia
Mapping, Exploring and Describing Early Modern Russia, 1613–1825
A geographical and historical analysis of Russian perspectives on the expansion of Russia.
Focusing on geographical practices—such as exploring, observing, describing, and mapping—Reconnoitring Russia explains how Russia’s rulers and public came to understand the expanse of their territory. It adopts a broad chronological framework and compares the Russian experience to the concurrent realities of other European countries between 1613, the emergence of the Romanov dynasty, and 1825, the conclusion of Alexander I’s reign.
Focusing on geographical practices—such as exploring, observing, describing, and mapping—Reconnoitring Russia explains how Russia’s rulers and public came to understand the expanse of their territory. It adopts a broad chronological framework and compares the Russian experience to the concurrent realities of other European countries between 1613, the emergence of the Romanov dynasty, and 1825, the conclusion of Alexander I’s reign.
Table of Contents
Figures
Text boxes
Preface
Acknowledgements
Note on transliteration and place names
1 Introduction: geographical endeavour in early modern Russia
2 Russian geographical endeavour before Peter the Great (sixteenth-seventeenth centuries)
3 ‘The Great Designs of the Tsar’: the era of Peter the Great (c. 1694-1725)
4 The post-Petrine period: the Academy of Sciences, the 1745 Atlas and the Great Northern Expedition (1725-1762)
5 The era of Catherine the Great (1762-1796): a new age of imperial expansion
6 Widening horizons: geographical endeavour at the end of the ‘long eighteenth century’ (1796-1825)
7 Conclusion
Glossary
References
Index