Autocracy and Society in Romanov Russia

4 credits · Undergraduate

The Romanovs ruled Russia from 1613 until 1917, when revolutions swept them from power. In three centuries, they transformed it from a landlocked country, inhabited largely by ethnic Russians, into a sprawling, western-oriented, multi-ethnic empire, governing well over 100 million people across some 8.6 million square miles. This course will focus on the techniques of rule that the Romanovs used to maintain and expand state power. It will inquire into the extent and limits of the reach of the administrative and military apparatus into subjects’ public and private lives. Nominally, Russia was an autocracy. How powerful were Russia’s Romanov autocrats in practice? What can the Russian experience teach us about the nature of the modern state?