Since the early 1990s, a substantial literature has emerged on nationality, ethnicity and the conceptualization of ethnic diversity in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union and its impacts on governance, culture and everyday life. Yet the... more
Since the early 1990s, a substantial literature has emerged on nationality, ethnicity and the conceptualization of ethnic diversity in Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union and its impacts on governance, culture and everyday life. Yet the phenomenon of race has garnered relatively little attention. Only relatively recently has literature begun to emerge probing understandings of difference in Russia from the perspective of race. This article explores the challenges associated with transferring the concept of race to contexts in which it has not been widely recognized, and considers some of the particular features of race in the Russian context. This article has been published in Russian in the journal Etnograficheskoe obozrenie (no 2, 2019, 114-132).
The Division of Prints and Drawings of the Swedish National Museum contains a collection with just over 200 hand painted images of the peoples of the Russian Empire which, up to the present time, has been largely unknown to scholars.... more
The Division of Prints and Drawings of the Swedish National Museum contains a collection with just over 200 hand painted images of the peoples of the Russian Empire which, up to the present time, has been largely unknown to scholars. The images, dating from the first half of the 18th century, are associated with the name of Friedrich Wilhelm Bergholtz (1699–1772) a courtier and collector who served as a tutor to the Grand Duke Petr Fedorovich (the future Peter III). In this article, the authors describe the contents of the collection, consider its possible origin, and assess its significance, particularly with regard to its depictions of Siberian peoples and Ukrainians
