Commerce in Russian Urban Culture, 1861-1914 by W. C. Brumfield B. V. Anan'ich Yu. A. Petrov (review)

110 SEER, 82, I, 2004 and its limitations: instructions about provisioning and the (only partially successful) attempts to obtain enough food, reports on the advance party's progress across Siberia (including requests to sack some men who proved unsuitable), attempts to gain information from shipwreckedJapanese sailors and a host of other matters.I cannot emphasize too much how useful all this information is to historians of eighteenth-century Russia, not only to those interested in Siberian exploration and settlement. The series will stand alongside other fine editions, such as A. M. Lysaght's J}oseph Banks in Newfoundland andLabrador, I 766.- His Diagy,Manuscripts andCollections (London, I97I), mentioned because it is on my table at the moment, as monuments not only to scholarship,but to the worldwide spreadof European endeavour and resolution. I sincerely hope that funds will be forthcoming to complete the whole series of volumes. A glossary of archaisms, and thorough name, geographicaland subjectindexes are included. Department ofRussian andSlavonic Studies D. N. COLLINS University ofLeeds Brumfield,W. C., Anan'ich, B. V. and Petrov,Yu.A. (eds).Commerce inRussian UrbanCulture, I86I-I9I4. Woodrow Wilson Center Press and the John Hopkins University Press, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, MD, and London, 2001. XiV+ 239 pp. Illustrations.Notes. Tables. Index. f36.50. THIsbook originated in a Russian-Americanconference held at the Kennan Institute in Moscow in I996. Its stated aim is to examine the emergence in Russia of new commercial elites during the second half of the nineteenth century and their contribution to an emerging urban middle-class culture. The eleven contributorsexplore the social, national and religiousidentitiesof the new businessmen,their social and charitableactivitiesand their influence on the urban environments of significantcommercial centres. The volume's three editors, the distinguished Russian historians of business and banking Boris V. Anan'ich and Yuri A. Petrov, and the American architectural historian William Craft Brumfield, have brought together a number of talented experts, each of whom offersthe reader significantnew insightsinto hitherto neglected topics, and who collectively create a coherent and convincing picture of a new class, with new ways of thinkingand doing, and new architecturalstylesby which theysoughtto projecttheircorporatepower. It is less successful at elucidating the nature of the relationship between individualor group identitiesand the culturalformsthey sponsored. The book opens with an introductorychapterby the editors,which offersa brief overview of the themes of the volume and a brief outline of each paper. Part One of the book includes seven chapters examining differentaspects of imperialRussia's'BusinessCulture'.The firstchapter,by Anan'ichand Sergei G. Beliaev, describesthe development of St Petersburgas the bankingcentre of the empire, and the concomitant emergence of new businessdynasties,such as the houses of Stieglitz and Ginzburg, which had close ties both to the Russian government and to foreign companies and which came to dominate the commerciallandscapeof the capital.By the end of the nineteenth century, REVIEWS I I I St Petersburg'snew classofwealthyfinancierswascomprisedlargelyof former state officials (mainly Finance Ministry civil servants, though retired Prime Ministers,too, such as Vladimir Kokovtsov,were drawninto theirranks)and formermerchants,both from St Petersburgand fromprovincialcities, among whom were a sizeable contingent of national minorities (especiallyJews) and naturalizedforeigners(notablyGermans).Many of the remainingchaptersin the firstpart of the volume develop this picture of a new class. The second chapter by Sergei K. Lebedev, however, considers instead the influence of European businesscultureon St Petersburgbanks.His approach to 'business culture' is disappointinglynarrow, focusing on credit techniques and conditions ,bankruptcyproceduresandthetypesofoperationwhichweretransacted between Russianand foreignbanks.The next chapterby Beliaevis also highly specialized, offeringa narrativeof St Petersburg'suse of bond issues to fund the development of its urban infrastructure.Yuri A. Petrov's all too brief contribution on Moscow banking is of considerablygreater general interest, relatingas it does the storyof the city'sbankingbusinessand the emergence of a stratumof elite financiersto a civic identityin the makingand to the broader political and social context. Among others, he discusses the commercial activitiesand culturalrole of figuressuch asN. A. Naidenov (who publisheda number of definitive works on Moscow's church architecture) and Lazar Poliakov (who built the city's main synagogue), as well as the Riabushinskii, Knopp, WogauandJunker dynasties.He offerssome stimulatingcomparisons between Moscow and Petersburgelites, noting that the formerplayed a more active role in the industrialconcernsin which they invested...

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