Adventures in Russian Historical Research: Reminiscences of American Scholars from the Cold War to the Present

Samuel H. Baron and Cathy A. Frierson, eds. Adventures in Russian Historical Research: Reminiscences of American Scholars from the Cold War to the Present. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe, 2003. xxii, 272 pp. Index. $64.95, cloth. $24.95, paper.With the collapse of the USSR and the opening of former Soviet archives, there has been a rush of publications and conference symposia dedicated to the so-called Archival Revolution since 1991. This volume also falls into this category of publications, but with a more personal touch. Twenty American scholars, who have researched Russian history since World War II, recount their adventures and unique experiences of being historians of Russia. In the midst of the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union created academic exchange programs, most notably IREX (the International Research and Exchanges Board) and since then dozens of American scholars have been sent to Russia every year. Their identity as Americans in the USSR, funded by the U.S. government, often placed them in a difficult position. Their research topics had to be approved by the Soviet authorities: if their topic and methodology challenged the official Soviet version or were beyond the comprehension of their Soviet colleagues, they were often met with suspicion and obstruction. The political tension between the two countries reached its culmination when the Reagan administration dubbed the USSR the evil empire.In compiling their collection, the editors' goal was to represent not only different generations but also genders, universities, and research topics. Thus, the volume brings together a diverse collection of essays from scholars of diplomatic history, women's history, medical and science history, religion, intellectual history, and the history of nonRussian regions, architecture, art, and peasant life. Each essay appears chronologically according to the year of the author's first research experience in Russia and other Soviet republics. The collection begins with a chapter by Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, who made his first visit to the Soviet Union in 1958, and ends with an article by Steven A. Barnes, who did his doctoral research in 2000. The contributors' accounts range from full-length descriptions of scholars' careers to in-depth examinations of a critical stage of research, usually a first trip connected with a dissertation. Naturally, the contributions of senior historians fall into the former group and the younger generation, into the latter. Elise Kimerling Wirtschafter and Nadieszda Kizenko's more personal accounts are closely linked to their upbringing, ethnic background, and family relations.The research specializations of scholars who were trained in the 1950s and 1960s-eight out of twenty-pertain exclusively to the pre-Soviet period, as the Soviet authorities were unwilling to open their archives to Americans writing on anything dealing with the Soviet period. Their topics either focus on historical figures or politics and diplomacy, and their research entailed work at a handful of officially approved archives based in Moscow or Leningrad. Nicholas Riasanovsky, John T. Alexander, S. Frederick Starr, Hugh Ragsdale, and James Cracraft did their research on Russian imperial rulers or the policies of the imperial Russian government. Samuel H. Baron and Priscilla Roosevelt focused on intellectual history, examining the intelligentsia of the nineteenth century. In this group, Richard Stites is exceptional in that he pioneered Russian women's history studies. Later he entered cultural history by using non-conventional sources, such as buildings, paintings, musical scores, recordings, and films. Even so, early scholarship on women tended to focus on famous female revolutionaries or intellectuals.Scholars who were trained in the 1970s and early 1980s constitute the largest group of contributors. In the academic milieu of this period, they pioneered new approaches to Russian history, turning their attention from famous leaders to the role of nameless, ordinary people from various social groups. …

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