"Deti imperii" v postsovetskoi Tsentral'noi Azii: Adaptivnye praktiki i mental'nye sdvigi(russkie v Kirgizii, 1992-2002) by Natal'ia KosmarskaiaReview by: Anatony M. KhazanovSlavic Review, Vol. 67, No. 1 (Spring, 2008), pp. 227-228Published by:Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27652806 .

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Book Reviews 227

This last minor criticism aside, Khalid has clearly established himself as one of the

foremost scholars of Central Asia today. His insightful and descriptive work is destined to

become an indispensable handbook for specialists and nonspecialists alike.

Brian Glyn Williams

University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth

"Deti imperii "

v postsovetskoi Tsentral'noi Azii: Adaptivnye praktiki i mental'nye sdvigi (russkie

v Kirgizii, 1992-2002). By Natal'ia Kosmarskaia. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo "Natalis," 2006.

596 pp. Appendix. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Photographs. Tables. Hard bound.

The book under review is an important contribution to the study of Russian minorities

in the "near abroad," that is, in the non-Russian republics of the former Soviet Union.

The author aptly describes them as "postimperial," implying that their very existence is

connected, to a large extent, with specific policies pursued by the Soviet rulers. This sub

ject has already attracted the attention of many western and Russian scholars. Also, it has

become a hot political issue exploited and manipulated by various nationalistic forces

and governments in the region. During the Soviet period, a

significant number of ethnic

Russians in the non-Russian republics enjoyed rather high positions and status as a result,

either directly or indirectly, of Russian dominance within the Soviet Union. Nowadays,

their positions have become rather more precarious. This problem often affects polit

ical and social developments in the newly independent states and their relations with

Russia.

The disintegration of all modern empires has been followed by the outmigration of Europeans (and sometimes of non-Europeans also) who settled in the colonies and

were associated with colonial rule. Russia is no exception in this regard. Yet sixteen years

after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, although several million ethnic Russians have

returned to Russia, many millions more are reluctant, or unwilling, to follow in their foot

steps. Despite their somewhat weakened political and social status and calls for a "return to

the motherland" by many officials and politicians in Russia, it seems that, for the moment,

they prefer not to move from the countries of their current residence.

Based on a detailed case study of the Russian minority in Kyrgyzstan and on compara

tive materials from other post-Soviet countries, Natal'ia Kosmarskaia's book provides an

in-depth explanation of this situation, which is relevant not only to one

particular country

but to the post-Soviet political space in general. Some detached western readers may find

her book excessively polemic. One should take contemporary realities in Russia into ac

count, however. Many Russian scholars believe that the majority of their co-ethnics in the

other countries within the Commonwealth of Independent States will eventually leave

for Russia. They consider their outmigration inevitable and even desirable. Kosmarskaia,

on the contrary, maintains that for various reasons they will integrate into society at large in the countries where they now reside. In my opinion, she is right to argue that Russian

minorities are often perceived as more homogeneous than they actually are. As a result,

attention is often focused on a single group identity, despite the fact that, at present, one is witnessing the formation of multiple identities with significant individual variations

reflecting various ways of adjusting to the new situation. At the same time, one may also

agree with the author that Rogers Brubaker's concept of the nationalizing state is not ap

plicable to Kyrgyzstan and many other post-Soviet countries, especially the Central Asian

ones (see his Nationalism Reframed, 1996). In all probability, for the foreseeable future,

the Russians there will remain distinctive ethnic minorities not assimilated by indigenous

(titular) populations. I am less convinced by Kosmarskaia's attempt to blur the differences between ethnic

Russians and Russophone minorities. Actually, her book is mainly about the former. This is

not accidental. Even if one agrees that the Russophone minorities in Kyrgyzstan constitute

an undifferentiated group of "Europeans" vis-?-vis the ethnic majority, and this opinion is

far from unequivocal, ethnicity becomes salient when one comes to the problem of outmi

gration. First, many Russophones are even less welcome in Russia than ethnic Russian ?mi

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228 Slavic Review

gr?s; and second, the difference between Russians and Russophones sometimes becomes

very noticeable when possible directions of outmigration are at stake. Thus, Russophone

Germans and Jews have more choice in this regard than do ethnic Russians, since they can

emigrate, not only to Russia, but also to Germany and Israel, respectively. It is not surpris

ing that most of them have already left Central Asia.

Only the future can reveal whether the majority of Russians in Kyrgyzstan and other

Central Asian countries will eventually emigrate or not, and it is useless to embark on idle

speculations. Kosmarskaia has described the situation as it is at the moment, and she has

done this in a sophisticated and convincing way. Her book should be read by everyone who

studies Russian minorities in Central Asia.

Anatoly M. Khazanov

University of Wisconsin, Madison

The Cambridge History of Russia. Vol. 1, From Early Rus' to 1689. Ed. Maureen Perrie. Cam

bridge, Eng.: Cambridge University Press, 2006. xxii, 777 pp. Notes. Bibliography.

Chronology. Glossary. Index. Plates. Figures. Maps. $185.00, hard bound.

Works of reference designed to survey the whole history of a country and provide an

introduction for the nonspecialist reader seem to fall into two types. One is the tightly edited volume presenting the subject

as currently understood. The other is a collection of

essays in which the authors present their own points of view on

subjects of their particular

expertise. The first volume of the Cambridge history of Russia falls into the latter camp, the points of view being those of Anglo-American and a few Russian historians of Russia.

There are many fine chapters here, but there is also much overlap and mutual disagree ment, enough to make using it difficult for the nonspecialist.

The first two hundred pages take the story from the beginnings of Rus' to the middle of the fifteenth century. A rather skimpy account of the geography (Denis J. B. Shaw) and a somewhat idiosyncratic chapter on

early Rus' (Jonathan Shepard) make for a slow start, but Simon Franklin's superb account of the eleventh-century state and society makes up for it. Martin Dimnik and Janet Martin's relentlessly dynastic history of the Rus' principali ties and the rise of Moscow provide

a reliable summary of events but not much analysis.

Especially regrettable is the absence of the economic and social history of these centuries, in spite of V. L. Ianin's brief but excellent description of medieval Novgorod. The nonspe cialist reader will be better served for almost all of these topics by Martin's own Medieval

Russia, 980-1584(1995). To some extent the weakness of the earlier chapters reflects the predominant con

centration of Anglo-American historians on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For

the same reasons, the rest of the volume offers a thorough account of politics, society, and

culture in those centuries. Chapters by Donald Ostrowski, Sergei Bogatyrev, A. P. Pavlov, and Maureen Perrie cover

political history from 1462 to 1613. There is no narrative of

political events for the seventeenth century, but Marshall Poe describes the political insti

tutions for that period and Brian Davies covers local administration and warfare. Culture

and the church, including the schism, are not neglected (David B. Miller and Robert O.

Crummey). Michael S. Flier's succinct account of political ideas and rituals is one of the best chapters in the volume, with emphasis properly on the idea of Moscow as the New

Jerusalem and not the marginal Third Rome. Lindsey Hughes concludes the volume with a

quick survey of art and architecture, poetry, and other arts within the continued domi nance of religious culture.

Perhaps the most welcome innovation over previous surveys of earlier Russian his

tory are the chapters on the peasantry and serfdom (Richard Hellie), on towns and trade

(Shaw and Hellie), law (Hellie and Nancy Shields Kollmann), popular revolts (Perrie), and Michael Khodarkovsky's two chapters

on the various non-Russian peoples. Taken to

gether they provide a picture of a much more

complex society and state than existing accounts.

The price of these riches is that contradictory accounts are provided of the same

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