An Imperial Parliament: The State Duma and Diversity in the Russian Empire, 1905–1907

CBEES Advanced Seminar with Ivan Sablin, Research Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana and Research Project Coordinator, Department of History, Heidelberg University.

Speaker: Ivan Sablin, Research Fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana and Research Project Coordinator, Department of History, Heidelberg University.

Discussant: Matthew Kott, Researcher at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University.

Chair: Yulia Gradskova, Associate Professor in History, Senior Researcher at the Department of Gender Studies, Södertörn University, and Research Coordinator at CBEES.

Abstract: The presentation is devoted to the first years of the State Duma of the Russian Empire and its role in imperial transformations. Although the Duma did not become a potent legislature in its first two convocations (1906–1907), it also did not serve as a mere demonstration of loyalty to the throne. Instead, the First and Second Dumas acted as revolutionary forums, politicizing categories of difference and attempting to assemble an inclusionary Russian civic nation in a bottom-up manner. While the goal of building a political community was not fully achieved, it became a tangible possibility and a future political objective. As political rallies, the first two Dumas amplified oppositional discourse, contributed to the development of mass politics, and helped consolidate the goal of an imperial revolution. The presentation is based on the book Parliaments in the Late Russian Empire, Revolutionary Russia, and the Soviet Union (London: Routledge, 2024).

Ivan Sablin partially substitutes for the Chair of Eastern European History and coordinates the Ladenburg Research Network “The Aggressor: Self-Perception and External Perception of an Actor Between Nations” in the Department of History at Heidelberg University, Germany. He also works as a research fellow at the Institute of Contemporary History, Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he heads the Slovenian Research Agency (ARIS) ERC Perspective Project “Socialist Management in a Global Context: Technocratic Developments in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, 1955–1991.” In 2018–2023, he led the Research Group “Entangled Parliamentarisms: Constitutional Practices in Russia, Ukraine, China and Mongolia, 1905–2005,” sponsored by the European Research Council (ERC), at Heidelberg University. His research interests include the history of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, with special attention to Siberia and the Russian Far East, and global intellectual history. He is the author of three monographs – Parliaments in the Late Russian Empire, Revolutionary Russia, and the Soviet Union (London: Routledge, 2024), The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Far Eastern Republic, 1905–1922 (London: Routledge, 2018), and Governing Post-Imperial Siberia and Mongolia, 1911–1924 (London: Routledge, 2016) – and research articles in Slavic Review, Europe-Asia Studies, Nationalities Papers, and other journals. Ivan Sablin also co-edited Planting Parliaments in Eurasia, 1850–1950: Concepts, Practices, and Mythologies (London: Routledge, 2021) and Parties as Governments in Eurasia, 1913–1991: Nationalism, Socialism, and Development (London: Routledge, 2022).