“People, ideas and movements not only moved outward from the power centres of Moscow and St. Petersburg, but they also moved between the empire’s borderlands. Historically, development has often been described as controlled from above, but we want to investigate how networks and cooperation arose directly between the western border areas in the late Romanov Empire,” says Julia Malitska, PhD in history and project researcher at Södertörn University. She continues, “By emphasising these horizontal relationships, we suggest that they were a fundamental part of the empire’s social structure and culture.”

Terra incognita on the map of history

Horizontal links between the regions of the Empire and their role are described by the research team as terra incognito on the map of history, a neglected area of research. They want to contribute new perspectives on a revolutionary period of imperial history by challenging old interpretations. The project, Entangled Borderlands: Mapping Intra-Imperial Connections for a New Spatial History of the Late Romanov Empire, is led by Catherine Gibson, historian at the University of Tartu. The research group includes Janet Laidla, Heiko Pääbo and Södertörn’s researcher Julia Malitska.

“Border areas are often regarded as clear boundaries between countries and centres of power, but these areas were actually dynamic meeting places where cultures mixed, ideas were exchanged and new ways of thinking emerged,” says Malitska.

Three case studies map the entangled borderlands of the Romanov Empire

The project is based on three case studies:

• Visual entanglements:
  How cartographers collected and presented information about imperial territories, and how this influenced perceptions of the relationships between different parts of the empire.
• Network entanglements:
  This case study examines the production, dissemination and circulation of ideas and practices of reformism (such as vegetarianism, animal welfare, hygienism, temperance movements) between different actors and contexts in the late Romanov Empire.
• Urban entanglements:
  Focuses on Dorpat (later Iur’ev, now Tartu), a university town where students from different parts of the empire met, creating a mix of ideas and cultural expressions.

“Lebensreform movements reflect the empire’s diversity”

Julia Malitska, whose previous research has studied different types of Lebensreform movements in the Russian empire, has primary responsibility for studies of network entanglements:

“These Lebensreform movements are fascinating case studies for entanglements, because these reformist environments largely originated in the empire’s multiethnic provinces, often centred on cities such as Warsaw, Kyiv, Odesa, Tallinn, Tartu or Riga.”

A new perspective on historical development

The project builds upon archival material from the Baltic States, Ukraine and Poland. The researchers hope to contribute to historiography that is more polycentric and multifaceted, one that includes more perspectives, by highlighting the horizontal connections between different regions of the empire.

“In addition to strengthening research on imperial history and the Baltic Sea region and Eastern Europe, my hope is that the project can bring a new lease of life to Swedish studies of empires and colonial history,” Malitska concludes.