ISSN: 2158-7051 ==================== INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RUSSIAN STUDIES ==================== ISSUE NO. 10 ( 2021/1 ) |
The RUSSIAN Revolutions of 1917, the Northern Impact and Beyond, By Ayse Dietrich*, Published by: Academic
Studies Press, New York. Edited by Kari Aga Myklebost,
Jens Petter Nielsen, and Andrei Rogatchevski,
Year of Publishing: 2020. Subject Area: Soviet Union, Russian Revolution,
1917-1921. Book Type: Russian History. Total Number of Pages: 261. ISBN: 9781644690642, £109.00,
Hardcover.
This collaborative work, organized
in commemoration of the centenary of the Russian revolution, aims to explore
the events of 1917 with the focus on the impact of the revolution on Russia, the
Scandinavian countries, and Europe.
The book is comprised of
two parts. Part one, The Northern Impact,
includes eight articles.
The first article, “The
Russian Revolution and Civil War in the North: Contemporary Approaches and
Understanding” by Vladislav Goldin talks about the preconditions of the Civil
War in the Northern provinces, particularly in Arkhangelsk, Vologda and Olonets; the social life of the people; and the conditions
of the peasants and industrial workers. He states that the Civil War in the
north was not only a national, but also an international phenomenon in the
sense that the Allies saw the Civil War as an opportunity to get rid of the
Bolsheviks, and helped their opponents, the Whites, in their fight against the
Bolsheviks. He emphasizes that the Russian anti-Bolshevik powers organized a full-scale
military intervention and prepared a coup d’état in Arkhangelsk with the help
of the Allied powers, and initiated the main fighting against the Bolsheviks.
The author talks about how the withdrawal of the Allied powers led to the
failure of the Whites in the North, the economic conditions after the Entente
troops evacuated, and the disturbances and mutinies in the army. Disunited
anti-Bolshevik forces could not handle national problems well since they were
completely dependent on support from the Allied powers.
In the second article, “The
Russian Revolution in Sweden: Some Genetic and Genealogical Perspectives”,
Karlsson describes how Sweden influenced the Russian revolutionaries, how the
Russian revolution affected Swedish society, and how they reacted to the
revolution. According to him, at the beginning, when the Provisional Government
came to power, liberal groups saw the revolution promising development, and
promoting freedom, stability, and democracy. However, with the Bolsheviks these
people saw the revolution as a growing threat to their country. The author then
analyzes the Russian revolution through its genetic and genealogical
perspectives.
The third article, “The
Idea of Liberal Russia: The Russian Revolutions of 1917 and the Norwegian Slavist Olaf Broch” written by Myklebost,
discusses how the Russian Revolution was welcomed by the Norwegian Russian
expert Olaf Broch, and the reception of the Revolution by the conservative
Norwegian press. Until the Revolution, Broch believed that Russia was oppressed
by the autocrats. Therefore, the Revolution was a new era for him to bring
Russia closer to Europe. He sympathized
with the liberal political agenda, especially with Miliukov,
and with constitutional parliamentarism that would free the Russian people from
autocratic oppression and bring Russia closer to modernization that resembled
the system in Norway. However, when the Bolsheviks came to power his views had
changed. He had negative views on Lenin, thought that the Bolsheviks represented
only an extremist part of Russian socialism, and that the Bolsheviks should be
considered a temporary phenomenon.
In the fourth article,
“Arkhangelsk Province and Northern Norway in 1917-1920: Foreign Property and
Capital after the October Revolution of 1917”, the authors describes
the complex ethnic life of the people in the Arkhangelsk province, and the
relationship between the Whites and the Bolsheviks in Arkhangelsk and the Northern
Norwegians. They compare the period of the Whites and the period of the Bolsheviks
in Arkhangelsk, and explain how economic and cultural ties between Russia and
Norway during the Whites and the Bolsheviks had been destroyed and how foreign
property began to disappear in Arkhangelsk.
In the fifth article,
“Russian Emigration to Norway after the Russian Revolution and Civil War”, Tevlina examines Russian officers and government officials
from the Whites; fishermen and peasant traders who had to migrate to
Scandinavia when the Bolsheviks took Arkhangelsk during the Civil War ,and the Norwegians who stayed in Russia. The author
talks about their efforts to maintain their culture and community, and their
acceptance of a certain social decline in Norway.
In the sixth article,
“Soviet Diplomacy in Norway and Sweden in the Interwar Years”, Egge examines the nature of the Soviet diplomatic
activities in Norway and Sweden; the role of the diplomat Alexandra Kollontai
in the Soviet-Norwegian and Soviet-Swedish relationship and her contributions.
In the seventh article,
“Apprentices of the World Revolution: Norwegian Communists at the Communist
University of the National Minorities of the West (KUNMZ) and the International
Lenin School, 1926-1937”, Rønning focuses on the development
of educational institutions for foreign communists in the Soviet Union during
the 1920s aimed at the creation of foreign communist cadres to unify the
international communist movement and the contribution of the students who
attended the Comintern schools in the formation of a
Soviet-loyal communist movement in Norway.
The eight article, “The Impact of the October Revolution on the
North-Norwegian Labor Movement” written by Tjelmeland,
discusses the short and long-term impacts of the Russian Revolution at a
regional level in Northern Norway and gives a comparison between the political
culture in northern Norway and southern Norway.
In part two, the first
article “Avant-garde Artists vs. Reindeer Herders: The Kazym
Rebellion in Aleksei Fedorchenko’s
Angels of the Revolution” discusses a film related to the early 1930s Kazym rebellion of the Khanty and Nentsy
conducted against Stalin’s collectivization.
The second article, “1917:
The Evolution of Russian Émigré Views to the Revolution” puts emphasis on
émigré attitudes towards the revolution and the Civil War. Andreyev explains
how some émigré Russian intellectuals looked for short-term political solutions
to the consequences of the revolution, how some émigrés wanted to have a
political solution to overthrow the Bolsheviks, and how the majority of Russian
émigrés sought a way to preserve traditional Russian culture while remaining
outside the country.
The third article by Rogatchevkaya, “Russian Revolutions Exhibited: Behind the
Scenes”, introduces the author’s experiences and thoughts on the 2017 exhibition Russian Revolution: Hope, Tragedy, Myth at the British Library. The author
also shares visitors’ and reviewers’ responses.
In the fourth article, “The
Russian Revolution of 1917 and the Kremlin’s Policy of Remembrance”, Nielsen
discusses post-Soviet leadership’s interpretation of the Russian Revolution, and
the methods used to link the October Revolution with the present.
This collaborative effort
to explore the events of 1917 and their impact on Norway and Sweden in
particular, constitutes a valuable source for those interested in studying the
reception of the Russian Revolution of 1917 by other countries as well as its
various impacts in those countries.
*Ayse Dietrich - Professor, Part-time, at Middle East Technical University, Department of History, and Eurasian Studies. Editor and the founder of the International Journal of Russian Studies e-mail: editor@ijors.net, dayse@metu.edu.tr, dietrichayse@yahoo.com
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