Publishing in Tsarist Russia: A History of Print Media from Enlightenment to Revolution

According to Benedict Anderson, the rapid expansion of print media during the late-1700s popularised national history and standardised national languages, thus helping create nation-states and national identities at the expense of the old empires. Publishing in Tsarist Russia challenges this theory and, by examining the history of Russian publishing through a transnational lens, reveals how the popular press played an important and complex Imperial role.
As this volume convincingly argues, this is because the Russian language at this time was a lingua franca; it crossed borders and boundaries, reaching speakers of varying nationalities. Russian publications, then, were able to effectively operate within the structure of Imperialism and so actually strengthened the large, multi-ethnic Russian empire.
This exciting international team of leading and emerging scholars provide a much-needed, fresh take on the history of Russian publishing and contribute significantly to our understanding of print media, language and empire from the 18th to 20th centuries. Publishing in Tsarist Russia is therefore a vital resource for scholars of Russian history, comparative nationalism, and publishing studies.