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"Theorizing Post-Revolutionary Social Resilience How does a society reproduce its latent structures of power, of hierarchy, and of status under the weight of the revolutionary, transformative, indeed, totalizing impulse of a visionary, utopian state? What underpins these "below the waterline" processes of resilience? And how and why does it matter for political outcomes now, long after the demise of the successive orders that have sought in vain to trample on the inner logic of society? In his classic polemic on the historical method, Carlo Ginzburg eulogizes the power of the subtle trace, the clue, the hidden and the concealed as key to the unmasking of the fundamental, the significant, the essential. Clues, he surmises, are seldom found in what is most visible, most public, and most conspicuous, but are discreetly scattered where one is least prone to look for them"--
List of contents
1. Theorizing post-revolutionary social resilience; 2. From imperial estates to estatist society; 3. Mapping society and the public sphere in imperial Russia; 4. The professions in the making of estatist society; 5. Education, socialization, and social structure; 6. Market values and the economy of survival; 7. Family matters: looking back - and forward - in time; 8. Society in space; 9. The two-pronged middle class: implications for democracy across time and in space; 10. The bourgeoisie in communist states: Comparative insights charting a comparative foreword; Afterword; Supplementary appendices: A. Archival sources; B. The 1897 census; C. District matching; D. Interview questionnaire; E. Illustrative Genealogies.
About the author
Tomila Lankina is Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics and Political Science. She has previously authored two books and has published widely in top disciplinary journals on democracy, authoritarianism, mass protests, and historical patterns of human capital and democracy in Russia and other states.
Summary
Lankina reveals how Imperial Russia's social structure survived the Bolsheviks' social engineering projects and continues to drive inequalities and democracy now. This is essential reading for students and scholars of Russian politics, society and history, and of comparative politics and sociology, especially those studying democratic development.
Additional text
'A richly textured study of historical continuities in the face of revolutionary change. Lankina's meticulous account of the pre-communist origins of Russia's post-communist society sheds new light on the logics of persistence and resilience in Russian social structure that shape political possibilities in the present day. Estate Origins is a rewarding read for anyone interested in the social requisites of democracy.' Bryn Rosenfeld, Assistant Professor, Department of Government, Cornell University
