Imperial Visions
Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840–1865

An intellectual/historiographical examination of the fundamental importance of geographical imagination in the mentalité of imperial Russia, first published in 1999.

Mark Bassin (Author)

9780521026741, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 November 2006

348 pages, 1 map
22.8 x 15 x 2.2 cm, 0.531 kg

'… a solid work of scholarship … a detailed study for the specialist reader, and a definitive work on a generally neglected aspect of nineteenth-century empire-building which may prove one day to be of great geopolitical importance.' Asian Affairs

In the middle of the nineteenth century, the Russian empire made a dramatic advance on the Pacific by annexing the vast regions of the Amur and Ussuri rivers. Although this remote realm was a virtual terra incognita for the Russian educated public, the acquisition of an 'Asian Mississippi' attracted great attention nonetheless, even stirring the dreams of Russia's most outstanding visionaries. Within a decade of its acquisition, however, the dreams were gone and the Amur region largely abandoned and forgotten. In an innovative examination of Russia's perceptions of the new territories in the Far East, Mark Bassin sets the Amur enigma squarely in the context of the Zeitgeist in Russia at the time. Imperial Visions demonstrates the fundamental importance of geographical imagination in the mentalité of imperial Russia. This 1999 work offers a truly novel perspective on the complex and ambivalent ideological relationship between Russian nationalism, geographical identity and imperial expansion.

Foreword Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
Acknowledgements
Introduction
Map of the Russian Far East (c.1860)
Part I: 1. Early visions and divinations
2. National identity and world mission
3. The rediscovery of the Amur
4. The push to the Pacific
Part II: Introduction
5. Dreams of a Siberian Mississippi
6. Civilizing a savage realm
7. Poised on the Manchurian frontier
8. The Amur and its discontents
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index.

Subject Areas: Historical geography [HBTP]