DOI 10.18413/2312-3044-2016-3-2-152-154

NEW BOOKS

Shapovalov, V. A. 2014. Pomestnoe dvorianstvo Evropeiskoi Rossii v 50-90-e gg. XIX veka (po materialam tsentral'no-chernozemnykh gubernii) [The Landed Gentry of European part of Russia in 1850s through 1890s (Based on Materials of the Black Soil Provinces). Belgorod: Publishing House “Belgorod,” Belgorod National Research University. 544 pages. ISBN: 9785957109884.

The book examines various aspects of the gentry estates’ development in the Black Soil provinces from the 1850s through the 1890s. Special attention is given to gentry land ownership and land use, capitalist modernization of gentry estates, the role and place of landed gentry in local government and self-government, the transformation of daily life for gentry, and the socio-psychological adaptation of landed gentry. In addition, the author explores the figure of the Russian landlord in Russian folklore.

 

Baran, Emily B. 2014. Dissent on the Margins: How Soviet Jehovah's Witnesses Defied Communism and Lived to Preach About It. New York: Oxford University Press. 400 pages. ISBN: 9780199945535.

Soviet Jehovah's Witnesses are a fascinating case study of dissent outside of the boundaries of urban, intellectual nonconformity. Witnesses, who were generally rural, poorly educated, and utterly marginalized from society, resisted state pressure to conform. They instead constructed alternative communities based on adherence to religious principles established by the Witnesses' international center in Brooklyn, New York. The Soviet state considered Witnesses to be the most reactionary of all underground religious movements, and used extraordinary measures to try to eliminate this threat. Yet Witnesses survived, while the Soviet system did not. After 1991, they faced continuing challenges to their right to practice their faith in post-Soviet states, as these states struggled to reconcile the proper limits on freedom of conscience with European norms and domestic concerns.

 

Golovnev, A. V. 2015. Fenomen kolonizatsii [The Phenomenon of Colonization]. Ekaterinburg: Russian Academy of Sciences, Ural Branch. 592 pages. ISBN: 9785769124242.

The book further develops the author`s theory regarding the anthropology of movement. Its main subject, Homo mobilis (mobile man), now features as a mover of colonization through space and time, from the initial populating of the planet to the medieval expansions of Europeans, Mongols, and Russians. Golovnev argues that colonization as a universal trait of living matter is far older than humankind and, in contrast to ideologically tinted “colonialism,” is a regular mechanism of natural and cultural life. The book`s three parts, Classic Variations, Major Byways of Rus, and Expanding Russia, describe the general characteristics and diversity of colonization.