Workers and Intelligentsia in Late Imperial Russia : Realities, Representations, Reflections

The collapse of the Soviet Union opened previously unimagined possibilities for insight into Russian social, intellectual, and political history. This volume, a collaboration of American, Russian, and West European scholars, illuminates the creation and complex dynamics of the Russian industrial working class from its peasant origins in the mid-nineteenth century to the collapse of the imperial system in 1917. The authors focus on the shifting attitudes, cultural norms, self-representations, and increasing self-consciousness of workers as they interacted with the new social movements, student groups, the Church, and most dramatically, the political intelligentsia.