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This Episode:
Today we're talking about the ways in which 17th and 18th century Russia gathered intelligence on the Far East with Professor Gregory Afinogenov, who is currently Assistant Professor of Russian Imperial History at the University of Georgetown.
He's on Twitter as @athenogenes.
[Edit: It has been brought to my attention that I spelled Tsar as "Tzar". Whether in my mind I fused "Tsar" with "Czar" or the Spanish "Zar" with the English "Tsar", I goofed on the title. I corrected the name on the LibSyn page itself, though the link remains the same, typo and all.]
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I am incredibly excited to hear this; the Russian exploration and expansion into Siberia is one of the most fascinating aspects of history I hear nothing about.
Are there any books that detail the Russian exploration and conquest past the Urals and towards the Pacific? Anything about the explorers?
Meta question: do you guys take constructive criticism? I would like to listen to this and help out if I can.
This sounds very interesting, I'll check it out. I haven't yet listened to any of the podcasts. I'm not exactly old, but old enough that listening to podcasts is a new habbit that I need to nurture.
Maybe you said it and I missed it, but is there an ETA on the book?
Good guest and an interesting discussion about a topic that I had never even considered.
It's slightly disheartening to hear him say on the episode that the study of this era of Russia is in decline.
Thanks for a great podcast!
I enjoyed the subject, and as noted elsewhere there seems to just be a dearth of good published works (at least in English) on Russian eastern expansion and the Far East. It was especially interesting to hear about the horrible, boring life at the Russian mission in Beijing. I'd also love to hear more about the Buryats as intermediaries.
On a more meta level, it's saddening to hear that Russian academic studies (outside of the pre-Revolution and Soviet period) are something of an endangered species, at least in the US. I would have thought that Russia's resurgence would have inspired a revival, but then again it probably means that most grad students tend to pursue more "strategic" topics (see: anecdotally a big focus on "political Islam" in grad students studying Central Asia, and not so much beyond that). I'd be interested to hear more about that, and what is most threatened by the trends here.