Description
The roots of the Arab world's current Russian entanglements reach deep into the tsarist and Soviet periods. To explore those entanglements, this book presents and contextualizes a set of primary sources translated from Russian, Arabic, Armenian, Persian, French, and Tatar: a 1772 Russian naval officer's diary, an Arabic slave sale deed from the Caucasus, an interview with a Russian-educated contemporary Syrian novelist, and many more. These archival, autobiographical, and literary sources, all appearing in English for the first time, are introduced by specialists and in some cases by pairs of scholars with complementary language expertise. They highlight connections long obscured by disciplinary cleavages between Slavic and Middle East studies. Taken together, the thirty-four chapters of this book show how various Russian/Soviet and Arab governments sought to nurture political and cultural ties and expand their influence, often with unplanned results. They reveal the transnational networks of trade, pilgrimage, study, ethnic identity, and political affinity that state policies sometimes fostered and sometimes disrupted. Above all they give voice to some of the resourceful characters who have embodied and exploited Arab-Russian contacts: missionaries and diplomats, soldiers and refugees, students and party activists, scholars, and spies. A set of specially commissioned maps helps orient readers amid the expansion and collapse of empires, border changes, population transfers, and creation of new nation-states that occurred during the two centuries these sources cover.
About the Author
Eileen Kane is professor of history and director of the Program in Global Islamic Studies at Connecticut College. She is the author of Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. Masha Kirasirova is assistant professor of history at New York University Abu Dhabi. She is the author of The Eastern International: Arabs, Central Asians, and Jews in the Soviet Union's Anticolonial Empire. Margaret Litvin is associate professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Boston University. She is the author of Hamlet's Arab Journey: Shakespeare's Prince and Nasser's Ghost and the translator of Sonallah Ibrahim's Arabic novel Ice, set in 1973 Moscow.
Reviews
This volume is a milestone in global and transregional history. It challenges the view of empires and regions as enclosed or competing. Instead, it reveals a wide range of exchanges and entanglements. From migration and travel to diplomacy and translation, each essay is original, riveting, and brings to life a vast array of actors that connected Russian and Arab worlds from the eighteenth century to the aftermath of the Cold War. This volume is a model for scholars beyond the Russian and Arab worlds. * Jeremy I. Adelman, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, Princeton University *
This expertly curated collection of texts and commentaries on Russia's long entanglement with the Middle East is a revelation. * Robert Vitalis, Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania *
Russian-Arab Worlds is a remarkable multi-perspectival collection of newly translated documents and writings that opens up fresh scholarly vistas on connections between Russia and the Middle East. The two-way approach dissolves boundaries, recalibrates trajectories, and centers the multi-dimensional factors and forces (commercial, political, social, cultural, religious) that continue to generate trans-regional integration. This volume operates at multiple analytical levels and affirms the shared history of ideas and populations on the move between Russia and the Middle East in the modern period. * Andrew Robarts, author of Migration and Disease in the Black Sea Region: Ottoman-Russian Relations in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries *
One of the best books published in 2023 on Russia's relations with the Middle East is one that policy-oriented audiences are likely to miss but really shouldn't: Russian-Arab Worlds: A Documentary History. [...] Several of these documents show that the Middle East has not been a passive arena in which Russian governments have acted. Instead, various Middle Easterners have actively sought to interact with Russia. Other documents describe how the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, in particular, fostered Russian popular interest in Palestine and an affinity for Russia in the Levant. Above all, this collection of documents provides a sense of the deep roots of Russian soft power in the Middle East. This is something Western foreign policymakers need to understand. * Dr. Mark N. Katz, Nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Middle East Programs *
Book Information
ISBN 9780197605769
Author Eileen Kane
Format Hardback
Page Count 408
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 862g
Dimensions(mm) 185mm * 257mm * 32mm
About the Author
Eileen Kane is professor of history and director of the Program in Global Islamic Studies at Connecticut College. She is the author of Russian Hajj: Empire and the Pilgrimage to Mecca. Masha Kirasirova is assistant professor of history at New York University Abu Dhabi. She is the author of The Eastern International: Arabs, Central Asians, and Jews in the Soviet Union's Anticolonial Empire. Margaret Litvin is associate professor of Arabic and comparative literature at Boston University. She is the author of Hamlet's Arab Journey: Shakespeare's Prince and Nasser's Ghost and the translator of Sonallah Ibrahim's Arabic novel Ice, set in 1973 Moscow.
Reviews
This volume is a milestone in global and transregional history. It challenges the view of empires and regions as enclosed or competing. Instead, it reveals a wide range of exchanges and entanglements. From migration and travel to diplomacy and translation, each essay is original, riveting, and brings to life a vast array of actors that connected Russian and Arab worlds from the eighteenth century to the aftermath of the Cold War. This volume is a model for scholars beyond the Russian and Arab worlds. * Jeremy I. Adelman, Henry Charles Lea Professor of History, Princeton University *
This expertly curated collection of texts and commentaries on Russia's long entanglement with the Middle East is a revelation. * Robert Vitalis, Professor of Political Science, University of Pennsylvania *
Russian-Arab Worlds is a remarkable multi-perspectival collection of newly translated documents and writings that opens up fresh scholarly vistas on connections between Russia and the Middle East. The two-way approach dissolves boundaries, recalibrates trajectories, and centers the multi-dimensional factors and forces (commercial, political, social, cultural, religious) that continue to generate trans-regional integration. This volume operates at multiple analytical levels and affirms the shared history of ideas and populations on the move between Russia and the Middle East in the modern period. * Andrew Robarts, author of Migration and Disease in the Black Sea Region: Ottoman-Russian Relations in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries *
One of the best books published in 2023 on Russia's relations with the Middle East is one that policy-oriented audiences are likely to miss but really shouldn't: Russian-Arab Worlds: A Documentary History. [...] Several of these documents show that the Middle East has not been a passive arena in which Russian governments have acted. Instead, various Middle Easterners have actively sought to interact with Russia. Other documents describe how the Imperial Orthodox Palestine Society, in particular, fostered Russian popular interest in Palestine and an affinity for Russia in the Levant. Above all, this collection of documents provides a sense of the deep roots of Russian soft power in the Middle East. This is something Western foreign policymakers need to understand. * Dr. Mark N. Katz, Nonresident senior fellow with the Atlantic Council's Middle East Programs *
Book Information
ISBN 9780197605769
Author Eileen Kane
Format Hardback
Page Count 408
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 862g
Dimensions(mm) 185mm * 257mm * 32mm
