Mark D. Steinberg

Indeed a book with "something fresh to say" about this decades plus span of Russian upheaval. Using contemporary journalists reporting in an opening salvo, followed by the insights from people on the margins of the empire (the Pale of settlement, Central Asia) Steinberg adds an insightful new angle of study into this complicated time. The focus on a cast of characters at once rather well known (Vladimir Mayakovsky, Isaac Babel, Lev Trotsky) and almost wholly unfamiliar (Alexandra Kollontai, Volodymyr Vynnycheko, Matmud Khoja Behbudi) lend this tome a depth and freshness that almost begs to be revisited. I suspect this offering is all but unique in the English language. Ranks with the works of Jonathan Smele. A Truly a welcome addition to any library of Revolutionary history.… (mer)

In trying to tease out how Russians felt about Petersburg in the period between 1905 and 1914, the author takes one down some familiar paths of ennui and anxiety provoked by the experience of modernity, suggesting that these feelings were so strong in Petersburg that they tended to discouraged positive actions that might have ameliorated the coming catastrophe. One point Steinberg alludes to is that the existence itself of Petersburg already represented something of a shock of the new in Russian culture, so it might be that the intelligentsia of the city were already inclined to embrace the darker images available to their imaginations. Frankly, the more you are a student of Russian literature the more you will get out of this monograph. Also, Steinberg's effort to provide one with a kaleidoscopic view of period opinion comes off as a little too random for me.… (mer)

This collection titled "Voices of Revolution" is a selection from the many letters, resolutions, requests, appeals, complaints and invective sent to various state organs and important politicians from the period of the Russian Revolution by 'regular people'. Farmers, soldiers, deserters, workers, and so on all came together in that period to elect their own representatives and form their own councils, and these councilmembers in turn responded to the many confused events of those days with letters and resolutions supporting or opposing specific policies or politicians. Equally, individual farmers, laborers etc. wrote letters, requests, insults or even poetry to popular newspapers as well as party leaders in the hope of getting their voices heard.

In between all these documents, translated into English but also available online in their Russian originals, the editor Mark Steinberg provides a short but effective history of the period to give context to the many voices of the revolution. He does this fairly and accurately, and the many-sidedness of popular opinion in those days belies any one-sided view of the revolution. Of course it is never entirely clear how representative these individual and collective letters and appeals are, but judging by the various election results and the repetition of the same complaints and issues in the letters, the two match quite well. That makes this book an invaluable insight into the views of the common man in Russia, 1917.… (mer)