CRRC, American Councils and ARISC are pleased to announce the 2nd talk of the Fall 2024 Tbilisi Works-in-Progress series!
This week’s talk will be in hybrid format in-person at CRRC Georgia and online.
“Russian Anatolia (1877-1917), between Colonial Fantasy and Inter-Imperial Project”
Masha Cerovic, School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) and Centre for Russian, Caucasian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies (CERCEC)
The 1878 annexation of the regions of Kars and Batumi by the Romanov empire were the last in a long string that had punctuated the empire’s southern expansion. Yet, the officials on the ground did not see them as mere continuation of a hundred-year movement. Their first priority was not to “repeat the mistakes of the past”. On the Black Sea coast, they meant to find the solution to the elusive “success” of the Romanov colonial Black Sea project. In the interior, they focused on creating a new colonial project, that would fundamentally break with the “failed policies of the 1830’s”. Even though imperial officials spent three decades struggling against the “failure” of this new project, it remained the blueprint for the envisioned Russian expansion in Eastern Anatolia / Western Armenia / Northern Kurdistan in 1916, up to the, at least, the February revolution. This research focuses on the methods and aims of this new colonial project, its limits and effects on the region, while exploring the ways that it was deeply entangled with the Ottoman colonizing project in this frontier area.
Masha Cerovic is Associate Professor at the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS) and Director of the Centre for Russian, Caucasian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies (CERCEC) in Paris, France. She is a historian of the Romanov empire and the Soviet Union, focusing on the history of empire, war and occupation in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus.
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Works-in-Progress is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place at the CRRC office at Chavchavadze Ave. 5 and online. It is co-organized by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC), the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS, and the American Research Institute of the South Caucasus (ARISC). All of the talks are free and open to the public.
In observation of the spirit of the Chatham House Rule, the talks will not be recorded, and we courteously request that the other participants refrain from recording and/or distributing recordings as well. The opinions expressed in WiP talks are those of the speakers alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of CRRC, ARISC or of American Councils.
