Russia’s complex and tumultuous history during WWI and the rise of the Soviet regime is set to be re-explored by a major new study.
A symposium at the University of Aberdeen on July 22-24 will officially launch a 10-year project designed to mark the centenaries of Russia's participation in WWI and the 1917 Russian revolutions.
A 35-strong team of experts from the UK, North American, Japan and Russia will gather at King's College to lay the groundwork for at least six new books on the period, which are expected to be published by the project's conclusion in 2017.
Dr Tony Heywood, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at the University of Aberdeen has been instrumental in driving the project forward.
He said: "It will review the existing literature and could potentially involve up to 200 specialists from around the world contributing chapters that address as many of the big gaps in our knowledge as possible, especially the 1914-17 period.
"From my own area of research, it's commonly asserted that Russia's railway system was inadequate and collapsed, which caused the food shortages that led to the February Revolution in Petrograd in 1917 and the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II.
"But no-one has studied the railways to check whether they really did collapse. Actually, the available statistics show that in 1916 they carried more people and freight than ever before. So what happened? I suspect that they did not collapse. And if that's correct then we begin to form a different picture of the period."
General themes addressed by the project are likely to include:
Military: Russia in WWI and civil war 1914-circa 1921, including military intervention by foreign powers.
International: Diplomatic relations with its Allies, neutral America, the impact of the Bolshevik revolution, foreign sanctions, support for anti-Bolshevik forces in the civil war, and the gradual establishment of relations between the Soviet regime and the outside world from 1920.
European Russia: The 'home front' from 1914-17, issues of politics, society and economy for the period of civil war 1917-circa 1921 known as War Communism.
Empire: Issues of the war, revolution and civil war in the western borderlands, Caucasus and Russian/Soviet Central Asia - including treatment of minorities, religion, and nationalism.
Far East and Japan: - Broaching similar themes including the involvement of Japan as a war ally to 1917 and then as a power that intervened militarily in the civil war.
Culture: Broadly defined as the Arts.
Dr Heywood added: "Since 1991, and the depoliticisation of Russian history after the Cold War, it has been far easier to collaborate with colleagues in the Former Soviet Union and, crucially, to get decent access to the former Soviet archives.
"As a result, we hope that if we get enough good chapters contributed, the project will yield several edited books per theme so each volume will consist of at least one, and possibly more, edited books."
Seed funding for the project launch has come from the University of Aberdeen, University of Wisconsin, The British Academy, The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation, The British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies, and the Kennan Institute for Advanced Russian Studies in Washington DC.