Specialization:
Russian History

Research:
Early Modern and Imperial Russian History

Fellowships:

Fulbright, Social Science Research Council, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Council for Russian and East European Research, American Council of Learned Societies

Visiting Professor:

The University of Chicago (2002-03, 2010)

Humboldt University, Berlin, Germany (2010-2011)

Publications:

Books

Where Two Worlds Met: The Russian State and the Kalmyk Nomads, 1600-1771 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1992, paperback 2006)

Of Religion and Empire: Missions, Conversion and Tolerance in Tsarist Russia, editor with Robert Geraci (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2001).

Russia's Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire, 1500-1800 (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2002, paperback 2004).

"Bitter Choices:  Loyalty and Betrayal in the Russian Conquest of the North Caucasus" (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2011).

Imperial Visions, Policies and Impacts: Eurasian Empires in Comparative Perspective. 

Between Asiatic and Oriental: The Russian Empire in the East: 1700-1917 (current project)

Selected Articles:

"Seeking Identity in Imperial Russia: The Case of the North Caucasus," in The Russian Empire Reconsidered (Helsinki, Finland, 2008), pp. 124-38.

"From Frontier to Empire: The Concept of the Frontier in Russia, 16-18th Centuries," in International Conference "The Role of the Frontier in Russian History, 8-18th Centuries," Chicago, May 29-31, 1992. Russian History 19 (1992): 115-128.

"The Stepan Razin Uprising: Was It a 'Peasant War'?" Jahrbücher  für Geschichte Osteuropas 42, no. 1 (1994): 1-19.

"La conquête de l'Est" in Autrement "Les Sibériens" 78 (1994): 64-79

"Not by Word Alone: Missionary Policies and Religious Conversion in Early Modern Russia" Comparative Studies in Society and History 38, no. 2 (1996): 267-93.

"Ignoble Savages and Unfaithful Subjects: Constructing non-Christian Identities in Early Modern Russia," in The Russian Orient: Imperial Strategies and Oriental Encounters, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997), pp. 8-32.

"V korolevstve krivykh zerkal: Osnovy rossiiskoi politiki na Severnom Kavkaze do zavoevatel'nykh voin 19 veka," in Chechnya i Rossia: Obshchestva i gosudarstva (Moscow, 1999), pp. 19-39.

"Of Christianity, Enlightenment and Colonialism: Russia in the North Caucasus, 1550-1800," The Journal of Modern History 71, no. 2 (1999): 394-430.

"Russia's Colonial Frontiers in the Eighteenth Century: From the North Caucasus to Central Asia" in Extending the Borders of Russian History, Festschrift for Alfred Rieber (Budapest: Central European University Press, 2002).

Cambridge History of Russia, 3 vols. (vol. 1, ch. 14: 317-37 and ch. 22: 520-38) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006).

"Why Is There No Switzerland in the North Caucasus?" in Festschrift fur Andreas Kappeler (Frankfurt, 2009): 321-338.

"The Return of Lieutenant Atarshchikov: Empire and Identity in Asiatic Russia" in AB Imperio 1 (2009): 149-64.

Teaching:

"Western Civilization and the World to the Seventeenth Century," "The Evolution of the Western Ideas since the Seventeenth Century," "Russian History I: Building the Empire," "Imperial Russian History, 1700-1917," "Soviet History: Between the Revolutions, from October 1917 to August 1991;" Graduate seminars: "Nationalism and the Soviet Union," "Comparative Frontiers", "Comparative Empires and Colonialisms", "A History of the Caucasus and Central Asia", "Islam in Russia".

Faculty Office Hours