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Russia’s self-representation vis-à-vis the West is a problem that goes back at least to Peter the Great’s construction of St. Peterburg in 1703. At key moments, Russia strives to present itself as Western in the mold of other Western countries, while also facing doubts about that very status. Russia’s self-representation at world’s fairs in the mid to late 19th century showed increasing self-consciousness and complexity. A particularly salient example is that of the 1900 Exposition universelle in Paris, which was the largest exposition in the world at the time it was held, visited by 50 million people. Russia’s exhibits emphasized both the technological – the newly constructed Trans-Siberian railway – and the colonial. As Irina Shevelenko has argued, the Kremlin outer shell of the Russian pavilion, which surrounded displays based on Russian imperial peripheries, was understood as the “unity of imperial space.”
I aim to expand and complicate the issue of Russia’s self-representation at the world’s fair by incorporating perspectives of non-Russian participants who in their capacity as both colonized people and imperial representatives displayed Russia to the world. As guardians, interpreters and colonial subjects, Bukharans, Yakuts and artisans from the Caucasus all participated in the Russian exhibit, undermining any easy designation of “us” and “them” and opening up the category of who could serve as an imperial representative.
SPEAKER: Katya Hokanson (Univ. of Oregon)
SOBESEDNIK: Karen Kettering (independent scholar)
