Tales of Imperial Russia : the life and times of Sergei Witte, 1849-1915

List of Abbreviations . . xi
Map of Russian Empire, 1912 . . xiv
Introduction. The Storyteller and His Story . . 1

1. Transcaucasia: Boyhood and Family on an Imperial Frontier, 1849—1865 . . 18
'On Ancestors [O predkakh]': Men and Masculinity . . 21
Frontier Women and Imperial Imagination . . 37
Conclusion: A Grandmother's Tale . . 48

2. Imperial Identity: Corning of Age in New Russia, 1865-1881 . . 57
The University and 'Studenthood' . . 61
Odessa and St Petersburg: The Railway Man in an Age of Empire . . 69
Conclusion: A New Russian . . 86

3. Kiev: Dreaming in the Victorian 1880s . . 90
'The Reality That Surrounds Us': Imperial Economy and Polity . . 96
Public and Private Lives . . 113
Imagining Autocracy . . 127
Conclusion: A Tale of the Counter-reforms . . 134

4. A City of Dreams: St Petersburg, the Empire of the Tsars, and Imperial Horizons in the Gilded Age (1889—1903) . . 138
Gospodin Minister: Witte as Imperial Official . . 144
The Witte System and the Empire of Gold . . 153
Fathers and Sons on the Road to War . . 170

5. From Exile: Memories of Re volutionary Russia, 1903—1912 . . 189
From Summer 1903 to October 1905: War, America, and Revolution . . 195
The Nightmare of 1905 . . 215
Conclusion: 'My Six-Month Ministry' . . 231

Conclusion: From the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, 1915 . . 241

Notes . . 254
Bibliography . . 291
Index . . 309