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5. The Revenge
of the Past

7. RONALD GRIGOR SUNY
The Revenge of the Past
Nationalism, Revolution, and
the Collapse of the
Soviet Union
Stanford University Press
Stanford, California

8. Stanford University Press
Stanford, California
© 1993 by the Board of Trustees of the
Leland Stanford Junior University
Printed in the United States of America
CIP data are at the end of the book
Original printing
1993
Last figure below indicates year of this printing:
10 09 o8 oy o6 05 04

9. For my mother and father,
Arax and George Suny,
and my sister,
Linda
Suny Myrsiades

11. Contents
Foreword, by Norman M. Naimark ix
Preface xiii
Acknowledgments xvii
I. Rethinking Social Identities:
Class
and
Nationality I
2. National Revolutions and Civil War in Russia
20
3. State-Building and Nation-Making:
The Soviet Experience 84
4· Nationalism and Nation-States:
Gorbachev's
Dilemmas I 2 7
Notes I63
For Further Reading I 87
Index I9I

13. Foreword
The collapse of the Soviet Union was caused in good
measure by nationalism, that is, by the demands of the sub­
ject
nationalities of the USSR for genuine independence and
autonomy. Unified
in their hostility to the Kremlin's au­
thority,
the fifteen constituent Union Republics, including
the Russian republic, declared their sovereignty and began
to
build state institutions of their own. The demands of
the titular nationalities of each republic became the domi­
nant motifs in the programs of both Communist and non­
Communist leaders. With the failure of the
August 1991
putsch attempt, sovereign republics obtained their indepen­
dence.
Nationalism reigned supreme.
The principle of nationality that buried the Soviet Union
and destroyed its empire in Eastern Europe continues to
shape and reshape the configuration of states and political
movements among the new countries of the vast East Euro­
pean-Eurasian region. The ambitions of nations grow and
change,
splinter and clash, much as they have in the past­
only now, discordance and conflict spread too easily into

14. x I Foreword
armed clashes and war. The ruins of Vukovar in Croatia and
the shelling of Sarajevo in Bosnia serve as terrifying exam­
ples of
the quick acceleration of national conflict that al­
ready
threatens-among others in the former Soviet
Union­
Moldavians and Russians in Transdniestria, Armenians and
Azerbaijanis in Nagorno-Karabagh, and Georgians and Ose­
tins in Southern Osetia. The two largest nations of there­
gion, Russia and Ukraine, joust and argue over the material
inheritance of the once-great Soviet superpower with the
knowledge that a serious breakdown of communications
or a violent miscue could trigger a conflict of catastrophic
proportions.
In
the shadow of potential war and violence, nations are
being
born and reborn. Ukrainians are studying their own
language; Tajiks are learning to practice their own religion;
Estonians are rewriting their constitution. Volga Tatars pur­
sue autonomy within a genuinely federal Russian state, while
Russians themselves seek to understand their role in the Eu­
rasian
land mass they have conquered, colonized, and settled
over the past five centuries.
Small ethnic groups in the Rus­
sian Federation and elsewhere demand control over their
own territories; regionalism threatens the unity even of eth­
nically homogeneous regions. With the demise of the Com­
munist supranational administrative structures of the USSR
and Yugoslavia, nationalist ambitions have exploded in dif­
ferent directions,
with their trajectories still unpredictable
and malleable. This is not a case of uncorking the evil genie
of
national self-determination, but rather one of creating the
conditions that make its evolution volatile and uncertain.
Just as the Communists underestimated the power of na­
tionalism, Western leaders are immobilized by the changes
in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet
Union because of a
mute incomprehension of both the accomplishments of na­
tional movements and the threats posed by their sometimes
uncompromising leaders. Blinkered by their shared intellec-

15. Foreword I x1
tual heritage of the Enlightenment and materialism, Marx­
ists and liberals alike fail to appreciate the profound political
impact of nationalism. With few exceptions, scholars from
East
and West study politics and societies from the perspec­
tive of
the metropolitan centers and focus their attention on
the culture of the dominant nationalities. For a variety of
reasons,
some more excusable than others, Sovietologists
in particular were susceptible to Moscow-centered scholar­
ship. Slavic
departments were often no more than Russian
departments; Kremlinology substituted for political analysis.
There were exceptions-most notably, the Studies of Na­
tionalities (formerly Studies of Nationalities in the
USSR)
series edited by Wayne S. Vucinich of Stanford University and
published by the Hoover Institution Press. More recently,
prominent historians and social scientists-Eric Hobsbawm,
Benedict Anderson,
and Ernest Gellner, among them-have
also turned their attention to the unanticipated resurgence
of
modern nationalism. But it is still strikingly rare in the
literature for a scholar to apply this increasingly sophisti­
cated
theoretical understanding of nationalism, ethnopoli­
tics,
and nationality to the concrete and often unique prob­
lems of
Ukrainians, Uzbeks, Russians, or Estonians, either
separately or as a group of associated nations.
This book plays a critical role in providing this synthesis.
Above all a
history of the nationalities of the former Soviet Union, Ronald G. Suny's work here demonstrates the dy­
namic influence of specific Imperial and Soviet Russian his­
torical
contexts on the creation and perpetual recreation of
national self-consciousness among the peoples of the region.
He demonstrates that ideas of nationality are deeply embed­
ded
in these nations' understanding of their past. In turn,
historical
interpretation shapes the development of nation­
alism today and in the future. Without sacrificing the as­
tonishing diversity of national experiences in the Russian
empire and the Soviet
Union, the book develops a comprehen-

16. xii I Foreword
sive analysis of the relationships between nationality, moder­
nity, and class.
Suny combines methodological expertise, a
thorough background in Russian and Soviet history, and rec­
ognized
competence in the history and historiography of dis­
crete non-Russian
nations, especially the Georgians and Ar­
menians.
This allows him to attack the roles of nationalities
in the formation, maintenance, and decline of the Soviet
state with unusual clarity and nuance. Specialists and non­
specialists alike
will profit from the understanding of the
past and future provided by his unique point of view.
Ronald G. Suny is Alex Manoogian
Professor of Armenian
History at the University of Michigan. This book was first
presented to the Stanford community as the Donald M. Ken­
dall Lectures
in Soviet Studies. The Center for Russian and
East European Studies sponsored
the lectures and is honored
to publish them in cooperation with the Stanford University
Press.
Norman M. Naimark
Director, Center for Russian and East European Studies
Stanford
University

17. Preface
The invitation to speak at Stanford University on
the "nationality problems" in the Soviet Union gave me a
welcome opportunity to collect my thoughts about anum­
ber of diverse but related issues-class and nationality iden­
tities,
the role of empires and states in the making of na­
tions,
the long-and short-term causes of the failure of the
Soviet experiment. The confidence of Norman Naimark and
Alexander
Dallin that I would be able to deliver both a his­
torical
narrative and an analysis of the formation of nations
within the Russian empire and the Soviet Union, as well as
a reasonable discussion of
the recent cascade of events, in­
spired
me to think about theoretical as well as more empiri­
cal
problems-even to engage in a little prediction.
In February
1991, when I gave the lectures, the Soviet
Union still existed, the focus of a violent political contest
between those who wanted preservation of some kind of
center and those who wanted dissolution into independent
republics. My sense at the time was that four scenarios
could be played
out. The least likely was a return to the pre-

18. xiv I Preface
Gorbachevian order, a return to party oligarchy, centraliza­
tion,
and an imperial relationship between Moscow and its
constituent nations. In early
1991, this scenario remained a
utopian dream for many Communists who had imbibed the
deeply conservative legacy of Stalinism, but it could not be
realized
without a coup d'etat supported by the army and the
police.
Such a coup was indeed attempted and proved a fi­
asco.
The popular mobilization, the loss of faith in the old
ideology,
and the lack of any program for the "forces of or­
der" to restore the Soviet economy make a Stalinesque or
Brezhnevian vision completely unrealistic.
A
second scenario was increasingly predicted in the West
and by many Soviet nationalists at the time: the breakup of
the Soviet Union and the creation of I 5 sovereign states.
Though this would have brought the Soviet empire to an
end, many pointed out that it would not necessarily lead to
the triumph of democracy. In several of the non-Russian re­
publics,
authoritarian and national chauvinistic tendencies
remained paramount, and the minorities that live in Geor­
gia,
Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, or even Lithuania were fearful
about their futures in countries dominated by the majority
nationality. In several republics, independence soon became
a cover for preservation of the old ruling elites, now the de­
fenders of
national sovereignty.
A
third scenario posited the partial breakup of the Soviet
Union: independence for the Baltic republics, possible uni­
fication of Moldavia
with a more democratic Romania, but
the unity of the three Slavic republics with Central Asia
and Transcaucasia on the basis of confederation. The new,
smaller Soviet Union would be a voluntary union, based on
shared powers, with great internal political, cultural, and
economic autonomy for the republics and regions of the new
state.
The fourth scenario, related to the third but perhaps the
most optimistic of all, proposed the renewal of the entire

19. Preface I xv
USSR as a democratic confederation. This was, of course,
Gorbachev's preferred solution,
and one he might have
achieved
had the decaying Soviet system not been over­
whelmed by the consequences of three simultaneous revo­
lutionary processes: marketization, which led to the col­
lapse of
the command economy without an alternative in
place; democratization, which undermined all forms of au­
thority,
particularly that of the political center; and decolo­
nization, which led to the fragmentation of the
Union itself
and the devolution of power to the republics. The national
question proved to be, as the demonstrators in Karabagh in
1988 proclaimed on their signs, a "test for perestroika," but
it was one that Gorbachev ultimately failed. Time, unfortu­
nately in my opinion, was not on Gorbachev's side, even if
history will be.
R.G.S.

21. Acknowledgments
Debts, emotional and intellectual, can never fully be
paid,
but a scholar at least has the space to acknowledge
some of those who helped along the way. Most importantly,
my good friend and comrade, Geoff Eley, has been a reservoir
of insights, suggestions, and support.
His vast knowledge of
nationalism has shaped my own understanding in ways I no
longer can decipher.
Other colleagues, through discussion
and debate, through reading parts of the text and challenging
arguments, have
made significant contributions to this book
of which they may be unaware. Special thanks for good com­
ments and conversations are due to Robin Blackburn, Abe
Brumberg,
Moshe Lewin, Ann Stoler, Roman Szporluk, and
Andrew Verner; to the members of the History department
at the University of California, Irvine, where the sections on
class and nationality were written; to Natalie Davis, Laura
Engelstein,
and the members of the Davis Center, who en­
gaged
my arguments vigorously in an extraordinary semi­
nar;
to those at the Universities of Edmonton, Minnesota,

22. xviii I Acknowledgments
Chicago, and North Carolina, and at Southern Methodist
University, who listened and questioned; and to Alex Dallin,
Terry
Emmons, Scott Sagan, William and Ellen Sewell, and
other friends and colleagues who exchanged ideas with me
in three days of discussion at Stanford
University; and, most
importantly, to the members of MSG, CSST, and Affiliations
at the University of Michigan, who listened, responded, and
encouraged.
Bits and pieces of
the lectures on which this book is based
have appeared
in earlier forms in collections of articles on
Soviet history and politics and in the New Left Review.
1
Though it is impossible to say when and where certain ideas
and
formulations gestated, I will always remember my friend
and colleague
at
Oberlin College, George Lanyi, whose in­
vitation to lecture in his class on the nationality problem
forced me to face the contradictions inherent in and gener­
ated by
the Leninist state. George is missed by all who knew
him, and his wisdom, insight, and humor are more than ever
needed as
the part of the world he knew best moves through
uncharted waters. Finally, Norman Naimark, the proverbial
friend
in need from the time we first met, made a singular
contribution to this whole endeavor, from the invitation to
deliver the lectures to the most careful editorial reading of
the final manuscript.
Though these lectures are largely about the "constructed­
ness" of nationality, my own interest in the "national ques­
tion" in the Soviet
Union, and in nationalism more gener­
ally,
might be seen in a sense to have had more primordial
origins. As children of Armenian parents, one born in the :United States, the other in historic Armenia, my sister and
I
listened from an early age to the Armenian language, ate
the foods of a country that had been lost, and heard stories
of
those from "the other side." But George and Arax Suny
were
somewhat unusual Armenians. They took for granted
that we were simultaneously Armenians and Americans,

23. Acknowledgments I xix
and though they never forced on their children the stamp of
ethnicity,
they gave us a sense of the wonder of difference.
Nationality in our family was always a voluntary matter.
That appreciation of choice and imagination in constructing
identity runs through this book.

25. The Revenge
of the Past

27. CHAPTER I
Rethinking Social Identities:
Class and Nationality
Nationalism comes before nations. Nations do not make
states and nationalism but the other way round.
-E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism
The unprecedented crisis in what was the Soviet
Union today conjures up images from other Times of
Troubles. From
both the Left and the Right, in the West and
in the embryonic republics of the late
USSR, we hear ever
more frequent warnings about the collapse of the economy,
the disintegration of the state, and an inexorable drift into
civil war. In the rush of events, historical antecedents and
determinants appear dimly, often as mystifications, some­
times as analogues to predict possible futures. Rather than
feeling enriched by the explosion of new information about
the present and, to a lesser extent, the past, many of us are
disarmed by
the unexpected. History has again come to
haunt us. Just when the shape of things seems clear and un­
der control,
just when guards are lowered and the inherited
burdens of the past seem to have been relieved, history in­
trudes,
often violently, reminding us of its irreducible power.
Less clearly recognized
than the crisis in the country we
study is the parallel crisis within Soviet studies in the West.
Limited by its longtime allegiance to centrist, top-down,

28. 2 I Class and Nationality
Russian-biased political analyses, and seduced by ahistoric
models and deductive reasoning from ideology and person­
ality, Sovietology paid far
too little attention for far too long
to the non-Russian peoples, to the extrapolitical social en­
vironment, and to the particular contexts, contingencies,
and
conjunctures of the
Soviet past. Soviet studies at times,
notably during the Cold War, were concentrated so much on
politics, psychology, and applied anthropology that its schol­
ars were
unable to appreciate the deep historical transfor­
mations and contradictions that both created and ultimately
brought down a unique social formation.
How could so many have been so wrong about the internal
dynamics of the
Soviet state and society? Why did almost no
one foresee the possibility of a democratic reform initiated
from the very top of the Communist party? Much of Soviet­
ological analysis had been built on a conviction that the
nature of totalitarianism precluded the kind of reform initi­
ated by Gorbachev. Distinguished historians reminded us
that Russian political culture was so deeply authoritarian
that an offshoot as distinctively Western as political plural­
ism could not appear. The West initially responded to the
changes in the Soviet Union with disbelief and deep suspi­
cion of
the sincerity of the initiatives. Each turn of events,
each incident of hesitation or of backsliding, seemed to con­
firm
those suspicions.
Suspicion was replaced by
the conviction that the Gor­
bachev reforms
must fail. But the projected reasons for failure
changed over time. Few understood,
until it was overwhelm­
ingly clear
to all, that besides chronic economic woes, the
greatest threat to both the
Soviet state and its potential
for reform would be the emergence of mass nationalist
movements.
The very suddenness with which these movements ap­
peared,
their dimensions and durability, required from their
analysts a deeper historical grounding than was generally

29. Class and Nationality I 3
available in the area of Soviet studies. A chasm, seldom
crossed, existed between those who dealt with Russian stud­
ies proper and
those who studied non-Russian peoples. The
relatively neglected field of nationality studies was itself
marred by
nationalism and narcissism. Much of this has
changed since February 1988, due to the non-Russian na­
tionalities that organized massive and sustained oppositions,
which eventually undermined Gorbachev's revolution-from­
above
and produced a fatal multiethnic challenge to the
Kremlin's agenda for a limited perestroika.
Making Nations, Making Classes
Yet another divide, in this case professional and discipli­
nary,
has separated many of the Western observers of nation­
alism in the former
Soviet Union from scholars of national­
ism and colonialism. In exploring the present dimensions
and dynamics of nationalist movements in the Soviet Union,
journalists and others have usually viewed current nation­
alisms as eruptions of long-repressed primordial national
consciousnesses, as expressions of denied desires liberated
by
the kiss of freedom (what might be called the "Sleeping
Beauty" view).
This view of nationalism has been chal­
lenged
in the literature on ethnicity and colonialism by the
counterclaim that nationalism should be understood as a
discourse
that became dominant among masses of Europe­
ans
and non-Europeans only in the relatively recent histori­
cal
past and as a result of social, political, and cultural de­
velopments that took place after the American and French
Revolutions.
1 Furthermore, not only nationalism, but also
nationality itself has been conceived as a social and "imag­
ined" construction actively cobbled together from actual so­
cial and historical material.
The intellectuals and activists
who forge these constructions propose a new form of asso­
ciation with specific cultural and political claims, and with

30. 4 I Class and Nationality
the participation of constituents who submerge other iden­
tities, localist or universalist,
in order to accept paramount
loyalty to the nation. The new emphasis on the "invented"
and "constructed" nature of nationality and nationalism
(what might be called the
"Bride of Frankenstein" view) has
had almost no resonance in Russian and Soviet studies. Yet
it offers the distinct advantage of historicizing the problem
of nationality formation and providing a comparative per­
spective
on the different histories of the peoples of Russia
and the
USSR. In addition, nationality formation can be re­
lated to the construction of other social categories and iden­
tities that intersect nationality, most importantly class.
One of the supreme ironies of twentieth-century experi­
ence
must be that nationalism's principal opponent, namely
Marxism, has been both empowered by its alliances with
nationalism and responsible for creating the conditions for
the development of nations in the Second and Third Worlds.
Marxists long maintained that modern nations resulted from
the capitalist mode of production-that they were, in fact,
so
dependent on it that with the end of capitalism, nations
themselves would begin to disappear. Marxists rejected the
nationalist legitimation of independent nation-states consti­
tuted on the basis of ethnicity, claiming that nations were
neither natural nor eternal and that priority must be given
to class as the foundation of a future nationless society. Yet
twentieth-century experience-the emergence of ethnically
based states in the wake of World War I, Leninist conces­
sions to the power of nationalism, and the degeneration of
nationalism into virulent racism and expansionism in the
1930s-made unsustainable the argument that nationalism
and nationality were disappearing in the solvent of eco­
nomic development and social mobility. Just as Bolshevik
politicians understood the need to accommodate the actual
loyalties and aspirations of their citizens, so Marxist theo­
rists
had to moderate the more extreme reductions of ethnic

31. Class and Nationality I 5
culture and national formation to economics. Even Soviet
analysts,
constrained by theoretical dictates, were forced by
the
1960s to recognize the independent variable of ethnic
culture.
Yet by locating the development of nationality and nation
in specific economic, ethnic, and social relations of subordi­
nation and dominance, the Marxist tradition at least rendered
the problem of nation-making and the emergence of nation­
alism subject to historical analysis and, perhaps, explana­
tion.
An earlier historiography (Hans Kahn,
C.J.H. Hayes)
that extended back conceptually to the eighteenth-century
German originators of nationalist thought (Herder, Fichte)
emphasized the emotional, religious aspects of nationalist
loyalties; although nationalism might be described and ty­
pologized,
such a state of mind (Nationalbewusstsein) ulti­
mately defied explanation.
2 The "living and active corporate
will" (Kahn) that turned ethnic raw material into conscious
politics was elusive and historically disconnected; its ap­
pearance
seemed mysterious, even magical, and was com­
patible
with the assumptions of nationalists that the es­
sence of
nationality was natural and eternal, and needed hut
the right opportunity to be fully released.
Though the Marxist classics can be faulted for reducing
nationality to socioeconomic structures, much of the most
significant reassessment of nationalist theory has come from
attempts to rethink the relationships of nation and state, na­
tionality and capitalism, by writers close to (or coming out
of) Western Marxist traditions.3 Beginning with Tom Nairn's
influential essay on "the break-up of Britain," followed by
Eric
J. Hobsbawm's critical response, Geoff Eley's discussion
of nationalism and social history, Miroslav Hroch's empiri­
cal
investigations of the formation of national intelligen­
tsias
in Eastern Europe, and Benedict Anderson's evocation of
"imagined communities," the discussion of nationalism has
moved away from sterile definitions and typologies into his-

32. 6 I Class and Nationality
torically grounded elaborations of the actual making of na­
tionalities and nations.
4
Following the lead of these writers, the "making of na­
tions" can be seen as a process shaped by both socio­
economic and political developments, conceived and ar­
ticulated in an emerging national discourse. Whatever the
pre-existing communities-political, social, religious, eth­
nic-when people begin to believe that they can communi­
cate more easily with some than with others, when they
begin to define who is within the group and who are the
"others," when they begin to gain the capacity to act in
whatever "interests" they believe they share (which may be
opposed
to those of the
"others"), the formation takes on a
coherence and consciousness
that allows it to act collec­
tively.
Making nationality, like making class, can be seen as
a complex process of creating
an "imagined
community"
that finds its expression in symbols, rituals, flags, songs, col­
lective actions,
and the articulation and representation of its
goals. Both nationality and class have their discontents and
their utopias. They seek to eliminate the former by achiev­
ing
the latter. Whether they get their history right or not­
and they usually do not, to paraphrase Ernest Renan-na­
tionalities and nations are made in the active elaboration of
a
national tradition, the making of a usable past that under­
lies
claims to political recognition, autonomy, sovereignty,
or independence. 5
Historicizing the Nation
The historical formation of classes and nationalities (one
should try to avoid the use of terms like
"the rise of" or "the
emergence of," which contain an immanentist sense of a
pre-existing essence) is,
like other historical problems, a
matter of specific contexts, particular conjunctures, and un­
predictable contingencies. In Europe,
the formation of classes

33. Class and Nationality I 7
and nationalities was related to the "great transformation"
associated with industrial capitalism. The process involved
building on evolving cultural, economic, or political solidar­
ities and appropriating older traditions and discourses, which
were reinterpreted and recombined.
As
one of the dominant discourses of our century, nation­
alism has acquired the attributes of a force of nature rather
than a product of history, and the argument from nature has
in turn imparted an irresistible power to nationalism. Two
major theorists of nation-making, Karl Deutsch and Bene­
dict Anderson, have attempted to historicize the nation by
emphasizing the importance of new forms of social com­
munication in its formation. Deutsch conceptualized the
"making" of nationality as an historical process of political
integration that increases communication among the mem­
bers of an ethnic group or a "people." A people, "a group of
persons
linked ... by complementary habits and facilities of
communication," has the ability "to communicate more ef­
fectively, and over a wider range of subjects, with members
of one large group than with outsiders."6 The increase in
social communication is related by Deutsch to other pro­
cesses of social change,
such as urbanization, the develop­
ment of markets, or the building of railroads. A progression is
made from a "people" to a "nationality" ("a people pressing
to acquire a measure of effective control over the behavior
of its members ... , striving to equip itself with power"), and
eventually (though not necessarily) to a "nation-state."
Benedict Anderson proposed that the arrival of "print­
capitalism," as he calls it, precipitated the search for new
ways to link fraternity, power, and time.
7 The rise of the ver­
nacular in publishing and in state administration required
that a standardized usable language be chosen. "What, in a
positive sense,
made the new communities imaginable was
a half-fortuitous, but explosive, interaction between a sys­
tem of production and productive relations (capitalism), a

34. 8 I Class and Nationality
technology of communications (print), and the fatality of
human linguistic diversity."8 Print-capitalism required that
spoken dialects be assembled into print-languages, fewer in
number and capable of being understood by larger publics.
Larger,
unified fields of communication were created, which
later would be reinforced through state-sponsored schools,
recruitment of men into armies with a single command lan­
guage, and increased
interaction of formerly isolated villag­
ers
in markets and towns.
Deutsch and Anderson's communication models are cer­
tainly improvements on the naturalistic idea of nationality
as immanent in human relations, in the same way that kin­
ship or family were
seen as unproblematic relationships en­
dowed by
nature. But in Deutsch, the discussion of the
transformative power of the social environment gives an un­
due
primacy to social processes and structures from which
meanings and understandings are then generated. Ander­
son's extraordinary breakthrough,
in which the imaginative
construction of the nation is brought into prominence, has
encouraged scholars to move toward a more serious engage­
ment with the extra-social realm of discourse and meaning.
In a
similar way, much of the thinking on class formation in
the last several decades, particularly since the appearance
of
the seminal book on the making of the English work­
ing class by Edward Thompson, has supplemented an older
Marxist notion of class as arising mysteriously from produc­
tive relations by
introducing a more dynamic and ethno­
graphic conception of class. For Thompson, class happens
when people, "as a result of common experiences (inherited
and shared), feel and
articulate the identity of their interests
as between themselves, and as against other[s] ... whose
interests are different from (and usually opposed to) theirs."9
As part of that common experience, people enter or fall
into historically created productive relations. Those rela­
tions make up the context and much of the content of their

35. Class and Nationality I 9
social experience, which may create a sense of class loyalty.
Thompson again: "Class-consciousness is the way in which
these experiences are handled in cultural terms: embodied
in traditions, value-systems, ideas, and institutional forms.
If the experience appears as determined, class consciousness
does not."
10
As powerful as his cultural notion of class is, Thompson
has been criticized for replacing structural relations with ex­
perience as
the principal determination from which an iden­
tity of interests (that is, class consciousness) arises. In the
view of one of Thompson's most sensitive critics, experience
should not be
seen as the objective circumstances that condition identity; iden­
tity is not an objectively determined sense of self defined by
needs
and interests; politics is not the collective coming to con­
sciousness of
similarly situated individual subjects. Rather poli­
tics is
the process by which plays of power and knowledge con­
stitute identity and
experience.
11
Contests for power, always central to the Marxist notion of
class, are
not to be understood as simply derived from simi­
lar social and historic locations or experiences. Rather, it is
within complex political contestations over identities and
meanings, struggles understood in the language of politics,
that communities of horizontal or vertical affiliation-that
is, class or nationality-are formed.
Theorists and historians of class (like Thompson, Eric J.
Hobsbawm, Ira Katznelson, William H. Sewell, Jr., and Gareth
Stedman-Jones), as well as those of nationality (Benedict
Anderson,
Ernest Gellner, Geoff Eley, and Hobsbawm again),
have
stressed that social and cultural processes cannot be
conceived
simply as objective forces existing outside the
given class or nationality; rather, they are mediated and
shaped by the social, cultural, and linguistic experiences of
individuals
and groups within and without the social group.
Experience, however, does
not result in an unmediated way

36. ro I Class and Nationality
in predictable responses, but is itself discursively consti­
tuted, and
the task of the historian is to investigate not only
the effects of "experience," but also the meanings and iden­
tities generated in human activity.12
Classes and nationalities are constantly being made and
remade,
in a complex creation of identities that overlap, re­
inforce,
and undermine one another. The active work of in­
dividuals, parties, newspapers, and
intellectuals is key to the
manufacture of the meaning given to experience on a col­
lective level and
to the creation of articulated social and
national consciousness. Talking class or nationality, social­
ism or nationalism, is central to the generation of class or
nationality from thousands of individual experiences and
understandings. Understandings of
ethnic and social differ­
ences,
themselves always in the process of construction and
contestation, are available to the intellectuals and activists
who in turn privilege a particular perception of society and
history and work to consolidate a social formation or politi­
cal
movement for the ends they consider desirable. They
find, borrow, or invent the social and ethnic "traditions"
they need. They revive, refine, and pass down rhetoric, sym­
bols,
and rituals that soon appear to have a naturalness and
authenticity that originates deep in history and possesses
clear legitimacy for shaping
the future.
13
The Czech historian Miroslav Hroch has been particularly
helpful in recovering the important constitutive role of the
early nationalists in the generation of nationalism. Basing
his conclusions on close empirical investigations of smaller
Eastern European peoples, Hroch proposes a three-stage evo­
lution of nationalist movements.
Phase A occurs when a
small number of scholars first demonstrate "a passionate
concern ... for the study of the language, the culture, the his­
tory of the oppressed nationality." Phase B involves "the fer­
mentation-process of national consciousness," during which
a larger number of patriotic agitators diffuse national ideas.

37. Class and Nationality I I I
Phase Cis the full national revival, when the broad masses
have been swept up into the nationalist movement.
14 Hroch,
like those who have worked on the "invention of tradition"
in the process of nation-building, underscores the active in­
tellectual and political intervention of educated strata in the
process of national formation.
The Prehistory of Modern Nations and Classes
The investigation of nationality and class formation is an
exploration of the social and political developments that
made possible certain kinds of communication, as well as
the intellectual and linguistic interpretations that gave par­
ticular meanings to individual and collective experiences.
Scholarship
on national movements in the Russian empire
continues to concentrate almost exclusively on the intellec­
tual and political leaders and institutions of the non-Russian
peoples. As a result, there is little sense of the stages of de­
velopment of different national movements, and a regret­
table
tendency to compress the experience of the whole na­
tionality into that of the patriotic intelligentsia, as if the two
were identical. Like the ambitions and actions of workers,
which in an older labor historiography were often collapsed
into those of trade unionists and socialists, the actions and
understandings of ethnic masses have been equated or con­
fused
with the activities of their leaders, the writings of
their intellectuals, or the votes of bodies that claim to rep­
resent them.
Although fully
mc;>bilized classes and nationalities are
relatively
modern phenomena, they did not spring full­
blown from the imaginations of their self-designated leaders
and theorists. The constructed nature of nationality or na­
tional consciousness, class or class consciousness should not
be taken to mean that these are
"artificial" entities and
therefore are illegitimate in some sense. An "imagined com-

38. 12 I Class and Nationality
munity," one colleague reminded me, is not an imaginary
community.15
Modern nationality may be rooted in pre-existing cultural
milieus (or "ethnie," in Anthony D. Smith's terms) that
have existed since the earliest recorded human societies and
"have vied or colluded with other forms of community-of
city, class, religion, region-in providing a sense of identity
among populations and in inspiring in them a nostalgia for
their past and its traditions."16 Distinguished by the collec­
tive
names by which they were known to themselves and to
others, these ethnolinguistic or ethnoreligious communities
shared a common myth of descent, some notions of history,
usually a language and religion, a sense of solidarity or kin­
ship,
and often an association with a specific
territoryY
Hobsbawm refers to this "feeling of collective belonging" on
which nationality and nationalism would be built as "proto­
nationalism."18
Though many ethnolinguistic or ethnoreligious commu­
nities disappeared through assimilation or through conquest
in war, warfare between states powerfully enhanced and so­
lidified a
sense of ethnicity.
So compelling are these identi­
ties in some cases that certain ethnoreligious groups that
have lost their states, and even their homelands, like the
Jews and the Armenians, have survived for millennia. Here,
unusually powerful constructions of religious uniqueness
and destiny, of being a chosen people or of playing a special
role
in the economy of human salvation, encouraged resis­
tance to assimilation or conversion, even in the diaspora.
Although the generation of nationalism should be distin­
guished from the formation of nationality, the two phe­
nomena are intimately related. Nationality, in my view,
is
the modern, secular form of ethnicity with a degree of
coherence and consciousness that enables its members to
be mobilized for national political goals. Modern nationali­
ties, which are usually larger, territorially more dispersed

39. Class and Nationality I 13
communities than the ethnies out of which they may have
grown, have
been successfully organized and mobilized by
the work of intellectuals and politicians and can put forth
cultural and political demands that may include autonomy,
sovereignty, and independence. Though ethnie and nation­
ality might be distinguished in any number of ways-size,
attachment to territory, secular versus religious identity,
"soft" versus
"hard" boundaries-the most fundamental dif­
ference is
not some
"objective" characteristic internal to the
group, but rather the discursive universe in which it oper­
ates and realizes itself. A modern nationality, with all its
familiar qualities and political claims-popular sovereignty,
ethnicity as a basis for political independence, and a claim
on a particular piece of real estate-are only possible within
the modern (roughly post-American revolution) discourse of
nationalism. Whatever Greeks in the classical period, or Ar­
menians in the fifth century, were, they could not be nations
in the same sense as they would be in the age of nationalism.
The discourses of politics of earlier times must be under­
stood and respected in their own particularity and not sub­
merged
in understandings yet to come.
Which discourse finds resonance among social groups and
becomes dominant depends on the environment that
"en­
lighteners," "patriots," "radicals," or others find or create
and whether it is receptive and exploitable. But whether it
is the discourse of class or of nation, of supranational reli­
gion or of
subnational regionalism, the political and intellec­
tual actors can only borrow, adapt, and reproduce the dis­
courses available
to them-or, in rarer instances, create from
available material a new discursive synthesis.
Nationalism (here following Anthony D. Smith) is a doc­
trine that at its core holds that humanity is divided into
nations, that loyalty to nations overrides all other loyalties,
that the source of all political power lies within the collec­
tivity of the nation, and that nations are fully realized only

40. 14 I Class and Nationality
in sovereign states.
19 In an extreme but very suggestive defi­
nition of nationalism, Elie Kedourie provocatively claims,
Nationalism is a doctrine invented in Europe at the beginning of
the nineteenth century .... Briefly, the doctrine holds that hu­
manity is naturally divided into nations, that nations are known
by certain characteristics which can be ascertained, and that the
only legitimate type of governmentis national self-government. 20
Several influential theorists, among them Ernest Gellner,
John Breuilly,
and Eric Hobsbawm, define nationalism as
"primarily a principle which holds that the political and na­
tional unit should be congruent."
21 Though this definition
accounts only for a subset of the varieties of nationalist ide­
ologies
and narrows excessively the common understand­
ing of nationalism, it has the advantage of underlining the
centrality of political interests and the goal of nationhood
expressed in statehood, which is found in the nationalist dis­
courses of
the last two centuries. These are distinctly mod­
ern notions that, whatever their historical connections to
earlier conceptions of statehood and uniqueness, are only
fully realized when a discourse of nationalism has been
articulated.
However artificial the doctrine may have appeared in the
work of early intellectuals, with the material, social, cul­
tural,
and political transformations of the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, nationalism gained an enormous reso­
nance-first among a large number of educated people, then
within the broad populace-until it promised to displace
all rival forms of loyalty
and identity. Though two hun­
dred years ago the claim of nationality to replace older ideas
of
legitimation was challenged by conservatives like Lord
Acton,
in our century it has become the hegemonic politi­
cal discourse of sovereignty
and the unavoidable language of
those who want to play the game of statehood. The dis­
course of
nationalism gave a particular shape and meaning
to historic social and cultural developments, and the mod-

41. Class and Nationality I r s
ern representation of ethnicity in Europe became that as­
sociated
with the nationalist discourse. Nationalism did
not arise spontaneously from prior existing nationality, as
most nationalists would have it, nor was it the "false con­
sciousness" of the great transformation from precapitalism
to postcapitalism, as some Marxists would argue. National­
ism both contributed to the formation of nationality (in
Hroch's
Phase B), which often in Europe (but not always)
occurred
on the basis of evolving ethnolinguistic or eth­
noreligious
communities, and evolved itself to become the
political expression of mobilized nationalities (in
Phase C).
Just as protonationalities (ethnies, peoples) were con­
stantly forming and reproducing in premodern times, so
horizontal social formations (strata, estates, classes), related
to particular regimes of production and legal structures, were
generated.
They maintained a degree of demographic sta­
bility and created their own institutions and organizations
in the context of the historical discourses that gave them
sense, reason, and purpose. Yet, again, the long revolution
of capitalism and the attendant formation of bureaucratic
states provided the principal context for two opposing ar­
ticulations of society and history, one based on horizontal
affiliations (class), the other on vertical ones (nationality). As
nationalist intellectuals homogenized the differences within
their ethnic populations and drew vertical lines of distinc­
tion between themselves and the "others," a competing
discourse based on new social differentiations and older tra­
ditions challenged vertical allegiances and emphasized hori­
zontal class solidarities.
Two scenarios now might be envisioned for the emer­
gence of fully conscious classes or
nationalities. The first
separates
analytically the preconscious class or ethnicity
from its more mature stage. A class in itself or an ethnie or
a people
exists as a collection of persons with shared char­
acteristics-a similar position in the production process or

42. 16 I Class and Nationality
shared linguistic and cultural practices. With the develop­
ment of the modern world, these classes and peoples co­
alesce
into more coherent formations, ready in time to take
action in their own "interests."
22 In this reading, the social
context in which workers or ethnies find themselves leads
to
certain understandable responses. In the classical Marxist
understanding, the full realization of working-class interests
is a product (somewhat magically) of capitalist development
and ultimately requires revolution and the overthrow of
capitalism. In
the nationalist understanding, the national­
ity's unequal relationship with an imperial power pushes it
to realize its full interests, which include the achievement
of nationhood, perhaps ultimately state sovereignty.
A second scenario is
more suspicious of the teleology, de­
terminism, and failure to account for agency implicit in the
first. Rather than positing a strict distinction between classes
or
nationalities "in themselves" and "for themselves," this
approach conceives of these formations at all stages of de­
velopment as being constituted by myriad social and in­
tellectual processes, by various forms of collective action.
But
at different times they are represented and interpreted
differently. Classes and nationalities, like older social for­
mations, are at all stages the consequences of struggles, vic­
tories,
and defeats that define and bind, differentiate and
reject certain kinds of understanding.
23 Full modern nation­
alism is merely one phase-the latest or current one, with
its own special characteristics-of the development of con­
tested cultural communities, but it is neither the only stage
in which self-realization takes place nor the end of the evolu­
tion of national formations.
24 Likewise, classes in the earlier
stages of
formation are far from inert demographic conglom­
erates
waiting to achieve (or receive, in the Leninist version)
enlightenment; rather, they are active in their own constitu­
tion, and they vary in their makeup and self-representation,
often borrowing and reshaping older traditions and languages

43. Class and Nationality I I7
to meet new situations. The working class, for example,
which even in later stages hardly fits the model of full pro­
letarianization envisioned by Marx, is never really fully
"made." Socialist class-consciousness in this scenario rep­
resents merely a moment only occasionally realized in so­
cial
development and existing under very particular histori­
cal
conditions (and usually only at the level of cities and
regions, not as a nationwide phenomenon).25
Whatever the degree of cohesion and consciousness of
classes
and peoples before their mass mobilization, they rep­
resent authentic points of development. Rather than being
viewed as
premature, adolescent, or primitive, they should
be appreciated in their full constellation of initiatives, influ­
ences,
and responses. An ethnoreligious formation (such as
the ancient Jews or the medieval Armenians) was not yet
a modern nationality with its self-conscious sense of the
value of its ethnic and secular cultural (in contrast to reli­
gious)
traditions and with consequent political claims to
territory, autonomy, or independence that arose from a
more modern discourse authorizing the claims of nation­
ality to self-determination. But earlier histories of classes
and nations should be read not simply as prehistories, but as
varied
historical developments whose trajectories remained
open-ended.
I do
not mean to suggest that class and nationality are the
same kind of formation, only that in their generation and
evolution they are both constituted politically. The weight
given to various inputs-production, culture, biology-will
differ in the histories of these categories.
Seeing them as
fluid, provisional
identities allows a less dichotomous ap­
preciation of the correspondences between them. The bound­
aries of
certain ethnicities and social classes, as in Eastern
Europe and Russia, suggest that productive relations also
play a
part in the making of nationality and nationalism.
And if one accepts the proposition that languages, ethnic re-

44. r8 I Class and Nationality
lations, and social geography have profound effects on class
cohesion, consciousness,
and the ability (or inability) to act
collectively, the overlapping of class and nationality becomes
more obvious.
In this approach, neither nationality nor class is "objec­
tive" in the sense of existing outside the constitutive prac­
tices of
its members and its opponents. But although it
might be thought of as "subjective" (in the sense that it ex­
ists when it is perceived to exist), the "existence" of class or
nationality is historically related to the actual practice of
human actors, both individually and collectively, within
changing social and discursive frameworks. Historical and
social locations, themselves constantly being constituted,
make up the context in which class or nationality identifi­
cation is constructed. Those identities may be ambiguous
or combined with other identities, though they are likely
to be reinforced and simplified in political confrontations,
which demand less-ambiguous choices. 26 They may be built
around core ethnic solidarities or compound ethnic group­
ings,
around shared positions in the mode of production or a
number of quite distinct positions (e.g., artisans and factory
workers).
It is not always easy to predict which social or eth­
nic ingredients will become part of a class or nationality; it
depends on the specific political conjunctures and dis­
courses involved
in its making.
The formation of class and nationality should be under­
stood to be a contingent and historically determined occur­
rence
rather than the working out of a natural or historical
logic or a sociological derivative.
One must discard the com­
fortable
notion (for socialists) that a militant, revolutionary,
class-conscious
working class was the natural outcome of
the history of labor.
One must also throw away the dearly
held conviction (of nationalists and their supporters) that
an independent, sovereign (and fairly homogeneous) nation-

45. Class and Nationality I 19
state was the natural and inevitable outcome of nationalism
and the national struggle. Classes and ethnicities in one
form or another exist in various historical periods, but their
political claims are the specific products of historically de­
rived discourses of
our own times.

46. CHAPTER 2
National Revolutions and
Civil War
in Russia
Because many of the peoples of the Russian empire,
after five or six decades of Soviet or
independent develop­
ment, had forged national-cultural identities with estab­
lished state structures and powerful nationalist political dis­
courses,
historians have often viewed the revolutionary years
as
if that future had already existed in
I9I7· The national­
ist representation of an essential if concealed national con­
sciousness, ever
present and ready to emerge when oppor­
tunity knocked, seemed borne out by subsequent events and
was easily read back into an earlier age. The appeal of this
nationalist construction, its success in mobilizing popula­
tions at the end of the 198os in political struggles for sover­
eignty,
has obscured a much more complex, if less melodra­
matic, story of nation-building, and even nationality forma­
tion,
which for many peoples of the empire belongs more
appropriately to the Soviet period than to the years before
the civil war. 1 The dramatic narratives of uneven evolution
from ethnic and religious communities into conscious na­
tionalities and the complex relationship with class forma-

47. National Revolutions I 2r
tions-all taking place in the swirling vortex of war and eco­
nomic collapse-need to be recovered.
Unless one simply assumes that ethnicity always and ev­
erywhere has a greater power than class, or vice versa, the
particular contexts in which one or the other emerges para­
mount must be part of the story. How the larger political
context-public policies, oppressive laws, public education,
recruitment into armies, interstate conflicts, and other po­
litical interventions from states and powerful elites-con­
tributes to the kinds of discourse that find resonance in so­
cial groups is a
question that has to be particularized in mi­
crostudies of class and nationality formation. Access to state
institutions or isolation from them profoundly influences
the generation of identities. Moreover, the direction from
which the major danger to a social formation comes-from
above, in the form of state oppression, or from below, in the
claims of other classes, or from outside, in a foreign threat
or alien ethnicity-determines what solidarities are forged.
The intensity with which commitment to class or-nation­
ality (or, indeed, to religion, region, gender, or generation) is
felt
at a given time is highly dependent on specific political
relations and the depth and ferocity of the social and politi­
cal conflicts of
the moment.
Class and Nationality in the Russian Empire
Looking through the exclusive prisms of Marxism or na­
tionalism, theorists and political activists in the late nine­
teenth and early twentieth centuries structured their under­
standings of social
reality and political antagonisms by posit­
ing a
strict division between class and nationality. The rival
discourses of
nationalism and Marxism radically simplified
the complex, overlapping relationships between ethnicity
and social structures and limited each movement's appeal
among significant populations.

48. 22 I National Revolutions
As many writers have pointed out, in Eastern Europe and
the Russian empire, class and ethnic identities existed si­
multaneously and with little separation. Sometimes ethnic
loyalties were paramount, often preventing or delaying class
solidarity;
at other times horizontal social links thwarted
vertical ethnic integration. In particular configurations, eth­
nicity and class coincided, tying specific groups together in
opposition to other ethnically homogeneous groups. In cen­
tral Transcaucasia, for example, Georgian nobles and peas­
ants,
who shared an ethnic culture and values based on rural,
precapitalist traditions, faced an entrepreneurial Armenian
urban middle class that dominated their historic capital,
Tiflis
(Tbilisn and developed a way of life alien to the villag­
ers. To
the east, in and around Baku, the peasantry was al­
most entirely Azerbaijani, and urban society was stratified
roughly along
ethnic and religious lines, with Muslim work­
ers
at the bottom, Armenian and Russian workers in the
more skilled positions, and Christian and European indus­
trialists and capitalists dominating the oil industry.
2 Whereas
ethnicity conferred social privilege on some and disadvan­
tages
on others, thus reinforcing differential social positions,
vertical linguistic, cultural,
and religious ties that united
different social strata in a single "ethnic" community af­
fected the horizontal class links in complex ways.
Though sometimes ethnicity reinforced class and vice
versa,
at other times ethnic loyalties cut across class lines
and prevented horizontal solidarities. Muslim workers in the
Baku region, for example, were separated from the more
skilled Armenian workers, not only by wage differentials and
class cultures, but also by their memories of the "Armenian­
Tatar War" of
1905.3 The bonds of religion and custom tied
the Muslim workers to their Muslim compatriots, even to a
Muslim capitalist. Both Muslim workers at the bottom of
the labor hierarchy and Muslim industrialists near the top
experienced condescension, not only from Russian officials

49. National Revolutions I 23
and foreign capitalists, but also from Armenian entrepre­
neurs, engineers,
and skilled workers.
4 In colonial Transcau­
casia,
the tsarist regime treated Christian Armenians more
favorably than Muslims, and both Russians and Armenians,
even sympathetic Social Democrats, viewed the Muslims as
temnye liudi, unenlightened "dark people."
Which ties, ethnic or class, bound most tightly were con­
tingent on the particular political and economic conjuncture
and the intervention of intellectuals and activists. In mo­
ments of economic stress, in
1905, 1914, and I9I7, workers
of all ethnicities joined in broad strike movements and com­
mon political endeavors, with Russians active earlier and
more enthusiastically than Armenians and Muslims. The
links between them were always fragile and provisional,
and by early r9r8 ethnosocial fractures overwhelmed the
best efforts of the Marxists and exploded in a new round of
Armeno-Azerbaijani violence.
The peculiarities of Russian imperialism, still inade­
quately explored in both Western and Soviet scholarship,
had a highly differentiated influence on the development of
nationalities within the empire. Different forms of rule and
the uneven effects of the socioeconomic transformations in
Russia in the decades following the Emancipation of r86r
placed the various peoples of the empire in distinct his­
torical
contexts. The largest contiguous land empire in the
world, Russia was content for much of its history to rule its
inorodtsy and inozemtsy (the terms used for many of the
non-Russian peoples; literally, people of other stock and
other lands) in a mixed, contradictory system that involved
indirect rule in some places, direct military government
through local elites assimilated into the Russian adminis­
trative system in others, and various forms of constitution­
alism (in the Grand Duchy of Finland and the Kingdom of
Poland). For
the Grand Dukes of Muscovy and the early
tsars, empire-building was
merely the extension of the tsar's

50. 24 I National Revolutions
sovereignty, through the institutions of his household and
court, over the adjacent borderlands. "Neither Muscovites
nor others were conscious of nationality in any sense that
comes close to our modern sense," writes Marc Raeff, and
expansion did not take ethnic distinctions into considera­
tion.5
The "gathering of Russian lands" meant, at different
times, absorbing
territories populated by Great Russians,
the Volga regions held by the Kazan Tatars, and the Baltic
littoral settled by Finnic peoples, Germans, and others.
Peter
the Great referred to his empire as rossiiskaia (of Russia)
rather than with the ethnic term russkaia; the emperor, like
his predecessors, paid little attention to the uniqueness or
juridicial
separateness of the conquered territories.
Russian imperialism was not driven by religious messia­
nism; rather, its goal was state-building and security, seen
by its practitioners as essentially defensive forays into an
open environment where sparse but dangerous populations,
often nomadic, threatened Russia's borders, Russian settlers,
and commerce.6 The "civilizing mission" of Russian expan­
sion was intertwined with calculations of economic advan­
tage. In
the r82os, tsarist officials debated the nature of its
"colonial" relationship with newly acquired Transcaucasia.
Foreign
Minister Karl Nesselrode favored developing Tiflis
as a
center of trade with the Middle East, whereas Minister
of Finance Egor Kankrin argued that
the Trans caucasian provinces not without reason could be termed
our colony, which should bring the state rather significant prof­
its from the products of southern climes .... Calling the Trans­
caucasian
territory a colony means that it is not the object of the
government to join it to the general state system, that it is not
hoped to make of this part of Russia and the Russian people in
the moral sense, but to leave this territory as an Asian province,
although better governed.
7
With conquest came a program of coopting the local elites
into the Russian administration and bringing native laws
and
economic procedures in line with general Russian prac-

51. National Revolutions I 25
tices.8 Some native elites were more favored than others, no­
tably
the Slavic nobilities of the West, the Baltic Germans,
and the Georgian aznauroba (nobility). But after the integra­
tion of the Tatar nobility into the Russian dvorianstvo (no­
bility)
in the sixteenth century, only a few Muslim notables
were able to retain their privileged status.9
Nationality was not a significant consideration for the
Russian imperial state-builders. Religion and notions of in­
ferior forms of social life
were far more relevant. Jews were
distinguished in the law as inorodtsy, indigenous ethnicities
with special legal status or administration, and were lumped
together with the nomadic Kalmyks and Kyrgyz (Kazakhs),
the Samoeds, and the native peoples of
Siberia.
10 Even here,
the plasticity of ethnicity was clear, for assimilation was pos­
sible
through self-Russification-more specifically, through
conversion to orthodoxy.
Tsarism imposed a new state order-new regulations, taxa­
tion,
and laws, and the imposition of serfdom in certain re­
gions,
such as Georgia-on societies that had had little con­
tact with strong state structures. Its policy was to impose as
much as possible a uniform way of life on all the tsar's sub­
jects. But
tsarism was anything but consistent. In contrast to
this practice of "administrative Russification," the regime
was at times extraordinarily tolerant of differences. Catherine
the Great's policy toward Muslims, Alexander l's conces­
sions to Finnish and
Polish autonomy, and Viceroy Mikhail
Vorontsov's recognition of local laws and customs in the
Caucasus stand in stark contrast to Alexander Il's attempts
to convert Muslims, Alexander III's overt anti-Semitism,
and Nicholas Il's attack on Finnish privileges.
11 The admin­
istrative Russification involved in the extension of bureau­
cratic absolutism and the spontaneous self-Russification that
non-Russians found advantageous in the first two-thirds of
the nineteenth century were replaced after r88r by an inter­
mittent policy of forced cultural homogenization.
12

52. 26 I National Revolutions
Tsarist Russia had no "nationality policy," yet it legis­
lated and operated with an ever-present awareness of ethnic
and religious distinctions. In general, tsarist officials consid­
ered Belorussians
and Ukrainians to be part of a greater Rus­
sian nation and forcefully discouraged the use of the Slavic
languages of
the western provinces. In I863, Minister of the
Interior Valuev declared that
"a special Little Russian lan­
guage [Ukrainian] has
not existed, does not exist, and cannot
exist." Thirteen years later, all printing and even perfor­
mances in Ukrainian were forbidden. Not until
I905 was a
Ukrainian Bible legally permitted.
Though confronted by a compact population of tens of
millions of Poles in the formerly abolished Kingdom of Po­
land (I 8 I 5-3 I), the government suppressed education in the
Polish language, turned Warsaw University into an institu­
tion of Russification, restricted Polish ownership of land,
and even forced shopkeepers to hang signs with Russian
above or larger than the Polish. Driven from education and
employment in the bureaucracy, Poles, like the Jews, faced
lives of
permanent disability. No matter how loyal they
might in fact be, the regime regarded them-and, after I88I,
most non-Russians-as alien and suspicious. Ethnicity car­
ried
with it not only marks of inferiority, but ascriptions of
essential, indelible
characteristics that conspired in the gen­
eral discourse of
ethnic stereotyping to hobble advancement
in a discriminatory society and to drive many of the frus­
trated into active opposition.
13
In the Russian empire, where the tsarist state promoted
some peoples at some times (the Baltic Germans, the Ar­
menian merchants until the I 88os) and discriminated against
others (Jews, Ukrainians,
Poles [particularly after I863], Ar­
menians after I885, Finns at the turn of the century), the
unequal relationships between ethnicities and the domi­
nant, Russian nationality reinforced the sense of ethnic op­
pression
and aspirations to national recognition. Especially

53. National Revolutions I 2 7
after 1881, the ruling nationality increasingly conceived of
social
problems in ethnic terms and saw Jewish conspira­
cies,
Armenian separatists, and nationalism in general as
sources of
disruption and rebellion. For Jews in particular,
legally enforced demographic
concentration in the
Pale of
Settlement and official racism that for all practical pur­
poses
prevented integration into Russian society preserved
ethnocultural differences and determined the political strate­
gies of Jewish activists.
14
Such discrimination against whole
peoples, regardless of social status, eroded certain internal
distinctions of members of the targeted ethnic group and en­
gendered
support for the conceptions of the nationalists. Yet
even as the nationalist construction of the ethnic enemy
gained in power, the economic policies of tsarism and con­
siderations of security and profit prompted some national
bourgeoisies to try to work with the Russifying regime.
Russian dominion in the Caucasus, Central Asia, and
Siberia
created a new degree of stability, a uniformity of
laws,
and slow but steady economic transformation. Whether
this transformation was perceived as "progress" or the de­
struction of "traditional" societies, the effects proved to be
irreversible. In
the steppes of Central Asia, Russian land
policy and immigration forced the nomadic Kazakhs to give
up their seasonal migrations and settle as farmers. The very
meaning of what it meant to be a Kazakh had to be re­
thought.15 "To be a Kazakh,"
writes Martha Brill Olcott,
was to be a nomad, as the Kazakh language suggests.
Kazakh
has terms for those who do not migrate, such as ba­
lykhsh (fisherman), eginshi (grain-grower), and the derogatory
term iatak (literally lie-about), used to describe individuals who
had lost their animals .... For the nomad and nomadism itself,
Kazakh has
no term.16
Identity here was linked more to a way of life than to a spe­
cific language group,
more to "kinship" groups (themselves
invented and mythically constructed) than to a universal re-

54. 28 I National Revolutions
ligious community, such as Islam, or to abstract ideas of
nation.
The breakdown of village isolation and the creation of
links to the all-Russian market (through railroads) and to
nearer trading towns blurred the distinction between kin
and nankin. At the same time, the state-driven industrial­
ization in the last decade and a half of the nineteenth cen­
tury gave rise to new forms of horizontal social cohesion
among industrial workers, embattled industrialists and mer­
chants, landlords and peasants, that were articulated by in­
tellectuals borrowing from Western social thought. Russian
social, economic, and intellectual developments in the post­
Emancipation years paradoxically reinforced vertical ethnic
ties in some cases and horizontal social bonds in others. The
experience of peoples who continued to have little represen­
tation in towns (e.g., Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and Belorus­
sians)-or, if they did migrate to industrial or urban centers,
tended to assimilate with the predominately Russian work
force-differed radically from the experiences of ethnicities
(like the Georgians, Latvians, Estonians, Jews, and to an ex­
tent, Armenians) who were more directly affected by indus­
trial capitalism, developed a working class of their own, and
came into more immediate contact with the radical intelli­
gentsia. Furthest removed from the social revolution of in­
dustrialism were the Muslim peoples of the empire. Though
one must be careful to differentiate between those Muslim
peoples, like the Azerbaijanis and the Volga Tatars, that had
a significant if small urban presence, the vast majority of
Central Asians, many of whom were nomadic or semino­
madic, had relatively little urban experience and almost no
contact with the socialist or nationalist intelligentsia. Yet
even the lives of the most isolated villagers had been trans­
formed
by the imposition of bureaucratic administration,
the development of domestic and international agricultural
markets, and Russian migration.

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59. The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Boston
School Atlas, Embracing a Compendium of
Geography

60. This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States
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Title: The Boston School Atlas, Embracing a Compendium of
Geography
Author: B. Franklin Edmands
Release date: September 24, 2018 [eBook #57971]
Language: English
Credits: Produced by Chris Curnow, Paul Marshall and the Online
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BOSTON
SCHOOL ATLAS, EMBRACING A COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY ***

62. THE BOSTON
SCHOOL ATLAS,
EMBRACING
A COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY.
BY B. FRANKLIN EDMANDS.
Table of Contents.
PREFACE. 
ELEMENTAL GEOGRAPHY. 3
EXPLANATION OF MAPS. 5
GRAND DIVISIONS OF THE EARTH. 17
CIVIL AND POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY. 17
STATE OF SOCIETY. 18
NORTH AMERICA. 21
UNITED STATES. 25
MAINE. 26
NEW HAMPSHIRE.... and ... VERMONT. 31
MASSACHUSETTS, CONNECTICUT, AND RHODE ISLAND.32
NEW YORK. 37
PENNSYLVANIA, MARYLAND, NEW JERSEY, AND DELAWARE.38
WESTERN STATES. 43

63. UNITED STATES. 44
SOUTH AMERICA. 57
EUROPE. 61
BRITISH ISLES. 65
ASIA. 69
AFRICA. 73
GENERAL QUESTIONS. 74
WEST INDIA ISLANDS. 75
OCEANICA. 75
ELEMENTAL ASTRONOMY. 76
TIDES. 77
QUESTIONS IN REVIEW OF THE COMPENDIUM. 78
TWELFTH EDITION; STEREOTYPED,
CONTAINING THE FOLLOWING MAPS AND CHARTS.
1.MAP OF THE WORLD.
2.CHART ... MOUNTAINS.
3.CHART ... RIVERS.
4.NORTH AMERICA.

64. 5.UNITED STATES.
6.PART OF MAINE.
7.VERMONT & N. HAMPSHIRE.
8.MASSACHUSETTS, CONNECTICUT, AND R. ISLAND.
9.NEW YORK.
10.PENN. MD., N. JER. AND DEL.
11.WESTERN STATES.
12.CHART ... CANALS, RAIL ROADS.
13.CHART ... POLITICAL AND STATISTICAL.
14.SOUTH AMERICA.
15.EUROPE.
16.BRITISH ISLES.
17.ASIA.
18.AFRICA.
Embellished with Instructive
Engravings.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY ROBERT S. DAVIS,
SUCCESSOR TO LINCOLN, EDMANDS, & CO.,
No. 77, Washington Street.
1840.

66. PREFACE.
A careful examination of Maps is a sure and at the same time the
most convenient method of acquiring a knowledge of Geography.
With a view of furnishing to young classes an economical means of
commencing a course of geographical study, this work has been
prepared; and it is believed that a thorough acquaintance with its
contents will impart such general ideas, as will prepare them to
enter upon a more minute investigation of the subject, when they
shall have arrived at a proper age.
The use of this work will also obviate the necessity which has
heretofore existed, of furnishing such classes with larger volumes,
the greater part of which is useless to them, till the book is literally
worn out; and although it is adapted to young students, it will be
found that the Atlas exercises are equally proper for more advanced
pupils.
The study of this work should commence with recitations of short
lessons previously explained by the instructer; and after the pupils
are well versed in the elements, the study of the maps should be
commenced. Embodied with the questions on the maps will be
occasionally found questions in italic, referring to the elements.
These are intended as a review, and the pupils should be made to
understand, that through the whole of the maps, the instructer will
require a similar review of the Geography. This course cannot fail to
be interesting and advantageous.
The elements of Astronomy are annexed to the work; and it is
left to the discretion of the instructer to determine the proper time
to introduce this pleasing study to his pupils.
BOSTON, AUGUST, 1830.
ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SIXTH (STEREOTYPE) EDITION.

67. The universal approbation and liberal patronage bestowed upon
the former editions of the Boston School Atlas, have induced the
publishers to make in this edition numerous improvements. The
maps have all been re-engraved on steel, and in pursuance of hints
from several instructers, a concise compendium of descriptive
Geography has been added, while at the same time the text of the
preceding edition has not been so altered as to cause confusion in
the use of the two editions in the same class. Many engravings
calculated to instruct, rather than merely to amuse, have been
interspersed, to render the book more attractive and useful to pupils.
The work, in addition to being stereotyped, has been kept as much
as possible free from subjects liable to changes, in order that it may
be a permanent Geography, which may hereafter be used without
the inconvenience of variations in different reprints.
THE INDUCTIVE SYSTEM has deservedly become the most
popular method of imparting instruction to the youthful mind, and
may be used with as much advantage in the study of Geography as
of any other science. To compile treatises of Geography on this plan,
with the necessary arrangement of the maps adapted to every place,
would multiply them indefinitely. The Inductive System, however,
can be used with advantage in the study of this book by pursuing
the following course. Let the Instructer describe to the pupils the
town in which they reside, and require them to become familiar with
its boundaries, rivers, ponds, hills, &c. After this is accomplished, the
map of the State should be laid before them, and the situation of the
town should be pointed out, and they should be told what a State is,
and what towns are nearest them, &c. This plan can be carried to
any extent the instructer may think necessary to enable his pupils to
acquire a correct knowledge of their own State; and, if necessary, he
should write for them additional questions of a local nature, beside
those contained in the work. If the town be not on the map, it
should be inserted with a pen on all the maps used in the class.
After the pupils shall have acquired a correct idea of their own State,
they may be taught respecting the adjoining States, countries, &c.
and the plan may be pursued as successfully as if they possessed an

68. Atlas with maps arranged in particular reference to their own place
of residence.
BOSTON, JUNE 17, 1833.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1832, by
Lincoln and Edmands , in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the
District of Massachusetts.
RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE
BOSTON SCHOOL ATLAS.
From R. G. Parker, Author of “Progressive Exercises in English
Composition,” and other popular works.
I have examined a copy of the Boston School Atlas, and have no
hesitation in recommending it as the best introduction to the study
of Geography that I have seen. The compiler has displayed much
judgment in what he has omitted, as well as what he has selected;
and has thereby presented to the public a neat manual of the
elements of the science, unencumbered with useless matter and
uninteresting detail. The mechanical execution of the work is neat
and creditable, and I doubt not that its merits will shortly introduce
it to general use.
Respectfully yours,  
R. G. PARKER.
From E. Bailey, Principal of the Young Ladies’ High School, Boston.
I was so well pleased with the plan and execution of the Boston
School Atlas, that I introduced it into my school, soon after the first
edition was published. I regard it as the best work for beginners in
the study of Geography which has yet fallen under my observation;
as such I would recommend it to the notice of parents and teachers.
Very respectfully,  
E. BAILEY.

69. From the Preceptors of Leicester Academy.
Among the great variety of school-books which have recently
been published, few are in our opinion more valuable than the
Boston School Atlas. As an introduction to the study of Geography, it
is preferable to any work of the kind with which we are acquainted.
JOHN RICHARDSON,
ALBERT SPOONER.  
From the Principal of New Ipswich (N. H.) Academy.
I have with much pleasure examined the copy of the Boston
School Atlas, which you politely sent to me. I think it admirably well
calculated to excite in the young mind a love of the study of
Geography, and to convey correct ideas of the rudiments of that
science. I shall be happy to recommend it wherever I have
opportunity. It is, in my opinion, the very thing that is needed in our
primary schools.
Respectfully yours,  
ROBERT A. COFFIN.
From Mr. Emerson, formerly a Teacher in Boston.
I have examined the Boston School Atlas, and I assure you, I am
highly pleased with it. It appears to me to contain exactly what it
should, to render it an easy and adequate introduction to the study
of Geography.
Yours, respectfully,  
F. EMERSON.
From Rev. Benj. F. Farnsworth, Principal of the New Hampton
Literary and Theological Seminary.
I have long lamented the deficiency of school-books in the
elementary parts of education. A good introduction to the study of
Geography has been much needed. The Boston School Atlas,
recently published by you, appears well; and I think it should be

70. preferred to most other works of the same class. I know of none
that could be used with equal advantage in its place. I hope you
may succeed in making School Committees and Teachers acquainted
with this Introduction to an interesting and important study of our
primary schools; as I doubt not that, in this case, it may obtain a
very desirable patronage.
Yours, respectfully,  
BENJ. F. FARNSWORTH.
From the United States Literary Advertiser, Boston.
This is one of the most beautiful elementary works of the kind,
which has yet come within the range of our observation. The Maps
are elegantly executed, and finely colored—and the whole work is
got up in a style that cannot fail to insure its general introduction
into our schools, as a most valuable standard book.
From the Principal of one of the High Schools in Portland.
I have examined the Boston School Atlas, Elements of
Geography, &c., and think it admirably adapted to beginners in the
study of the several subjects treated on. It is what is wanted in all
books for learners,—simple, philosophical, and practical. I hope it
will be used extensively.
Yours respectfully,  
JAS. FURBISH.
From Mr. Emerson, Author of the Spelling and Reading Books.
I have perused your Boston School Atlas with much satisfaction.
It seems to me to be what has been needed as an introduction to
the study of Geography, and admirably adapted to that purpose.
Very respectfully, yours, &c.,  
B. D. EMERSON.
From Rev. Dr. Perry, of E. Bradford.

71. I received, some months since, the Boston School Atlas, and
having given it a trial among my children, I am free to say, that I
think it very happily adapted to the wants and conveniences of
beginners in Geography, and hope it may get into extensive use.
Respectfully,  
GARDNER B. PERRY.

72. ELEMENTAL GEOGRAPHY.
The Earth, on which we live, is nearly a round body, the distance
through the centre from north to south, being twenty-six miles less,
than the distance through from west to east. That it is a round body
is proved, 1st, By having been circumnavigated, or sailed round; 2d,
From the appearance of a vessel approaching the land, the top of
the masts being seen first; 3d, By the shadow of the earth upon the
moon, during an eclipse of the moon.
A VIEW OF THE EARTH’S SURFACE, VIZ.
MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, OCEAN, ISLAND, &c.
MINE. GROTTO.
This cut represents, in a striking manner, the
mines and caverns as they exist under the land
and ocean. The mine here exhibited, is a picture

73. of a salt mine in Poland, Europe. The grotto is
under the island Antiparos in the Mediterranean
Sea. A mine is a cavern made by man, in
digging for the articles found in the earth. A
grotto is a cavern formed by nature.
Physical Geography , or Geography of the Earth, is a description of
the earth’s structure and surface. The surface consists of two
elements, viz, water and land; only one-third part being land.
Civil or Political Geography defines the boundaries and extent of
the various countries in possession of the different nations of the
earth. Civil Geography also treats of government, religion,
commerce, the characteristic features of the principal races of men,
and various other subjects.
Statistical Geography is a description of States, Kingdoms,
Empires, or Cities, with reference to their population and resources.
WATER.
Comprises Oceans, Seas, Lakes, Gulfs or Bays, Havens or
Harbours, Straits, Channels, Sounds, and Rivers.
An Ocean is a large expanse of water not separated by land.
A Sea is a lesser extent of water than an ocean, almost
surrounded by land.
A Lake is a large collection of water in the interior of a country;—
generally fresh. A salt water lake is called a Sea.
A Gulf or Bay is a part of the sea extending up into the land.
A Haven or Harbour is a small portion of water, almost enclosed by
land, where ships may lie safely at anchor.
A Strait is a narrow communication between two large collections
of water. If it be so shallow as to be sounded, it is called a Sound.

74. A Channel is the deepest part of a river. A Strait is also sometimes
called a Channel.
The vapours which rise from the surface of the earth ascend to
the clouds, whence they fall in dew, snow, or rain, to water the
earth, and supply springs, and small streams or rivers.
A River is an inland stream of water flowing from an elevated
portion of land into some larger stream or body of water. The
commencement of a river is called its SOURCE, or RISE; the
direction to which it flows, its COURSE; and its communication with
any other water, its MOUTH.
If the mouth of a river, which flows into an ocean or sea be wide,
and is affected by tides, it is called an Estuary or Frith.
A Cataract or Falls is formed by a sudden declivity or precipice in
the course of a river, over which the water falls with great force.
A Canal is an artificial passage for water, supplied from an
elevated lake or river; and is constructed for the purpose of inland
navigation. Canals often pass under mountains and over rivers.
Standing water, and low grounds filled with water, are called
Morasses, Bogs, and Fens; or, as in the United States, Swamps.
LAND.
Is divided into Continents, Islands, Peninsulas, Isthmuses, and
Capes; and is diversified by Plains, Mountains, and Valleys.
A Continent is a large tract of land nowhere entirely separated by
water. There are two continents, viz. the Western and Eastern.
An Island is a portion of land surrounded by water.
A Peninsula is a portion of land almost surrounded by water.
An Isthmus is the neck of land which joins a peninsula to the main
land.

75. A Cape is a point of land, projecting into the sea. A mountainous
Cape is called a Promontory.
A Plain is a large extent of level country. A plain naturally
destitute of trees is called a Prairie; when entirely destitute of
vegetation, it is called a Desert.
A Mountain is a lofty elevation of land. If it send forth smoke and
flame, it is called a Volcano.
The opening at the top of a volcano, from whence issues the
flame, smoke, &c., is called a Crater.
If the elevation of a mountain be small, it is then called a Hill.
A Valley is a tract of land, bounded by hills, and generally
watered by a river.
A Shore or Coast is that part of the land which borders upon a
body of water.

76. EXPLANATION OF MAPS.
A Map is a picture of the whole, or of a part, of the Earth’s
surface, on a plane or level. Generally the top of a map represents
north; the right hand side, east; the bottom, south; the left hand
side, west. West, east, north, and south, are called the Cardinal
Points.
Young persons in studying maps, imbibe an idea that the top of a
map represents the highest part of a country; but this is a great
mistake, as will be at once seen, by looking at the maps, and finding
many rivers flow north, and recollecting that water cannot flow up
hill. That part of a country is the most elevated, which contains
mountains, and where rivers have their source.
Cities and towns are represented on maps by an o; rivers, by
black lines running irregularly; mountains, by dark shades; deserts,
by clusters of small dots; boundaries, by dotted lines.
The Axis of the earth is an imaginary line passing through its
centre from north to south. The extremities of the Axis are called the
Poles.
The Equator or Equinox, is an imaginary circle, surrounding the
Earth from west to east, at an equal distance from the poles. See
Map of the World, fig. 2.
A Meridian , or Line of Longitude, is a circle crossing the equator
at right angles, and passing through the poles. See fig. 4.
Parallels of Latitude , are lines, drawn across maps, representing
circles equally distant in every part from the equator. See fig. 3.
The Tropics are two circles parallel to the equator, at about 23
degrees and 28 minutes from it. The northern is called, the Tropic of
Cancer; and the southern, the Tropic of Capricorn. See fig. 2.

77. The Polar Circles are drawn at 23 degrees and 28 minutes from
the poles. The northern, is the Arctic, and the southern, the
Antarctic Circle. See fig. 2.
A Degree is the 360th part of a circle, and contains 69½ English
miles; each degree is divided into 60 equal parts, called minutes;
and each minute into 60 equal parts, called seconds. They are
marked (°) degrees, (’) minutes, (”) seconds.
The Longitude of a place, is its distance from any given meridian,
as Washington, London, or Greenwich, and is reckoned in degrees,
&c. on the equator. Longitude is marked in figures, either on the
equator, or at the top and bottom of the map, and can be reckoned
only 180 degrees east or west, that distance being half of a circle.
Longitude, on most of these maps, is reckoned from the meridian of
Greenwich, near London.
The Latitude of a place is its distance in degrees, &c. north or
south from the equator, and is expressed in figures on the sides of
the map. Latitude can never exceed 90 degrees.
The Zones are portions of the Earth’s surface divided by the
tropics and polar circles. There are five zones, viz. one torrid, two
temperate, and two frigid zones. See Map of the World, fig. 1.
The Torrid Zone is included between the tropics, and is
distinguished for extreme heat, and luxuriant vegetation; the climate
is generally unhealthy.
The Temperate Zones are included between the tropics and the
polar circles; they have a healthy climate, and produce the greatest
abundance of the most useful commodities.
The Frigid Zones lie between the polar circles and the poles, and
are remarkable for extreme coldness of climate and general
barrenness of soil.
A Hemisphere is half a globe. The map of the world is divided into
the western and eastern Hemispheres; and the equator divides it
into northern and southern Hemispheres.

78. The Diameter of the earth, that is, the distance through its centre,
is about eight thousand miles; and its Circumference , that is, the
distance round it, is about twenty-five thousand miles.
In tracing the relative situation of places, the pupil must
remember to follow the direction of the parallels and meridians, and
not be governed merely by the apparent direction of one place from
another. Thus, on the map of the world, Iceland appears north from
Newfoundland, but it is northeast. Therefore, the direction towards
the top and bottom of maps is not always exactly north and south;
but to go north you must proceed toward the north pole; and south,
toward the south pole;—following the direction of the lines.
The preceding principles should be rendered as
perfectly familiar to the pupil as the letters of the
alphabet. To secure this object, the learner is
required, in the following pages, to define a
continent, an ocean, latitude, longitude, &c. in
connexion with the subject of questions on the
maps. It will also be useful, after the pupil has
passed the map of the world, frequently to require
similar definitions to be repeated, when naturally
suggested by the subject, and thus impress the
learner with the necessity of being always prepared
to answer them. This method furnishes a general
review of Elemental Geography through the whole
course of studying the maps, and will give variety
and pleasure to the exercise.
QUESTIONS ON THE MAP OF THE
WORLD.
N. B. The Questions in Italics are to be
answered by referring to the preceding
elementary principles.

79. 1. Of what two elements is the surface of the earth composed?
2. Of which is there the greater part?
3. How is land divided? 4. What is a Continent, and how many
are there? 5. Which contains the more land? 6. By what is the
surface of the land diversified? 7. Asia, Europe, Africa, and America,
are called the Grand Divisions of the earth;—which of them is
largest? 8. Which is smallest? 9. How is North America bounded? 10.
South America? 11. Europe? 12. Asia? 13. Africa? 14. Which way is
South America from Africa? 15. Europe from North America?
16. What is an Island? 17. What large island lies south from Asia?
18. Where is New Zealand? 19. Which are the principal of the East
India Islands? 20. Of the West India Islands? 21. Of Australasia? 22.
Of Polynesia? 23. Australasia, Polynesia, and the East India Islands,
are sometimes embraced under the general name Oceanica ;—which
of these groups contains the largest islands? 24. Where is Owhyhee,
where Capt. Cook was slain? 25. St. Helena, where Bonaparte ended
his life?
26. What is a Peninsula? 27. Which of the divisions of the Eastern
continent is a peninsula? 28. Is South America properly a peninsula
or an island?
29. What is an Isthmus? 30. What isthmus connects Asia with
Africa? 31. North with South America?
32. What is a Cape? 33. Which are the principal capes of New
Zealand? 34. Where is the Cape of Good Hope? 35. Cape Horn? 36.
Which is further south?
37. What is a Plain? 38. A Prairie? 39. A Desert? 40. A Mountain?
41. A Hill? 42. A Volcano? 43. A Crater? 44. In which Grand Division
is the Great Desert?
45. What is a Valley? 46. A Shore or coast? 47. What part of the
coast of North America approaches nearest to Asia? 48. What ocean
washes the eastern coast of America? 49. The western? 50. What
sea forms the northern boundary of Africa?

80. 51. What does Water comprise? 52. What is an Ocean? 53. Name
the oceans. 54. Which is the largest? 55. What is a Sea? 56. Where
is the Caspian sea? 57. Yellow sea? 58. Chinese sea? 59. The Sea of
Ochotsk? 60. The Mediterranean sea? 61. The Black sea? 62. The
Red Sea? 63. The Caribbean sea? 64. The Aral sea? 65. The Arctic
sea, or ocean? 66. The Antarctic?
67. What is a Lake? 68. Which contains the largest lakes, the
western or eastern hemisphere? 69. Which is the largest lake in the
world? 70. Where is it situated? 71. Which is the largest lake on the
eastern hemisphere? 72. In which of the Grand Divisions is it?
73. What is a Gulf or bay? 74. Where is Hudson’s bay? 75.
Baffin’s bay? 76. Gulf of Mexico?
77. What is a Haven or harbour? 78. A Strait? 79. Where are
Hudson’s straits? 80. Davis’ straits? 81. Straits of Gibraltar?
82. What is a River? 83. Where is Mackenzie’s river? 84. The
Amazon river? 85. The Senegal river? 86. What is meant by the rise,
course, and mouth of a river? 87. If the mouth of a river be wide,
and is affected by tides, what is it called?
88. What is a Cataract? 89. A Morass or Swamp?
90. What is the Equator? 91. What countries does it intersect?
92. Which of the East India Islands does it intersect? 93. Into what
does the equator divide the earth?
94. What countries does the tropic of Cancer cross? 95. The
tropic of Capricorn?
96. What is a Hemisphere? 97. What islands in the western
hemisphere are under the equator? 98. What is a Degree, and into
how many is the equator divided? 99. How many degrees is the
equator from the poles?
100. What is a Meridian? 101. What is Longitude? 102. What is
the longitude of Madagascar? 103. Of the Azores? 104. Of Ireland?

81. 105. What is Latitude? 106. What are Parallels of latitude? 107.
What is the latitude of New York? 108. Of London? 109. Of Canton?
110. Of Spitzbergen? 111. How many degrees further north is Pekin
than Canton? 112. Boston than Morocco? 113. What are the Tropics?
114. What are the Polar circles?
115. What are Zones? 116. What countries are in the Torrid
Zone? 117. What in the Northern Temperate? 118. What in the
Southern Temperate? 119. Has much land been discovered in the
Frigid Zones?
120. What oceans, seas, &c. must a ship navigate in sailing from
Boston to Canton? 121. From New York to Rome? 122. From the
Island Jamaica to Otaheite? 123. In which of these voyages would
the ship pass the Cape of Good Hope? 124. In which, Cape Horn?
[Click anywhere on map for high resolution image.]
SURFACE OF THE EARTH.

82. In a general point of view, the surface of the earth may properly
be considered as one vast ocean, in which are placed a great
number of islands, whose sizes are various. Two of these islands are
called CONTINENTS;—because it has hitherto been impossible to sail
round them, owing to the frozen state of the waters of the Arctic
seas. That which has been for the longer space of time inhabited by
civilized nations, is called the eastern, or old continent, and contains
Asia, Europe, and Africa. The other comprises America, and is
named the western, or new continent. New Holland, a large tract of
land situated in the midst of the most extensive mass of waters, is
by some called a continent; but it is more proper to consider it as
the largest island in existence. An island differs from a continent only
in size, and the name continent is given to certain extensive portions
of land, for the sake of convenience in geographical descriptions.
The bottom of the basin of the ocean has irregularities, similar to
those seen on the surface of the land; and, if the waters were dried
up, would present to view, mountains, valleys, and plains. Islands
are therefore, the flattened tops of mountains, situated in the midst
of the sea. Immense masses of rocks are found in many places
under the water, and often rise so near the surface, that they are
dangerous to navigation. Near Marseilles, there is a quarry under the
sea, from which marble is obtained. These facts prove that the sea is
not bottomless, as some people suppose, although there are some
places so deep that no bottom has yet been found. It has been
supposed, by many geographers, that the depth of the abysses of
the ocean, are equal to the heights of mountains on land, and
therefore that the ocean is in no place more than thirty thousand
feet deep. The greatest depth that has ever been measured without
finding bottom, is four thousand six hundred and eighty feet.
The chief characteristic of the ocean, is the saltness of its waters,
which renders them disagreeable to the taste, and unfit for the use
of man. Thus mariners are often, although surrounded by water, in
danger of perishing from thirst, when their supply of fresh water has
been exhausted, while they are yet at a great distance from land.
The cause of this saltness is not yet ascertained. It is supposed that

83. by the constant agitation of the waters the ocean preserves its
purity.
The Arctic ocean is constantly frozen over, and immense pieces of
ice become detached, and being driven about in the ocean, are often
dangerous to navigators. Some of them are more than a mile long,
and rise to the height of one hundred and fifty feet; others rise but a
few feet above the waves, and form floating fields of ice of great
extent. These fields are often visited by the natives of Greenland, in
their canoes, while pursuing their seal fisheries. Ships are
sometimes, while sailing in these dangerous waters, surrounded and
crushed between these masses of ice.
FLOATING ICE-FIELD AND ISLANDS.
The form which the shores of the land presents is very irregular;
in consequence of which, the ocean extends towards the interior of
countries, and thus forms inland seas, gulfs, &c. which are in reality

84. parts of the ocean, detached, but not separated from it. The
different names, as sea, bay, &c. are given for the sake of
convenience.
The level of the sea is nearly the same in all parts of the globe,
except in some inland seas, &c. For this reason all the
measurements of the heights of places and mountains are calculated
from this level.
GRAND DIVISIONS OF THE OCEAN.
The ocean is subdivided into portions, which are known by
different names, viz. the Atlantic, Pacific, Indian, Arctic or Northern,
and Antarctic or Southern oceans. The situation of these may be
seen by reference to the map of the world.
The Atlantic ocean varies in extent, from seven hundred to four
thousand miles in breadth from west to east, and is nine thousand
miles in length.
The Pacific ocean extends from north to south about eight
thousand miles, and from west to east about eleven thousand miles,
—almost half round the globe.
The Indian ocean extends from north to south about four
thousand miles, and from west to east varies from twenty-five
hundred to six thousand miles.
The Northern ocean is encircled by the coasts of the two
continents. Its greatest extent in one direction is computed to be
three thousand miles.
The Southern ocean lies south from the Atlantic, Pacific, and
Indian oceans, and surrounds the south pole.
The most remarkable phenomenon which occurs throughout the
extent of the ocean is the Maelstrom. This is a whirlpool by which a
ship or any thing which comes within the reach of the circling
current is swallowed up.

85. THE MAELSTROM.
This whirlpool is in the Atlantic ocean, near the
coast of Norway, Europe.
MOUNTAINS, &c.
Mountains form the principal feature which presents itself on
viewing the surface of the land. These immense heights have their
descents, more or less steep, and their exteriors greatly diversified.
Some of them present a surface of naked and rugged rocks piled
one upon another; others show an abrupt and almost perpendicular
surface, which conveys to an observer an idea that the mountain has
been cut from top to bottom, so as to show the interior. Sometimes
mountains seem, when viewed from particular points, to show the
form of the head of a tiger, a bear, a man’s face, &c.

86. Some are composed of columns of basaltic rock, so regularly
formed and disposed that they seem to have been formed by art.
The columns are five or six sided, and appear to be divided into
joints, at intervals of about thirty feet. The Giant’s Causeway in
Ireland, is a remarkable instance of this natural curiosity.
GIANT’S CAUSEWAY.
At this place there are ranges of these columns which extend into
the sea several hundred feet, and their tops present an almost level
surface of pavement.
Mountains have often large cavities in their interiors. In Norway,
Europe, there is a remarkable instance of a singular natural
formation of a mountain. Mount Torghat is pierced through with an
opening one hundred and fifty feet high, and three thousand long;
at certain seasons of the year the sun lights up the interior of this
passage from one end to the other.
Defiles or passes are narrow natural openings or roads through a
chain of mountains, and often form the only communication from

87. one part of a country to the other. There is a famous defile of this
kind at the Cape of Good Hope, Africa, which is called Holland’s
Kloffe.
HOLLAND’S KLOFFE.
This pass is so situated that it forms the only communication
from the country of the Hottentots to the country beyond the
mountains. One hundred men could here successfully oppose the
march of an immense army.
A defile sometimes forms the bed of a river, by which means the
stream passes through a chain of mountains. In the United States
there is an instance of this, where the opposite sides of the defile
are connected together at the top by a natural bridge of rock.

88. NATURAL BRIDGE, VIRGINIA, U.S.
A Plateau is a plain of immense extent, which is formed of an
extensive surface of elevated land. Some plateaus are eight
thousand feet above the level of the sea. Lofty mountains often rise
from these plateaus, many of which are volcanic.
Volcano is a word taken from the name which the Romans gave
to the God of Fire. It now designates those mountains which are
subject to eruptions of fire, smoke, stones, and lava. The irruption of
a volcano is a most awful and majestic phenomenon. The earth is
shaken, and rumbling noises are heard, which sound like thunder.
Smoke and fire begin to issue from the top of the mountain.
Suddenly the fire becomes extinguished, and red-hot stones are
thrown out; then the crater is filled with a burning liquid called lava,
which looks like metal in a melted state. At last, the lava overflows
the sides of the crater, and runs down the sides of the mountain,
destroying every thing which lies in its path, and covering cities and
cultivated fields with a sea of burning matter. Sometimes the lava is

89. too heavy to be elevated to the summit, and bursts out from the
side of the mountain.
CRATER OF MOUNT ETNA.
The cities Herculaneum and Pompeii, in Italy, were entirely
destroyed, A. D. 79, by an irruption of Vesuvius.
Herculaneum was discovered by digging away the ashes and
lava, in the year 1713. Pompeii was discovered about forty years
afterwards.
The height of mountains is measured from the level of the sea.
The highest mountains in the world are the Himmaleh
mountains, in Asia.
The second in point of elevation are the Andes mountains, in
South America; Chimborazo is the highest peak.

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