Jane Burbank: “How Space becomes Place: Russia’s Eurasian Trajectories”

Imperial success is usually measured by the ability to claim and control wide and strategic territories. Yet, Professor Jane Burbank shows, it is exactly the geographic marginality that, in the Russian case, produced environment to forge imperial expansion. To learn how advantage turns into burden and marginality into a recipe of success, listen to Burbank’s broad analysis of Russia’s success as a Eurasian empire.

The Lecture took place on 8 December 2015 and was part of the Winter Academy “Beyond History and Identity: New Perspectives on Aesthetics, Politics, and Society in Eastern Europe” (Berlin, 2-12 December 2015).

Moderation: Andreas Eckert (Forum Transregionale Studien/Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Jane Burbank is Professor of History at New York University. She studied Russian Literature at Reed College, Portland, and Russian History and Soviet Studies at Harvard University. Jane Burbank is 2015/2016 Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin.