Peter Holquist
Peter Holquist's teaching and research focus upon the history of Russia and modern Europe. He is the author of //Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921// (Harvard, 2002). He is founder and executive editor of the journal //Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History// and serves as editor for the Kritika Historical Studies (vol. 1, "The Resistance Debate in Russian and Soviet History," 2003; vol. 2, "After the Fall: Essays on Russian and Soviet History after Communism," 2004; vol. 3, "Orientalism and Empire in Russia," 2006). Holquist has published articles on Russia 's experience in the First World War and Russian Revolution, questions of continuity and change from the imperial period into the Stalin era, and other topics.
Recent publications:
“‘In accord with State Interests and the People's Wishes’: The Technocratic Ideology of Imperial Russia’s Resettlement Administration,” Slavic Review 69, no. 1 (Spring 2010), 151-79.
“Forms of Violence during the Russian Occupation of Ottoman Territory and in Northern Persia (Urmia and Astrabad), October 1914-December 1917,” in Borderlands, eds. Eric Weitz and Omer Bartov (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, forthcoming).
“The Politics and Practice of the Russian Occupation of Armenia, 1915-Feb. 1917,” in A Question of Genocide, 1915: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, eds. Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Muge Gocek, and Norman Naimark (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 151-74.
“The Role of Personality in the First (1914-1915) Russian Occupation of Galicia and Bukovina” in John Klier, ed., Anti-Jewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in European History (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010), pp. 52-73.
“Les violences de l’armée russe à l’encontre des Juifs en 1915: Causes et limites,” in Vers la guerre totale: le tournant de 1914-15, ed. John Horne (Paris: Tallandier, 2010), pp. 191-219.
Holquist's current project, By Right of War, explores the emergence of the international law of war in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Specifically, it analyzes the role of imperial Russia in codifying and extending these "laws and customs of war," and examines to what extent European militaries, and particularly the Russian army, observed these norms in practice. This project encompasses two distinct areas of analysis. First, it traces how international law emerged as a discipline in Imperial Russia and came to flourish there. This is a story of intellectual and diplomatic history. The second half of the project measures the extent to which these normative principles shaped actual policy. It takes the form of military and political history, examining the Russian army in three cases of military occupation: Bulgaria and Anatolia in 1877-78; Manchuria during the Boxer Rebellion, 1900-1901; and Galicia and Armenia during the First World War. The project, in other words, asks by what means, and to what degree, can one bring people's conduct, even in extremis, into line with normative and ethical prescriptions?
Holquist received his Ph.D. with distinction from Columbia University in 1995. Prior to joining Penn's History Department in Fall 2006, he taught for nine years at Cornell University.
Recent publications:
“‘In accord with State Interests and the People's Wishes’: The Technocratic Ideology of Imperial Russia’s Resettlement Administration,” Slavic Review 69, no. 1 (Spring 2010), 151-79.
“Forms of Violence during the Russian Occupation of Ottoman Territory and in Northern Persia (Urmia and Astrabad), October 1914-December 1917,” in Borderlands, eds. Eric Weitz and Omer Bartov (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, forthcoming).
“The Politics and Practice of the Russian Occupation of Armenia, 1915-Feb. 1917,” in A Question of Genocide, 1915: Armenians and Turks at the End of the Ottoman Empire, eds. Ronald Grigor Suny, Fatma Muge Gocek, and Norman Naimark (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp. 151-74.
“The Role of Personality in the First (1914-1915) Russian Occupation of Galicia and Bukovina” in John Klier, ed., Anti-Jewish Violence: Rethinking the Pogrom in European History (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 2010), pp. 52-73.
“Les violences de l’armée russe à l’encontre des Juifs en 1915: Causes et limites,” in Vers la guerre totale: le tournant de 1914-15, ed. John Horne (Paris: Tallandier, 2010), pp. 191-219.
Holquist's current project, By Right of War, explores the emergence of the international law of war in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Specifically, it analyzes the role of imperial Russia in codifying and extending these "laws and customs of war," and examines to what extent European militaries, and particularly the Russian army, observed these norms in practice. This project encompasses two distinct areas of analysis. First, it traces how international law emerged as a discipline in Imperial Russia and came to flourish there. This is a story of intellectual and diplomatic history. The second half of the project measures the extent to which these normative principles shaped actual policy. It takes the form of military and political history, examining the Russian army in three cases of military occupation: Bulgaria and Anatolia in 1877-78; Manchuria during the Boxer Rebellion, 1900-1901; and Galicia and Armenia during the First World War. The project, in other words, asks by what means, and to what degree, can one bring people's conduct, even in extremis, into line with normative and ethical prescriptions?
Holquist received his Ph.D. with distinction from Columbia University in 1995. Prior to joining Penn's History Department in Fall 2006, he taught for nine years at Cornell University.
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Books by Peter Holquist
“An exceptionally rich, complex, and original book. Holquist weaves together a masterful interpretation in which the Russian past, Marxist ideology, the circumstances of prolonged and bloody war, and broader European trends all combined to create the Soviet system. By treating the years 1914 to 1921 as a single, highly troubled period of European and therefore Russian crisis, while simultaneously grounding his meticulous research in the concrete realities of a single pivotal area - the territory of the Don Cossacks--Holquist creates a dense yet fluent narrative, replete with fresh, surprising insights. The book will surely be indispensable reading to students of Russian, Soviet, and modern European history.”—Reginald E. Zelnik, University of California at Berkeley
“This striking volume challenges much of the received wisdom about the transformative nature of Russia’s 1917 revolution. By exploring the grander narrative of revolutionary change through the prism of local politics, and by situating Russia’s overall experience as part of the broader phenomenon of European upheaval between 1914 and 1921, Holquist demonstrates convincingly how power and politics must be understood as socially instituted practices as well as forms and techniques of rule. Making War, Forging Revolution is imaginative, challenging, and superbly crafted - a model of theorized archival research and a fine accomplishment indeed.”—William G. Rosenberg, University of Michigan
“This is a work of exceptional power, clarity, and historical imagination. The Don Cossacks are Holquist’s subject, but this regional focus opens a window on the Revolution writ large, revealing the deeper processes spanning the war, the events of February and October, 1917 and, above all, the defining early years of the Soviet project in practice. For the Cossacks, as for all Soviet subjects, identity was an amalgam of history, post-October ideology and Bolshevik policy. No other book unpacks these layers of meaning with such elegance and sophistication.”—Daniel Orlovsky, Southern Methodist University
“Meticulously researched and confidently argued, Making War, Forging Revolution represents a highly original contribution to the field of Russian history and to European history in general. It is a book that deserves to be read widely.”—Donald J. Raleigh, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“The once tidy distinctions between war, revolution, and civil war have become blurred and what was once attributed to the peculiarities of Russia’s political culture (for example, Russia’s autocratic tradition and/or Bolshevik extremism) is now seen in broader, pan-European terms. Peter Holquist’s much anticipated book is an outstanding example of this new scholarship…Suffice it to say that students of both Russian and European history will find many of their assumptions challenged in this most thought-provoking book.”—Lewis H. Siegelbaum, Journal of Modern History
Reviews:
Robert Legvold in Foreign Affairs 82, no. 2 (March-April 2003): 159.
Daniel W. Graf in Military History (April 2003), 589-90.
Peter Gatrell in Russian Review 62, no. 3 (July 2003), 476-77.
Nathalie Moine in Cahiers du Monde russe 44, no. 4 (October-December 2003), 707-710.
Joshua Sanborn in Revolutionary Russia 16, no. 2 (December 2003), 115-118.
Peter Kenez in American Historical Review (February 2004), 285-86.
Igor Narskij and Julia Khmelevskaya for “H-NET Liste fuer Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte” [“H-SOZ-U-KULT”], 31 March 2004 <http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2004-2-085>.
Lars Lih in Slavic Review 63, no. 2 (Summer 2004), 408-409.
Lewis Siegelbaum in Journal of Modern History 76, no. 2 (June 2004), 492-94.
Andrei V. Ganin in Voprosy istorii, no. 10 (2004), 173-75.
Daniel Beer, in The Historical Journal 47, no. 4 (2004), 1055-1067.
Robert B. McKean, in History: Journal of the Historical Association, vol. 90, Issue 297 (January 2005), 157-58.
Serhy Yekelchyk, in Social History 30, no. 1 (February 2005), 91-93.
Francesco Bevenuti, in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 6, no. 3 (Summer 2005), 535-557, here at 551-55.
Susanne Schattenberg, in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 53, no. 4 (Winter 2005)
L. G. Novikova, “Grazhdanskaia voina v Rossii v sovremennoi zapadnoi istoriografii,” Otechestvennaia Istoriia no. 6 (2005).
Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, “La Grande Guerre a-t-elle brutalisé les sociétés européenes?,” Sens Public (Lyons), 6 March 2005.
Benjamin Guichard in Le Mouvement Social, no. 218 (January-March 2007): 99-102.""
Papers by Peter Holquist
“An exceptionally rich, complex, and original book. Holquist weaves together a masterful interpretation in which the Russian past, Marxist ideology, the circumstances of prolonged and bloody war, and broader European trends all combined to create the Soviet system. By treating the years 1914 to 1921 as a single, highly troubled period of European and therefore Russian crisis, while simultaneously grounding his meticulous research in the concrete realities of a single pivotal area - the territory of the Don Cossacks--Holquist creates a dense yet fluent narrative, replete with fresh, surprising insights. The book will surely be indispensable reading to students of Russian, Soviet, and modern European history.”—Reginald E. Zelnik, University of California at Berkeley
“This striking volume challenges much of the received wisdom about the transformative nature of Russia’s 1917 revolution. By exploring the grander narrative of revolutionary change through the prism of local politics, and by situating Russia’s overall experience as part of the broader phenomenon of European upheaval between 1914 and 1921, Holquist demonstrates convincingly how power and politics must be understood as socially instituted practices as well as forms and techniques of rule. Making War, Forging Revolution is imaginative, challenging, and superbly crafted - a model of theorized archival research and a fine accomplishment indeed.”—William G. Rosenberg, University of Michigan
“This is a work of exceptional power, clarity, and historical imagination. The Don Cossacks are Holquist’s subject, but this regional focus opens a window on the Revolution writ large, revealing the deeper processes spanning the war, the events of February and October, 1917 and, above all, the defining early years of the Soviet project in practice. For the Cossacks, as for all Soviet subjects, identity was an amalgam of history, post-October ideology and Bolshevik policy. No other book unpacks these layers of meaning with such elegance and sophistication.”—Daniel Orlovsky, Southern Methodist University
“Meticulously researched and confidently argued, Making War, Forging Revolution represents a highly original contribution to the field of Russian history and to European history in general. It is a book that deserves to be read widely.”—Donald J. Raleigh, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
“The once tidy distinctions between war, revolution, and civil war have become blurred and what was once attributed to the peculiarities of Russia’s political culture (for example, Russia’s autocratic tradition and/or Bolshevik extremism) is now seen in broader, pan-European terms. Peter Holquist’s much anticipated book is an outstanding example of this new scholarship…Suffice it to say that students of both Russian and European history will find many of their assumptions challenged in this most thought-provoking book.”—Lewis H. Siegelbaum, Journal of Modern History
Reviews:
Robert Legvold in Foreign Affairs 82, no. 2 (March-April 2003): 159.
Daniel W. Graf in Military History (April 2003), 589-90.
Peter Gatrell in Russian Review 62, no. 3 (July 2003), 476-77.
Nathalie Moine in Cahiers du Monde russe 44, no. 4 (October-December 2003), 707-710.
Joshua Sanborn in Revolutionary Russia 16, no. 2 (December 2003), 115-118.
Peter Kenez in American Historical Review (February 2004), 285-86.
Igor Narskij and Julia Khmelevskaya for “H-NET Liste fuer Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte” [“H-SOZ-U-KULT”], 31 March 2004 <http://hsozkult.geschichte.hu-berlin.de/rezensionen/2004-2-085>.
Lars Lih in Slavic Review 63, no. 2 (Summer 2004), 408-409.
Lewis Siegelbaum in Journal of Modern History 76, no. 2 (June 2004), 492-94.
Andrei V. Ganin in Voprosy istorii, no. 10 (2004), 173-75.
Daniel Beer, in The Historical Journal 47, no. 4 (2004), 1055-1067.
Robert B. McKean, in History: Journal of the Historical Association, vol. 90, Issue 297 (January 2005), 157-58.
Serhy Yekelchyk, in Social History 30, no. 1 (February 2005), 91-93.
Francesco Bevenuti, in Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 6, no. 3 (Summer 2005), 535-557, here at 551-55.
Susanne Schattenberg, in Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas 53, no. 4 (Winter 2005)
L. G. Novikova, “Grazhdanskaia voina v Rossii v sovremennoi zapadnoi istoriografii,” Otechestvennaia Istoriia no. 6 (2005).
Alexandra de Hoop Scheffer, “La Grande Guerre a-t-elle brutalisé les sociétés européenes?,” Sens Public (Lyons), 6 March 2005.
Benjamin Guichard in Le Mouvement Social, no. 218 (January-March 2007): 99-102.""