Between empire and nation: Urban politics, community, and violence in Kiev, 1863--1907

This dissertation examines the rise of mass politics in late imperial Kiev. A historically contested city claimed by both Polish and Russian publicists, Kiev was also a multi-cultural, multi-lingual, and multi-confessional urban center with large Polish, Jewish, Ukrainian, and Russian populations. In the 1860s and 70s, the city experienced rapid urbanization and industrialization, emerging as one of the Russian empire's most flourishing commercial centers. A diverse capitalist elite---including a strong contingent of Jewish entrepreneurs---established a dominant presence in the city's economic, political, and social life. Many themselves self-made men, these capitalists valued business acumen over social or ethnic distinctions, setting an inclusive tone at the upper ranks of society.;By the 1870s and 80s, a small group of ideologically extreme, non-Jewish intellectuals had begun to formulate a political program that attacked the city's tradition of multi-cultural accommodation---and in particular, the social status and political power of its Jewish capitalists. As the authorities' capacity to maintain order began to collapse in the lead-up to the 1905 revolution, these ideologues enjoyed new opportunities to popularize their ideas and rhetoric on a truly massive stage. By 1905, the Russian empire's most disciplined, well-funded, and mass-oriented right-wing movement had emerged in Kiev; although anti-Semitism was its most striking defining characteristic, it also was infused with nationalist language. Rather than portraying the Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian nationalist movements that emerged in the region as diametrically opposed to one another, this work emphasizes their common features and interconnections as well as the role that each played in forging the Kiev right.;This work contributes to historians' understanding of political culture in the Russian empire, demonstrating that municipal political life was sophisticated and consequential and showing how seemingly local issues impinged on questions of empire-wide importance. It also argues for the need to place the case of Kiev---and the history of imperial Russia more generally---in the context of European political history, demonstrating how the development of mass politics and nationalism (both pan-European phenomena) transformed urban life in one locale.