Exhibiting Russia at the world's fairs, 1851--190

This dissertation explores Russia's long-standing problems of westernization and defining national identity by investigating the tsarist empire's participation in Victorian-era world's fairs in Europe and the United States. The thesis is guided by comparative analysis and the interrogative tools of cultural history. It relies on such sources as the archival records of Russia's exhibit organizing commissions and western sponsors of world's fairs, diplomatic correspondence, and the rich commentary on expositions in the Russian, European, and American press. The dissertation considers how participation in world's fairs affected relations between representatives of the state and society, the image of Russia in the West, and the public discourse in Russia on westernization. I find, first, that government officials and private subjects shared economic, political, and cultural motivations to participate in fairs. Government officials encouraged public participation but simultaneously hindered the development of private initiative by reserving for themselves the power to choose exhibits and design exhibition spaces. Unlike public officials and private entrepreneurs in Great Britain, France, and the United States, Russian representatives of state and society failed to devise the kind of effective collaboration that world's fairs were expected to engender. Second, dispelling denigrating stereotypes of Russia as "uncivilized" constituted a primary goal of participation, yet displays of architecture, the arts, and handicrafts in a unique national style led to unintended interpretations. Russia's exhibition commissioners, by their choices of display, seem to have given westerners the impression that Russia was less modern and more exotic than the Russians could have otherwise portrayed their country. Consequently, Russia appeared culturally and economically distinct from Europe. Lastly, world's fairs provided a stimulating context for public discourse in Russia on the consequences of modernity, the problem of public initiative in an authoritarian state, the challenge of economic development, and the definition of Russian identity.