A history of Russian Poland’s urban outskirts, c. 1880-1914

This dissertation is divided into three parts, each covering a key period of suburban development in Russian Poland. The first focuses on the emergence of the outskirts between 1880 and 1905; the second is concerned with the course of the revolution between 1905 and 1907; and the third discusses its aftermath up until the large-scale incorporation of industrial suburbs that took place between 1915 and 1916, in the midst of the First World War. Each part contains three substantive sections, roughly corresponding to the perspectives of the suburban poor, the intelligentsia, and the imperial state. However, since these perspectives often intersected, this neat division will never be perfect. The first part examines the establishment of the suburbs between the 1880s and the outbreak of the revolution of 1905. I will argue that in those years the outskirts were largely peripheral to state interests and neglected by the intelligentsia. This general lack of intervention in the pre-revolutionary period allowed for the relatively independent development of suburban sociability; I thus conceptualise industrial suburbs as ‘spaces of the poor’. The second part of the dissertation focuses on the prominent role that the suburbs played in the revolution of 1905 in Russian Poland. I examine the shock that plebeian politicisation ‘away from state’s gaze’ caused among state officials and the intelligentsia, as well as the fear that it inspired among state representatives. The third and final part examines the multifaceted consequences that were triggered by the suburban inhabitants’ participation in the revolution. This included a number of reforms by the state, such as the illumination of streets, sanitary improvements, an increase of police and similar measures of control. As a further result of the revolution, I examine the emergent discourse and the ‘politics of fear’ that eventually served as the background for a closer cooperation between the state and the intelligentsia. These various themes will be brought together and illustrated by the story of a particularly prominent criminal group – the Revolutionary Avengers.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2025

Author dc:creator

• Porayski-Pomsta, Antoni

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Jahn, Hubertus

• Russian empire
• Poland
• suburbs
• social history
• cultural history
• violence
• urban history
• Eastern Europe

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/f3226ab6-f221-409f-92b0-3ec72f49c273/download
• http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved

Language dc:language

eng

Author Identifier

0009-0005-3793-600X

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/393024