The 'Body Politic': Russian Funerals and the Politics of Representation, 1841-1921

The chronological and geographical focus of this dissertation addresses the interplay between specific burial-related reforms and broader changes in the material conditions of everyday life in Russia. I argue that a major shift occurred in official attitudes towards funerals with Nicholas I's 1841 decree regulating funeral costs and practices in the two capitals, yet I assert that the fear of social and political instability that inspired the reactionary tsar's actions had no substantial basis in fact until the 1860s. It was then, during the era of the Great Reforms, that the funeral first became a particularly resonant form of political self-assertion, and continued as such until the consolidation of Bolshevik power in 1921. This dissertation focuses on Petersburg, where social transformation was at its most traumatic during the modern era.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ph.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

History

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Trice, Thomas Reed

Contributors dc:contributor

• Koenker, Diane P.

• Anthropology, Cultural

Language dc:language

eng

Identifier

(MiAaPQ)AAI9912400

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/84746