In 1852, the novelist and government bureaucrat Ivan Goncharov set sail on the frigate Pallada for a mission to closed-off Japan. This episode follows Goncharov as he encountered Africans and Asians across an imperial world dominated by the British, Dutch, and Spanish.
This episode is based on translations and information provided by Edyta M. Bojanowska, A World of Empires: The Russian Voyage of the Frigate Pallada (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2018)
In this episode, we examine the history of lèse-majesté (insulting the honour of the tsar, his family, and his image) in imperial Russia through...
In 1904, a shepherd and his daughter created a new religion in the Altai mountain ranges, leading to a violent confrontation with Russian settlers...
As is well known, Grigorii Rasputin wielded a considerable and scandalous level of influence over Tsar Nicholas II. What is less well known is...