HISTORIOGRAPHY AS BIOGRAPHY: A SELF-PORTRAIT AGAINST THE BACKGROUND OF IMPERIAL HISTORY

Written for the edited volume New Imperial History of the Post-Soviet Space, Anatoly Remnev's autobiography offers an account of how he came to the field of imperial studies. Remnev allocated great significance to his training in the Leningrad historical tradition, the result of which was his first archive-based dissertation research on the Committee of Ministers in the Russian Empire. Having moved from Leningrad to Omsk, Remnev delved into the riches of regional archives and questions of regional governance in the empire. Having studied the central imperial archives, he was able to combine the perspective from the top of imperial government with new venues of interpretation that the regional archives of the imperial administration allowed. Working in this nexus, Remnev discovered the importance of "geographies of power," the challenge of regionalism and ethnic diversity as the main preoccupation of the Russian imperial government, and the often-invisible or unrecognized potentialities of Russian Orientalism. Remnev concludes his autobiography with the assertion that the regionally sensitive study of empire can help mitigate the excesses of post-Soviet nationalizing narratives of history and provide an adequate understanding of the longevity of imperial structures in Russian history.