Kiev: A Portrait, 1800-1917

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Princeton University Press, Jan 11, 1996 - History - 328 pages

In a fascinating "urban biography," Michael Hamm tells the story of one of Europe's most diverse cities and its distinctive mix of Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, and Jewish inhabitants. A splendid urban center in medieval times, Kiev became a major metropolis in late Imperial Russia, and is now the capital of independent Ukraine. After a concise account of Kiev's early history, Hamm focuses on the city's dramatic growth in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The first historian to analyze how each of Kiev's ethnic groups contributed to the vitality of the city's culture, he also examines the violent conflicts that developed among them. In vivid detail, he shows why Kiev came to be known for its "abundance of revolutionaries" and its anti-Semitic violence.

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Contents

The Early History of Kiev
3
The Growth of Metropolitan Kiev
18
Polish Kiev
55
Ukrainians in Russian Kiev
82
Jewish Kiev
117
Recreation the Arts and Popular Culture in Kiev
135
The Promise of Change Kiev in 1905
173
The Promise Shattered The October Pogrom
189
The Final Years of Romanov Kiev
208
Conclusion
223
Notes
237
Bibliography
273
Index
287
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About the author (1996)

Michael F. Hamm, Professor of History at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, is the editor and part-author of two earlier books on the Russian and Soviet city and has written articles on the history of Kiev, Kharkiv, and Riga. He has traveled to Kiev on five occasions. The recipient of Fulbright-Hays and International Research and Exchanges Board grants, he has spent more than thirteen months working in the archives and libraries of the former Soviet Union.

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