Taming the Wild Field: Colonization and Empire on the Russian Steppe

by Willard Sunderland

Stretching from the tributaries of the Danube to the Urals and from the Russian forests to the Black and Caspian seas, the vast European steppe has for centuries played very different roles in the Russian imagination. To the Grand Princes of Kiev and Muscovy, it was the "wild field," a region inhabited by nomadic Turko-Mongolic peoples who repeatedly threatened the fragile Slavic settlements to the north. For the emperors and empresses of imperial Russia, it was a land of boundless economic promise and a marker of national cultural prowess. By the mid-nineteenth century the steppe, once so alien and threatening, had emerged as an essential, if complicated, symbol of Russia itself.Traversing a thousand years of the region's history, Willard Sunderland recounts the complex process of Russian expansion and colonization, stressing the way outsider settlement at once created the steppe as a region of empire and was itself constantly changing. The story is populated by a colorful array of administrators, Cossack adventurers, Orthodox missionaries, geographers, foreign entrepreneurs, peasants, and (by the late nineteenth century) tourists and conservationists. Sunderland's approach to history is comparative throughout, and his comparisons of the steppe with the North American case are especially telling.Taming the Wild Field eloquently expresses concern with the fate of the world's great grasslands, and the book ends at the beginning of the twentieth century with the initiation of a conservation movement in Russia by those appalled at the high environmental cost of expansion.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Russian History, World History

264 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 2004

Reviews

[Cali · Rating 3 out of 5]

i mean yeah, call me crazy, but i'd say the wild field was tamed. colonization and empire on the Russian Steppe? more likely than you'd think.

[Thomas Isern · Rating 4 out of 5]

Earlier I wrote, "I'm on page 185 of 264 of Taming the Wild Field: Been reading a lot of Russian steppe history lately. Often this is considered a good comparative experience with that of the North American plains. Often, too, however, the contrasts are more telling. For instance, the Russian empire's obsession with 'correct colonization,' as contrasted with the American republic's approach of embracing chaos."

So, as today I read the conclusion to Sunderland's work, I find myself in disagreement, or at least in a position of qualification, in relation to his categorical statements about the parallels (to the point of equivalence) among developments in steppe regions on various continents. Among the authors of works on the Russian steppe I have read--this one included--I find none who has done the spadework on the other continents to sustain any categorical statements of equivalence. Suggestive parallels, yes. But my experience is that the virtue of doing comparative work lies not so much in the drawing of parallels, which is easy, as in the exposure of contingencies, the realization that things were not fated to go a certain way in a certain place.

Now that I've finished my rant, I have to say this is an immensely valuable and nicely done work. It is not a history of the Russian steppe so much as it is an exploration of Russian colonization. It is more about Russia than about the steppe. I would like to hear much more about the nuts and bolts of this--the technologies, the agricultural practices, the details of colonist life--but those are not really what Sunderland is about. He gives us broad strokes of initiative and movement and assesses their significance to the colonial enterprise. Enough for one book.

[Les · Rating 4 out of 5]

An analytical look at the colonization of the Russian steppe, Sunderland's work reviews both popular and state initiatives to develop the vast area between the Danube and the Urals from the sixteenth century to the late nineteenth century. He is particularly incisive in drawing a contrast between the minute control the Russian imperial government expected to exert and the chaotic reality on the ground. Sunderland has done his homework and has taken a deep dive into Russian archives to develop a compelling picture of the complex process of internal colonization and empire building taking place over time. I recommend reading it in conjunction with Michael Khodarkovsky's Russia's Steppe Fronteir: The Making of a Colonial Empire 1500-1800. Khodarkovsky focuses particularly on the reaction of the nomadic peoples who were living in what was often characterized by the Russians as empty land.

[Effie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Taming the Wild Field analyzes the incorporation of the Eurasian steppe grasslands into the Russian empire. Sunderland’s work both strives for understanding the Russian empire’s peripheries and for understanding the steppe as a periphery, for, as he stated in his thesis, the steppe “was so thoroughly colonized by Russians and other outsiders and their economic and cultural practices that it evolved as Russia’s most invisible and, in that sense, most successful imperial possession.”

[Divij · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate this book. It doesn't make any sense, half of it is the author contradicting his own statements. Furthermore, it proves to be a reading of no cohesion, where things are brought out of nowhere. It is supposed to be comparing other colonization, yet this is not done in the book, contrary to the thesis. I am sorry but I did not appreciate this book it made my life hell because I now have to write an essay on this and I cannot comprehend half of it due to the poor writing style. Thank you.

Ps why is it printed like this and written like this. It looks like the author wrote it on microsoft word and printed it directly. It makes the books appeal boring and not interesting. Perhaps if it was formatted better I would be more interested.

[Kyra Bredenhof · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm only giving it 3 stars because I feel like this doesn't measure up to other 4-star books I've read. It's not because it was a terrible book or I really despised reading it, but it was required reading, somewhat dense text, and (even if an interesting topic) not always the most interesting read. That being said, I did like it better than The Horde. Not bad for a non-fiction history book - in fact, I think I even learned something. ;)

[Ella · Rating 2 out of 5]

Got 87 on my history essay 🙏🙏🙏 they ain’t believe in me…GOD DID!

[Alexanne Proulx · Rating 2 out of 5]

quite boring and why does he just use terms without context as if we're all supposed to just know as much about the Russians as he (an expert) does???