The Congress Kingdom of Poland or the Vistula Land? Review of Rolf, M. Pol'skie zemli pod vlast'yu Peterburga. Ot Venskogo kongressa do Pervoi mirovoi [Polish Lands under the rule of St Petersburg. From the Congress of Vienna to the First World War], translated from German into Russian by K. Levinson. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2020. 576 p. ISBN 978-5-4448-1199-3

Abstract

The monograph under review written by German historian Malte Rolf, published in Russian, offers a detailed description of the imperial administrative apparatus that was formed after the defeat of the January Uprising of 1863 and existed until the end of Russian rule in the Polish lands (1915). The collective portrait of Warsaw governors general, which was created by the author of the monograph, deserves special attention, given that the imperial elites of the Vistula Land have not previously been the subject of special research. Of no small importance is the fact that the observation over the complex process of transformation of the Congress Kingdom of Poland into the Vistula Land allows the author to comprehensively consider, as he puts it, the “contact zones and conflict nodes” that stood out most clearly against the background of the existing administrative structures.

Keywords

• kingdom of poland
• vistula land
• imperial power
• russian domination
• administrative structures
• management strategies
• russian warsaw
• warsaw as a megalopolis