Ilya Vinkovetsky

  • Assistant Professor
  • Department of History
  • Simon Fraser University
  • 8888 University Drive
  • Burnaby, B.C. V5A 1S6
  • Canada
  • Tel: 604-291-4306
  • Fax: 604-291-5837
  • PhD, University of California, Berkeley
  • BA, Wesleyan University
  • E-mail me: ivink@sfu.ca
  • Selected Writings
    • Articles
      • "Why Did Russia Sell Alaska?" Acta Slavica Iaponica, vol. 23, 2006. Pp. 202-210.
      • "The Russian-American Company as a Colonial Contractor for the Russian Empire." In Alexei Miller and Alfred J. Rieber, eds., Imperial Rule. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2004. Pp. 161-176.
      • "Circumnavigation, Empire, Modernity, Race: The Impact of Round-the-World Voyages on Russia's Imperial Consciousness." Ab Imperio, 2001, nos. 1-2. Pp. 191-210.
      • "Classical Eurasianism and Its Legacy." Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 34, no. 2 (Summer 2000). Pp. 125-139.
      • "Eurasianism in Its Time: A Bibliography." In Exodus to the East (see entry below). Pp. 143-174.
    • Dissertation
      • "Native Americans and the Russian Empire, 1804-1867." University of California, Berkeley, 2002.
    • Editor/Translator
      • Petr Savitskii, Petr Suvchinskii, Nikolai Trubetskoi, Georgii Florovskii, Exodus to the East: Forebodings and Events: An Affirmation of the Eurasians. Idyllwild, Calif.: Charles Schlacks, Jr. Publisher, 1996.
        [Original Iskhod k Vostoku. Predchuvstviia i sversheniia. Utverzhdenie evraziitsev. Sofia: Tipografiia "Balkan", 1921.]
    • Longer Reviews
      • Aleksandr Petrov, Rossiisko-amerikanskaia kompaniia: deiatel'nost' na otechestvennom i zarubezhnom rynkakh, 1799-1867 [Russian-American Company: Activity in the Home and Foreign Markets, 1799-1867] (Moscow: IVI RAN, 2006); Anatolii Remnev, Rossiia Dal'nego Vostoka: Imperskaia geografiia vlasti XIX - nachala XX vekov [Russia of the Far East: Imperial Geography of Power, 19th through early 20th Centuries] (Omsk: Izdatel'stvo Omskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta, 2004). Kritika 9, 2 (Spring 2008): 463-71.
      • Sergei Kan, Memory Eternal: Tlingit Culture and Orthodox Christianity through Two Centuries (University of Washington Press, 1999); Andrei Grinev, Indeitsy tlinkity v period Russkoi Ameriki ("Nauka," 1991); Andrei Znamenski, Shamanism and Christianity: Native Encounters with Russian Orthodox Missions in Siberia and Alaska, 1820-1917 (Greenwood Press, 1999); Through Orthodox Eyes: Russian Missionary Narratives of Travels to the Dena'ina and Ahtna, 1850s - 1930s, ed. and trans. Andrei Znamenski (University of Alaska Press, 2003); The First Russian Voyage Around the World: The Journal of Herman Ludwig von Löwenstern, 1803-1806, trans. Victoria Joan Moessner (University of Alaska Press, 2003). Kritika, 6, 3 (Fall 2005) Pp. 627-633.
      • Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000 (Oxford University Press, 2001); Robert D. English, Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War (Columbia University Press, 2000). Kritika, 6, 1 (Winter 2005): 241-52.
    • Reviews
      • Charles King, The Ghost of Freedom: A History of the Caucasus. Oxford University Press, 2008. The Historian, forthcoming 2009.
      • [Furuhjelm, Anna Elisabeth.] Letters from the Governor’s Wife: A View of Russian Alaska, 1859-1862, ed. Annie Constance Christensen. Aarhus, Denmark: Aaarhus University Press, 2005. Canadian Slavonic Papers, 48, nos. 3-4 (September-December 2006): 390-92.
      • Nikolai N. Bolkhovitinov, ed. Istoriia Russkoi Ameriki, 1732-1867 [History of Russian America, 1732-1867]. 3 vols. (Moscow: Mezhdunarodnye otnosheniia, 1997-1999). Russian Review, June 2002. Pp. 454-455.
      • Yu. M. Baturin, et al. Epokha El'tsina: Ocherki politicheskoi istorii [Yeltsin's Era: Studies in Political History](Moscow: Vagrius, 2001). H-Russia, 27 December 2001.
      • Mark Bassin, Imperial Visions: Nationalist Imagination and Geographical Expansion in the Russian Far East, 1840-1865 (Cambridge University Press, 1999). H-Russia, 25 January 2000.
      • John J. Stephan, The Russian Far East: A History (Stanford University Press, 1994). [UC Berkeley] Center for Slavic and East European Studies Newsletter, vol. 12: 3 (Summer 1995).
    • Encyclopedia entries
      • for The Age of Imperialism, 1800-1914, Carl Hodge, editor-in-chief, Greenwood Press, 2008.
        "Russian-American Company."
      • for Encyclopedia of Russian History, James R. Millar, editor-in-chief. New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2003. "Bering, Vitus." "Tsarskoye Selo."
  • Teaching Matters
    • Courses I am offering in the near term:
      • History 334 "Russia to 1917" - Fall" 2009
      • History 814 "Historical Methods" – Fall 2009
      • History 225 "20th century Europe" - Spring 2010
      • History 419 "Ethnicity and Gender in the USSR" - Spring 2010
    • Primary Topical Interests
      • Russia and the Soviet Union, late 18th - early 21st century
      • Colonialism, Expansion, Exploration
      • Empires in Comparative Context
      • The East and the West
      • Eastern Europe and Eurasia
      • Nationalism
      • Modern Revolutions
      • Historiography
  • Papers Delivered
    • "The Unexpected Constitution: Decolonizing Bulgaria after Ottoman Rule, 1878-1879"; at the "Independence and Decolonization" symposium, The Institute for Historical Studies, Department of History, the University of Texas at Austin, April 2010
    • "Russian Bureaucrats and the Founding of the Russian-American Company, 1799"; at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies convention, Boston, November 2009
    • "The Beginning and the End of Overseas Colonialism of the Russian Empire in the North Pacific: The Role of Great Britain"; at the FENU-UC Berkeley conference "Russian Civilization in the North Pacific," Far Eastern National University, Vladivostok, May 2009
    • "An Unintended Consequence of Occupation?: Russian Autocracy and Bulgaria’s Liberal Constitution, 1878-1879"; at the AAASS Convention, Philadelphia, November 2008.
    • "European Colonial Trade Companies as Models for Agents of Russian Colonialism"; at the conference "Imperium inter pares: Reflections on Imperial Identity and Interimperial Transfers in the Russian Empire, 1700-1917", Deutsches Historisches Institut, Moscow, September 2008.
    • "Fort Ross and the Russian Empire in California"; at the University of California Berkeley, Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, May 2008.
    • "Acculturation in the Circumpolar North"; at the Department of Anthropology, University of Alaska, Anchorage, April 2008.
    • "Eurasia and Its Uses: The History of an Idea and the Mental Geography of Post-Soviet Space": at the annual SOYUZ symposium, Princeton University, April 27, 2007.
    • "Obrusenie on American Shores: Turning American Natives into Loyal Russians, 1804-1867"; at the Russian/Soviet History Workshop, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, October 4, 2006.
    • "Was There Such a Thing as Russian Colonialism? A Rhetorical Question"; at the Institute of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, University of California, Berkeley, February 2, 2006.
    • "Seeing Like a Modern State: Russia's Round-the-World Voyages and Perceptions of the Russian Far East"; at "Russland und Sibirien: Überdenken einer ambivalenten Beziehung" ["Russia and Siberia: Rethinking an Ambivalent Relationship"] workshop conference, Hamburg, October 2004.
    • "The Russian-American Company as Colonial Contractor for the Russian Empire"; at the "History of Empires: Comparative Approaches to Research and Teaching" conference, Moscow, June 2003.
    • "Russian Colonialism, Modern and Pre-modern"; at Tuebingen University, May 2003.
    • "Nation Building in Russia"; at the Balkan Parliament international student conference, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria, October 2002.
    • "Round-the-World Voyages and Representations of the Other in Early Nineteenth-Century Russia"; at Giessen University and Frankfurt University, July 2001.
    • "The Problems of Modernization and Globalization in the History of Russian Colonialism"; at the US Library of Congress (Washington, DC) "Meeting of the Frontiers" conference, Fairbanks, May 2001.
    • "Round-the-World Voyages: Changing Russiabs Mental Geography"; at "Science Under Sail" symposium, Anchorage Museum of History and Art, October 2000.
    • "Echoes of Shots from the Neva: The Effect of Russiabs Round-the-World Voyages on Representations of Native Americans"; at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies convention, St. Louis, November 1999.
    • "The Foundations of Classical Eurasianism, 1921-1938"; at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies convention, Boca Raton, September 1998.
    • "European Enlightenment Age Tactics Confront Orthodox Patristic Traditions: Russian Representations of Alaska Natives"; at symposium entitled "Ioann Veniaminov in Alaska and Siberia and his Contribution to Arctic Social Science," University of Alaska at Fairbanks, December 1997.
    • "Recent Visions of Eurasianism in Russian Historiography"; at the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies convention, Seattle, November 1997.
    • "The Distinguishing Features of the Russian Colonization of North America, 1741-1867"; at the Western Social Science Association convention, Reno, April 1996.
  • Current Project

    • I am writing a book about how Russia's 19th-century colony in North America and its inhabitants fit into the Russian Empire. Forthcoming from Oxford University Press.


      The Surrealist map of the world, first published in Variètès (June 1929).

      I was a Resident Research Fellow at the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Fall 2006.
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