Christoph Gumb

Subproject B1 „Repräsentationen von Herrschaft in multiethnischen Imperien“

Department of Eastern European History at the Humboldt-University, Berlin 

Curriculum Vitae

• 2004 – Research Assistant at SFB 640, HU Berlin
• 2003 – Research Assistant at the “Center for Comparative European History” (http://web.fu-berlin.de/bkvge/)
• 2003 – M.A. History, Slavic Literature, Political Science at Free University, Berlin. Topic of final thesis: "‘Neither White, nor Red, but. . .’ The Young Russians – a Russian Emigré Party Between Archive and Dramatization”
• 2001 – Aleksander-Hertzen Grant; Teaching and Research Position at Voronezh State Univeristy
• 1998 – History, Political Science at Free University, Berlin
• 1995 – East European History, Political Science and Russian Slavic Literature at Albert-Ludwig-University, Freiburg
• October 18. 1974 – born in Schopfheim (Baden)

Publications

• C. Gumb, „Leibeigenentheater als Ordnungsmodell. Die Bell-Lancaster-Methode und das russische Militär (1815—1825)“ in Comparativ 15 (2005), 112-142.
• A variety of reviews

Main Focus in the Subproject

The Imperial Russian Army was of central importance for the notions of supremacy harboured by the tsarist empire’s elites. Its bayonets were intended to secure imperial dominance both inwardly and outwardly. As the “School of the Nation”, it was to bring culture and education to the furthest-flung corners of the empire. Parades, uniforms and modern barracks were to render the utopia of the well-ordered state ubiquitously visible.

However, the army’s barracks were also meeting-places for the empire’s various cultural, social and national groups. For the army not only symbolised the empire, it also embodied it in all its complexities and contradictions. This raises questions of considerable importance for historical research into the Tsarist Empire.

How were the local population’s notions of the Russian empire affected on seeing a Muslim guards officer acting at a parade as a representative of central power? How did confrontations with chaotic situations on the ground impact on officers’ and privates’ experiences in the revolutionary years? How did these perceptions influence their daily behaviour and thus everyday life in the empire from 1905-1907?

My research project addresses these issues through a case study of the Russian garrison at Warsaw, the third-largest city in Tsarist Russia.

 

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