Carolina Seminar • Regionalism, Local Government, and the First Months of White Rule in Ekaterinburg, August-November 1918

Dakota Irvin will discuss a chapter of his dissertation, which looks at the febrile experience of state building on the local level during the Russian Civil War. The chapter examines attempts by anti-Bolshevik forces (Whites) in Ekaterinburg to reconstruct a functioning system of local government after eight months of Bolshevik rule and the “dictatorship of the proletariat.” Specifically, it focuses on the efforts by liberal Lev Krol’, who founded the Regional Provisional Government of the Urals, dedicated to establishing a federal system in a future anti-Bolshevik Russia, as well as offering a bulwark for the defense of democracy and civil liberties from encroaching military dictatorship. Krol’’s experience underlines the possibility, albeit circumscribed and ultimately unsuccessful, for a center-left, “third way” to emerge from a political climate marked by authoritarianism from the left and the right.

To request a copy of the paper, please email Dr. Eren Tasar (etasar@email.unc.edu).

Dakota Irvin is a PhD Candidate in the UNC History Department. His dissertation, tentatively titled “Revolving Doors of Power: How Revolutionary Ekaterinburg Became Sverdlovsk, 1917-1922,” explores the role of local institutions of government under successive regimes during the Russian Revolution, Civil War, and first years of Soviet power. His work is the result of 15 months of archival research in Ekaterinburg, Moscow, and Perm’, supported by a Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Fellowship from ASEEES and a Fulbright-Hays Fellowship.
 
The Carolina Seminar: Russia and Its Empires, East and West is co-sponsored by the Carolina Seminar Program, the UNC Department of History, and the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies. Please note that the participants will give an overview of their projects, but will not read a formal paper. Instead, papers or book chapters will be circulated ahead of time to those who are interested in attending and participating in the discussion.