The Temptation of Tsargrad? Russia’s Aims in the Great War

Why did Imperial Russia enter into war with Germany in 1914 knowing that the enemy was stronger? Using archival and published sources, Dr. David Schimmelpenninck (Brock University) will address the autocracy’s strategic goals both on the eve of and during the conflict. He will in particular examine the inter-ministerial rivalry and the role of public opinion, a factor often neglected in studies of the quasi-constitutional ancien régime’s diplomacy.

David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye is Professor of Russian history at Brock University as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. His research interests focus on 18^th– and 19^th-century Russian cultural, intellectual, diplomatic, and military history. He is the author of, among other, Toward the Rising Sun: Russian Ideologies of Empire and the Path to War with Japan (DeKalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 2001) and Russian Orientalism: Asia in the Russian Mind from Peter the Great to the Emigration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010).

Cosponsored by UNC History Department and the Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense. Free parking available after 5 PM in the GEC garage and the nearby Nash Lot – Click here for directions.