Throughout history, Russia's geo-political and cultural position between the East and West has shaped its national identity. Representing Russia's Orient tells the story of how Russia's imperial expansion and encounters with its Asian neighbors influenced the formation and development of Russian musical identity in the long nineteenth century. While Russia's ethnic minorities, or inorodtsy, were located at the geographical and cultural periphery, they loomed large in composers' perception and musical imagination and became central to the definition of Russianness itself. Drawing from a long-forgotten archive of Russian musical examples, visual art, and ethnographies, author Adalyat Issiyeva offers an in-depth study of Russian art music's engagement with oriental subjects. Within a complex matrix of politics, competing ideological currents, and social and cultural transformations, some Russian composers and writers developed multidimensional representations of oriental "others" and sometimes even embraced elements of Asian musical identity. In three detailed case studies--on the leader of the Mighty Five, Milii Balakirev, Decembrist sympathizer Alexander Aliab'ev, and the composers affiliated with the Music-Ethnography Committee--Issiyeva traces how and why these composers adopted "foreign" musical elements. In this way, she provides a fresh look at how Russians absorbed and transformed elements of Asian history and culture in forging a national identity for themselves.

Building on long-forgotten archives and detailed case studies, Representing Russia's Orient reveals how complex representations of oriental subjects in nineteenth-century Russian art music, which often merged elements of East and West, contributed to the formation of Russia's national identity.

From a 1994 conference (U. of California, Berkeley), Borderlands Research Group participants present their findings based on unprecedented access to the hinterlands of what is the now the CIS. Fourteen contributors provide context for the current self- deterministic ethnic turmoil in Chechyna and elsewhere far from the Kremlin, via discussions of tsarist colonial policies and historical, heartland majority attitudes toward the "ignoble savages and unfaithful subjects" (read Muslim) of Russia's diverse Orient. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Here, the author examines Russian thinking about the Orient before the Revolution of 1917. He argues that the Russian Empire's bi-continental geography and the complicated nature of its encounter with Asia have all resulted in a variegated understanding of the East among its people.

The Groninger Museum has established a reputation for its successful exhibitions about nienteenth-century Russian art. This is the fifth major exhibition that the Groninger Museum has devoted to Russian art in recent years, continuing the series of exceptional presentations of Ilya Repin's oeuvre, Russian landscapes, the circle around Diaghilev and the exhibition on 'Russian legends, folk tales and fairy tales', which was highly popular with families. In this exhibition the Groninger Museum turns the spotlight on the symbolic, aesthetic and moral aspects of Russia's orient. Exhibition: Groninger Museum (19.12.2010-8.5.2011).

The Groninger Museum has established a reputation for its successful exhibitions about nienteenth-century Russian art. This is the fifth major exhibition that the Groninger Museum has devoted to Russian art in recent years, continuing the series of exceptional presentations of Ilya Repin's oeuvre, Russian landscapes, the circle around Diaghilev and the exhibition on 'Russian legends, folk tales and fairy tales', which was highly popular with families. In this exhibition the Groninger Museum turns the spotlight on the symbolic, aesthetic and moral aspects of Russia's orient. Exhibition: Groninger Museum (19.12.2010-8.5.2011).