“Russians of all borderlands, unit!”*Russian okraina-nationalists in the late Romanov Empire (1905-1914) * „Russkie liudi vsekh okrain, soediniaites‘!“ in: Okrainy Rossii (9/1/1907), p. 1.

随着1905年的革命，作为一种政治力量的俄罗斯民族主义力量日益壮大。与此同时，俄罗斯族的代表在圣彼得堡的民族主义者圈子里变得更有影响力。例如，他们主导了国家杜马，来自边境地区的俄罗斯代表人数严重偏多。虽然一开始，当地的案例研究描绘了一些来自帝国周边的民族主义者，但他们在第一次世界大战前对俄罗斯政治制度的整体影响还需要进一步研究。这个项目将揭示来自俄克拉伊纳地区的俄罗斯民族主义者的政治(自我)动员。它旨在探索他们在俄罗斯地方社区中的崛起，他们跨地方联系的战略，以及他们对帝国首都政治制度的影响。通过这样做，该项目从四个方面开辟了俄罗斯政治制度变革的新视角。首先，它描绘了地方政治动员的主要参与者，并确定了他们对(俄罗斯)国家认同的关键概念。该项目以华沙和基什内夫--俄罗斯奥克兰民族主义的两个中心--的案例研究为基础，探讨了边境地区当地社区建设的实践和政治制度化的形式。其次，该项目阐述了激进权利的倡议，以连接跨当地并在圣彼得堡创建独特的奥克兰组织和压力团体。边疆民族主义者对首都的政治辩论有何贡献？他们制定了什么样的议程设置策略？他们在塑造沙皇政府的政策方针方面有多大影响力？第三，该项目旨在解释为什么来自帝国边缘的代表成功地主导了彼得堡政治舞台右翼的不同环境。俄克拉荷马民族主义者的崛起必须被描述为一个紧张和摩擦的故事，最终导致俄罗斯政治权利的“乡土化”。第四，该项目突出了民族主义者的帝国形象和语义，这些形象和语义塑造了罗曼诺夫帝国晚期的总体政治话语。它探索了来自帝国边缘的积极分子如何成功地传达了边缘作为同质的奥克兰的形象，以及他们如何重塑和垄断了当代的关键口号，例如“俄罗斯事业”。结合这四个维度，该项目可以在1905年后帝国日益国有化的背景下审视奥克兰的活动人士和辩论的关键重要性。仔细观察来自帝国边缘的民族主义者，探索他们在大都市政治风光上的印记，也打开了比较的视角，因为破坏稳定的边疆激进化动态也可以在其他大规模或殖民帝国中找到。

With the Revolution of 1905, Russian nationalism as a political force gained in strength. At the same time, Russian representatives of the okrainy – the borderland provinces of the Empire – became more influential in nationalists’ circles in St. Petersburg. E.g. they dominated the State Duma where Russian delegates from the border regions were highly over-represented. Although at first, local case studies have depicted some of these nationalists from the imperial peripheries, their overall impact on the political system in Russia before the First World War requires further research.This project will shed light on the political (self-)mobilization of Russian nationalists from the okraina-territories. It aims at exploring their rise within local Russian communities, their strategies of connecting trans-locally, and their influence in political institutions of the imperial capital.By doing so, the project opens up new perspectives on the transformation of Russia’s political system in four dimensions.First, it portrays the leading players of local political mobilization and identifies their key notions of (Russian) national identity. Building on case studies of Warsaw and Kishinev – two centers of Russian okraina-nationalism – the project inquires into practices of local community building and forms of political institutionalization in the borderlands.Secondly, the project elaborates the initiatives of the radical right to connect trans-locally and to create distinctive okraina-organizations and pressure groups in St. Petersburg. How did borderland nationalists contribute to the political debates in the capital? What kind of strategies of agenda setting did they develop? How influential were they in shaping the policy guidelines of the Tsarist government?Thirdly, the project intends to explain why representatives from the Empire’s fringes succeed in dominating the heterogeneous milieu at the right wing of Petersburg’s political scene. The rise of okraina-nationalists must be told as a story of tensions and frictions that in the end led to the “provincialization” of Russia’s political right.Fourthly, the project highlights those imperial images and semantics of nationalists that shaped the general political discourse in the late Romanov Empire. It explores how activists from the Empire’s margins managed to communicate an image of the peripheries as a homogenous okraina and how they reshaped and monopolized key contemporary slogans, e.g. the “Russian cause”.Combining these four dimensions allows the project to examine the crucial importance of okraina-activists and debates in the context of an intensifying nationalization of the Empire after 1905. Taking a closer look at nationalists coming from the imperial fringes and exploring their imprint on the metropolitan political scenery also opens up comparative perspectives, as destabilizing dynamics of borderland-radicalization can be traced as well in other large-scaled or colonial empires.