Slavic Colloquium: Katya Hokanson - Russia at the Paris 1900 Exposition Universelle:  Imperial Colonial Identities

Please join us for the upcoming Slavic Colloquim talk entitled, “Russia at the Paris 1900 Exposition Universelle: Imperial Colonial Identities” by Katya Hokanson (Professor of Russian and Comparative Literature, University of Oregon).

Russia’s self-representation at world’s fairs in the mid to late 19th century showed increasing self-consciousness and complexity, combining both a desire to appear sophisticated and European, but also to display abundant raw materials and provide ethnographic displays. A particularly salient example is that of the 1900 Exposition universelle in Paris, which was the largest exhibition in the world at the time it was held, visited by 50 million people. Russia’s exhibits emphasized both the technological – the newly constructed Trans-Siberian railway – and the colonial, with a Kremlin-like “palace” surrounding displays focusing on Russian Eastern and Southern peripheries.  Further, non-Russians participated in the exhibition in their capacity as both colonized people and imperial representatives, displaying the Russian empire to the world. As guardians, interpreters and colonial subjects, Bukharans, Sakha representatives and artisans from the Caucasus all participated in the Russian exhibit, undermining any easy designation of “us” and “them” and opening up the category of who could serve as an imperial representative.