Claiming Crimea

A History of Catherine the Great's Southern Empire

O'Neill Kelly

Russia's long-standing claims to Crimea date back to the eighteenth-century reign of Catherine II. Historian Kelly O'Neill has written the first archive-based, multi-dimensional study of the initial "quiet conquest" of a region that has once again moved to the forefront of international affairs. O'Neill traces the impact of Russian rule on the diverse population of the former khanate, which included Muslim, Christian, and Jewish residents. She discusses the arduous process of establishing the empire's social, administrative, and cultural institutions in a region that had been governed according to a dramatically different logic for centuries. With careful attention to how officials and subjects thought about the spaces they inhabited, O'Neill's work reveals the lasting influence of Crimea and its people on the Russian imperial system, and sheds new light on the precarious contemporary relationship between Russia and the famous Black Sea peninsula.

About the Author

Kelly O'Neill is associate professor of history at Harvard University and a faculty associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.

Reviews

"In this imaginative and beautifully written study, Kelly O'Neill delves into the little-known history of Russian imperial expansion in the Crimea to offer a fresh view of imperialism itself. The story she tells is one of grand ideas and epic conflict but also of myriad mundane deals and local arrangements, all of them shaped by the complex human and natural environments of the peninsula. Space is a key player here – O'Neill's feel for the territorial dimensions of empire-building is remarkable" – Willard Sunderland, author of "The Baron's Cloak: A History of the Russian Empire in War and Revolution"

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