Denmark and Russia: Why two Arctic empires developed so differently and continue to diverge?”

Project Information

DEAR

Grant agreement ID: 101027432

DOI

10.3030/101027432

Project closed

EC signature date 16 March 2021

Start date 1 August 2021

End date 30 January 2024

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions

Total cost

€ 219 312,00

EU contribution

€ 219 312,00

Coordinated by

SYDDANSK UNIVERSITET
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - DEAR (Denmark and Russia: Why two Arctic empires developed so differently and continue to diverge?”)

Reporting period: 2021-08-01 to 2023-07-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The main problem was that the Russo-Ukranian war started so it impacted my work a lot.
1. I was absolutely destroyed for some time psycologically. As i openly expressed my disagreemnet with the war, my I guess former frindes were thretened me in rivate messages that I should not come back to Russia. It impacted me a lot.
2. I could do go to the archives, and have ti find other archives, but I did successfully. I ordered a lot of data from Tartu, Vilnus, Helsinki, and Tashkent.
3. My project became even more relative, Russia for the third time failed to become a frend to the Western world, and my project discribing how the cooperation failed during the second time (late imperial Russia).

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

I want to start with the claim that I achieved the main goal of Marie Curie fellowship. I statrted the project in one of the leading groups of economic historians in Europe (HEDG group in Odense, Denmark), and now I am on tenure track position in the University of Bologna as an economic historian.

During the project "DEAR" one of the main goals was to construct the basis for the comparison of two overlooked economies of the 19th centiries : Danish and Russian. To achieve this goal I wrote and submitted publications to the journals:

1. The article with my co-author Stephen Broadberry (Oxford) "Catching up and falling behind: the economic growth in Russia from 1690s to 1880s", it is the first attempt to calculate Russian GDP for such a long time. Russia was the only economy out of 10 leading economies in the 1900s which did not have it before now. The paper is accepted in the Journal of Economic History, which is the leading journal in my field. Thanks to this work, now GDP for Danish economy of the same time is being constructed with the co/operation with the Prof. Paul Sharp, so we can move forward the comparison of both economies further.

2. The article with my other co-author Mikolaj Malinowski (Groningen) is under status revise and resubmit in the Journal of Economic History. This article shows how huge was the level of inequality in Russia in the beginning of the 19th century, what hindered economic and political development of Russia very early. That is one of the main difference from the Danish economy, which was as poor as Russian but did not suffer from the high level of inequality.

3. Article "Living standards in Russia in regional and historical perspective" is under status revise and resubmit in Rivista.

3. A draft of another article "Probably the best butter in the world: How a few Danes reshaped the Russian dairy industry in the late 19th century" is now on the stage of finalising. I plan to submit it to the journal "The Economic History Review." the article is answering the following research questions. How was knowledge transmission implemented in countries without formal rules for entrepreneurship? How did high technology food industries function in countries without state control for quality? How can autocratic rulers create and destroy economic miracles?

4. I started a writing a book "How the Western Enlightenment supressed the economic rights of Russian women", where there will be a comparison chapter how the Western Enlightenment effected the periphery of the economy.

I got the grant to help me with data collection: 2022 Co-Investigator. Carlsberg Infrastructure grant (22,500 euros), University of Southern Denmark (Denmark).

Dessimination.
Public presence:
I gave interviews in English
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3f8Hp5jQmxg
I gave interviews in Russian
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mieBFyPHO5o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B7bF7EX7xxA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vMw-L3RTOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5w5ktXMYoA
I presented different parts of the projects on different conferences:
2023 ASSA, New Orleans, USA
2022 Comparative Economics and Policy-making in Transition, London, UK
2022 Baltic connections, Jyvaskyla, Finland
2022 Ninth CEPR Economic History Symposium, Odense, Denmark
2022 Annual Economic History Society, Cambridge, UK

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

After the beginning of the project the war between Russian and Ukraine started, which made my work more complicated, but also relevant.

1. I gave two interviews to hight school students in Denmark explaining the conflict to them.

2. Some work for data collection was organised for Ukranians using the researsh money of the grant.

3. I planned to apply to ERC, and I did, I was invited to the stage of interview, but di dnot get it. My second attempt was unsuccesful.

4. I gave public interviews in Russian for the media which openly expressed that they do not support the war. Putin is definetely obsssed with the history so I am trying to tell "the real history", but not some myths.

Thanks to the basing in one of the leading centers of Economic History in Europe I manage to expand my network.
1. I started the project with Marvin Suisse from Dublin about industrial development of Russia in the 19th century, where my dta about creameries wil be used.

photo of revise and resubmit for the second article