Periodic Reporting for period 1 - JUSTIMINO (In Pursuit of 'Legality' and 'Justice': Minority Struggles in the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union)
Reporting period: 2023-07-01 to 2025-12-31
While there is no set definition of the ‘rule of law’, there are half a dozen international indicators competing for recognition. It is clear, though, that the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union would not score high on any of these indicators. And yet, the notions of legality (zakonnost’) and justice (spravedlivost’) mattered in both: political and cultural elites invoked these notions as much as the wider citizenries, with outcomes that could not be scripted. While existing literature has addressed both ‘legality’ and ‘justice’ in studies of state policy and in histories of intellectual opposition to the tsarist and Soviet orders, there is little recognition of how instrumental they both were to ethnic and religious minorities.
Non-Russians made up over half of the population in the late Russian Empire and just under 50% of people in the Soviet Union. Whereas religion was one of the key determinants of rights, privileges, and obligations in the empire, ‘nationality’, understood in ethnic terms, replaced religious affiliation in this capacity under socialism. Just as religion greatly affected access to places of residence, occupation, and education in the imperial period, nationality did so under Soviet rule. Being part of a religious or ethnic community other than the dominant one could mean open or subtle discrimination. Yet, such discrimination was neither automatic, in most cases, nor did it go unchallenged. This project therefore explores the ways in which ethnic and religious minorities, from the Russian Empire’s ‘Great Reforms’ of the 1860s to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, routinely invoked ‘legality’ and ‘justice’ to further their rights within otherwise repressive systems. It argues that these systems allowed, even encouraged, them to do so, even if the activism thus invited could help to erode their authority. The overall objective is to show how ethnic and religious minorities actively used these concepts to resist discrimination within authoritarian settings, thereby challenging simplified victimhood narratives.
To track similarities and differences between the imperial and Soviet periods, the project proposes a multi-sited historical enquiry, combining an analysis of published sources with extensive work in regional and central archives, and oral history. The results will be debated with NGOs and wider society in a variety of innovative knowledge transfer formats.
Non-Russians made up over half of the population in the late Russian Empire and just under 50% of people in the Soviet Union. Whereas religion was one of the key determinants of rights, privileges, and obligations in the empire, ‘nationality’, understood in ethnic terms, replaced religious affiliation in this capacity under socialism. Just as religion greatly affected access to places of residence, occupation, and education in the imperial period, nationality did so under Soviet rule. Being part of a religious or ethnic community other than the dominant one could mean open or subtle discrimination. Yet, such discrimination was neither automatic, in most cases, nor did it go unchallenged. This project therefore explores the ways in which ethnic and religious minorities, from the Russian Empire’s ‘Great Reforms’ of the 1860s to the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, routinely invoked ‘legality’ and ‘justice’ to further their rights within otherwise repressive systems. It argues that these systems allowed, even encouraged, them to do so, even if the activism thus invited could help to erode their authority. The overall objective is to show how ethnic and religious minorities actively used these concepts to resist discrimination within authoritarian settings, thereby challenging simplified victimhood narratives.
To track similarities and differences between the imperial and Soviet periods, the project proposes a multi-sited historical enquiry, combining an analysis of published sources with extensive work in regional and central archives, and oral history. The results will be debated with NGOs and wider society in a variety of innovative knowledge transfer formats.
Stefan Kirmse's first article on Georgian Jews in imperial Russian courts (see ‘results beyond the state of the art’) forms the basis of a monograph. He also published an analysis of linguistic diversity and the legal treatment of cultural "others" in tsarist courts (2024), offering a comparison with court pratice in post-imperial Latin America.
Stefan Kirmse and Gevorg Avetikyan published reviews of 'Russia’s Entangled Embrace' by Stephen Riegg. Kirmse also reviewed Ferdinand Feldbrugge’s 'History of Russian Law, 1649–1917' (2023) for The Russian Review (2024).
In early 2024, all recruited project members arrived in Berlin. Annual fellow positions were filled through highly competitive selection procedures and awarded to Dr. Gevorg Avetikyan and Saidolimkhon Gaziev. In 2025, Prof. Oliver Reisner joined as a Senior Annual Fellow, contributing unique expertise on diversity in the Caucasus. He helped the project to strengthen ties with Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia, and finalized a special issue of the European Journal for Minority Issues 18:1-2/2025. Fellowships were also granted to a Ukraine-based scholar studying Muslims in the Russian Empire, and a scholar forced to leave Russia due to research on Kalmyk mobilization.
4 public workshops were co-hosted with the “Representations of the Past” research unit at the HI and gathered over a hundred participants. They examined:
- problems of archival research, including asymmetries of power and colonial legacies
- legal and historical approaches to the study of 'minorities'
- cultural and legal pluralism across imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet contexts
- nationalism and internationalism
In 2025, JUSTIMINO held a large international conference, "Justice and Legality in Imperial and Post-Imperial Spaces", co-organized with the Max Weber Foundation, at Ilia State University (Georgia). Presentations focused on legal struggles in the Russian Empire and its successors. The publication of several special issues in leading journals is underway. The conference was followed by a workshop at the American University of Armenia (AUA) in Yerevan, aimed to initiate the development of a Handbook of the History of the Caucasus, 1700–present. The preparation of 25 chapters is in progress.
JUSTIMINO members have conducted extensive archival and field research, notably at the National Archive of Armenia, the National Archive of Georgia, the Blinken OSA Archivum (Budapest), the National Archive of Uzbekistan, the Bakhmeteff Archive (New York), the National Archives of Romania and the Center for the Study of Jewish History “Wilhelm Fiderman” in Bucharest, the National Archives of Moldova, and the Soviet dissident archive at the University of Bremen. Extensive trainings on fieldwork ethics preceded these trips.
Stefan Kirmse and Gevorg Avetikyan published reviews of 'Russia’s Entangled Embrace' by Stephen Riegg. Kirmse also reviewed Ferdinand Feldbrugge’s 'History of Russian Law, 1649–1917' (2023) for The Russian Review (2024).
In early 2024, all recruited project members arrived in Berlin. Annual fellow positions were filled through highly competitive selection procedures and awarded to Dr. Gevorg Avetikyan and Saidolimkhon Gaziev. In 2025, Prof. Oliver Reisner joined as a Senior Annual Fellow, contributing unique expertise on diversity in the Caucasus. He helped the project to strengthen ties with Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia, and finalized a special issue of the European Journal for Minority Issues 18:1-2/2025. Fellowships were also granted to a Ukraine-based scholar studying Muslims in the Russian Empire, and a scholar forced to leave Russia due to research on Kalmyk mobilization.
4 public workshops were co-hosted with the “Representations of the Past” research unit at the HI and gathered over a hundred participants. They examined:
- problems of archival research, including asymmetries of power and colonial legacies
- legal and historical approaches to the study of 'minorities'
- cultural and legal pluralism across imperial, Soviet, and post-Soviet contexts
- nationalism and internationalism
In 2025, JUSTIMINO held a large international conference, "Justice and Legality in Imperial and Post-Imperial Spaces", co-organized with the Max Weber Foundation, at Ilia State University (Georgia). Presentations focused on legal struggles in the Russian Empire and its successors. The publication of several special issues in leading journals is underway. The conference was followed by a workshop at the American University of Armenia (AUA) in Yerevan, aimed to initiate the development of a Handbook of the History of the Caucasus, 1700–present. The preparation of 25 chapters is in progress.
JUSTIMINO members have conducted extensive archival and field research, notably at the National Archive of Armenia, the National Archive of Georgia, the Blinken OSA Archivum (Budapest), the National Archive of Uzbekistan, the Bakhmeteff Archive (New York), the National Archives of Romania and the Center for the Study of Jewish History “Wilhelm Fiderman” in Bucharest, the National Archives of Moldova, and the Soviet dissident archive at the University of Bremen. Extensive trainings on fieldwork ethics preceded these trips.
Stefan Kirmse published “Russian Imperial Borderlands, Georgian Jews, and the Struggle for ‘Justice’ and ‘Legality’. Blood Libel in Kutaisi” in the Central Asian Survey 43:2 (2024), a first output of his subproject "Blood Libel in Russian Imperial Georgia", which he will later publish as a monograph. This work on blood libel in the Caucasus is highly original, showing not only the different uses of 'legality' and 'justice' in court but also the ways in which minorities exercised agency under autocratic conditions (the accused were acquitted). The article will be re-published in a book on Jewish encounters with the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, edited by Zeev Levin (Ben-Zvi Institute, Jerusalem). A shorter version will be included in a Hebrew-language school book on Georgia, published by the Ben-Zvi Insitute. In 2024/25 Kirmse taught an MA-level course on “Minorities in Imperial Russia” at Humboldt University, Berlin. Two MA students completed outstanding theses (on Baltic Germans and Jews, respectively).
Knowledge transfer formats used to distribute Kirmse’s research findings include the JUSTIMINO blog (https://justimino.hypotheses.org/(opens in new window)) entries in the blog of the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at NYU (https://jordanrussiacenter.org/blog/blood-libel-in-russian-imperial-georgia-the-kutaisi-trial-part-ii(opens in new window)) and the Justice & Minorities podcast (https://open.spotify.com/episode/3739f5sidrhypHF2szmnkT(opens in new window)). Stefan Kirmse gave lectures in the US (2023) and Georgia (2025), and at the Academy of Science Hamburg (2025).
Continuing his work on the decentralisation of Russian history, as reflected in the special issue ‘Soviet Central Asia: Beyond Modernisation and Decolonisation’ (Saeculum: Journal of World History 73:2, 2023), Kirmse has completed the article “Across the Southern Soviet Border. International Encounters in the Armenian, Kazakh, Uzbek, and Ukrainian SSRs, 1960-1985”. It will be published in Social History 50:4 (2025). The article highlights the political, economic and cultural agency of Soviet union republics in international relations, while paying attention to racial, national, and gendered hierarchies, thus casting serious doubt on widely held assumptions in Soviet history.
Knowledge transfer formats used to distribute Kirmse’s research findings include the JUSTIMINO blog (https://justimino.hypotheses.org/(opens in new window)) entries in the blog of the Jordan Center for the Advanced Study of Russia at NYU (https://jordanrussiacenter.org/blog/blood-libel-in-russian-imperial-georgia-the-kutaisi-trial-part-ii(opens in new window)) and the Justice & Minorities podcast (https://open.spotify.com/episode/3739f5sidrhypHF2szmnkT(opens in new window)). Stefan Kirmse gave lectures in the US (2023) and Georgia (2025), and at the Academy of Science Hamburg (2025).
Continuing his work on the decentralisation of Russian history, as reflected in the special issue ‘Soviet Central Asia: Beyond Modernisation and Decolonisation’ (Saeculum: Journal of World History 73:2, 2023), Kirmse has completed the article “Across the Southern Soviet Border. International Encounters in the Armenian, Kazakh, Uzbek, and Ukrainian SSRs, 1960-1985”. It will be published in Social History 50:4 (2025). The article highlights the political, economic and cultural agency of Soviet union republics in international relations, while paying attention to racial, national, and gendered hierarchies, thus casting serious doubt on widely held assumptions in Soviet history.