Quaestio Rossica. 2017. Vol 5. No 1. P. 7-12. (original) (raw)

Quaestio Rossica continues to publish pieces related to Russian regional identities. The previous issue introduced this topic with several articles on Sakhalin Island in the works of Anton Chekhov (Quaestio Rossica, 2016, no. 4). The Problema voluminis section presents two major lines of research: the multidimensional nature of urban space and various forms of representing the Russian North and Far East. The articles here are connected by the common theme of change in urban infrastructure, architecture, and the idea of space in literary and factual narratives. The section commences with an article by Andrey Keller (Ural Federal University, Yekaterinburg), dedicated to the history of urban crafts as a traditional institution in the context of modernisation theory. The author outlines new approaches to the study of this phenomenon: the need to overcome the limitations of mod-ernisation theory opens up novel perspectives on the role of craftsmanship in industrialisation and raises questions about the symbiosis of large and small industries. We can also study the emergence of a new type of entrepreneur. Considering the emergence of a long-distance coach service in Russia, Aleksandra Bekasova (National Research University Higher School of Economics, St Petersburg Branch) shows that the appearance of this new type of transport resulted in the creation of joint-stock companies, higher quality roads, and a new type of social space, the coupé (compartment), where complete strangers had an opportunity to meet and communicate. Therefore, the author believes, one can talk about the advent of a new type of traveller in Russia, the predecessor of the modern passenger. Professional and social stratification and gender and family relations in the provincial city of Tobolsk are the subject of Elena Bryukhanova and Vladimir Vladimirov's study (Altai State University, Barnaul), which was conducted on the basis of the Imperial Russian Census of 1897. Contacts with other Siberian cities and counties disclose the inextricable connection of Tobolsk with life in the wider Siberian region. Meanwhile, Sergey Bakanov's article (Chelyabinsk State University) looks at the controversial fruit of Ural industrial modernisa-tion in the 20 th century by taking into account the demographic degradation of the region: as of 2010, all the cities of the Ural macro-region have suffered a 6.4 per cent population decline on average. On the basis of discussions between 1911 and 1917 about the establishment of provincial art centres in European Russia and Siberia as tools for the development of an artisanal art industry, Vitaly Ananiev (St Petersburg State University) shows which concepts might have manifested themselves in the larger regional art centres had the private artisanal industry developed further. This series of articles on the