The Ruble
A Political History
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $25.99
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- $25.99
Publisher Description
A groundbreaking history of Russia, from empire to the Soviet era, viewed through the lens of its money.
Money seems passive, a silent witness to the deeds and misdeeds of its holders, but through its history intimate dramas and grand historical processes can be told. So argues this sweeping narrative of the ruble's story from the time of Catherine the Great to Lenin.
The Russian ruble did not enjoy a particularly reputable place among European currencies. Across two hundred years, long periods of financial turmoil were followed by energetic and pragmatic reforms that invariably ended with another collapse. Why did a country with an industrializing economy, solid private property rights, and (until 1918) a near perfect reputation as a rock-solid repayer of its debts stick for such a prolonged period with an inconvertible currency? Why did the Russian gold standard differ from the European model? In answering these questions, Ekaterina Pravilova argues that politics and culture must be considered alongside economic factors. The history of the Russian ruble offers an opportunity to explore the political reasons behind the preservation of a supposedly backward financial system and to show how politicians used monetary reforms to block or enact political transformations.
The Ruble is a history of Russia written in the language of money. It shows how economists, landowners, merchants, and peasants understood, perceived, and used financial mechanisms. In her sweeping account, Pravilova interprets the well-known political events of the eighteenth to early twentieth centuries--wars, attempts at constitutional transformations, revolutions--through the ideas and politics of currency reforms and offers a new history of Russia's imperial expansion and collapse.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this scrupulously researched monograph, Princeton historian Pravilova (A Public Empire) offers "an alternative vision of the emergence, growth, and collapse of the Russian empire" by focusing on the evolution of its currency. Catherine the Great created Russia's first paper money, the assignat, in 1769. Initially backed by Russia's enormous copper reserves, it funded the empire's unbridled expansion and numerous wars with the Ottoman Empire and Persia. Monetary reforms in 1839 introduced the silver-based credit ruble, but "conspicuously rejected the principles of state accountability for the issuance of money." Not convertible and basically worthless, the ruble became a metaphor for depravity for Russian writers like Gogol and Dostoyevsky, while Slavophiles hailed it as a symbol of Russia's distinctiveness. In the late 19th century, Russia needed to build railroads and waterways for new territories in Siberia; finance minister Sergei Witte's gold-based fiscal reforms brought an influx of foreign capital for these projects, but also sowed the seeds of revolution. Ironically, after the Bolsheviks' victory in 1917 and Lenin's "clumsy" takeover of the Russian State Bank, "the demand for money increased almost instantly... as if the promise of its eventual extinction was a joke." Intricate yet accessible, and shot through with mordant flashes of wit, this is a revealing study of how financial crises and ill-fated reforms shaped a nation.
