Welcome to the first weekly digest! We’ve had a few bumps (and the WordPress Widget gods are on strike as I type this), but our first edition is ready to go. The photographs from the Prokudin-Gorskii collection prompted a series of wide-ranging and insightful posts dealing with Imperial Russian society between the Great Reforms and the turn of the century. Economic modernization — as seen through the experience of the emancipated peasantry, the construction of the Trans-Siberian railway, and the pressure to industrialize — provided the theme of many of the posts.  But religion, ethnicity and tea drinking received their due as well. The five posts in the slider all received a “red star” rating by the editorial team.  The first occupants of the “Comrades’ Corner” are A Band-Aid That Didn’t Stick and  The Half-Measured Emancipation.

The comments were terrific, and we decided to designate a couple of them as the “student-choice” award winners this week. (From now on the class will select a post for this prime spot on the weekly edition.) The motherblog for the motherland is a big project but we have big ambitions.  Congratulations on making this first week so rewarding.  Вперед! (onward)