Breaking the Ties That Bound

Russia's Great Reforms of 1861 were sweeping social and legal changes that aimed to modernize the country . In the following decades, rapid industrialization and urbanization profoundly transformed Russia's social, economic, and cultural landscape. Barbara Alpern Engel explores the personal, cultural, and political consequences of these dramatic changes, focusing on their impact on intimate life and expectations and the resulting challenges to the traditional, patriarchal family order, the corne