Tropics of Tsardom: Plants and Empire in the South Caucasus, 1800s–1917

The project aims at elucidating the historical phenomenon the very existence of which has until very recently remained a subject of debate and controversy—the Russian empire’s colonial endeavour. Focusing on the South Caucasus, the project shows how, in the absence of overseas colonies, the Russian quest for tropical commodities resulted in the refashioning of this southernmost tsarist possession as a breeding ground for tropical plantation crops: from cotton and tea to bamboo.

In doing so, broad segments of the Russian society, including members of the imperial government, outspokenly advocated the vision of the South Caucasus as Russia’s own mercantile colony, which would supply the metropole with raw “exotic” products and serve as a market for Russian manufactured goods. Just like it was in colonial settings elsewhere, botanical gardens, state-run, and private estates of the South Caucasus came to serve as nodes of trans-imperial networks of circulation of seeds and saplings of southern plants, which were supposed to transform the region’s ecosystem.

The project contends that the pursuit of tsarist tropics altered the local ecosystem and economic relations, leading to major ecological changes and to the ever-increasing dependence of indigenous producers upon the export of commodities.

Based on a wide array of previously unknown primary sources, the project is the first to demonstrate how plants helped tsarist Russia to grow its colonial empire.