Scholars@Duke
Erik Zitser

Erik Zitser

Librarian for Slavic & Eastern European Studies
Duke University Libraries
ernest.zitser@duke.edu
Box 90195, 230 Bostock Library, Durham, NC 27708-0195
Box 90195, Perkins Library, 230 Bostock Library, Durham, NC 27708-0195

Selected Publications

The Myth of Catherine the Great and the Horse: A Critical Review of the Historiography

Journal Article Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History · January 2024 Full text Cite

Il parlait assez bien français et plusieurs langues: Foreign Language Acquisition and the Diplomatic Self-Fashioning of Prince Boris Ivanovich Kurakin

Journal Article Quaestio Rossica · January 1, 2023 Using the example of Prince B. I. Kurakin (1676-1727), the Imperial Russian diplomat who served as extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to France (1724-1727), this article seeks to contribute to the ongoing discussion about the possible reasons for ... Full text Open Access Cite

Compiling a Guide to Open Access Historical News Sources from Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Countries

Journal Article Slavic and East European Information Resources · January 1, 2021 The digitization of historical news sources–both print and audio-visual–has altered the information landscape for researchers in all scholarly disciplines that investigate the past. Thanks to the initiative of nonprofit cultural heritage institutions, comm ... Full text Cite

Drinking Diplomacy: The St. Petersburg ‘Ordre des Antisobres’ and Fraternal Culture among European Envoys in Early Imperial Russia

Journal Article International History Review · January 2, 2020 Early in 1728, in St. Petersburg, Russia, the Duke of Liria—a Spanish diplomat, prominent Jacobite, and an illegitimate grandson of James II—sought to establish a curiously-titled fraternity called the ‘Order of the Anti-Sober’. Using the surviving charter ... Full text Cite

"A White Crow: Raphael Lemkin's Intellectual Interlude at Duke University, 1941-1942"

Journal Article The North Carolina historical review · January 1, 2019 Open Access Link to item Cite

Raphael lemkin and the soviet propaganda poster collection at Duke university library

Journal Article Slavic and East European Information Resources · October 2, 2018 This article calls attention to the role played by Raphael Lemkin (1900–1959), the Polish-Jewish jurist who coined the term “genocide,” in providing the metadata for 30 of the 78 Soviet propaganda posters currently held by Duke University Library. The auth ... Full text Cite

The Difference that Peter I Made

Chapter · June 2, 2016 AbstractArguing that the modernity, rationality and secularity of Peter the Great’s project have been generally over-emphasized, this chapter contends that the Tsar’s drive to transform his vast realm into a ... Full text Cite

On the cusp: Astrology, politics, and life-writing in early imperial Russia

Journal Article American Historical Review · December 1, 2015 Full text Cite

Beyond LibGuides: The Past, Present, and Future of Online Research Guides

Journal Article Slavic and East European Information Resources · October 2, 2015 The proliferation of research guides created using the LibGuides platform has triggered extensive discussion touting their benefits for everything from assessment, engagement, and marketing, to outreach and pedagogy. However, there is at present a relative ... Full text Open Access Cite

Recalling Russia's Eighteenth Century: Imaginative Literature as Mnemonic Praxis

Other Russian History · January 1, 2015 This review article deals with Luba Golburt's award-winning monograph on the literary treatment of Russia's eighteenth century. After situating Golburt's book within the context of recent publications on eighteenth-century Russian studies, the reviewer off ... Full text Cite

From lubok to libel: Nineteenth-century Russian historiography and popular memory in the Jester wedding of Prince-Pope Nikita Zotov

Journal Article Russian Literature · January 1, 2014 This article discusses the origins and political significance of an anonymous Old Believer wall-poster depicting, in image and text, one of the most infamous public spectacles ever staged at the court of Peter the Great. Tracing its transition from the vis ... Full text Open Access Cite

Poltava 1709: The Battle and the Myth

Other RUSSIAN REVIEW · 2013 Cite

A full-frontal history of the romanov dynasty: Pictorial "political pornography" in pre-reform russia

Journal Article Russian Review · October 1, 2011 This profusely illustrated article expands the chronological and evidentiary basis of Boris Kolonitskii's argument about the role of scurrilous rumors and sexual innuendo in the desacralization of the Russian monarchy and demonstrates the complexity of the ... Full text Open Access Cite

The Vita of Prince Boris Ivanovich "Korybu"-Kurakin: Personal life-writing and aristocratic self-fashioning at the court of Peter the Great

Journal Article Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas · 2011 This article argues that the autobiographical "Vita del Principe Boris Korybut-Kurakin de la Familia de Polonia et Litoania," an astrologically-inflected, macaronic, personal chronicle of the life of one of the leading diplomats of Peter the Great, is not ... Open Access Cite

Slavic information literacy: Past, present, and future

Journal Article Slavic and East European Information Resources · November 24, 2009 Full text Cite

"A dirty place for Americans to be": Images of the Russian civil war in Siberia from the Robert L. Eichelberger collection at Duke University Libraries

Journal Article Slavic and East European Information Resources · November 16, 2009 The article describes the contents of a substantial and little-known collection of Russian Civil War photographs currently held at the Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Special Collections Library, Duke University. The images come from the personal archive of G ... Full text Cite

Picturing the Soviet Union's "greatest generation": The Soviet information Bureau Photograph Collection of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies

Journal Article Slavic and East European Information Resources · September 13, 2007 The article describes the content and provenance of the Soviet Information Bureau Photograph Collection of Harvard University's Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies. It is a valuable primary source for studying everyday life in the Soviet Union at ... Full text Cite

The post-cold war metamorphosis of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies library

Journal Article Slavic and East European Information Resources · December 1, 2006 In May 2005, the staff and collections of the library of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies were formally brought together with the libraries of three other internationally focused centers, under the aegis of the Social Sciences Program of H ... Full text Cite

After the Deluge: Russian Ark and the Abuses of History

Journal Article Historically Speaking · July 2006 Full text Open Access Cite

Post-Soviet Peter: New Histories of the Late Muscovite and Early Imperial Russian Court

Journal Article Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History · March 2005 Full text Open Access Cite

The Transfigured Kingdom Sacred Parody and Charismatic Authority at the Court of Peter the Great

Book · 2004 In this richly comparative analysis of late Muscovite and early Imperial court culture, Ernest A. Zitser provides a corrective to the secular bias of the scholarly literature about the reforms of Peter the Great. Zitser demonstrates that the tsar's suppose ... Cite