The Imperial Society for the Promotion of Russian Trade and Shipping and the ‘oil issue’, 1875–1900

Abstract

Studies of interconnections between social, technological, economic and cultural forces belong to the trend of modernisation studies in the Russian Empire in the second half of the nineteenth century. Modernisation implies the establishment and growth of institutions and infrastructures that are examined as a set of communication practices between different actors – the state, experts and various offices. This research is an historical study of interconnections between technologies and society. It is focused on the significance of materiality (namely natural oil resources) in these processes.