In 1870 the Welsh ironmaster John James Hughes left his successful
career in England and settled in the barren and underpopulated Donbass
region of the Ukrainian steppe to found the town of Iuzovka and build a
large steel plant and coal mine. Theodore Friedgut tells the remarkable
story of the subsequent economic and social development of the Donbass,
an area that grew to supply seventy percent of the Russian Empire's coal
and iron by World War I. This first volume of a planned two-volume study
focuses on the social and economic development of the Donbass, while the
second volume will be devoted to political analysis. Friedgut offers a
fascinating picture of the heterogeneous population of these frontier
settlements. Company-owned Iuzovka, for instance, was inhabited by
British bosses, Jewish artisans and merchants, and Russian peasant
migrants serving as industrial workers. All these were surrounded by
Ukrainian peasants resentful of the intrusive new ways of industrial
life. A further contrast was that between relatively settled, skilled
factory workers and a more volatile and migratory population of miners.
By examining these varied groups, the author reveals the contest between
Russia's industrial revolution and the striving for political
revolution.
Originally published in 1989.
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