Dr Jonathan Smele

My research interests focus on late-imperial Russian and early Soviet history, with a particular emphasis on the revolutionary period (roughly 1881–1932).

My recent and forthcoming publications have explored the multifaceted and multinational nature of the conflicts that wrecked the Russian Empire and helped form the Soviet Union in the period 1916 to 1926, placing them within the context of the global upheavals engendered by the First World War.

• Political and military history of the Russian Empire and early Soviet Union
• The Russian revolutions and civil wars
• Anti-Bolshevism and the first emigration
• Anglo-Soviet relations (official and unofficial)
• The history of Siberia

Books

• Smele, Jonathan D., Anarchy in the Ukraine: Nestor Makhno and the Russian Civil Wars. London: Hurst, 2022 (Forthcoming).
• Smele, Jonathan D. The “Russian” Civil Wars, 1916–1926: Ten Years that Shook the World (link is external). London/New York: Hurst/Oxford University Press, 2016.
• Smele, Jonathan. D. (comp.), Historical Dictionary of the “Russian” Civil Wars, 1916–1926, 2 Vols (link is external). Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2015.
• Smele, Jonathan D. and Anthony J. Heywood (eds), The Russian Revolution of 1905: Centenary Perspectives. (link is external) London/New York: Routledge, 2005.
• Smele, Jonathan D. (comp., ed. & annot.), The Russian Revolution and Civil War, 1917–1921: An Annotated Bibliography (link is external). London/New York: Continuum, 2003.
• Smele, Jonathan D., Civil War in Siberia: The Anti-Bolshevik Government of Admiral Kolchak, 1918–1920. (link is external) Cambridge/New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
• Smele. Jonathan D. and David Collins (eds), Kolchak i Sibir': dokumenty i issledovaniia, 1919–1926, 2 Vols. White Plains, NY: Kraus International, 1988.

Articles and chapters

• Smele, Jonathan D., “‘If Grandma had Whiskers…’ Could the Anti-Bolsheviks have Won the Russian Civil Wars? Or, the Limits of Counter-Factual History”, Revolutionary Russia, Vol. 32 (2019), No. 1 (Forthcoming).
• Smele, Jonathan D. “Recent Books on the Centenary of the Russian Revolution (Review Article)”, European History Quarterly, Vol. 49 (2019 Forthcoming).
• Smele, Jonathan D., "The Civil Wars", in Daniel T. Orlovsky (ed), The Blackwell Companion to the Russian Revolution. Oxford: Blackwell, 2018 (forthcoming).
• Smele, Jonathan D., ‘Cursed Days: The “Russian” Civil Wars’, in Katrina Rogatchevskaia (ed.), Russian Revolution: Hopes, Tragedy, Myths. London: The British Library, 2017, pp. 110–145.
• Smele, Jonathan D., ‘Still Searching for the “Third Way”: Geoffrey Swain’s Interventions in the Russian Civil Wars’, Europe-Asia Studies, Vol. 68 (2016), No. 10, pp. 1,793–1,812.
• Smele, Jonathan D., ‘“Mania grandiosa” and “The Turning Point in World History”: Kerensky in London in 1918’, Revolutionary Russia (link is external), Vol. 20 (2007), No. 1, pp. 1–34
• Smele, Jonathan D., ‘A Bolshevik in Brixton Prison: Fedor Raskol'nikov and the Origins of Anglo-Soviet Relations’, in Ian D. Thatcher (ed.), Reinterpreting Revolutionary Russia (link is external) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 110–35.
• Smele, Jonathan D., ‘The Study Group on the Russian Revolution: The First Thirty Years’, Revolutionary Russia (link is external), Vol. 18 (2005), No. 2, pp. 201–38.
• Smele, Jonathan D. ‘The Russian Civil War’, in The Reader’s Guide to Military History (link is external). London: Fitzroy Dearborn, 2001, pp. 510–15.
• Smele, Jonathan D., ‘What the Papers Didn’t Say: Unpublished Despatches from Russia by M. Philips Price, May 1918–January 1919’, Revolutionary Russia (link is external) Vol. 8 (1995), No. 2, pp. 129–165.
• Smele, Jonathan D., ‘White Gold: The Imperial Russian Gold Reserve in the Anti-Bolshevik East, 1918–? (An Unconcluded Chapter in the History of the Russian Civil War)’, Europe–Asia Studies (link is external) Vol. 46 (1994), No. 8, pp. 1317–47.
• Smele. Jonathan D.,‘“What Kolchak Wants!”: Military Versus Polity in White Siberia, 1918–1920’, Revolutionary Russia (link is external), Vol. 4 (1991), No. 1, pp. 52–110.
• Smele, Jonathan D., ‘An Attempt to Utilize the Northern Sea Route to Siberia in 1919’, Sibirica (link is external), Vol. 4 (1988), pp. 28–40.
• Smele, Jonathan D., ‘Labour Conditions and the Collapse of the Siberian Economy under Kolchak, 1918–1920’, Sbornik of the Study Group on the Russian Revolution, Vol. 13 (1987), pp. 31–60.

Other publications

• `The Russian Revolution of 1905' and `The "Russian" Civil Wars, 1916--1926', lectures on Massolit (https://www.massolit.io/)
• Smele, Jonathan D., The Russian Revolution: From Tsarism to Bolshevism. Frederick, MD: The Modern Scholar (Recorded Books), 2009 (seven audio cds).
• ‘War, Revolution and Civil War in Russia: The Eastern Front, 1914-1921’, BBC History On-Line