Not by Force Alone

This dissertation concentrates on the history of frontiers, borderlands, and empires in Eastern and Central Europe in the eighteenth century. While the existing literature examines mainly ideological and political competitions among the empires for land, resources, and the stateless population; I explore more physical and material spheres of rivalry such as border security, economy and public health. This dissertation explores the politics of the Russian Empire in these spheres in the eighteenth century. It argues that the policies of improvement in migration control, border infrastructure, and health care promoted by the government of Catherine II allowed the empire to incorporate its borderland with Poland-Lithuania and attract the local population more swiftly and effectively than did political repressions, ideological propaganda, or forced cultural assimilation.