Indeed, scholarship on other areas of tsarist minority policies demonstrates that the tsarist regime worked best when it governed least and that the regime well understood its need to weigh the benefits of increased standardization with possibly adverse reactions from its subjects. Therefore, one must question to what extent universal conscription, or other intrusive policies towards minorities, was even a desirable goal for the tsarist empire. Through an examination of the first three decades of universal conscription in Russia, my dissertation will evaluate the balance the regime struck between its desires to standardize its rule with the reality it confronted in its vast expanses.
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Dana M. Ohren, of Indiana University, was a 2001-02 Individual Advanced Research Opportunities (IARO) [8] fellow.
