The first section deals with "Liberalism and Civil Society in Russia and Eastern Europe." Alla Barabtarlo discusses unfinished research conducted by Charles Timberlake on the liberal activist Ivan Petrunkevich. Evgeny Badredinov analyzes research on the Russian village conducted by an important liberal lawyer and sociologist, Maksim Kovalevskii. Andrew Wise examines commentary by Polish liberals and their exiled Russian colleagues published in the Warsaw press from 1920-1923. The second section deals with "Orthodoxy and Cultural Identity in Late Imperial Russia." Robert Nichols explains the role in Russia's monastic revival played by Gethsemane skete, a monastic cloister that was founded in 1844. Sally Stocksdale details the motivations of a self-cloistering Russian noblewoman (Praskovia Yazikova) of the nineteenth century. Jesse Murray explores the cultural and religious identities of residents in the Baikal region. David Borgmeyer focuses on the response to the works of Pablo Picasso by one art critic, Sergei Bulgakov. The third section deals with "Civil Society in the Post-Soviet Era." Byron Scott demonstrates that press freedom has been a contentious issue in these societies. James McCartney analyzes the reforming of the educational system in independent Georgia.