Russia's Empires explores the long history of Russia, the Soviet Union, and the present Russian Federation through the lens of empire, analyzing how and why Russia expanded to become the largest country on the globe and how it repeatedly fell under the sway of strong, authoritarian leaders. Authors Valerie A. Kivelson and Ronald Grigor Suny examine how imperial practices shaped choices and limited alternatives. Using the concept of empire, they look at the ways in which ordinary people imagined their position within a non-democratic polity--whether the Muscovite tsardom or the Soviet Union--and what concessions the rulers had to make, or appear to make, in order to establish their authority and preserve their rule.
Author(s): Valerie A. Kivelson, Ronald Grigor Suny
Publisher: Oxford
Year: 2016
Language: English
Pages: 448
Tags: Russia's Empires, Kivelson, Suny
List of Maps
Preface
About the Authors
Introduction
Thinking About Empire
Empires
Russia's Imperial Formations
Chapter One: Before Empire: Early Rus' Visions of Diversity of Lands and Peoples
Before the State: The Peoples of Rus
New Models for Understanding Kiev Rus': Stateless Head or Galactic Polity
Appanage Rus' and Further Fragmentation
Mongol Khans and the Aura of Empire
Chapter Two: Imperial Beginnings: Muscovy
Building a State; Claiming an Empire
Ivan the Terrible: Imperial Principles in Practice
Muscovite Autocracy: Power and Obligation
Who Were the Muscovites? What was Rus'?
The People Speak: The Time of Troubles
Imperial Conquest and Control
Chapter Three: Disrupting the Easy Road from Empire to Nation State: A Theoretical Interlude
Nation, Nationalism, and the Discourse of the Nation
Chapter Four: Responsive Rule and Its Limits: Force and Sentiment in the Eighteenth Century
Succession, Consultation, and the Politics of Affirmation
The Petrine Revolution and the Imperial State
Peter's Successors: A Century of Women (and Children) on Top
Chapter Five: Russians' Identities in the Eighteenth Century: A Multitude of Possibilities
What does Russian mean? Thinking about Nations in the Eighteenth Century
A Multiplicity of Nations: The Peoples and Divisions of Empire
Imperial Expansion in the Eighteenth Century
Chapter Six: Imperial Russia in the Moment of the Nation, 1801-1855
A Kind of Constitution
Clash of Empires
Imperial Conservatism
The Decembrists
Official Nationality
The Intelligentsia
Expansion, Conquest, and Rebellion
Imagining the Russian "Nation": Between West and East
Chapter Seven: War, Reforms, Revolt, and Reaction
A Foolish War
The Great Reforms: Nations, Subjects, and Citizens
Participatory Politics and Categories of Difference
Who Are We? More Questions of National Identity
Russification, Diversity, and Empire
"Pacifying" the Peripheries
Conquering Central Asia
Counter-Reforms and Political Polarization
Empire and the Revolutionary Movement
Chapter Eight: Imperial Anxieties: 1905-1914
The Fate of Empires in the Twentieth Century
The Modernizing Empire and its Discontents
Imperial Overreach: Tsarist Modernization and Expansion
The First Revolution, 1905
When Nationalism Goes Public: Reimagining Empire
Chapter Nine: Clash and Collapse of Empires: 1914-1921
The Great War
Nationality and Class Across the Revolutionary Divide
Soviet Power
Soviet Nationality Policies
Chapter Ten: Making Nations, Soviet Style: 1921-1953
The Stalin Years, 1928-1953
Beating Peasants into Submission
Empire-State and State of Nations
Building National Bolshevism
From Hot War to Cold War: External Empire as Defensive Expansion
Cold War at Home: The Internal Empire
Soviet Discursive Power
Chapter Eleven: Imperial Impasses: Reform, Reaction, Revolution
Policy and Experience: Friendship of the Peoples
A Strange Empire
The Soviet Union in the World
Stagnation
Gorbachev and the Test of Perestroika
Chapter Twelve: The End of Empire, 1991-2016 . . . Or Not?
Vladimir Putin and the Rebuilding of the State
Democratic Recession in the Post-Soviet States
Post-Superpower Russia and NATO Expansion
Red Lines in the Near Abroad: Georgia and Ukraine
Conclusion
