List of Maps xi
Preface xiii
Spelling and Dating xvii
About the Authors xviii Timeline xix
Introduction Thinking About Empire 1
Empires 2
Russia's Imperial Formations 6
Chapter 1 Before Empire: Early Rus Visions of Diversity of Lands and Peoples 17
Before the State: The Peoples of Rus 18
New Models for Understanding Kievan Rus: Stateless Head or Galactic Polity 27
Appanage Rus and Further Fragmentation 32
Mongol Khans and the Aura of Empire 38
Chapter 2 Imperial Beginnings: Muscovy 44
Building a State; Claiming an Empire 44
Ivan the Terrible: Imperial Principles in Practice 47
Muscovite Autocracy: Power and Obligation 52
Who Were the Muscovites? What Was Russia? 54
The People Speak: The Time of Troubles 57
Imperial Conquest and Control 61
Chapter 3 Disrupting the Easy Road From Empire to Nation-State: A Theoretical Interlude 75
Nation, Nationalism, and the Discourse of the Nation 78
Chapter 4 Responsive Rule and its Limits: Force and Sentiment in the Eighteenth Century 89
Succession, Consultation, and the Politics of Affirmation 91
The Petrine Revolution and the Imperial State 93
Peter's Successors: A Century of Women (and Children) on Top 98
Chapter 5 Russians' Identities in the Eighteenth Century: A Multitude of Possibilities 116
What Does Russian Mean? Thinking About Nations in the Eighteenth Century 116
A Multiplicity of Nations: The Peoples and Divisions of Empire 121
Imperial Expansion in the Eighteenth Century 134
Chapter 6 Imperial Russia in the Moment of the Nation, 1801-1855 140
A Kind of Constitution 141
Clash of Empires 145
Imperial Conservatism 153
The Decembrists 154
Official Nationality 157
The Intelligentsia 161
Expansion, Conquest, and Rebellion 166
Imagining the Russian "Nation": Between West and East 177
Chapter 7 War, Reforms, Revolt, and Reaction 183
A Foolish War 184
The Great Reforms: Nations, Subjects, and Citizens 185
Participatory Politics and Categories of Difference 192
Who Are We? More Questions of National Identity 194
Russification, Diversity, and Empire 199
"Pacifying" the Peripheries 203
Conquering Central Asia 210
Counter-Reforms and Political Polarization 215
Empire and the Revolutionary Movement 220
Chapter 8 Imperial Anxieties: 1905-1914 227
The Fate of Empires in the Twentieth Century 228
The Modernizing Empire and Its Discontents 234
Imperial Overreach: Tsarist Modernization and Expansion 236
The First Revolution, 1905 240
When Nationalism Goes Public: Reimagining Empire 249
Chapter 9 Clash and Collapse of Empires: 1914-1921 255
The Great War 255
Nationality and Class Across the Revolutionary Divide 266
Soviet Power 275
Soviet Nationality Policies 280
Chapter 10 Making Nations, Soviet-Style: 1921-1953 290
The Stalin Years, 1928-1953 295
Beating Peasants into Submission 299
Empire-State and State of Nations 301
Building National Bolshevism 309
From Hot War to Cold War: External Empire as Defensive Expansion 311
Cold War at Home: The Internal Empire 317
Soviet Discursive Power 323
Chapter 11 Imperial Impasses: Reform, Reaction, Revolution 329
Policy and Experience: Friendship of the Peoples 334
A Strange Empire 337
The Soviet Union in the World 340
Stagnation 344
Gorbachev and the Test of Perestroika 349
Chapter 12 The End of Empire, 1991-2016… Or Not? 364
Vladimir Putin and the Rebuilding of the State 368
Democratic Recession in the Post-Soviet States 376
Post-Super power Russia and NATO Expansion 381
Red Lines in the Near Abroad: Georgia and Ukraine 385
Conclusion 394
Credits 403
Index 405