EAN: 9783838212173

AFTER EMPIRE - NATIONALIST IMAGINATION AND SYMB...

Igor Torbakov explores the nexus between various forms of Russian political imagination and the
apparently cyclic process of decline and fall of Russia's imperial polity over the last hundred
years. While Russia's historical process is by no means unique  two features of its historical
development stand out. First  the country's history is characterized by dramatic political
discontinuity. In the past century  Russia changed its historical skin three times: following
the disintegration of the Tsarist Empire accompanied by violent civil war  it was reconstituted
as the communist USSR  whose breakup a quarter century ago led to the emergence of the
present-day Russian Federation. Each of the dramatic transformations in the 20th century
powerfully affected the notion of what Russia is and what it means to be Russian. Second 
alongside Russia's political instability  there is  paradoxically  a striking picture of
geopolitical stability and of remarkable longevity as an imperial entity. At least since the
beginning of the 18th century  Russia has been a permanent geopolitical fixture on Europe's
north-eastern margins with its persistent pretense to the status of a great power.Against this
backdrop  the book's three sections investigate (a) the emergence and development of
Eurasianism as a form of (post-)imperial ideology  (b) the crucial role Ukraine has
historically played for the Russians' self-understanding  and (c) the contemporary Russian
elites' exercises in historical legitimation.

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