روسیه (اختراع ملت)

The question of national identity is central to the future of Russia. This extensive analysis, spans three centuries of Russian cultural history to place post-communist Russia within a broad historical background. The author focuses on three ways of defining Russia and Russians: Russia as a counterpart to the West; Russians as creators of a unique multi-ethnic community; and Russians as members of the community of Eastern Slavs. She then demonstrates how these three perspectives have dominated the views of Russia in the modern era and traces their origins back to writers and historians in the eighteenth century. Combining a rich historical study with a rigorous analytical framework, the book is an essential tool for understanding contemporary Russia. Vera Tolz is Professor of Russian Studies, University of Manchester. The question of national identity is central to the future of Russia. In this analysis, which spans three centuries of Russian cultural history, Vera Tolz places post-communist Russia in a broad historical background. She focuses on three ways of defining Russia and Russians: Russia as a counterpart to the West; Russians as creators of a unique multi-ethnic community; and Russians as members of the community of Eastern Slavs. She demonstrates how these three perspectives have dominated the views of Russia in the modern era and traces their origins back to writers and historians in the eighteenth century. Combining a rich historical study with a rigorous analytical framework, the book is an essential tool for understanding contemporary Russia. “...[A] major contribution towards elucidating how Russians' own understanding of themselves has evolved over the past three centuries. Most previous Western histories have treated the Soviet Union as an irrelevant or regressive period in the evolution of Russian nationhood. Tolz ‘brings back the Soviet Union,’ not idealizing it but showing that it played its own paradoxical and ambivalent role.”—Times Literary Supplement "[A] substantive and solid overview of the basic concepts and formative issues related to Russian nationalism...[A] valuable addition to the existing studies on these issues."—Slavic and East European Journal“...[A] major contribution towards elucidating how Russians' own understanding of themselves has evolved over the past three centuries. Most previous Western histories have treated the Soviet Union as an irrelevant or regressive period in the evolution of Russian nationhood. Tolz ‘brings back the Soviet Union,’ not idealizing it but showing that it played its own paradoxical and ambivalent role.”—Times Literary Supplement “...[Thoroughly] researched and clearly written...Reading the book is illuminating...”—History: Reviews of New Books “Although a volume so kaleidoscopic in content, so allusive in argument, and so multilayered in construction necessarily yields more to those familiar with the subject than it can to the novice, Tolz writes vigorously throughout, and readers at all levels of sophistication will have something to learn from her consistently interesting book.”—Slavonica The ways in which Russian national identity has been constructed through the efforts of intellectuals and politicians over a period of three hundred years is the subject of this new study. The focus falls on the three main ways of defining Russia and the Russians: Russia vis-a-vis the West; Russians as creators and preservers of a unique multi-ethnic community, which many intellectuals have viewed as profoundly different from other European empires; and Russians as members of the community of Eastern Slavs, whose origins lay in Kiev Rus. To be sure, other ingredients have been used in the construction of Russianness, but it is these three interpretations of Russian national identity that have prevailed over the past three centuries and continue to preoccupy the intellectual and political elite to the present day. Vera Tolz's analysis of the contemporary situation makes the book highly topical. Students of the post-communist Russian transition agree that the question of national identity is central to the future development of the country. But the analytical framework of recent works on Russia's post-imperial nation-building is relatively narrow, tending to concentrate on the impact of the Soviet government's nationalities policies on post-communist politics. Meanwhile, studies which focus on nation-building in pre-revolutionary Russia do not analyse the impact of this historical heritage on contemporary developments. This new study is the first to analyse the continuity of the Russian nation-building project during the past three centuries, putting Russia's post-communist nation-building against its broad historical background.000000000000000 Map 1. The Territory Of The Moscow Principality In The Early Sixteenth Century -- Map 2. The Russian Empire At Its Greatest Extent -- Introduction: Russian Identity Between Empire And The West -- Pt. 1. Laying The Foundation -- The Reign Of Peter The Great: The Beginning Of Modern Russia -- Peter's Legacy: The Emergence Of Intellectual Debate -- Pt. 2. Russian Identity And The 'other' -- Russia And The West -- Russia And The East -- Pt. 3. Defining Russian Identity -- Imaginative Geography: Russian Empire As A Russian Nation-state -- Imaginative Ethnography: Who Are The Russians? -- Ukraine In The Russian National Consciousness -- Pt. 4. Russia And The Russians Today -- National Identity And Nation-building After The Ussr -- Conclusions: Russian Tradition And The Post-communist Concept Of Nationhood. Vera Tolz. Includes Bibliographical References (p. [275]-290) And Index. This extensive analysis of Russian national identity spans three centuries of Russian cultural history to place post-communist Russia within a broad historical background. Combining a rich historical study with a rigorous analytical framework, the book is an essential tool for understanding contemporary Russia. This work traces the development of Russian national consciousness from the time of the reforms of Peter the Great, to Russia's current post-imperial identity crisis. It looks at nationalism both as an ideology and a movement that incorporates political and cultural dimensions. Tracing the development of Russian national consciousness from the time of the reforms of Peter the Great, to Russia's current post-imperial identity crisis, this text looks at nationalism both as an ideology and a movement