Russia - Vera Tolz

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--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 lite 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.