
Modern Russian identity and historical experience has been largely shaped by Russia's imperial past: an empire that was founded in the early modern era and endures in large part today. The Russian Empire 1450-1801 surveys how the areas that made up the empire were conquered and how they were governed. It considers the Russian empire a 'Eurasian empire', characterized by a 'politics of difference': the rulers and their elites at the center defined the state's needs minimally - with control over defense, criminal law, taxation, and mobilization of resources - and otherwise tolerated local religions, languages, cultures, elites, and institutions. The center related to communities and religions vertically, according each a modicum of rights and autonomies, but didn't allow horizontal connections across nobilities, townsmen, or other groups potentially with common interests to coalesce. Thus, the Russian empire was multi-ethnic and multi-religious; Nancy Kollmann gives detailed attention to the major ethnic and religious groups, and surveys the government's strategies of governance - centralized bureaucracy, military reform, and a changed judicial system. The volume pays particular attention to the dissemination of a supranational ideology of political legitimacy in a variety of media - written sources and primarily public ritual, painting, and particularly architecture. Beginning with foundational features, such as geography, climate, demography, and geopolitical situation, The Russian Empire 1450-1801 explores the empire's primarily agrarian economy, serfdom, towns and trade, as well as the many religious groups - primarily Orthodoxy, Islam, and Buddhism. It tracks the emergence of an 'Imperial nobility' and a national self-consciousness that was, by the end of the eighteenth century, distinctly imperial, embracing the diversity of the empire's many peoples and cultures.
This volume investigates how the Russian state evolved from a regional power into a vast, multi-ethnic Eurasian empire between 1450 and 1801. Nancy Shields Kollmann, a specialist in early modern Russian history, utilizes a framework of 'politics of difference' to explain how the central government maintained control while allowing local autonomy for diverse religious and ethnic groups. By analyzing administrative, military, and ideological shifts, the author demonstrates how the Russian state successfully integrated disparate territories into a cohesive imperial identity.
What You Will Find
Scope Limits
Scholars and students of European history frequently cite this work as a foundational text for understanding the structural complexities of the Russian imperial state. Readers often note the academic density of the prose, which provides a rigorous, high-level synthesis of early modern administrative and cultural history.
Page Count:
511
Publication Date:
2017-01-01
Publisher:
OUP Oxford
ISBN-10:
0191082708
ISBN-13:
9780191082702
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