The "national question" and how to impose control over its diverse ethnic identities has long posed a problem for the Russian state. This major survey of Russia as a multi-ethnic empire spans the imperial years from the sixteenth century to 1917, with major consideration of the Soviet phase. It asks how Russians incorporated new territories, how they were resisted, what the character of a multi-ethnic empire was and how, finally, these issues related to nationalism.
Table of Contents
1. The Medieval Background. 2. The Gathering of the Lands of the Golden Horde between Sixteenth and Eighteenth Centuries. 3. Westward Expansion from the Seventeenth Century to the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. 4. Pre-modern Russian Multi-ethnic Empire. 5. Colonial Expansion in Asia in the Nineteenth Century. 6. National Challenge. 7. Reaction of the State: Policy on Nationalities, 1831-1904. 8. The Late Tsarist Multi-ethnic Empire between Modernization and Tradition. 9. Nationalities Question and Revolution. 10. Change and Continuity in the Soviet Multi-ethnic Empire.