It derives its history from a princely dependent on the Golden Horde. For centuries it remained on the sidelines of Europe. Today he is one of the most important players in the international arena. How has Russia built its power and can it hold it?
HISTORY OF RUSSIAN NATIONALISM IN CONTACT WITH RUSSIAN IMPERIALISM
Where does Russia begin and end? Do its political boundaries today coincide with those in which the Russian people live? Why did the Russians decide to fight in Ukraine against those whom Vladimir Putin himself repeatedly called members of the same nation?
The issue of Russian identity is decisive for war and peace in the eastern fringes of Europe - and it will be decisive for many more generations to come. The authors of the "Russian world" project, referring to the political, cultural and religious heritage of Kievan Rus and to the Byzantine roots, are trying to reinvent themselves and their nation in the post-Soviet era. This identity, with a clear imperial trait, threatens the stability of the whole of Eastern Europe.
Ukraine is today at the heart of the new 'Russian question'. The annexation of Crimea and the war in Donbas united the Russian state and nationalists. They raised the morale of both groups at a time when nostalgia for the former Soviet and East Slavic unity was waning in Russia and other former USSR countries.
In "The Russian Question" by Serhia Plokha describes the history of Russian imperialism.
Serhiy Płochij - a recognized Ukrainian historian and lecturer at Harvard University - traces the birth and development of a powerful myth that to this day ignites the minds of tens of millions of people and rules Russian politics.
Will Russia transform into a modern nation-state?
Will the Russian authorities and the local political and cultural elites come to terms with the "loss" of Ukraine?
Will the Russian people base their future on the lost paradise of the imaginary East Slavic unity of the medieval Kievan state, or will it decide to build a modern civil nation within the borders of the Russian Federation?
Are we facing a new cold war? Or maybe something even worse?