The Curse of Empire

Russia's attack on Ukraine marks an epochal break in European and global history. Undoubtedly, the decision to go to war is closely linked to one person, Vladimir Putin, but Russia's war is not driven solely by one man's power calculations. We can only make sense of Russia's actions in Ukraine, argues the distinguished historian Martin Schulze Wessel, by putting them in the broader context of the history of Russian imperialism and the influence it continues to exert today. Schulze Wessel argues that Russian imperialism was shaped by Russia's relationship to Poland and Ukraine. These states were absorbed or partitioned by Russia in the eighteenth century, but Russia's rule over them was contested both by the Poles and by the Ukrainians. The entangled history of these three states produced path dependencies whose impact is still felt toda. Poland and Ukraine share a common history characterized by Russian domination and Polish and Ukrainian resistance to it; just as the Polish question challenged the Russian Empire in previous centuries, so too does the Ukrainian question today. Schulze Wessel argues that, as a result of Russia's confrontation with the Polish and Ukrainian questions, Russia's national identity merged with imperial claims in ways that were pernicious and consequential - the curse of empire. By placing the war in Ukraine in the context of an era of Russian imperialism that spans three centuries, this book sheds new light on one of the bloodiest and most destructive conflicts of our time.

Martin Schulze Wessel is Professor of Eastern European History at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Introduction Chapter 1. Russia's Empire, the Hetmanate, and the Republic of Poland (1700-1795) Moscow's Road to Europe The Ukrainian Hetmanate between Poland and Russia Poltava Europ's First East-West Conflict Russia and Ukraine after the Northern War Catherine II: Completing the Works of Peter I Chapter 2. Imperial Order and the National Challenge (1796-1856) Russia's Empire in the Age of Napoleon The Holy Alliance The November Uprising in Poland as a European Event Russia's Response to Europe Polish and Ukrainian Ideas of Liberation The Identity Politics of the Tsarist Empire Geopolitics in Exile The European Revolution and the War over Crimea Poland's Revolt and Russis's Fear of the Ukrainian Question Chapter 3. The Idea of Russian Exceptionalism and the End of the Tsarist Empire (1856-1917) The Imperial Set of Ideas Following the Crimean War and the Polish Uprising Ukrainian Alternatives Tsarist Symbolic Politics and the Search for a Foreign Policy Doctrine National and Social Dynamics in Ukraine The First World War The Founding of the Nation State in Kyiv Revolution and Civil War Chapter 4. The Soviet Experiment and the Imperial Tradition (1917-1991) Old Borders, New Borders Nationalization of Culture, Centralism in the Economy Poland and Prometheism Holodomor The Return of the Great Russian People From Rapallo to the Hitler-Stalin Pact War against Poland The Great Patriotic War Russian and Ukrainian Myths Yalta and the Cold War Ukraine as the Second Nation of the Soviet Union Post-Stalinism The New Policy toward the East (Ostpolitik) Poland and Ukraine in the Last Years of the Soviet Empire Chapter 5. Post-Soviet Ukraine and Russia's Neo-imperialism (1992-2022) The Belated Revolution in Ukraine Russia's Road to Dictatorship Empire Fatigue and Soviet Nostalgia Imperial Infrastructures Imperial Fantasies: Dugin and Putin Conclusion Acknowledgements List of Illustrations Maps Bibliography Notes Index