Russia: An Identity Crisis
Russia: An Identity Crisis
Recent years have triggered a rush of attention in the fate of empires. That is to say the attention has been in an interest in their rise, decline, and fall. Much of the writing on this subject has been intended to serve as assurance, or interchangeably, warning to the current leading power, the United States. This is reasonable. Considerably less attention is paid to what happens subsequently. We overlook the study of what happens when the decline and fall of the empire is accomplished, and the empire ceases to exist. Russia no longer remains as an empire, and it is never going to be an empire again. Nevertheless many features set up in the imperial era are still detected in modernity. Russia is not simply “lost in transition” but it is also in translation. The actual situation playing out in Russia is historical transformation. This takes much longer and it has no immediately recognizable end.
Dissimilar to all the other affiliates of the Soviet bloc or former states of the Soviet Union, the country of Russia has had to live and deal with its imperial heritage, and this element has weighed deeply in the country’s failure to accept integration into the West. Focused chiefly on itself, and attempting to avoid being lead or dominated by any other countries, Russia is determined to rebuild itself as a great power. It trusts it has enough resources to act an important role as a counterbalance in world politics, a swing state upsetting the international balance (Brown 59).
Whether this desire has any substance depends on how effectively the nation reforms its economy and institutions. But whatever happens, whether Russia does in the end modernize or not, there will be no new manifestation of its bygone empire. The Russia of today is in the state of being a post-empire rather than a neo-imperial one (Gorenburg 27).
All empires do rise and eventually fall. When an empire falls, they occasionally join with stronger powers, whether
Recent years have triggered a rush of attention in the fate of empires. That is to say the attention has been in an interest in their rise, decline, and fall. Much of the writing on this subject has been intended to serve as assurance, or interchangeably, warning to the current leading power, the United States. This is reasonable. Considerably less attention is paid to what happens subsequently. We overlook the study of what happens when the decline and fall of the empire is accomplished, and the empire ceases to exist. Russia no longer remains as an empire, and it is never going to be an empire again. Nevertheless many features set up in the imperial era are still detected in modernity. Russia is not simply “lost in transition” but it is also in translation. The actual situation playing out in Russia is historical transformation. This takes much longer and it has no immediately recognizable end.
Dissimilar to all the other affiliates of the Soviet bloc or former states of the Soviet Union, the country of Russia has had to live and deal with its imperial heritage, and this element has weighed deeply in the country’s failure to accept integration into the West. Focused chiefly on itself, and attempting to avoid being lead or dominated by any other countries, Russia is determined to rebuild itself as a great power. It trusts it has enough resources to act an important role as a counterbalance in world politics, a swing state upsetting the international balance (Brown 59).
Whether this desire has any substance depends on how effectively the nation reforms its economy and institutions. But whatever happens, whether Russia does in the end modernize or not, there will be no new manifestation of its bygone empire. The Russia of today is in the state of being a post-empire rather than a neo-imperial one (Gorenburg 27).
All empires do rise and eventually fall. When an empire falls, they occasionally join with stronger powers, whether