Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917
by Geoffrey A. Hosking
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Description
The Soviet Union crumbles and Russia rises from the rubble, once again the great nation--a perfect scenario, but for one point: Russia was never a nation. And this, says the eminent historian Geoffrey Hosking, is at the heart of the Russians' dilemma today, as they grapple with the rudiments of nationhood. His book is about the Russia that never was, a three-hundred-year history of empire building at the expense of national identity. Russia begins in the sixteenth century, with the inception show more of one of the most extensive and diverse empires in history. Hosking shows how this undertaking, the effort of conquering, defending, and administering such a huge mixture of territories and peoples, exhausted the productive powers of the common people and enfeebled their civic institutions. Neither church nor state was able to project an image of "Russian-ness" that could unite elites and masses in a consciousness of belonging to the same nation. Hosking depicts two Russias, that of the gentry and of the peasantry, and reveals how the gap between them, widened by the Tsarist state's repudiation of the Orthodox messianic myth, continued to grow throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Here we see how this myth, on which the empire was originally based, returned centuries later in the form of the revolutionary movement, which eventually swept away the Tsarist Empire but replaced it with an even more universalist one. Hosking concludes his story in 1917, but shows how the conflict he describes continues to affect Russia right up to the present day. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Gift from Mother, 2000, because the book was too big and heavy for her. And she wasn't really interested in Russian history.
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Author Information
Some Editions
Common Knowledge
- Original title
- Russia. People and Empire 1552-1917
- Important events
- October Revolution
- Epigraph
- "Der Rus wurde Rossija geopfert" (Georgi Gatschew)
- Original language
- English
Classifications
- Genres
- History, Nonfiction, General Nonfiction
- DDC/MDS
- 947.04 — History & geography History of Europe Eastern European Counties and Russia Russian & Slavic History by Period Ivan III - Ivan V 1462-1689
- LCC
- DK49 .H68 — History of Europe, Asia, Africa and Oceania Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics – Poland History of Russia. Soviet Union. Former Soviet Republics History
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 235
- Popularity
- 138,145
- Reviews
- 1
- Rating
- (4.00)
- Languages
- English, German, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 8
- ASINs
- 3
