Empire, among other things, is a space where different ethnic groups interact with each other and with the authorities. It is a story of rebellion and repression, struggle and cooperation, acculturation, assimilation and dissimilation. Such a history of the Romanov Empire has not yet been written. Alexey Miller, one of the leading Russian experts on the history of empires, the author of the book “The Ukrainian Question in the Policy of the Authorities and Russian Public Opinion” (2000), co-editor of the book “Western Borderlands of the Russian Empire” recently published in UFO, reflects in his new work on how to write the history of the empire so that it does not turn into a sum of national and regional narratives and is not a repetition of the traditional imperial version of Russian history. What was the relationship between Russian nationalism and the empire? What was the “Jewish question” for the empire? Why are language and alphabet important to the empire? What is more important to her – identity or loyalty? Why did all the continental empires on the outskirts of Europe collapse during the First World War? These and other questions that are no less significant not only for historical science are discussed on the pages of this book.

Contents: Introduction. History of the Russian Empire in search of scale and paradigm. Russification or Russification? Identity and loyalty in the language policy of the Russian authorities empire. The Romanov Empire and the Jews. Empire and nation in the imagination of Russian nationalism. Testament of the all-Russian idea: Memoranda of the Special Political Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Tsarist, Provisional and Bolshevik governments. Instead of a conclusion: Multi-layered imperial ruins. The Soviet legacy of the “affirmative action empire”. Bibliography. Index of names.