List of Maps Preface About the Authors Introduction Thinking About Empire Empires Russia's Imperial Formations Chapter One: Before Empire: Early Rus' Visions of Diversity of Lands and Peoples Before the State: The Peoples of Rus New Models for Understanding Kiev Rus': Stateless Head or Galactic Polity Appanage Rus' and Further Fragmentation Mongol Khans and the Aura of Empire Chapter Two: Imperial Beginnings: Muscovy Building a State; Claiming an Empire Ivan the Terrible: Imperial Principles in Practice Muscovite Autocracy: Power and Obligation Who Were the Muscovites? What was Rus'? The People Speak: The Time of Troubles Imperial Conquest and Control Chapter Three: Disrupting the Easy Road from Empire to Nation State: A Theoretical Interlude Nation, Nationalism, and the Discourse of the Nation Chapter Four: Responsive Rule and Its Limits: Force and Sentiment in the Eighteenth Century Succession, Consultation, and the Politics of Affirmation The Petrine Revolution and the Imperial State Peter's Successors: A Century of Women (and Children) on Top Chapter Five: Russians' Identities in the Eighteenth Century: A Multitude of Possibilities What does Russian mean? Thinking about Nations in the Eighteenth Century A Multiplicity of Nations: The Peoples and Divisions of Empire Imperial Expansion in the Eighteenth Century Chapter Six: Imperial Russia in the Moment of the Nation, 1801-1855 A Kind of Constitution Clash of Empires Imperial Conservatism The Decembrists Official Nationality The Intelligentsia Expansion, Conquest, and Rebellion Imagining the Russian "Nation": Between West and East Chapter Seven: War, Reforms, Revolt, and Reaction A Foolish War The Great Reforms: Nations, Subjects, and Citizens Participatory Politics and Categories of Difference Who Are We? More Questions of National Identity Russification, Diversity, and Empire "Pacifying" the Peripheries Conquering Central Asia Counter-Reforms and Political Polarization Empire and the Revolutionary Movement Chapter Eight: Imperial Anxieties: 1905-1914 The Fate of Empires in the Twentieth Century The Modernizing Empire and its Discontents Imperial Overreach: Tsarist Modernization and Expansion The First Revolution, 1905 When Nationalism Goes Public: Reimagining Empire Chapter Nine: Clash and Collapse of Empires: 1914-1921 The Great War Nationality and Class Across the Revolutionary Divide Soviet Power Soviet Nationality Policies Chapter Ten: Making Nations, Soviet Style: 1921-1953 The Stalin Years, 1928-1953 Beating Peasants into Submission Empire-State and State of Nations Building National Bolshevism From Hot War to Cold War: External Empire as Defensive Expansion Cold War at Home: The Internal Empire Soviet Discursive Power Chapter Eleven: Imperial Impasses: Reform, Reaction, Revolution Policy and Experience: Friendship of the Peoples A Strange Empire The Soviet Union in the World Stagnation Gorbachev and the Test of Perestroika Chapter Twelve: The End of Empire, 1991-2016 . Or Not? Vladimir Putin and the Rebuilding of the State Democratic Recession in the Post-Soviet States Post-Superpower Russia and NATO Expansion Red Lines in the Near Abroad: Georgia and Ukraine Conclusion.