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 Europe'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 Russia'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.