A Short History of Russia: How the World's Largest Country Invented Itself, from the Pagans to Putin

by Mark Galeotti

Overview

A Library Journal 2020 Title to Watch

"Terrific - and an amazing achievement to cover so much ground in such a short and wonderfully readable book." -Peter Frankopan, bestselling author of The Silk Roads

Russia’s epic story told in an accessible, lively and short form, using the country's fascinating history to help us understand its actions today and what the future might hold

A country with no natural borders, no single ethnic group, no true central identity, Russia has mythologized its past to unite its people, to justify its military decisions, and to signal strength to outsiders. Mark Galeotti takes us behind the myths to the heart of the Russian story, covering key moments such as:

• the formation of a nation through its early legends, including Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great
• the rise and fall of the Romanovs, the Russian Revolution, the Cold War, Chernobyl and the Soviet Union
• the arrival of an obscure politician named Vladimir Putin and his ambitions for Russia

A Short History of Russia explores the history of this fascinating, extraordinary, desperate and exasperating country through two intertwined issues: the way successive influences from beyond its borders have shaped Russia, and the way Russians came to terms with this influence, writing and rewriting their past to understand their present and try to shape their future. In turn, this self-invented history has come to affect not just their constant nation-building project but also their relations with the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781335475213
Publisher:	Hanover Square Press
Publication date:	08/23/2022
Edition description:	First Time Trade
Pages:	240
Sales rank:	230,783
Product dimensions:	7.80(w) x 5.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Mark Galeotti, honorary professor at UCL School of Slavonic and East European Studies, is one of the foremost Russia watchers today. Based in London, he also runs his own consultancy and is affiliated with thinktanks in the USA, UK and Europe. A prolific author on Russia and security affairs, he has been a professor at New York University and the Moscow Institute of International Relations and an adviser to the British Foreign Office.

Table of Contents

Introduction 11

1 "Let us seek a prince who may rule over us" 21

2 "For our sins, there came an unknown tribe" 45

3 "Autocracy, by God's will" 68

4 "Money is the artery of war" 92

5 "I shall be an autocrat: that's my trade" 116

6 "Orthodoxy. Autocracy. Nationality" 137

7 "Life is getting better, comrades, life is getting brighter" 164

8 "Russia has been lifted back off its knees" 192

Acknowledgments 215

A Coda - Russia, Ukraine and the Revenge of History 217

Index 225

Editorial Reviews

"A slim, accessible account of the megacountry." -Kirkus Reviews


"An accessible and illuminating summary of how modern Russia came to be." -Publishers Weekly


"A fantastic read... insightful and leaves the reader wanting more in the best of ways." -Diplomatic Courier

"Galeotti sketches a bleak, but convincing picture of the man in the Kremlin and the political system that he dominates." -The Times

"Mark Galeotti, in We Need to Talk About Putin, has distilled a great deal of research and thought into a slim and engaging volume that reads like a primer for anyone poised to enter a negotiation with the Russian president." -The Guardian

"Easily the shrewdest and most insightful analysis yet of Putin’s policymaking." -Foreign Affairs

"Punchy and highly readable." -TLS

"Dynamic, authoritative and often witty." -The Scotsman

From the Publisher

06/08/2020

Think tank scholar Galeotti (We Need to Talk About Putin) explores the links between national identity, mythmaking, and statecraft in this brisk and idiosyncratic rundown of Russia’s 1,000-year history. Revealing how “grand historical narratives” cobbled from legends and twisted facts have been used to justify expansionist policies and “state-building schemes” from the 10th century to today, Galeotti rehashes the conquests, alliances, and conspiracies that make up Russia’s complex past. He debunks the “convenient” myth that Mongol dominion from 1240 until 1480 cut off Russia from Renaissance Europe and predisposed it to “despotism,” and notes that the Prussian-born monarch Catherine the Great exploited “tenuous” genealogical links to a Viking dynasty and an 800-year-old myth to take the Russian throne in the 18th century. The persistent theme—wielded by Lenin to build socialism, Stalin to modernize the Soviet Union, and Putin to seize the Crimea—behind these and other historical narratives, Galeotti writes, is that Russia’s “greater destiny” justifies its actions. Experts may balk at Galeotti’s self-acknowledged “broad brush” (Napoleon’s 1812 invasion only gets a few paragraphs, for instance), but he often finds clarity through concision and down-to-earth prose. This is an accessible and illuminating summary of how modern Russia came to be. (July)

Publishers Weekly

2020-04-30
A fine introduction to a nation that “has responded to its lack of clear frontiers by a steady process of expansion, bringing new ethnic, cultural and religious identities into the mix.”

“Russia is a country with no natural borders, no single tribe or people, no true central identity,” writes Galeotti, an expert on Russian history and culture. The country’s written history only begins in the ninth century, when the Vikings took notice. Readers aware that Norse raiders sailed west as far as America may be surprised to learn that they also traveled eastward as far as the Black Sea to trade and plunder. Called Rus’ by the Slavs, by 900 they had settled in Kiev, adopted Christianity, and established a nation that neighboring Byzantium took seriously. The Mongols conquered Russia around 1240. While conventional histories describe “two centuries of Asiatic despotism,” Mongol rule was fairly benign. By 1500, Moscow was the leading city, and four centuries of spectacular conquests began. Peter the Great (reign: 1682-1725) introduced European culture and technology. Under Catherine the Great (1762-1796), Russia became a European power. Although American and French revolutionary ideals penetrated Russia, Napoleon’s traumatic 1812 invasion convinced the czars that democracy was “a product of dangerous, foreign-inspired freethinking.” As a result, in the 19th century, the country sunk into despotism. As a visiting French aristocrat noted, “this empire, vast as it is, is only a prison to which the emperor holds the key.” Galeotti reaches the 20th century only 50 pages before the end but delivers a fine, abbreviated chronicle. Lenin’s Bolsheviks won Russia’s revolution after a brutal struggle, but his early death meant that the Soviet Union was largely the creation of his heir, Stalin, whose epic cruelty disguises the fact that economic decline and misgovernment, not despotism, doomed his empire. The author blames the Soviet collapse on corrupt, unresponsive leaders, but, as Russia under Putin demonstrates, a corrupt kleptocracy remains popular as long as it provides stability, national pride, and jobs.

A slim, accessible account of the megacountry.

Kirkus Reviews