Russia’s Existential Tragedy is that the Russian State Became an Empire Before Russian People Became a Nation, Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 1 – Russia’s existential tragedy, Vladislav Inozemtsev says in the first number of his new column, “Imperial Chronicles,” for Neprikosnovenny zapas is that the Russian state became an empire before the Russian people became a nation and the state can remain an empire and rule as such only if it continues to expand beyond its Muscovite core.

            That tragedy continues to echo to this day, the Russian economist and commentator says. Indeed, “the development of post-Soviet Russia on the whole is defined by two features of its political elite” which reflect this underlying tension (magazines.gorky.media/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/143-3-8-inozemtsev.pdf).

            The present-day Russian elite “was formed during the years of the collapse of the Soviet empire and in the most difficult period of the development of a new Russian statehood and therefore tries to the maximum degree possible to oppose any trend restricting its control” of territory and people” but “cannot give up on the concept of ‘historical Russia.’”

            These things predispose this elite to believe that Russia must “territorially expand” because only such an expansion allows for imperial rule not only of any newly acquired territories but of the existing state as well. Both the Chechen war of 20 years ago and the Ukrainian one now reflect this reality.

            The main thing, Inozemtsev continues, is that “Russia really can continue to view itself as an empire only if it continues to expand beyond the limits of historical Muscovy and therefore the fate of post-Soviet Ukraine was preordained from the outset, and the current intervention there looks both natural and inevitable."'

            In an empire like the Russian one, an empire which doesn’t clearly demarcate the metropolitan center, the colonies, and the possessions, the formation and maintenance of a democratic state is impossible – and if democracy is demanded and pursued it will threaten the borders of the empire and leave the country smaller.

 

            Obviously, “the Moscow empire doesn’t want to die,” but maintaining itself while seeking to become Russia is almost certainly “much more difficult than it was for other states four hundred years earlier when imperial forms of existence were more common and familiar.”

 

            “Today,” Inozemtsev argues, “Russia appears like a real Zombie arising out of nothing and trying to restore imperial structures in a world where they have already long ago disappeared.” One can understand why the Moscow elite wants to keep an empire in place because that is the basis of their power.

 

            But doing so in the world of today is almost impossible and that suggests that Moscow’s efforts won’t be crowned with success but ultimately end in disaster.