picture, Professor Pritsak introduced me to the history of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth and Ukrainian history within it, an essential adjunct to anyone
wanting to understand early modern Russia. I also had the tremendous opportunity
to study with Joseph Fletcher, whose lecture course on Eurasia ranged wide from
Islam to Buddhism, Kalmyks to Qing and waxed eloquent on the ecological genius
of nomadic society. I was also cemented in a more complex approach to Russian
history by my association with the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, where
fellow graduate students and a bi-weekly seminar in Ukrainian history very broadly
defined (from archeological beginnings to modern day) opened up unknown
new vistas.
In teaching at Stanford and working with graduate students who have gone on to
become colleagues (Val Kivelson, Erika Monahan, Alexandra Haugh, Lindsey
Martin), I have learned a lot about Russia’s empire, particularly Siberia; I have
come to appreciate visual sources as exemplars of political values from a cheerful
collegial cooperation with Val, Michael Flier, and Daniel Rowland. Dear friend and
colleague Jane Burbank always provided great ideas, and her book with Frederick
Cooper deepened my understanding of empire. So also did the scholars and ideas
I have been encountering in recent years at Stanford in our Humanities Center’s
“Eurasian Empires”workshop. Here I was able to test out the idea of Russia as a
“Eurasian empire,”and actually meet some of the authors whose views shape this
work—Karen Barkey, Peter Golden, André Wink, and most of all to work with my
colleague Ali Yaycioglu and to benefit from his effervescent knowledge of Ottoman
history. Other scholars—Alexander Kamenskii, Mikhail Krom, Robert Crews,
Aron Rodrigue, Laura Stokes, Richard Roberts, Norman Naimark—provided
great insights as well. Of course the shortcomings of this work are mine, not theirs,
but to all these scholars I owe tremendous thanks.
I began work in earnest on this project with a residential fellowship from
Stanford’s Center for the Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (2011–12),
which provided long hours of immersion in reading and splendid lunch hours of
vibrant conversation. Stanford’s History Department and Dean of Humanities and
Sciences have also provided generous research funds to make broad reading
possible, and Ifinish up the work on this book at another wonderful research
institute, the Stanford Humanities Center. Again, I am truly grateful for all the
collegial and scholarly resources I have been given.
It is often predictable to end a preface with thanks to one’s family, and I am true
to form. But this is a very, very big thanks to my husband Jack Kollmann—
throughout the many years of my work, on this and preceding books and courses
and research, he has been at my side. His knowledge of Russian art and religion is
boundless, as is his generosity in teaching me and helping me track things down or
work things out. His unstinting support, love, and constancy are humbling; I am
truly blessed.
viii Preface