balance the available evidence differently than in this book, which argues that for
early modern conditions, strong centers cannot control without significant buy-in
from elites and they cannot control with force all the time. They simply lack
the communications and manpower to do it. This book, therefore, argues that
Russia’s power and stability as an empire derived from the synergy of strong central
and selectively laissez-faire local power. This was indeed a state of undivided
sovereignty that claimed control over key issues of rule—criminal law, taxation,
military mobilization, and defense. In fact the Russian empire, as we shall argue,
was doggedly insistent on that degree of control, imposing a single law, single
bureaucracy, single administration over its vast realm at a time when some of its
European and Eurasian counterparts were de facto allowing local nobilities and
power bases to form. But, balancing that infrastructure of ideology and bureau-
cracy, the empire tolerated and depended upon local communities to accomplish
many tasks of daily life. If one wants to talk in contemporary terms about Russia as
a “great power,” itwasone historically precisely because of its strong center
supported by controlled diversity.
Such, then, is our theoretical approach—to analyze the Russian empire as it
constructed an empire“of difference.”Such an approach requires a great deal of
attention to governance by Moscow, but also invites discussion of the diversity of
the realm and its peoples. It also requiresflexibility: as we explore how Moscow
ruled and how subjects experienced that power, we try to look for mutual inter-
change, assuming different state policies for different regions and appraising the
state’s constant adjustments of policies towards subjects in response to new econ-
omies, new geopolitical exigencies, new ideologies. Eurasian empire is also inex-
tricable from the global context of trade routes and geopolitical interactions, and we
will keep that larger context in mind.
As we recount how Moscow’s sovereigns amassed regional power, we combine
descriptive and thematic treatment in overall chronological progression. Although
historiography is rich in Russian, Ukrainian, and other languages of the post-Soviet
space, the bibliography here includes by and large English-language material as
most accessible to our readership. A few important works in Russian that are
discussed in the text are recognized; translations of major Russian historians into
English are included where appropriate.
Part I describes the lands and peoples of empire as Russia assembled its vast
expanse from thefifteenth to eighteenth centuries. In Part II, we start from the
center, examining structures of governance in the formative sixteenth and seven-
teenth centuries; here we look thematically at such key institutions and practices as
ideology, bureaucracy, economy and trade, religion, society. Part III on Russia’s
great century of empire, the eighteenth, replicates a classic divide in Russian history.
Peter I (ruled 1682–1725) is often taken to have revolutionized Russia. This is not
our argument—he maintained continuity with his predecessors in fundamental
elements of state building, such as imperial expansion, institutions of governance
and resource mobilization, toleration of difference. But the century stands out for
its dynamism—demographic growth was both indigenous and also boosted by
territorial expansion; the economy boomed; the Enlightenment provided new
6 The Russian Empire 1450– 1801