SUMMARY:

Ronald Suny agrees with Ben Eklof that Russian scholarship has long been – and to some extent remains (though this is rapidly changing) – a “colonized” subject of Western scholarship. Instead of a “republic of letters,” bringing together European, American, and Russian scholars in a common conversation among equals, we have an “empire of letters” that has left the “East” in a subordinate position within a knowledge/power hierarchy. He sees Mironov as an example of a “normal” partner in a new type of scientific communication. Mironov is both a native historian of Russia with all the privileges of language, local knowledge, and the sensitivity that location brings with it, as well as a world historian who incorporates global perspectives into his research to better illuminate the past of his own country. Nativism, of course, comes with its own limitations and prejudices, but so do distance and foreignness. As the historical profession in both Russia and the West move from encrusted parochialisms toward a more cosmopolitan embrace of diverse historiographical practices no matter where they originate, hisorians in the West and their colleagues in Russia are more likely to be able to lay the groundwork for a durable “useable past.”