SUMMARY:

Chapter 8 of the history course A New Imperial History of Northern Eurasia is titled “The Dilemma of Stability and Progress: Empire and Reforms in the Nineteenth Century.” By the end of the eighteenth century the Russian Empire had incorporated almost the entire loosely defined region of Northern Eurasia with its overlapping and contesting local cultures, social hierarchies, and regimes of difference. From then on, the stability of the imperial regime became conditioned by its ability to accommodate and rationalize spontaneous self-organization processes of the societies and cultures that it had incorporated. This predetermined the systematically reformist and modernizing character of the Russian Empire, regardless of the reactionary political views of some of its rulers: only constant customization of the social and political order sustained the legitimacy of the regime in the eyes of various social elites.
Part 1 of the chapter, “Modern Empire in Search of Nation,” focuses on the first half of the nineteenth century and the efforts of the imperial rulers (both Alexander I and Nicholas I) to accommodate the emerging phenomenon of modern nation, in its various renderings, toward the needs of the reforming empire. Traditionally viewed as an “empire-killer,” nationalism was used purposefully from the very beginning in an attempt to design a future imperial regime – one that was more dynamic and competitive.