SUMMARY:

Ilya Gerasimov discusses implications of the project of building “a liberal empire” in Russia, which was recently introduced into the public debate by Anatoly Chubais, a liberal politician and CEO of the Russian state electric company “United Energy Systems”. This vision of a new (liberal) empire by Chubais deliberately ignores complex historical and ideological connotations of this term, particularly in the Russian context. Another peculiar trait of this latest edition of Russian ideology of imperialism consists in virtually ignoring the internal dimension of empire as a system of domestic policies, administrative structures, cultural and ethnoconfessional arrangements, and so on. The initial stage of public discussion of the project of “liberal empire” shows an alarmingly low level of expertise provided by historians and political scientists, specifically invited to comment on the Chubais’ program. The essay is based on the typescript of a recent TV show aired by the First Channel under the title “Empire for the People”.