The articles consider how the ideas of empire and nation have led to national identities that both encouraged interaction with the rest of Europe and have erected obstacles to freedom and full membership in Western European tradition.
Teoksessa lähestytään venäläisen keisarillisen identiteetin juuria ja ilmenemismuotoja 1800-luvulla monista eri lähtökodista: myyteistä, kirjallisuudesta, vähemmistökansoista ja jopa ohranan näkökulmasta. Kirja käsittelee myös Venäjän vallankumouksen vaikutusta venäläiseen identiteettiin, joka on hakenut muotoaan toisaalta keisarikuntana, toisaalta eurooppalaisena kansakuntana. Articles C. J. Chulos and J. Remy, Introduction: Russian Imperial Identity Elena Hellberg-Hirn, Imperial Places and Stories Mari Mäki-Petäys, Warrior and Saint: The Changing Image of Alexander Nevsky as an Aspect of Russian Imperial Identity Iain Lauchlan, Separate Realm? The Okhrana Myth and Imperial Russian "Otherness" 1881-1917 Eliisa Vähä, Out of Oppression into Brotherhood: The Meaning of the October Revolution as Part of National Identity in Soviet History Textbook C. J. Chulos, Stories of the Empire: Myth, Ethnography, and Village Origin Legends in 19th Century Russia Hubertus Jahn, Charity and National Identity in Late Imperial Russia Timo Piirainen, The Sisyphean Mission: New National Identity in Post-Communist Russia Johannes Remy, The Ukrainophile Intelligentsia and Its Relation to the Russian Empire in the Beginning of Reign of Alexander II (1856-63) Marina Vituhnovskaja, Karelians in the Context of Russian Imperial Policy during the Pre-Revolutionary Decade Krista Berglund, Apocalyptic and Nihilistic Russia? The Values of Imperial Russia and the Russian Revolution in Nikolai Berdyaev's Interpretation of Dostoevsky's "The Possessed" Geoffrey Hosking, Imperial Identies in Russia: Some Concluding Thoughts Index