An Ambitious New Work on Russian Foreign Policy

Abstract

SEER,Vol. 8o, No.4, October 2002 Review Article An AmbitiousNew Workon RussianForeign Policy DAVID GOLDFRANK, HANS BAGGER, ALFRED RIEBER, DAVID MACKENZIE, AND DAVID McDONALD WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND CONCLUSION BY HUGH RAGSDALE A. N. Sakharov (otvet. red.); A. V. Ignat'ev (zam. otvet. red.); 0. V. Orlik;G. A. Sanin, V. M. Khevrolina (eds).Istoriia vneshneipolitiki Rossii(konets XVveka-ig97 g.).5 vols. Mezhdunarodnyeotnosheniia , Moscow, 1995-I 999. INorder to situate this significantnew work in a context appropriate for its evaluation, let us begin with what is most essential in the idiosyncraticfieldofRussianforeignpolicy.Two paradoxicalpostulates are fundamental.On the one hand, we are in possessionof a relatively substantial,and sometimes distinguished,literature,both Russian and foreign, on the subject.On the otherhand, we do not have a genuinely coherent historiographicaltradition in the subject either at home or abroad -either in Russiaor in WesternEuropeand the United States. The frustration attendant on this latter circumstance is plainly apparentwhen we consultthe standardsurveysof the historiographyof Russia.' It may well surprise the reader unfamiliar with the field of foreignpolicy to discoverthat the most illustriousnames in it are either entirelyabsentfromsuch surveysor appearonly in contexts otherthan foreignpolicy. In fact, there is to my knowledge only one seriouspiece of work not exhaustive but sophisticated and authoritative devoted to the historiographyof Russianforeignpolicy.2 If we search, as we usuallydo in such matters,for a usefultaxonomy of the field, we find, in my opinion, only one constellation of authors Hugh Ragsdaleis EmeritusProfessorof Historyat the Universityof Alabama.He livesin Charlottesville, Virginia. AnatoleMazour,Modern Russian Historiography, Westport,CT, I975; idem, TheWriting of History intheSoviet Union, Stanford,CA, I971; GeorgeVernadsky,Russian Historiography. A Histogy,ed. Sergei Pushkarev,trans. Nickolas Lupinin, Belmont, MA, I978; Samuel H. BaronandNancyW. Heer(eds),Windows onthe Russian Past:Essays onSoviet Historiography since Stalin,Columbus,OH, I977; N. L. Rubinshtein,Russkaia istoriografia, Moscow, I94I; A. L. Shapiro,Russkaia istoriograflia s drevneishikh vremen do1917 g., 2nd edn, Moscow, 1993; ThomasSanders(ed.),Historiography ofImperial Russia: 7The Profession andWriting ofHistory ina Multinational State, Armonk,NY, I999. 2 AlfredJ. Rieber, 'The Historiographyof ImperialRussianForeignPolicy.A Critical Survey',in HughRagsdaleandValeriiNikolaevichPonomarev(eds),Imperial Russian Foreign Policy,Washington, D.C. and New York, 1993, pp. 360-443. HUGH RAGSDALE ET AL. 689 whose intellectual kinship qualifies it as a school, the gosudarstvennoiuridicheskaia shkola(state-juridicalschool) in late Imperial Russia and the earlyphase of the emigrationof the tsaristintelligentsia.3In matters of foreignpolicy, it was initiatedappropriatelyby Sergei M. Solov'ev's Istoriia Rossiisdrevneishikh vremen, I5 vols/ 29parts(Moscow, I960- I966). Though Solov'ev'smagisterialscope brought the subjectonly into the early part of the reign of Catherine II, his IstoriiapadeniiaPol'shi (Moscow, I863)4and Imperator Aleksandr Pervyi: politika-diplomatiia (Moscow , i877) extended his coverage to important elements of the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Given his perspective, Solov'ev not unnaturally chose to focus on the influence of Peter I, Catherine II, and Alexander I.5While emphasizing in the fashion of the school the creative initiative of the state in the formation of the societyand nation, Solov'evargued,perhapssomewhatdubiously,that the foreign policy of the government neverthelessexemplified the will and favourof the Russianpublic. Neither of his great successorsof the following generation, Vasily 0. Kliuchevskii and Pavel N. Miliukov, devoted the same attention to foreignpolicy, and both representedthe domestic policy of Peter I in particularas an instrumentin the service of military ambition and foreign conquest, an objective to which the well-being of the nation was often sacrificed.6 3 I follow Rieber (ibid., pp. 36I-70) here in the selection of authors belonging to the school. My principle of procedure is to focus on Russian historiography and to footnote comparable Western historiography of Russia. Considerations of space and proportion compel me to be sparing in commentary. 4 Cf. Adolf Beer, Die ersteTheilungPolens,3 vols, Vienna, I873; Albert Sorel, La question d'Orient auXVIII siecle,lepartagedela Pologne etla traitedeKainardji, 2nd edn, Paris, I889; R. H. Lord, 7he SecondPartitionof Poland, Cambridge, MA, 19I5; Herbert Kaplan, The First Partitionof Poland,New York, I962; Michael G. Muller, Die Teilungen Polens, I772, I793, I795, Munich, I984. 5 Modern Russian historiography has yet to give us challenging biographies of these three figures, but we have two significant monographs on the foreign policy of Catherine, widely separated...