Tolz, Inventing The Nation - Russia

Abstract

During the Cold War, Americans often used, and confused, the term Soviet with Russian. Indeed, they were often synonymous in the American mind. Vera Tolz, however, asks the relevant question: Who are the Russians? The Soviet state was a multi-national one, as was the tsarist empire and what remains of modern Russia. Two competing views of the state and the nation emerged in the mid-nineteenth century that have dominated ever since, both of which evolve around Russian similarities with and differences from the European perception of a modern nation and state.