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Author Reshetnikov, Anatoly, author

Title Chasing greatness : on Russia's discursive interaction with the West over the past millennium / Anatoly Reshetnikov
Published Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press, 2024
©2024

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Description 1 online resource (xiv,, 267 pages)
Series Configurations: critical studies of world politics
Configurations (Ann Arbor, Mich.)
Contents Intro -- Contents -- List of Illustrations -- Translation and Transliteration Note -- Acknowledgments -- Chapter 1. Introduction: Great Power vs. Velikaya Derzhava -- Chapter 2. Absolute Greatness: Origins and Early Evolution -- Chapter 3. Theatrical Greatness: From Majesty to Glory -- Chapter 4. Troubled Encounter: Back to Absolute? -- Chapter 5. Failed Synthesis: Modernization through Self-Revelation -- Chapter 6. A World Apart: The Rise and Fall of International Socialist Greatness -- Chapter 7. Conclusion: Uses, Legacies, and Traps of Greatness in Post-Soviet Russia -- Bibliography
Summary Over the last two decades, it has become clear that Russia insists on its great power status, even at considerable cost. Chasing Greatness provides an interpretive explanation of the tacit rules that shape Russia's great power identity today. Anatoly Reshetnikov argues that this never-ending chase for greatness is a result of how Russia and its predecessors--including the USSR, Russian Empire, Muscovy, and Kievan Rus'--historically interacted with its neighbors to the east, the south, and particularly the west. By analyzing an extensive amount of original source material, including primary sources that have not been previously translated into English, he is able to reconstruct a millennial history of the Russian concepts that express political greatness. He also traces numerous encounters between Russia and the West, as well as Russia's troubled integration into the European society of states in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, to show how these concepts have affected Russia's interaction with international society. Despite its substantive historical depth, Chasing Greatness is not a book of history. Rather, it is a synthesizing social science work inspired by the continental tradition of the critical history of modernity. As such, the book is more about the present than about the past. Its main aim is to expose and explain the rich conceptual baggage behind Russia's unceasing great power rhetoric (domestic and international) and how this rhetoric drives the current international crises involving Russia
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references (pages 243-267) and index
Notes This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial 4.0 International License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0
Description based on information from the publisher
SUBJECT Russia (Federation) -- Foreign relations. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2005000242
Russia (Federation) -- Politics and government. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh88002518
Russia -- Foreign relations. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh92004162
Russia -- Politics and government. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh92004045
Soviet Union -- Foreign relations. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85125747
Soviet Union -- Politics and government. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85125832
Genre/Form Electronic books
Form Electronic book
Author Michigan Publishing (University of Michigan), publisher.
ISBN 9780472904389
0472904388