It is the largest state in the world with its 17 million km2 spread over two continents, Europe and Asia. A difficult territory to control, made particularly vulnerable by its geography.
For several centuries now, the central power has had as its horizon seemingly infinite spaces and which it has endeavored to colonize, whether we think of the Soviet empire with the popular democracies or even the era of the Romanovs, which multiplied territorial expansions for three centuries.
And if at the beginning of the reign of Ivan the Terrible, in 1551, Russia was a large country, its surface area was then almost ten times smaller than it would be in 1914. A new period of expansion would begin. with the USSR after the First World War, then new territorial wars with Vladimir Putin.
Is there a tradition of territorial conquest that transcends regimes in Russia? Can we speak of an expansionist culture? What is the origin of this obsession with mastering space? Are they to be attributed to the desire for territorial continuity, to economic, geostrategic or civilizational reasons?
What geography can we make of the borders of this immense country which seems to want to impose its way of seeing on the largest possible territory, and how can we better understand, thanks to history, this expansionist desire, which led it there? two years of trying to invade Ukraine?
With Marie-Pierre Reyprofessor of Russian and Soviet history at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and director of the Center for Research in the History of the Slavs and of UMR-8138-SIRICE, author, with François-Xavier Nérard of the Historical Atlas of Russia: from Ivan III to Vladimir Putin a new version of which has just been published by Autre editions.
The map of the territory
Russian expansionism: a tradition since the 16th century that is still relevant today. – Historical Atlas of Russia – Editions Autre
Find the map of the territory from Tuesday on @Mgarrigou and the Bluesky social network
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2024-02-08 20:07:49
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