"Boundaries of History" - Dominic Lieven: "Profile of a Job: Emperorship across the Millennia"

Abstract: "The talk discusses what it meant to be an emperor throughout recorded history and across the whole of Eurasia and northern Africa. Emperors generally combined the roles of high priest, warrior leader, chief executive officer, fount of justice and father of a dynasty to varying degrees and in different combinations. The talk looks at supreme power as refracted through the prism of different religious, cultural, political and dynastic traditions. It focuses on specific elements (e.g. courts and chief ministers) and challenges (e.g. succession and educating heirs) connected with ruling an empire. This is a presentation of work in progress since the book connected to this project will not be completed until late 2020. But the talk may nevertheless lead to an interesting discussion of themes central to comparative imperial history."

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Dominic Lieven is a research professor at Cambridge University (Senior Research Fellow, Trinity College), a Fellow of the British Academy and of Trinity College, Cambridge, and the most prominent English scholar in the domain of Imperial Russian history. He graduated first in the class of 1973 in history from Cambridge University and was a Kennedy Scholar at Harvard in 1973/4. Subsequently, he has been inter alia a Humboldt Fellow in Germany, and a visiting professor at Tokyo University and Harvard. His research focuses primarily on history of empires and monarchy, and ranges from the Napoleonic era till the First World War. His key publications include: Russia and the Origins of the First World War (1983); Russia’s Rulers under the Old Regime (1988); Aristocracy in Europe (1992); Nicholas II: Emperor of all the Russians (1993); Empire: The Russian Empire and its Rivals (2001); The Cambridge History of Russia. Volume 2 (2006, Editor); Russia against Napoleon. The Struggle for Europe, 1807-1814 (2009); Towards the Flame. Empire, War and the End of Tsarist Russia (2015).