• A
  • A
  • A
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • ABC
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
  • А
Regular version of the site

 The present day conversation about world order, religion, nationalism, ethnicity, and immigration is densely populated by metaphorical and analytical references to the history of world empires and their legacies. In current public debates empire is invoked in two opposing modes: for some empire is an illegitimate form of rule and unstable political formation bent on the road to collapse;  for others empire is a nostalgic place of cosmopolitanism and instructive lessons for world politics and management of diversity.     The present project provides an explanation for the puzzle of diametrically opposed contemporary views on empire. With the help of broad range of new methodologies for studying imperial formations and nationalism the project explores the phenomenon of imperial crises in comparative perspective and uses it as a lens to look at multiple historical legacies of empire and the origins of post-imperial political imagination that sought to accommodate, rearrange or eliminate diversity of the inherited imperial space. The primary focus of the project is on the Russian Empire/Soviet Union and Ottoman Empire/post-Ottoman space. Located in the broader comparative context of modernizing empires and post-imperial political imagination those cases provide illuminating perspectives on the range of exit strategies from the imperial crises: from unitary assimilationist nation-state to a multinational federation.

Participants of the Project "Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism" are organizing a Roundtable at the 48th Convention of the ASEEES

The Head of the Working group of the International Research Project "Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism" Professor Alexander Semyonov, the Head of the Project Professor Ronald G.Suny, and the member of the working group postdoc, junior research fellow Anton Kotenko will participate in the 48th annual Convention of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES) in Washington, DC, on Novermber 17-20th.

The Book by Ronald Suny Won the Prestigious Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize

The book by Prof. Ronald Grigor Suny (Head of the International Research Project "Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism") “They Can Live in the Desert but Nowhere Else”: A History of the Armenian Genocide" has won the Wayne S. Vucinich Book Prize.

Prof. Ronald G. Suny has received one of the University of Michigan's top honors as a Distinguished University Professor

We are happy to announce that Prof. Ronald G. Suny, head of the Research Project "Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism” has received one of the University of Michigan's top honor of the Distinguished University Professor named in honor of the University of Chicago professor emeritus William H. Sewell, Jr.

130th Annual Meeting of American Historical Association

Participants of the International Research Project "Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism" Alexander Semyonov (Chair, Department of History; Senior Research Fellow, Centre for Historical Research) and Ivan Sablin (Associate Professor, Department of History) took part in the 130th Annual Meeting of American Historical Association (January 7-10 in Atlanta, USA). American Historical Association is the oldest and the biggest professional association of the historians.

Publication of a book series “Imperial Transformations -- Russian, Soviet, and Post-Soviet History”

In Novermber 2015 an agreement on book series with Routledge (category B by SENSE ranking of scientific publishers) “Imperial Transformations: Russian, Soviet and Post-Soviet History” was signed by Prof Alexander Semyonov and Prof Ronald Suny.

Professor Ronald G. Suny gave an interview for Russia Today International television news network

On the 28th of November Professor Ronald G. Suny -  Head of the International Research Project “Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism”, HSE - Saint-Petersburg, disussed relationship between the U.S. and Turkey on RT International.

Professor Ronald G. Suny gave an interview for Russia Today International television news network

On the 15th of October Professor Ronald G. Suny -  Head of the International Research Project “Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism”, HSE - Saint-Petersburg, disussed ECHR Armenian Genocide Ruling on RT International.

Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism

The Department of History is pleased to announce an intensive course of Professor Ronald G. Suny, (University of Michigan and the Head of the International Research Project “Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism” of the HSE University in Saint-Petersburg) "Russia’s Empires. Thinking About Empire" for undergraduate and graduate students.

Professor Ronald G. Suny, head of the international research project "Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism", today celebrates his 75th birthday!

Summer Research and Educational Seminar for history students in Germany

July 6, 2015, 15 students of the undergraduate program in History together with the chair of the Department of History professor Alexander Semyonov and long-term DAAD associate professor Dietmar Wulff will start a visit to Berlin and Bielefeld.