To the Reader

Ab Imperio, 1-2/2001 7 TO THE READER Working on the issue devoted to “Imperial Mythologies,” we discovered that it is precisely this problem that attracts much of interest of many Russian and Western scholars. Nowadays it seems virtually inconceivable to address the problem of empire without studying the language of empire’s self-perception, the construction of imperial power, relationship between imperial and regional identity, the mapping of the external frontier of the empire and internal boundaries within imperial territory, the “imagining” of the empire’s past by the historical profession, conscious about mythmaking ideologues, writers, poets, and even by children in their childhood memoirs. Currently, we witness the process of mythologization of not only the preRevolutionary Russian history. The recent Soviet empire is gradually becoming a myth. In this situation the editors of Ab Imperio legitimately expected the flow of valued contributions to the issue specifically focused on “Imperial Mythologies.” But our expectations were greatly surpassed by the number of authors who offered articles for publication. Despite rigorous criteria of review and selection process, the volume grew rather thick. Its materials range from the period of Kievan Rus’ to the contemporary Russian history and expose multiple approaches to the topic. The thickness of the issue certainly reflects the present day research interest in empire as a selfreflecting polity. Instead of artificially cutting down the volume to the “normal size” we decided to make a double issue on “Imperial Mythologies” to preserve the variety of insightful and deep accounts of that phenomenon in the Russian case. Editors of Ab Imperio: I. Gerasimov S. Glebov A. Kaplunovski M. Mogilner A. Semeyonov ...