From the Editors. The State of Art in History Writing on Nation and Empire

526 Alexander SEMYONOV FROM THE EDITORS. THE STATE OF ART IN HISTORY WRITING ON NATION AND EMPIRE In this issue Ab Imperio continues to publish materials pertaining to the problem of representation of nation and empire in history writing and the usages of history in public discourse on national and regional identity. History is very much “alive” in this sense in the region of Eastern and Central Europe. One need not introduce sophisticated techniques of “New literary historicism” to make historical past relevant for the contemporary generation of the post-soviet countries, grappling with the issues of identity, borders , political guilt, and encounters with neighboring nations and cultures. Policy-makers in new national states on the post soviet space (all of which aspire to become nation-states but retain a visibly multiethnic population) consider historical claims and history curriculum as important components of political legitimation and formation of nationally conscious citizenry. We are far from belief that historians as a unified profession must or can control the usages of the past in contemporaneous public discourse. Neither do we subscribe to the position that a universal panacea can be devised to harmonize relationship between professional history writing and the historians ’political, national, cultural, and religious affiliation. However, we do believe that a relatively autonomous scholarly discussion can and should be carried out, whose implications should not be read as challenges to the A. Semyonov, From the Editors... 527 Ab Imperio, 3/2002 existing international and domestic political systems and whose impact may contribute to keeping the conceptual horizons of contemporary policymaking open to alternatives. Two pitfalls have become apparent in the course of contemporary debates on national historiography in this region. One is a drive to the “objective,” positivistic history, which owes much to the reaction of community of historians to openly ideological mode of history writing under Communism. This old ideal of Rankian history and the return to the classics of national and imperial historiography leave the doors wide open to reification of unreflected assumptions and categories of nation or empire-building practices. The other danger is encapsulated in the radical deconstruction of all national histories and historical representations as constructed and imagined in the sense of being an artificial creation of nationalistically driven intellectuals. This post-modernist perspective tends to overlook the fact that discourses on own national identity and constituent “others” have been widely spread and deeply ingrained in this region, sometimes yielded emancipatory effect and are capable of contributing to diversification of the existing historical master narratives. Finally, this trend is prone of producing a faked picture of peaceful coexistence of peoples in the region, whose history was underpinned with not all too infrequent violent encounters amongst empires and nations. Devising the publications in this review section of the journal, editors opt for a middle ground between the positivism and the radical deconstruction in writing of history of nation and empire. We do so in hope that a self reflective and contextual analysis of development of national and imperial historiographies as well as the scrutiny of changes in history writing of the post-Soviet period will broaden our understanding of empire and nation formation in the past and enrich historians’ arsenal of critical tools and perspectives for tackling present day historical narratives. We call on interested parties to contribute to the planned fora on respective national historiographies with their reviews, commentaries, and experience of teaching national, regional or imperial history. The present issue features the round table on problems of history of empire in historiography and curricular of secondary and higher education . The round table was held at the Omsk State University (Russia). Participants included university faculty and secondary school teachers who are conscious of and engaged in day to day reform of history curriculum. This selective publication of proceedings of the round table demonstrate the variety of present day meanings associated with the concept of empire (which date back to the key debates on national identity in the 19th century), and pinpoint possible directions of reinterpretation of Russian history in the “imperial” framework. One cannot fail to notice an implicit controversy in the roundtable between the “state school” interpretation of Russian “imperial ” experience as the one...