Abstract
Reviewed by: George Gilbert, University of Southampton, UK
This book is the result of a lifetime’s work and thought concerning the history of late imperial Russia. Though most obviously a history of how imperial Russia collapsed, it is, as Dominic Lieven explains early on, actually three books: a history of Russia’s descent into the First World War; a novel take on the origins of the First World War, chiefly because it approaches events from a mostly unfamiliar Russian perspective; and, finally, an examination of the origins of the Russian Revolution perceived from an international angle. The first two chapters examine themes from what Lieven calls the ‘God’s-eye view’ – particularly, the rise of nationalism and the struggle for world powers to keep control of their empires in an age of mass politics and emerging local identities (14). The third, longest chapter examines some major personalities within Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs; in contrast to the first two chapters, the author goes into very fine detail here, assessing the key figures that lie at the heart of the work, including Nicholas II and the foreign ministers Aleksandr Izvolsky and his successor Sergey Sazonov. The fourth through seventh chapters examine major events in more detail, including the Balkan Crises and the July Crisis of 1914. The final chapter is an assessment of the impact of Russian domestic politics and the machinations within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on the war itself and the momentous events that led to the revolutions of 1917. Covering all of these areas in a single work is an almost overwhelming ask, made trickier by the dual approach adopted of detailed, empirical analysis and broader conceptual comparisons between world empires. Going into detail on all of the issues raised in this work is not possible in the space of a book review, so only a few comments on major themes will be made here. For this reader, Lieven’s analysis of the rise of nationalist lobbies inside tsarist Russia and the influence that the growing sphere of ‘public opinion’ applied on the tsar and his coterie of ministers was particularly intriguing: the bellicose nature of pundits such as Mikhail Men’shikov was increasing evidence of the influence of nationalist journalism in Russian public life. Similarly, the rise of Slavophilism within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs may not, eventually, have been the central cause of war, but was yet another major force that needed containing. Another central theme of the work was the split between ministers that saw Russia’s main interests as being located within Europe and those that turned their attention more towards Asia: the latter can be attested, among other things, by the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. The ideological and personal conflicts within this important sphere of rule impinged on any attempts to build a coherent and workable policy towards preserving the balance of power in Europe that might have made for a lasting peace. In spite of considerable new research, much of which was carried out in the now closed Russian State Military-Historical Archive, the work contains the hallmarks of Lieven’s approach to the study of Russian history adopted in his past work. This is a book primarily about people and personalities. In Lieven’s view, without the individual actions (and mistakes) made in the run-up to 1914, the trajectory of European and world history in the twentieth century would have been very different indeed, in spite of the dominant ideological and political trends that were the discontents of an emerging European modernity. The work contains many intriguing insights into key figures in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and also in the domestic sphere, such as within the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Curiously, it was clever and wholly reactionary ministers such as Petr Durnovo that proved to be both the most far-sighted about the coming cataclysm of European war and also the least dangerous threats to European stability; conversely, it was when Russia’s rulers desired to exploit more modern ideas about harnessing public opinion and manipulating the tensions associated with state-building that key mistakes were made in the run up to war. In the final chapter of the book, Lieven discounts the idea that Russia’s mobilization meant that the nation was largely to blame for what happened in the middle of 1914, in contrast to other recent scholarship. Outside of the very detailed chapters on the crises of 1914 and the decision makers, the work can feel somewhat fragmentary in its approach as it takes into account a number of very diverse areas; this is not, however, a problem, as the work is overall a very skilful analysis of the final few decades of late imperial Russia. It touches on points of interest for many specialists as well as those interested in European history on a more general level and should appeal to a very wide readership.