'Turning an empire into nation states with sharply defined sovereign peoples and borders seldom comes without great conflict. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a case in point,' writes academic Dominic Lieven
EMPIRES ARE great powers. Their demise is usually accompanied by geopolitical convulsions and wars. They are also multinational polities with peoples living cheek by jowl. Turning an empire into nation states with sharply defined sovereign peoples and borders seldom comes without great conflict. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a case in point.
The consequences of imperial collapse often take a generation or more to emerge. Bangladesh’s secession from Pakistan happened 24 years after the end of British India. Although the end of the British empire was managed better than most, post-imperial conflicts still rage today all the way from Ireland, across the Middle East to Fiji. The worst of these is the confrontation between India and Pakistan over the disputed border region of Kashmir.
After 1945, the Soviet Union was the surviving empire. Now we are living with the consequences of its collapse. It was a miracle that this empire, with its bloodstained history and its massive security apparatus, disintegrated between 1985 and 1991 with barely a shot fired in its defence. The invasion of Ukraine is the belated revenge of the old Soviet security apparatus for what it sees as 30 years of humiliation, retreat and defeat.
As always, the loss of Russia’s empire meant most to its elites. It deeply wounded their sense of status, self-esteem and world-historical significance. The loss of Ukraine specifically has hurt Russians more than that of the other Soviet republics. Possession of Ukraine has long been essential to Russia’s existence as a great empire; its secession in 1991 sealed the Soviet Union’s fate. Crimea's loss hit Russians especially hard.
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