Imperial Russian Foreign Policy

Aims to demythologise a field hitherto dominated by suspicion and fear, that of Russian foreign policy. Much of the research is drawn from previously unavailable Russian sources.

With contributions from both Russia and the West, this new book aims to demythologise a field hitherto dominated by suspicion and fear, that of Russian foreign policy. The book claims that the tsar was directly responsible for the formulation of most foreign policy and reveals the complex of motives behind his decisions.Imperial Russian Foreign Policy aims to demythologise a field hitherto dominated by suspicions of diabolical cunning, inscrutable motives, and international plots using unseen forces of the gigantic, fear-inspiring empire of the tsar. The contributors, leading historians from both Russia and the West, examine Imperial foreign policy from its origins to the October Revolution, revealing a policy that, as in other countries, had a complex of motives - commerce, nationalism, the interests of various social groups - but an unusual origin, coming almost exclusively from the entourage of the tsar. The work is based largely on original research in Soviet archives, which only became possible after Soviet glasnost.