The Limits of Russian History, 1996—

Following the presidential election of 1996, there were many echoes of the past, both recent and more remote. The loudest and most persistent of them is that the course of Russian history never has run smooth, for major upsets in the shape of internal disturbances and/or invasions from outside have occurred in every one of its centuries. On many previous occasions, the question of reform or ruin has hung over the whole land, and the bells have rung out in alarm rather than celebration. Indeed, the tocsin sounds back through to the dawn of Kievan Rus, and we could find analogies with the present predicament even there.1