How Russia Invented Itself
A review of Mark Galeotti’s “A Short History of Russia: How the World’s Largest Country Invented Itself, from the Pagans to Putin”
“Russia is a country with a certain future; it is only its past that is unpredictable.”
Even before the table of contents, Mark Galeotti sets up his new book, A Short History of Russia, perfectly. He relays the above Soviet joke, which is funny on the surface and then becomes more so when Galeotti illuminates the truth behind it. Russia’s leaders have manufactured and modified its history time and again depending upon what benefits the desired national self-concept. That is why a book like this is necessary. It divides truth from probable fiction while still explaining why the fiction was originally seen as necessary. It explains (as the book’s subtitle eludes) how Russia invented itself.
Throughout the book, Galeotti uses the metaphor of a palimpsest to describe the nature and motivations of the Russian people. If you blink, you’ll miss the metaphor’s introduction. A palimpsest is “a document that has been used and reused, time after time, over decades, and yet on which the earlier writings are still just about visible.” The Russian people, Galeotti writes, are just like…
