Anatoly Reshetnikov’s monograph on Russia’s interpretations of greatness, as they have been discursively constructed by Russian political elites over the past millennium, is a major and brilliantly executed contribution to the long-lasting academic debates on sources of Russian foreign policy and on seemingly ever-present tensions between Russia’s understandings of itself and of Russia by outside observers. Scholars of Russian history and foreign policy generally agree that Russia’s engagement with the world has been profoundly shaped by its vision of itself as a great power. Yet, Reshetnikov takes this literature significantly further by undertaking an impressive investigation of how Russia’s idea of velikaia derzhava (often translated into English as “great power”) has evolved over centuries in ways that have displayed both similarities with and differences from the idea of “great power” in the west. As explained in the introduction, the study “reconstruct[s] a conceptual history of velikaya derzhava and place[s] it in international context, comparing the history of this concept to the evolution of related non-Russian concepts, such as ‘great power’” (5).

The monograph approaches this task by focusing on Russia’s international and “interlingual” relations with other polities, particularly with those in the west. It demonstrates how the idea of velikaia derzhava emerges and evolves through “the process of Russia’s conversation with the world” (6). Yet, importantly, it also shows that Russia’s idea of velikaia derzhava, similar to great power discourses in other political and cultural contexts, “feeds on domestic resources, has to answer to certain domestic demands and account for long-lasting discursive legacies to produce resonance” (16). Having traced how dominant meanings attached to velikaia derzhava have changed over time, the monograph develops a convincing argument that these understandings have constituted—both historically and in contemporary Russia—“a kind of mobilizational ideology that can never achieve its declared intentions, given Russia’s relative position in the global economy and the current discursive hegemony on this issue” (5). A major strength of the book lies in its meticulous linguistic analysis of an impressively wide selection of sources, ranging from religious and literary artefacts to diplomatic correspondence to public statements, and spanning from eleventh century Rusʹ to Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Focusing on periods of major change in Russia’s (and its predecessors’) domestic political arrangements and position in the international system, the monograph demonstrates how Russia’s discourse of greatness has gone through “four separate, but genealogically related” hegemonic modes that rose to prominence at different times: “absolute, theatrical, civilizational, and international socialist” (25).

The structure of the book is easy to navigate, making it equally accessible for experts in Russia’s foreign policy, scholars and students of International Relations, and general readers interested in Russian history and contemporary politics. Having explained its approach to interlingual relations and discursive evolution in the first chapter, the monograph explores the discursive modes mentioned above as they challenged preceding modes, drew on them and ultimately replaced each other across centuries in chapters 2–6. The concluding chapter looks at discursive constructions of greatness in post-Soviet Russia, reflects on implications of Russia’s return to the civilizational mode under Putin for its domestic politics and foreign policy, including its war against Ukraine, and discusses discursive traps associated with the idea of greatness for Russia’s longer-term development. It argues that the apparent contradictions in Russia’s understandings of itself as a velikaia derzhava—as they have persistently combined seemingly irreconcilable emphases on Russia’s strength and weakness—have been crucial in Russia’s use of greatpowerhood as a “mobilizing ideology.” Although confusing for outside observers, this ideology has functioned “to help overcome precisely the condition of economic weakness and deteriorating international recognition” (225).

Reshetnikov’s monograph is an outstanding exploration of conceptual history that significantly advances our understanding of Russia’s discursive legacies and enables us to appreciate the linguistic nuances of “conceptual entanglement” (23). Beyond Russia, it makes a valuable contribution to wider debates on status-seeking—an area of studies that is becoming increasingly more important as we are witnessing the ongoing transformation of the international order. As different states reinterpret their conceptions of greatness, we urgently need to gain a better understanding of what drives their engagement with the world. While the monograph provides some perceptive insights into these processes as applied to Russia, we may want to push this enquiry further by asking whether/how Russia’s apparent return to the civilizational mode in recent decades is developing through interlingual relations with non-western Others, and what these contemporary dialogues may tell us about changes in the discursive hegemony, as seen from Russia.