Marginal Revolution、Khodarkovsky の『The Steppe and its Empires』を推薦
重要ポイント
- •Marginal Revolution の記事は、Michael Khodarkovsky のロシア帝国とユーラシア帝国に関する新著を好意的に紹介している。
- •記事はこの本を「very much like」と述べ、最後に「Recommended.」と結んでいる。
- •最初の抜粋は、ロシアの帝国支配が異例なほど制約が少なく、正教会に強く支えられていたと論じている。
- •別の抜粋は、ユーラシアの支配者が国家帝国ではなく普遍帝国の君主として自らを捉えていたと述べている。
- •抜粋は、この帝国モデルが中心と周縁の区別を曖昧にし、自由に関する制度の発展余地を狭めたことを示唆している。
経済ブログ Marginal Revolution は 2026年8月15日、「That was then, this is now」というタイトルの記事で、歴史家 Michael Khodarkovsky の新著 The Steppe and its Empires: The Russian Empire & its Eurasian Counterparts を好意的に紹介した。記事は「I very much like」と述べ、最後も簡潔に「Recommended.」で締めくくられている。紹介された抜粋からは、この本が、宗教、主権、権力の言語が交差するさまざまな歴史的文脈において、帝国支配がどのように正当化されたかに関心を持つ読者を想定していることがうかがえる。
記事は本から 2 つの抜粋を載せている。最初の抜粋では、Khodarkovsky はロシアが他の帝国的伝統とは異なっていたと論じる。
Russia presented the most remarkable contrast to both Eurasian and Western empires. The power of Muscovite tsars and Russian emperors seemed to be completely unconstrained by moral or ethical boundaries. Whereas religious authorities in Europe, the Islamic world, and China kept some distance from the state and had a degree of independence from the rulers, in Russia the Orthodox Church was fully behind the autocratic powers of the tsars. Ivan III was the first to adopt the title samoderzhets (a calque of a title of Byzantine emperors, literally “autocrat” in Greek), which he used in the sense of a “sovereign” ruler. It took another half century before his grandson, Ivan IV, began to use the title to signal his exceptional, universal, and unrestrained power.
2 つ目の抜粋は、より広くユーラシアの支配者たちの自己認識に焦点を当てる。
To begin with, each Eurasian ruler conceived of himself as the sovereign of a universal, not national, empire. Such a ruler was non plus ultra; confident in his superiority over other religious or political bodies, he was destined to rule the world, if not politically, at least rhetorically, an autocrat whose subjects’ servile condition was a natural state. Seen through the prism of a universal monarchy, the Eurasian imperial vision blurred the separation between metropolis and periphery, between the peoples within and outside the empire’s boundaries, between servitude and slavery. Whether they were elites or commoners, all were considered to be in personal servitude to an emperor and often referred to by a term interchangeable with slave. Consequently, Eurasian societies did not develop either the notions or the institutions that could enshrine the idea of freedom… The concept of universal monarchy allowed for little differentiation between internal and external territories.
