Must Empire Die? Romanov Empire, Nationalism and Political Turbulence of the Beginning of the 20th Century

Issues of Discussion:
1. 1How effective was the administrative management system of the Russian Empire in the second half of the 19th–early 20th centuries?
2. What was the role of the Russian autocrats in determining the political course? Can we talk about the omnipotence of bureaucracy?
3. How was formed the government policy in the Russian Empire? Who and how determined the “state agenda”?
4. Did the Romanovs have a political strategy? Was it situational decision making?
5. Could reforms save the Russian Empire? Was the revolution inevitable?
6. Did the empire disappear after the 1917 revolution or was the USSR the result of its peculiar conversion / transformation under the conditions of new internal and external challenges?
7. Is it possible to describe the universalism of empires, including the Russian one, by the “chaos” of a constructivist / postmodernist picture of the world?

Discussants:
Konev Aleksey Yu., Candidate of Science (History). Leading Researcher, Tyumen Scientific Center of Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Tyumen Scientific Center SB RAS).
Kotov Alexander E., Doctor of Science (History), Associate Professor, Institute of History, Saint-Petersburg State University.
Saginadze Ella O., Candidate of Science (History), Senior Fellow, Department of Russian History, Saint-Petersburg State University.
Teslya Andrey A., Candidate of Science (Philosophy), Researcher, Scientific Director of the Center for Research of Russian Thought, Institute of Humanities, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University.