Навіщо Ab Imperio?

The idea of Ab Imperio was born after it became clear that the main Russian historical journals do not reflect the methodological changes taking place in historical scholarship throughout the world. Despite the failure of the project Novoe istoricheskoe oboȥrenie, which was supposed to be published under the aegis of NLO, the first issue of the new journal came out in Kazan in June 1990. The journal is known for its themed issues and annual themes, attention to methodological innovations in the fields of imperial studies and nationalism, the engagement of an international circle of specialists, and comparative approaches to various questions. The journal follows a number of traditions: the Russian “thick journal,” samizdat, and Western-style periodical publications (i.e., articles are accepted for publication only after a peer-review and editorial work with the author). Ab Imperio is a collective scholarly project and a conference forum for intellectuals, created around the “new imperial history,” a discipline that does not study structures (the authors emphasize that the constructivist approach to the description of nations has absolutely not touched the history of empires) but practices and discourses that are interwoven in a dynamic open system of the “imperial situation.” The journal invites authors and readers to distance themselves both from empire and nation, and to examine both these concepts as ideal types.