# Michael Khodarkovsky

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The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts with Michael Khodarkovsky (Yale UP, 2026)

What is Russia? For two centuries, observers inside and outside the country have tried to answer that question, and most of them have looked west. The familiar story holds that Peter the Great pulled a backward Muscovy toward Europe and that Catherine the Great finished the job by declaring Russia …

The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts with Michael Khodarkovsky (Yale UP, 2026)

What is Russia? For two centuries, observers inside and outside the country have tried to answer that question, and most of them have looked west. The familiar story holds that Peter the Great pulled a backward Muscovy toward Europe and that Catherine the Great finished the job by declaring Russia …

The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts with Michael Khodarkovsky (Yale UP, 2026)

What is Russia? For two centuries, observers inside and outside the country have tried to answer that question, and most of them have looked west. The familiar story holds that Peter the Great pulled a backward Muscovy toward Europe and that Catherine the Great finished the job by declaring Russia …

The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts

Winston Churchill famously called Russia "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But what if the riddle is partly of our own making—the product of a habit of looking only west for answers? Michael Khodarkovsky today argues that to understand Russia, we need to look east, to the steppe a…

The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts

Winston Churchill famously called Russia "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But what if the riddle is partly of our own making—the product of a habit of looking only west for answers? Michael Khodarkovsky today argues that to understand Russia, we need to look east, to the steppe a…

The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts

Winston Churchill famously called Russia "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But what if the riddle is partly of our own making—the product of a habit of looking only west for answers? Michael Khodarkovsky today argues that to understand Russia, we need to look east, to the steppe a…

The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts

Winston Churchill famously called Russia "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But what if the riddle is partly of our own making—the product of a habit of looking only west for answers? Michael Khodarkovsky today argues that to understand Russia, we need to look east, to the steppe a…

The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts

Winston Churchill famously called Russia "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But what if the riddle is partly of our own making—the product of a habit of looking only west for answers? Michael Khodarkovsky today argues that to understand Russia, we need to look east, to the steppe a…

The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts

Winston Churchill famously called Russia "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But what if the riddle is partly of our own making—the product of a habit of looking only west for answers? Michael Khodarkovsky today argues that to understand Russia, we need to look east, to the steppe a…

The Steppe and Its Empires: The Russian Empire and Its Eurasian Counterparts

Winston Churchill famously called Russia "a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma." But what if the riddle is partly of our own making—the product of a habit of looking only west for answers? Michael Khodarkovsky today argues that to understand Russia, we need to look east, to the steppe a…