Addendum to Imperium
I finally got around to publishing my notes on Imperium, and then Tyler Cowen publishes this better description of the Russian national psyche
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.