About the book: 2023 / After a major victory over Sweden in the Northern War, Tsar Peter I took the title of “emperor”. If before this the country was called Muscovite Russia, the Muscovite Kingdom, Russian Land or Russia, then from now on it was symbolically transformed into an “empire”. Did this mean that some fundamental change had occurred in the development of the country? And if so, what exactly has changed? Wasn’t there an empire before in the perception of the state elite? And what did the contemporaries of Peter I and his successors understand by “empire”? Did this understanding lay the foundation for the imperial consciousness that continues today? Ricarda Vulpius's book explores the 18th century as a turning point in the country's history and shows that the process of empire formation in Tsarist Russia did not follow any exclusive "special" path. The discourses and practices of civilization, acculturation, and assimilation that the Russian state operated reveal numerous parallels with the thinking and actions of other colonial empires. Analyzing the institution of citizenship and the practice of taking hostage non-Christian peoples of the East and South, the researcher shows how the idea of ​​assimilation, which existed in Russia until the 18th century, is combined with European civilizing discourse and leads to the formation of a comprehensive imperial self-awareness of the Russian elite. Ricarda Vulpius - professor at the University of Münster, specialist in the history of Eastern Europe.