Gerhard Casper Lecture

The Russia Within

For a good part of Russia’s modern history, it has comprised only one part of a larger entity—namely, the Russian Empire or the USSR. Paul Werth thus posits that “Russia” could refer not only to the larger, multinational country ruled from Moscow or St. Petersburg, but also to a smaller entity within that larger state—the “Russia within.” The definition and the complication of explaining Russia’s precise territorial scope represent the central issues surrounding modern Russian national identity as well as its questioning of national borders today.