Class 10. Global Empires (2)
that is happening now between Russia
and Ukraine is in that framework.
What do you do after empire,
where one answer can be "Let's have more empire," right?
One answer can be "Let's concentrate all kinds
of imperial thought and try them out in the 21st century."
And then there can be another answer,
which I think is the Ukrainian answer,
which is "Look for something that is not anti-imperial
but which is some way post-imperial."
And I'll talk more about that, but it's worth thinking
about that big question of what happens after empire.
Okay. So what is empire?
What's an empire?
Very briefly, we've talked about this,
I'll give you two very simple ways to think about empire.
One is that it's the opposite of a republic.
So if you remember the last lecture,
the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth...
In Polish, it's the Jrzeczpospolita.
It's a (speaking in Polish) or (speaking in Polish).
It's a republic,
which means it's a common matter, right?
Oh, America's supposed to be a republic, by the way.
And the thing about republics
is that republics are meant to have a group.
Now, that group might not be everybody, and usually,
it's not, but there is a group of people who have rights,
as opposed to, for example, on autocracy.
This notion that a republic and an empire are in some kind
of dialectic, of course, comes from Rome, right?
This is a Roman notion.
You have a republic.
What happens to your republic?
It falls and it becomes an empire.
So George Lucas didn't invent that, right?
That whole pattern of politics where you have a republic
and it's very flawed, and, like, the parliamentarism,
it's really boring, and, like, there's all this bureaucracy,
and then someone comes and he has quick solutions
and maybe a cloak.
All plagiarized, right?
Like, this whole notion of a republic,
the republic that fails and becomes an empire,
that's a classic historical trope.
And then even the notion that the people
who want to restore the republic are doing so
because of some kind of commitment to ideals,
which is the whole theme of the movies I'm talking about,
that is also very familiar from history, right?
The notion that...
Well, maybe I can't actually
justify the republic institutionally,
but a republic has a moral advantage over an empire, right?
That's an argument which is also 2000 years old
at the very least.
Okay, so second definition of empire
is that you can find a center and a periphery.
So in an empire, you know where the center is,
and the center is politically superior to
and economically exploitative of the periphery.
Okay. So Rome is the paradigm of all this.
I'm now going to spend just a few minutes
reviewing some of the things that we know
about the first thousand years of this class,
but within this framework.
So the Roman Empire...
We did all this.
Does it fall?
Does it not fall?
Depends on your point of view, right?
From the point of view of what the Franks say
and then what, you know, the European Renaissance says,
it fell and then it was recreated as the Frankish state
and then intellectually as the Renaissance later on.
From an East European point of view,
of course, Rome doesn't fall.
Byzantium is the Roman empire,
and Byzantium lasts until 1453.
And in our class, the way we're thinking
about the emergence of East European states
and in particular Kyiv and Rus is that there's contact
between these two empires, Byzantium,
which is clearly an empire, the Frankish state,
which later calls itself the Carolingian Empire,
which just means the Charles-ian Empire,
they're coming into contact,
they're competing politically
but also in terms of missionaries,
conversion to Christianity,
and that there's a third interesting force
that comes in between them, which are the Vikings, right?
That is our story of state creation,
and it has to do with empire.
Now, here is where we get into a very important point
which I'm going to emphasize later.
These empires are associated with a monotheistic religion.
And of course, the thing which makes Christendom
or the thing which makes Europe is that it is one,
it's one dominant monotheistic religion and not others.
The ancient world is a Mediterranean world, right?
The ancient Christian world is a Mediterranean world.
Christendom or Europe is the world which happens
not only after Islam but after Islam in general fails
to get through the Pyrenees on one side
and through the Caucasus.
I say in general because of course
there are huge exceptions, right?
Like the Bulgar Tatar state,
which then becomes later the Kazan khanate,
which today is Tatarstan and Russia, right?
But in general,
the idea is that Christendom is going to be northerly
and Islam is going to be southerly, in general.
And so these monotheistic states
recognize one another as monotheistic states,
and they recognize their own peoples
as people who you do not enslave.
This notion of statehood is so fundamental
that it often gets overlooked.
When we talk about the state, we often go very quickly
into very reified things about what the state might be,
but one basic notion of a state is that a state is a zone
in which you do not enslave your own people, right?
So the larger the state is, the larger the zone
in which you do not enslave your own people,
of course, which raises interesting questions
about when the United States becomes a state, right?
Or when the United States becomes a republic,
just to give you a very familiar territory.
But one way to think about state formation
is that you have elites
that are no longer enslaving the people around them
but instead are comfortable having them work the land
and taxing them, right?
Having some people work the land and be taxed,
have other people work the land
and become the warrior class, roughly speaking.
So that's what a state means,
and that's going to be very important as we move through,
because always in the back of your mind,
you should have the theme of slavery, because slavery,
it's not some kind of marginal topic.
It's not something you have to kind of sneak in at the end.
Slavery and statehood work together very carefully.
Slavery and recognition work together very, very carefully.
Like, this theme, which is a major theme still
in the history of the United States in the 21st century,
about who is recognized as belonging to the state,
has everything to do with slavery
and the history of slavery.
What I'm trying to suggest
is that this is actually a very old theme.
It goes back to what the purpose
of a state was from the start.
Okay, so now I want to remind you of the Mongols,
but in a slightly different way.
So we're going to talk more about this
on Tuesday, but the...
If I'm going too fast, you can just stop me
and say, "I need to take a breath
because you promised deep breaths.
I need a deep breath."
You can just say that and I'll...
Okay, sorry. Cult thing.
Gotta stop. All right.
But no, seriously, if you have a question, just,
and need me to pause, just ask and I'll pause.
Yes?
- [Student] So, like, these states,
obviously they don't enslave people,
but if they're doing things like Russia
where it's, like, all serfdom-
- Yeah. - How is that much different?
- Right, no, so that's a very interesting question.
So if you enslave... Good.
If you enslave, that generally involves,
not always, but it generally involves mobility.
So I'm about to talk about one of the biggest slave markets
in Europe, which is Kaffa in the 14th century in Crimea.
So slavery involves, not always, but often involves mobility
and commerce, so I enslave you, which means
I can take you somewhere and sell you, whereas serfdom
fundamentally is about binding people to the land.
So if I own serfs or own souls,
I don't actually have the right to round them up
and sell them to my neighbor.
What I do have is the right to say
they cannot leave my land.
But you're right to raise that.
I mean, that's another question
which redounds over the centuries in these comparisons
between Russia and the United States,
where people who are concerned with serfdom were reading
the American abolitionist literature and vice versa,
and there's a whole interesting literary story there.
So thanks for that question.
So it speaks to what it means to belong to a state.
So did the serfs belong to the Muscovite state?
Right? Okay.
So again, that's another...
A third way to think about republics and empires is,
if it's a republic, then theoretically,
you can belong to the state.
Not everybody does.
In an empire, mmm, there's not really,
that promise is not really contained
in the notion of the state.
All right, so let's think about the Mongols,
but now in a slightly different way.
The Mongols, as you know, come in and lay waste
to what remains of Kyiv and Rus in the 13th century,
and then they stick around,
and they stick around in their state,
which is called the Golden Horde,
breaks up into various other states,
including the Crimean Khanate,
which we're going to talk more about in the next lecture.
But the moment that I want to pause on here is in the 1340s
where something very important happens,
and it has to do with slavery.
So the most important
or one of the most important centers
of the slave trade was a city which used
to be known as Theodosius but which at the time
in the 14th century is known as Kaffa, K-A-F-F-A, Kaffa,
on the eastern edge of the Crimean Peninsula.
And at this time in the 14th century,
it is the Genoese
who are trading in Crimea.
So when we do the history of Crimea,
this is all going to become clear,
but when people talk about, like, what Crimea always was,
that's extremely suspicious,
because Crimea has been a whole,
even compared to the rest of Ukraine,
it's been a whole lot of things
in a very interesting sequence.
But in the 14th century, it is the Italian city states,
and in particular Genoa, that are dominating the trade,
and, you know, either by purchasing or by force,
are trying to control some of the territory
which belongs to the local khanate.
So there is a battle in the 1340s
between Genoa and between the Golden Horde,
and according to history,
although it's a little bit too good to be true,
it's one of these things
that's a little bit good to be true,
the way the Black Death spreads...
Have you heard this story?
The way the Black Death spreads
is that the people on the side
of the Golden Horde are dying of the Black Death.
This is 1346, 1347.
And so in order to...
So they invent biological weaponry.
Again, as I say, slightly too good to be true, this story.
And they catapult the corpses of their own dead soldiers
and commanders over the walls against the Genoese.
And this spreads the Black Death,
and then the Genoese spread it throughout Europe.
Okay, that happened, but the reason
why it's a little too good to be true
is that, of course, there were other routes
by which the Black Death could enter Europe.
I'm sure there was...
There wasn't only one vector.
You've now all lived how this works.
Like, there isn't...
There doesn't have to be just one plane from China.
There are probably going to be more vectors
of how the disease spreads.
Ah, nods of recognition.
But I want to spread this because I want to...
I don't want to spread it. (students laughing)
