Russia’s Rome: Imperial Visions, Messianic Dreams, 1890-1940

(University of Wisconsin Press)  A study of empire, religious prophecy, and nationalism in literature, Russia’s Rome examines Russia’s self-identification with Rome during a period that encompassed the revolutions of 1905 and 1917 and the rise of the Soviet state. The author argues that the myth of Russia as the “Third Rome” was resurrected to create a Rome-based discourse of Russian national identity that endured even as the empire of the tsars declined. Kalb is an associate professor of Russian and comparative literature at the University of South Carolina.