from lat. Imperium - empire) - a complex state formation (superstate), a unitary association of heterogeneous parts with an imperial center, a metropolitan country that creates an empire and manages it and its constituent parts, which are at different stages of the formation of their own statehood and subordinate to the metropolis. Empire is an early archaic form of forced national-state integration, a converted realization of the historical trend of the unity of the world. Ancient empires often actually covered the entire known territory of land and sea, beyond which ancient geopolitics was no longer oriented.
The emergence of empires in history was a continuation and development of a simpler, more organic and stable statehood of the “nation-state” type - a socio-political structure of a community (tribal, ethnic, national), with a single ruler, with the distribution of one type of power, economy, culture, language. The formation of such a state and its intensive development on a limited territory (the Italian region of Latium with the center in the city of Rome, the Grand Duchy of Moscow, English, French and other European states) could lead to its expansion into a weaker near and far geopolitical environment in search of resources, material assets and for the sake of strengthening the military-political power and, ultimately, to the formation of an empire.
Empires may include other nation-states with their own established statehood, historically older than the statehood of the metropolis (Greece or Judea as part of the Roman Empire, India in the British Empire, etc.), as well as peoples on different stages pre-state development.
The degree of subordination of parts of the empire to its mother country is different - from allied and almost equal relations with the mother country (Australia, Canada as part of the British Empire) to limited subordination to control from the center (protectorates, mandated, trust and administered territories) and complete subordination (colonial possessions).
Empires can be compact continental (Austro-Hungarian, Russian), states with the so-called. overseas territories (British, French, Dutch, etc.) and a mixed type (Roman Empire). There are also colonial and non-colonial empires. Most of the empires of feudal and bourgeois Europe belonged to the first, much less often colonialism was developed in ancient world due to the low territorial mobility of the population. However, the ancient empires also moved their population to the conquered lands, created trade, cultural and administrative centers there, placed garrisons that gave rise to entire countries (Gallia, Dacia, etc.).
The heterogeneity of empires and the coercive nature of imperial allegiance at all times invariably gave rise to internal tensions, conflicts, uprisings and liberation. civil wars. The contradictions of imperial statehood were exacerbated by the need to uniformly and stably manage peoples and territories at different levels of development, and maneuver between two historical trends: the concentration and centralization of power and its decentralization, that is, between the desire to fully control the state and the need to preserve and maintain autochthonous government , to combine the dominance and privileges of the ruling nation with national, political and religious tolerance.
The unitary nature of empires is determined, as a rule, by the unity of the highest political and legal institutions, the armed forces and the financial system. The internal contradictions of empires were supplemented throughout their history by armed clashes between them, which often ended in the collapse of more weak side(for example, the death of the Byzantine Empire in 1453) and wars for the redistribution of colonies, including two world wars of the 20th century. This struggle culminated in the 20th century. completion of a thousand-year history of empires. Their almost universal collapse is explained by the following reasons: 1) a deep historical crisis of relations of domination with the use of armed violence, which came as a result of the 2nd World War and found that all imperial goals can be achieved without capture and subjugation of the means of exchange (actions, labor resources, capital , goods, information); 2) a general change in post-war international relations, the creation of the UN, an organized world community, the internationalization of the democratic process - a complex of political and ideological changes incompatible with the existence of enslaved, forced and dependent countries and peoples; 3) reduction of uneven development and international inequality; 4) the contradiction between the liberal-democratic social system, the intensive scientific and technological development of the metropolitan countries and the situation of the backward and degenerating imperial periphery; 5) the incompatibility of this situation with the imperatives of the world civilizational process, the dominant force of which was striving to become the imperial West; 6) an object lesson of imperial anachronism - the collapse of attempts to create new empires (German and Japanese) in the era of transition to new industrial and post-industrial societies; 7) the influence of liberating socialist ideas that came not only from a Soviet, but also from a Western European source; 8) the rise of national self-consciousness and the liberation movement in the subordinate parts of empires (a process that began at the end of the 18th century in America); 9) restoration or creation anew of rational constructions of nation-states (a source of anti-imperial separatism); 10) internal structural crisis of empires - violation of the permissible physical limits of complexity, controllability, expedient financial costs, expenditures of state resources for the maintenance and protection of empires.
In the 2nd floor. 20th century the historical system of world empires collapsed, leaving only some relic traces (China, Tibet, economic neo-imperialism of the great powers and transnational corporations). The collapse of empires left behind a wave of post-war separatism, which also captured integral unitary states - such as Canada, Spain, France (Quebec, Basque, Breton separatism, respectively), etc. Imperial statehood and imperialism itself as a means of integration are being replaced by large regional and functional unions states and fundamentally new form voluntary integration of the EU type.
Lit .: Lenin V. I. Imperialism as the highest stage of capitalism. - Poly. coll. cit., v. 27; Luxembourg R. Accumulation of capital, vol. 1-2. M.-L., 1934; Seeley G.R. The expansion of England. L., 1883; Hobsoll G. A. Imperialism. A study. L., 1902; Rohrbach P. Deutschland uber den Weltvolkern. Dresden, 1903; Kautsky K. Nazionalstaat, imperialistischer Staat und Staatenbund. Nurnberg, 1915; Schumpeter J.A. Imperialisme.- "Archiv fur Sozialwissenschaft und Sozialipolitik", 1919, Bd. 46; Einaudi L. La guerra e lunita europea. Milano, 1948.
Great Definition
Incomplete definition ↓
What is an empire? In historical circles, disputes periodically flare up regarding the exact definition of this concept. One way or another, the imperial form of government had a significant impact on the development of civilization.
Many ways of social interaction appeared thanks to empires. In fact, there are no more empires in the twenty-first century, and the first one appeared more than three thousand years ago.
Definition criteria
There are several criteria by which one can understand what an empire is. One of the most faithful is the area of the state. The classical definition implies a state that unites many lands with a population of various nationalities. All power is concentrated in the hands of one institution (most often the monarch). At the same time, the same rights and obligations apply to the territory of all controlled lands. The classical states of this type are the Ottoman and Russian empires. Such states arose as a result of the absorption of other entities that rallied around the center.
Titled leader at the head
A more obvious, but less correct criterion - the form of government, will also help to understand what an empire is. If the person who is at the head of the state bears the title of emperor, then such a state can be considered an empire. History proves that almost all monarchs who endowed themselves with such a title led the imperial powers. But there are also exceptions. Some extravagant African dictators often assumed the titles of emperors. At the same time leading a small country and not having geopolitical weight. This "fashion" appeared in the second half of the twentieth century.
Continental view of the empire
One type of empire is continental. Such states appear as a result of an aggressive foreign policy. Military expansion leads to the annexation of new lands. Therefore, a powerful state must have a strong regular army. Based on this, it follows that in such a state the army occupies an important place in public and political life.
And the military influences all government decisions. The empire acts in the interests of a narrow circle of people. Any politician must have the support of the highest military officials. Therefore, the imperial system is very often identified with the dictatorial one.
Political structure
The continental empire has the same political system throughout the territory. Representatives of different nationalities live in the state. Imperial nationality is identified either as civil (a resident of the Ottoman Empire is an Ottoman, but ethnically it can be an Arab, Ethiopian, and so on), or as a supranational one (for example, in the Macedonian Empire, all residents were considered Hellenes by nationality, regardless of ethnicity). When new territories are included in the state, the government has to introduce a single currency, language, and so on. This was necessary to unify the population and prevent the emergence of separatist sentiments.
colonial empire
And for its own interests, it conquers territories with which it does not border. The conquered lands come under the authority or protectorate of the center (metropolis), but at the same time they have different rights and obligations from it. The colony (or protectorate) is obliged to give a significant part of the resources of the mother country. Most often, native armies are used during the war, but this is not necessary. For example, in the Russian Empire, representatives of a non-titular nation (non-Russian) were rarely used during wars. But the inhabitants of the colonies were drafted into the royal troops of the British Empire.
The colonial empire has several institutions of power. In the colonies, the governors represent the state. At the same time, there are local self-government bodies that are accountable to them. It is necessary to keep other lands in obedience to the metropolis through despotism. American natives felt for themselves what an empire is when they were almost completely destroyed.
In history
The first powerful state that became an empire is Akkad. It did not last long and rested solely on a military dictatorship. After that, there were several entities with a strong monarch at the head. Babylon has become a unifying center for many lands. Under King Hammurabi, the unification of the population was carried out. At the same time, primitive logistics appeared. The most important cities of the state were connected by roads. And for communication, mail with messengers was used. The Roman Empire appeared in the first century BC.
This is one of the most powerful states in the history of mankind. It had a significant impact on the development of civilization. After the collapse of the empire, for many centuries people could not achieve such cultural and technological progress.
Rise to power
The Roman Empire came about as a result of the seizure of power by Julius Caesar. He managed to create a powerful centralized state. Huge territories were controlled from Rome. At the same time, there were local self-government bodies with broad powers. The political system helped to control the entire Mediterranean coast, part of Asia and Africa. All territories were equal in rights. Therefore, local elites quickly went to cooperate with the state. Also formed a civil nation - Roman. But the growth of national consciousness and the conflicts of local elites ultimately led to the collapse of the state.
Ancient Rome is considered a classic example of imperial statehood. At the same time, he combined different types empires - continental and colonial. In many ways, future empires copied the Roman experience. But no one managed to achieve such power for a long period.
Empire: definition
So, based on the above, we can clearly define the criteria for an imperial state:
- centralized power.
- At the head is a monarch who bears the title of emperor.
- A vast territory that includes lands inhabited by different national groups.
- Presence of colonies or protectorates.
Some historians and political scientists also classify countries that pursue an aggressive foreign policy as empires. Most often in leftist circles, governments refer to geopolitically strong countries as imperialist. This means armed expansion or any other methods of aggressive pressure on the governments of sovereign states. In the Soviet period, similar views on the definition were in the textbooks on history and political science.
The most famous empires: Russian, Ottoman, German (Reich), Austro-Hungarian, French, British, Roman.
All of them had a different political structure and their own characteristics. Only Great Britain has survived practically unchanged to this day. National revolutions and the growing popularity of leftist ideas in Europe led to the gradual disintegration of empires and the independence of their former colonies.
Empire- it is a territorially vast, multi-ethnic, as a rule, monarchical, centralized state. An empire has the following features:
1. Empire is largest state. The empire is the largest of all possible state formations. An empire is a state - a world. There can be only one more than it - the total humanity, united in a world state. The empire, figuratively speaking, seeks to fill a part of the world, to become self-sufficient and independent. Typically, an empire is made up of a combination of several states under one authority - community-states and territorial states. Empires were great military powers.
2. Empire polyethnic, since it includes many ethnic groups, peoples. An ethnos (or an ethnic community) is a stable set of people that has historically developed in a certain territory, natural and geographical environment, possessing certain ethnic properties: language, religion, culture, ethnic self-consciousness, enshrined in self-name. An ethnos is a collection of people who have a common culture, speak, as a rule, the same language, have a common self-name and are aware of both their commonality and their difference from members of other similar human groups. The world empire unites in its composition the territories inhabited by different peoples, ensures peace within the borders and unhindered trade between distant territories along long trade routes. All together contribute to the normal economic development and prosperity of the state in the form of a world power.
Indeed, in ancient times only on a large territory subject to despotic imperial power (state-world) could the eternal war between small states, an endless chain of rises, changes and deaths of a few states, be stopped. Empires were highly organized states that managed to establish a single and relatively stable order over a vast territory. The task of the empire is to ensure the safety of subjects, prevent the collusion of vassals, and repel the onset of external enemies.
The unity of the empire is ensured by the state-forming ethnos, the unity of the ruling class, the deification of the person of the ruler-monarch and the centralized bureaucratic apparatus of government.
With its multi-ethnicity, the empire always relies on the imperial, state-forming ethnos. State-forming ethnos- this is the predominant, leading ethnic group that historically created the empire and does not necessarily make up the majority of the population of the empire. For example, Persians in the Persian Empire, Romans in the Roman Empire were an ethnic minority.
Having created an empire through conquests, the imperial ethnic groups since the time of the Romans consider themselves the chosen people, the bearers of true culture, in the dissemination of which they see their historical mission. The idea of the chosen people arises spontaneously, subconsciously, but with the development of culture, it takes shape in political doctrines. For example, the strongest long time the existing Roman Empire, according to the official ideology, ruled numerous provinces in the name of the common good. The Romans brought the "Roman peace", roads, post offices, water pipes.
3. The empire is united by centralized power, authoritatively controlled from one center. The unity of the empire was ensured primarily by the person of the ruler-monarch. According to the belief of the ancient pagan peoples, the power of the king as a deity is universal. The king rules not only over his subjects, his power extends to the whole world. The whole world belongs to the king. This is where the idea of a universal, worldwide monarchy comes from.
The empire was held together by a centralized bureaucratic apparatus of government. The unity of the empire is ensured by the unity of the ruling class. The ruling class of the empire was the bureaucracy of the state-forming ethnos.
Such a vast state is more inclined towards a monarchical form of government. All empires in the ancient East were monarchies.
But an empire can also be a republic. For example, the Roman Empire of the Republican period, the French Empire late XIX in. The republic is the metropolis, and the colonies were ruled, as a rule, by governors appointed from the center. The metropolis is the central part of the empire, where the state-forming ethnic group lives. A colony is a territory that differs sharply from the metropolis in terms of the national and religious composition of the population, belongs to a different culture, is politically controlled from the metropolis and economically dependent on it. So, in the Roman Empire, the metropolis was Italy, in which the Romans and their kindred Latins lived, where self-government existed. Provinces are lands conquered outside of Italy, ruled by governors appointed from Rome.
Empire(from lat. imperium - power) - a form of organization of the largest state. The fundamental difference between an empire and a nation state lies in the multinational nature of the empire or in the presence of an equally significant attribute - ideology - a system of ideas that reveal the supranational, universal essence of this form of state.
An empire is not necessarily a multinational state; Thus, China and Germany for centuries were mainly one-national states, however, their rulers bore the title of emperor and both states had a developed system of ideas, positioning their universal character, exalting them above all other peoples and countries.
Geopolitical Forms of Empires
Classics of geopolitics Carl Schmitt and Halford Mackinder in their works distinguished two types of empires according to the form of expansion. Dividing all states according to their geopolitics into tellurocratic and thalassocratic, these thinkers also singled out their characteristic imperial forms.
Tellurocracy: Continental empires, when annexing neighboring lands and including them into their borders, for security reasons, were forced to immediately turn them into their provinces, guarantee the operation of imperial laws and the circulation of imperial currency. This led to a relatively painless inclusion of elites and societies in empire building. The most important for such empires was the popularization of local heroes, literature, the translation of works into the imperial language, often the development of a script for the written language for the included people (and very often in a script that was different from the script of the titular ethnic group of the empire). For such empires, the genocide of the local population was completely uncharacteristic. There are a huge number of examples of the voluntary inclusion of peoples in the boundaries of the empire:
Our two peoples (Dungans and Russians) from now on become one family, and we only want to unite (with you) together. All our hearts and thoughts, all our best qualities aimed at ensuring that by combined forces, having destroyed the rebels, live forever in peace and friendship, forever rely on each other, which will be a great happiness not for one person, but truly for the entire Universe "
- The Dungans of Xinjiang address Poltoratsky, an official of the Russian Empire
Thalassocracy: Another type of empire - colonial, maritime. Separated from their colonies by oceans and seas, they did not seek to export development, law and progressive forms of economic structure to the colonies. Their main goal is the maximum extraction of natural resources, the use of the strategic position of the land colony. In such empires, cases of genocide, mass migrations, and cruel treatment of the autochthonous population were frequent. Punitive operations were a daily practice (Lord Protector Cromwell destroyed 4/5 of the population of Ireland, 95% of the Indians were slaughtered during the development of North America by white colonists).
When the economic viability of the colonies fell, the colonial empires abandoned the colonies. Naturally, to beginning of XXI century, almost all colonial, maritime empires collapsed.
The history of the concept of "empire"
ancient empires
In ancient times, there was the concept of empires, that is, the fullness of power. “The Romans have empires - the highest government, belonged to one people, manifesting it in legislation, the supreme court, in resolving the issue of war and peace; temporarily, as the highest authority, was transferred to elected dignitaries. From the time of Julius Caesar and Augustus, emperors became its owners. Later, the Empire began to designate the territory over which the supreme power of the ruler extended. With the inclusion of the entire “civilized” world of antiquity into the Roman Empire, the concept of empire underwent a transformation and began to be understood as a state uniting numerous countries and peoples.
medieval empires
The model of the "worldwide" Roman Empire, supplemented by the Christian concept of a single church, formed the basis of the medieval concept of an empire - the unification of the entire Christian world under the rule of a single monarch, whose main duty was to protect the church. Under the conditions of a feudal society, the concept of empire did not and could not presuppose centralization and a bureaucratic system. The empires of medieval Europe - the Frankish and the Holy Roman - remained decentralized entities, whose unity was supported by the sacredness of imperial power.
Empires in Modern Times
The emergence of centralized nation-states in the modern era, combined with the aggravation of interstate relations and the need to build up military potential, as well as the beginning of colonial expansion, led to the emergence of a new type of empire: Spanish, Portuguese, French, British and others. Colonial empires lasted until the 1970s. 20th century
Empires in the modern world
Despite the popularity of nation-state concepts, empires continue to exist today in one form or another. As a rule, these are continental states that had no experience of colonialism. Among them are such states as Russia (with a formal national form - the nation of Russians), Indonesia, Iran (with numerous reservations), India.
Empires that seek to build a nation-state almost always fall apart into an ethnically compact state.
China was also an empire for a long time, but the CCP's policy of assimilation led to the disappearance of all forms of the socio-economic, ethnic and cultural structure alternative to the Han, led to the assimilation of the Mongols, Russians, Dungans, partly Tibetans and Uighurs. China is currently striving to build an ethnocratic nation-state.
The European Union and the United States in a figurative sense are also considered empires in accordance with the criteria of the "Signs of an Empire" section. However, from the point of view of the theory of the nation-state, the first is a commonwealth of nations with a special form of supranationality, and the second is a classical nation-state, where ethnic differences are forced out of the political plane, which is completely uncharacteristic of empires.
Signs of an empire
At present, a figurative interpretation of the word "empire" is also widely used. In this case, it means a large state in terms of territory and population, which has the following features:
The presence of a strong army and police;
great foreign policy influence;
powerful national idea (religion, ideology);
rigid, as a rule, individual, power;
high loyalty of the population;
an active foreign policy aimed at expansion, striving for regional or world domination.
A state that meets these criteria will be an empire. At the same time, the monarchy as a type state structure not required.
Many states, developing along the path "up and out", sooner or later become empires. There have been many empires throughout human history. Most famous: Byzantine Empire, Roman Empire, the Russian Empire, British Empire, Spanish Empire, France under Napoleon, Third Reich, Ottoman Empire.
Some states passed through the stage of empire several times (France, Germany, Russia).
most famous empires
Austro-Hungarian Empire (1867-1918)
Arab Caliphate (7th century)
Assyrian Empire (X-VI centuries BC)
British Empire (c. 1583-1960s)
Byzantine Empire (395-1453)
German Empire (1871-1918)
German colonial empire (1884-1918)
Third Reich (1933-1945)
Habsburg Empire (Austrian Empire) (1804-1867)
Chinese Empire (221 BC - 1912)
Macedonian Empire (c. 338 BC - 309 BC)
Mongol Empire (1206-1368)
Mughal Empire (1526-1857)
Ottoman Empire (1281-1923)
Persian Empire (c. 550-330 BC)
Roman Empire (27 BC - 476)
Russian Empire (1721-1917)
Holy Roman Empire (843-1806)
french empire
First French Empire (1804-1815)
Second French Empire (1853-1871)
French colonial empire (c. 1605-1960s)
Empire of Japan (1867-1945)
expansion beyond long-term stable boundaries, caused by the outgrowth of an established, historically formed organism (Georgy Fedotov). After formation, each empire experiences a period of prosperity, due to the possibility of concentrating significant resources and establishing a relatively lasting peace over a large territory. This is perceived by the population as a great blessing. Significant resources released and a unified communication network contribute to the creation of a closed self-sufficient state. The empires of the Middle Ages and modern times differed little from each other in their domestic politics. Centralized management and a costly economy, wasteful spending of labor and natural resources, the implementation of expensive projects of the "century", huge expenses for the maintenance of the army, repressions against entire peoples.
Monarchic states headed by the emperor stand out in history. Many European empires of the past pursued an active colonial policy. Some empires had numerous overseas colonies, others did not. Empires ceased to exist in different ways. In Britain, France and Spain, the boundaries of the empire were gradually reduced to the size of the metropolitan state, which largely avoided social upheaval and falling living standards. The British colonial empire was the largest in the world, with a population of 450 million by 1945. The empire gradually transformed into a community of states that maintained close economic and cultural ties. The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian, German, Russian and Soviet empires was swift and unexpected and ended with a change in their political system. Austria-Hungary survived the Napoleonic era and withstood the iron onslaught of Bismarck, but in 1918 it broke up overnight into separate, including multinational states (Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia).
Classifying empires, one can single out the ancient empires - Egyptian, Persian, Roman, etc., which were under the absolute, often theocratic power of one sovereign - the monarch. In addition, there were colonial empires of the "New Age" - British, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch, French, which were the result of the military-economic expansion of European countries in various regions of the planet. These empires were built around the state center - the metropolis, and, as a rule, had a rigidly centralized government. "Traditional" empires: Russian, German, Austro-Hungarian, Japanese, Ottoman, etc., were multi-level state complexes, held together by an ideological center, a single armed forces and economic space. In addition, according to the structure of the main communications, one should define "consolidated" (continental) and "non-consolidated" (sea) empires. The former have land communications of the center with all the constituent parts of the state, the latter have only maritime communications. It should be noted that almost all empires (primarily "traditional") were distinguished by cultural diversity. A "nation-state" having a monocultural and monoethnic character, held together only by administrative and legal unity, rarely acquires the status of an empire. Culturally and ethnically, an empire is always a coalition and a community, representing a monolith in a political context.
Great Definition
Incomplete definition ↓
