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Empires of Eurasia

Famously described by Mackinder as the “geographic pivot of history,” Eurasia was for thousands of years an arena for exchange and geopolitical competition among empires, among them the predecessors of today’s Chinese, Iranian, Russian, and Turkish states. When these Eurasian empires collapsed in the first decades of the 20th century, the states that replaced them still bore traces of the imperial legacy, even as rulers like Atatürk, Lenin, Mao, and the Pahlavi shahs actively denigrated their imperial predecessors. Cold War-era rivalries and alignments also reduced the salience of central Eurasia as a focal point for imperial competition. Since the end of the Cold War, these imperial legacies have grown more salient and more visible. The collapse of the USSR, China’s attempt to expand development from its eastern coast to its western periphery, and, more recently, the gradual reconnection of Eurasia to global markets through the construction of transit, infrastructure, and trade linkages have created opportunities for China, Iran, Russia, and Turkey to once again project power and influence into their Eurasian hinterlands in patterns structurally, institutionally, and ideologically shaped by the imperial legacies they each inherited. Their shared challenges include contested historical narratives, tension between national and trans-national identity discourses, and unstable borders. Leaders in all four states intervene in debates about historical memory, evoking the imperial past as a golden age and a template for their own ambitions.