Wojciech Materski’s book From the Tsars to "The Tsar" gives a synopsis of the politics of memory practiced by Russia from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. He shows how irrespectively of the period in its history, Russia’s politics of memory have always been used as a tool to integrate the country’s inhabitants, reinforce the cult of their leader, cultivate the social attitudes and stereotypes its rulers wanted the people to embrace, and relativize their mistakes and crimes.The broad perspective Materski adopts provides a very substantial supplement to earlier work on the subject, or in fact takes the time range he considers much further, offering the latest, highly original and thoroughly researched synthesis of Russia’s politics of memory from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century. These qualities, alongside the current geopolitical situation overshadowed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, make Wojciech Materski’s book an attractive offer not only for historians, political scientists, sociologists and specialists in international relations, but also for students and non-specialists looking for information on Russia’s history and foreign policy.
