ABSTRACT
Russia and China both built great empires in the period between 1600 and 1800. This empire-building, however, was not a simple matter of conquest and expansion. And the conquests themselves do not tell the whole story of these two nations. In the 1200s, a semi-nomadic steppe people, the Mongols, were united by Genghis Khan. They lived in an area that today sits north of Beijing in a separate nation called Mongolia. Superb horsemen and feared warriors, the Mongols invaded central Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East on horseback. In traditional histories of Russian expansion, the peoples the Russians encountered have been rendered nonexistent. They were considered to have no significance because, with the exception of Crimea, they did not possess a centralized state like Russia but rather were nomadic warriors organized by tribe. Russia’s frontier both shaped Russian politics and society, and was shaped by Russia’s accelerating expansion into the area.
