Europa-Italia-Russia: relazioni estere e orizzonti geopolitici

Overview & Synopsis

The essays collected in this volume address the foreign relations between European countries and Russia with particular attention to the Italian case and in a broad historical perspective. The contributors have focused on such important themes in contemporary history as: Sergej Sazonov’s foreign policy with reference to the participation of the Tsarist Empire in the First World War (G. Bianchi); the recognition of the USSR by the Italian Fascist government in 1924 (M.T. Giusti); Italy and the USSR during the Cold War (A. Varsori); Italy's growing energy dependence on Russian gas during the 1970s and 1980s (S. Labbate); the bilateral relations between Italy and two countries of the Soviet Bloc - Poland and Czechoslovakia - in the decade 1978-87 (T. Forcellese); the relations between the European Union and the Russian Federation during the period of the third Delors Commission (B. Zaccaria); Germany and Russia from the German reunification to today (F. Scarano); the troubled trajectory of the Russian-Abkhaz relations from the incorporation of Abkhazia into the Tsarist Empire (1810) to the present day (G. Savino); the dynamics of the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian war and the possible prospects for peace (F. Bettanin). In the final contribution, G. Cigliano discusses the use of the category of "empire" as a tool for interpretating both Tsarist and Soviet history and the current politics of the Russian Federation.