This nine-chapter study, based largely on original research in the archives of Moscow and St. Petersburg, sheds new light on the role played in Russian cultural development by those Ukrainians who chose to identify themselves with the Russian Empire. By stressing the native, Slavic aspects of imperial culture, Ukrainians modified the Russians's understanding of what it meant to be Russian, preventing them from becoming wholly dependent on contemporary Western Europe. In a wide-ranging, richly detailed analysis, David Saunders shows how this impact was achieved by Ukrainian educators, writers, journalists, scholars, and political figures.