PBC0003: pride in place

PBC 3 expresses pride in the geographical size of the Russian empire. As in most tsarist nationalist PBCs actual Russian places are not mentioned and thus there is no real “mapping” of Russia (W162). Rather “boundless Russia” (or Rus’) (W361) remains an abstract but enduring trope. Occasionally, it is undermined with the ironic juxtaposition of, for example, Russia’s roadless swamps with “immeasurable Rus’” (W247).