In 2014 the working group of the Department of History of Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg won the university competition and received institutional support for the international research project ‘Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism’. Ronald Grigor Suny is Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of Social and Political History at the University of Michigan, Emeritus Professor of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago and Senior Research Fellow at the Higher School of Economics in St. Petersburg. He talks his research interests in history and the International Research Project ‘Comparative Historical Studies of Empire and Nationalism’.