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Can you point to at least one historical analysis which identifies Russia as a colonial empire? Seeing people draw this parallel was surprising to me, as I ass

by blub 4y ago

Can you point to at least one historical analysis which identifies Russia as a colonial empire? Seeing people draw this parallel was surprising to me, as I associate colonialism with the European conquerors of the world: Portugal, Spain, France, Great Britain, The Netherlands and Germany. Indeed I’ve gotten this list from a GEO Magazine special issue dedicated to colonialism, showing on a map where each of those countries had their colonies between ~1400 and 1915. OTOH Belgium isn’t directly mentioned, so perhaps the list is not exhaustive.

twixfel 4y ago
>Can you point to at least one historical analysis which identifies Russia as a colonial empire? Is this even a debate? Do you need an analysis also showing that the UK was a colonial empire? The second bit is trivial, it was called the Russian Empire. The first bit is also trivial, they had colonies in North America, for example. > I associate colonialism with the European conquerors of the world Russia is (historically) a European country. It only has land in Asia because of imperialism and colonisation.
- blub 4y ago
  It’s not a debate, seems more like a fringe theory trying to muddy the waters by making Russian imperialism look like colonialism, because the latter probably sounds worse to the modern average citizen. If you look at e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism there’s a really long list of countries under British colonialism. Russia has such a short list, it’s no wonder it’s not considered a (former) colonial power.
  - twixfel 4y ago
    Well Russia's list is longer than Belgium's on that page, so I don't really see your point, unless you wish to argue that Belgium also wasn't really a colonial power?
mopsi 4y ago
> Seeing people draw this parallel was surprising to me, as I associate colonialism with the European conquerors of the world: Portugal, Spain, France, Great Britain, The Netherlands and Germany. Indigenous peoples living in Russia like Mansis are simply not known about, while everyone has heard of Incas, Apaches and Comanches and their fate. The actual Russian-Russia is pretty small and borders Eastern Europe. Most of the territory you see on maps has historically belonged to indigenous peoples and is still dominated by them in many regions outside of major cities, wouldn't surprise me if the majority of land area of Russia to this day had ethnic majority of non-Russians. Their culture and language has been suppressed for a long time to turn them into loyal Russians, the same way US and Canadian and many other governments destroyed traditional lifestyle, forced resettlement, forced indigenous children into state schools and so forth. The difference from historic colonialism is that it's still happening in present day, and on a scale that has not been seen elsewhere in a long time - by that, I mean the war in Ukraine, also colonial in nature in what motivates Russia, and how they disproportionally conscript ethnic minorities to fight and die for Russia. Anglo-american histography is fairly self-centered on these topics, lots of focus on American slave trade and colonialism by Western Europe, but very little on what happened in the rest of the world. This feeds into perception that the colonial history of the Americas is unique, that only blacks have been slaves, that only western countries have been colonial, etc while we have a large country in Europe even in 2023 that wants to establish politic and economic control over a nation of 40 million people, exploit them in every way, and impose foreign language and culture on them. And it's been like this for centuries. If you want to get started somewhere, then I'd avoid publications that explicitly set to prove or disprove colonialism. Instead, read a balanced history of Eastern Europe and Russia, especially from the perspective of smaller nations if you can, and make up your own mind. You may discover that the life of farmers in Latvia in early 19th century wasn't that much different from Antebellum South. Same overall story, different setting.
skeletal88 4y ago
Some experts have defined russian colonialism as "internal colonialism", they didn't conquer and abuse overseas territories, but expanded by taking over their neighbours and then used the resources of the territories taken over. Opressed the original local population and gradually destroyed their culture and language and identity by trying to russify them. Russia does it whenever it gets a chance.
Sammi 4y ago
The colonial Russian Empire is extremely well documented on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Russi...

by blub 4y ago

twixfel 4y ago

>Can you point to at least one historical analysis which identifies Russia as a colonial empire? Is this even a debate? Do you need an analysis also showing that the UK was a colonial empire? The second bit is trivial, it was called the Russian Empire. The first bit is also trivial, they had colonies in North America, for example. > I associate colonialism with the European conquerors of the world Russia is (historically) a European country. It only has land in Asia because of imperialism and colonisation.

blub 4y ago
It’s not a debate, seems more like a fringe theory trying to muddy the waters by making Russian imperialism look like colonialism, because the latter probably sounds worse to the modern average citizen. If you look at e.g. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colonialism there’s a really long list of countries under British colonialism. Russia has such a short list, it’s no wonder it’s not considered a (former) colonial power.
- twixfel 4y ago
  Well Russia's list is longer than Belgium's on that page, so I don't really see your point, unless you wish to argue that Belgium also wasn't really a colonial power?

mopsi 4y ago

> Seeing people draw this parallel was surprising to me, as I associate colonialism with the European conquerors of the world: Portugal, Spain, France, Great Britain, The Netherlands and Germany. Indigenous peoples living in Russia like Mansis are simply not known about, while everyone has heard of Incas, Apaches and Comanches and their fate. The actual Russian-Russia is pretty small and borders Eastern Europe. Most of the territory you see on maps has historically belonged to indigenous peoples and is still dominated by them in many regions outside of major cities, wouldn't surprise me if the majority of land area of Russia to this day had ethnic majority of non-Russians. Their culture and language has been suppressed for a long time to turn them into loyal Russians, the same way US and Canadian and many other governments destroyed traditional lifestyle, forced resettlement, forced indigenous children into state schools and so forth. The difference from historic colonialism is that it's still happening in present day, and on a scale that has not been seen elsewhere in a long time - by that, I mean the war in Ukraine, also colonial in nature in what motivates Russia, and how they disproportionally conscript ethnic minorities to fight and die for Russia. Anglo-american histography is fairly self-centered on these topics, lots of focus on American slave trade and colonialism by Western Europe, but very little on what happened in the rest of the world. This feeds into perception that the colonial history of the Americas is unique, that only blacks have been slaves, that only western countries have been colonial, etc while we have a large country in Europe even in 2023 that wants to establish politic and economic control over a nation of 40 million people, exploit them in every way, and impose foreign language and culture on them. And it's been like this for centuries. If you want to get started somewhere, then I'd avoid publications that explicitly set to prove or disprove colonialism. Instead, read a balanced history of Eastern Europe and Russia, especially from the perspective of smaller nations if you can, and make up your own mind. You may discover that the life of farmers in Latvia in early 19th century wasn't that much different from Antebellum South. Same overall story, different setting.

skeletal88 4y ago

Some experts have defined russian colonialism as "internal colonialism", they didn't conquer and abuse overseas territories, but expanded by taking over their neighbours and then used the resources of the territories taken over. Opressed the original local population and gradually destroyed their culture and language and identity by trying to russify them. Russia does it whenever it gets a chance.

Sammi 4y ago

The colonial Russian Empire is extremely well documented on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Empire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Russia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_evolution_of_Russi...