Neither Russians nor Western Specialists on Russia are Prepared to Face Up to the Reality that Russia is an Empire which Must Be Decolonized, Margolis Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Oct. 13 – Russians insist that their country has never been a colonial empire like other empires and thus that therefore it doesn’t need any decolonization and that calls for that are a personal attack on Russian identity, according to Radio Liberty commentator Yekaterina Margolis.

            That attitude unites Russians from the most passionate supporters of Putin to most of his most passionate opponents, she says, but more than that, it infuses the thinking of most but fortunately not all of Western specialists on Russia to this day (svoboda.org/a/razbityy-gorshok-ekaterina-margolis-o-rossiyskom-kolonializme/33153734.html).

            “Western experts on Russia are formed in Slavic departments where this imperial narrative and Russian-centricity were and remain the norm. Professors who sent time in (anti)Soviet Moscow kitchens absorbed the very same Russian views in which the image of Russia as the largest colonial empire was absent in principle,” Margolis says.

            She adds that “of course, there are exceptions: the work of Ewa Thompson, Richard Pipes or the great book, Natasha’s Dance: a Cultural History of Russia by British historian Orlando Figes and his recent The Story of Russia, but they haven’t changed the general situation in Slavic studies of public consciousness.”

            This is the case not least because “Russia invests so much effort and provides support for the myth about its special cultural and historical greatness, its exceptional nature and especially its mysterious quality,” something that precludes both investigations and even questions about Russian imperialism. Decolonization of this knowledge is critical if progress is to be made.

            In support of her arguments, Marolis cites a recent article by Olena Apchel, a Ukrainian theater director and activist who is now fighting in the Ukrainian military against Russian invaders (“Deep Trauma and Intellectual Laziness,” in Ukrainian, at lb.ua/culture/2024/09/20/635574_glibinna_travma_intelektualna.html).

            Russians and Western specialists on Russia feel real discomfort when anyone suggests that Russia is an empire and like all empires must ultimately be decolonized. Instead, they hold onto a vision of Russia as something apart that is not to be subject to the same processes that have taken place elsewhere.

“This lack of a view of equals [among European intellectuals in relation to Ukrainians] obviously has its basis in the imperial past, it clearly shows solidarity with hidden chauvinistic gigantism (lost for the Germans and not lost for the Russians), this view rests on habits, on a long-established Eurocentric view, based on the great fear of a repeat of world war.”

“And this,” Apchel continues, “of course, has as its basis a subconscious resistance to the very idea of ​​​​granting the right to subjectivity to cultures that were colonized in the past … Humanity is only now beginning to realize that it is the responsibility of old empires to study the languages ​​and cultures of countries on the periphery. And not [as now] the other way around.”  

Margolis continues: “Epistemological decolonization is thus relevant not only for Russians, but also in the West … It must go hand in hand with the de-imperialization of the very structure of knowledge about Russia and the analysis of the imperial roots of its culture and history.”

If that doesn’t happen, she argues, “Harvard or Oxford graduates will not only be used in secret by Kremlin propaganda but will themselves contiues to work to maintain Russian imperial dominance.”

There are some signs that this view of Russia is beginning to break down in the West. Perhaps the most important of these, Margolis says, was the April 18 Council of Europe resolution on the decolonization of Russia which declares that Russia is an empire not a federation and that its peoples are being subject to the worst forms of colonial oppression.

But that is only a first step, and far more needs to be done if first specialists on Russia and then the Russians themselves are to end their denial about Russia as an empire and support its victims by supporting its decolonization.