Russian Empire Won’t Collapse from Weakness of Center but when Moscow’s Logic and that of the Borderlands Come into Conflict, Siberian Regionalist Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, July 24 – Almost every discussion of the future disintegration of the Russian Federation begins with the assumption that this will happen when the central powers in Moscow weaken and can no longer impose their will on the rest of the empire. But that view is wrong, according to a Siberian regionalist.

            In an anonymous comment to the Tallinn-based regionalist portal Region.Expert, she argues that the Russian empire will fall apart for the same reason other empires have, not because of the weakness of the center but “when the logic of ‘the center’ comes into conflict with the logic of ‘the borderlands’” (region.expert/trans-urals/).

            She says that in the case of “Moscovia-Russia, this conflict is already occurring,” a conflict that is “not about ‘separatism but about a functional lack of correspondence” between the way in which people in Siberia and the Russian Far East think and view the world, leading ever more of them to decide that they need to go their own way.

            Indeed, “behind the façade of imperial discourse are concealed regions which have attempted and possibly still are trying to live in their own way. These are not simply ‘provinces’ (in fact colonies of Moscow) suffering from centralization but territories with their own logic, historical memory, and what is more important experience with statehood.”

            “Siberia, the Urals and the Far East are not ‘outskirts,’ not ‘peripheries,’ and not ‘hinterlands,’ but three regions where at different dimes separate republics existed or were planned,” the regionalist says; and those experiences have left a mark on “the psychological memory” of people there.

            “For a century, Moscow has attempted to wipe out the memory of regional statehood, but it hasn’t been able to do so completely,” the regionalist says. “Memory is not only about documents and monuments; it is also about infrastructure, the rhythm of life and cultural distinctions. They remain; and they are increasing.”

            According to her, “Siberia, the Urals and the Far East are not simply territories. They are the future outlines of a new Northern Eurasia. Possibly, of a federation; possibly, of a confederation, and possibly of independent states. But whatever may be the case, they will not be Moscow’s provinces.”

            Indeed, “the history of the so-called ‘Russian Federation’ is the forgotten history of the regions which again and again have tried to be true to themselves. They have lost but they have not disappeared because the logic of empire is finite and the logic of diversity is not.” And that diversity will win out.

            “When the Russian empire in its current form falls – and it is falling – this will not be a catastrophe. Rather it will be a chance” for these regions to take their place in the sun. “Khabarovsk, Novosibirsk, and Yekaterinburg today are simply cities; but tomorrow quite possibly, they will be the capitals of new states.”