Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Toward a Global Postcolonial Critique

Abstract

The enormous twenty-seven-nation post-Soviet sphere—including the former Soviet republics and the former “East Bloc” states—is virtually never discussed in the burgeoning discourse of postcolonial studies. Yet Russia and the successor Soviet Union exercised colonial control over the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Baltics, and Central and Eastern Europe for anywhere from fifty to two hundred years. The present essay interrogates the possible postcoloniality of the post-Soviet sphere, including Russia. The investigation is complicated by Russia's seeming Eurasian status and its history of perceived cultural inferiority to the West. A broad range of theoretical, historical, cultural, and geographic positions are examined, and figures such as Curzon, Conrad, Lermontov, and Shohat are addressed. In conclusion the essay argues against the current occidentocentric privileging of Western European colonization as the standard and proposes a fully global postcolonial critique. Overall, it critiques both too narrow post-Soviet studies and too parochial, too Anglo-Franco-focused postcolonial studies.

Europeanization as Civilizational Transition from East to West

“…In his seminal article, 'Is the post-in postcolonial the post-in post-Soviet? ', David C. Moore (2001) ponders the possibility of a global postcolonial critique. In declaring that 'we are all postcolonial', he suggests that the concept of postcolonialism should not be reserved for the so-called global South (South Asia post-1947 andAfrica post-1958), but should equally be applied to the former Russo-and Soviet-controlled regions post-1989 and -1991 (ibid., 115).…”

“…That might even be true of Moore's own proposition about a global conception of postcolonialism. As Veronika Sušová-Salminen (2011: 16) compellingly argues, by confining his analysis to Russio-Soviet dominance, Moore (2001) seems to overlook the complex relationship of imperial Russia and the Soviet Union to the Western metropolises, above all ignoring the imitative secondary Eurocentrism characteristic of postsocialist states. Likewise, Larry Wolff's (1994) influential Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization in the Mind of Enlightenment does not reflect much on the colonial episteme of Enlightenment thinking and the construction of geopolitical categories: 'His Eastern Europe is positioned in the matrix of intra-European cultural and political relations which prevents him from underlining the global view' (Sušová-Salminen, 2011: 15).…”

The rhetoric of leaving, or the mirage of the fetishized West in Cristian Mungiu’s Occident

“…Caught between Orientalism and Occidentalism, the authentic Romanian identity has suffered in the same way as the identities of people emerging from colonial situations in the aftermath of the breakdown of totalitarian discursive control and revolutionary trauma. The colonial project and the Sovietization of Central and Eastern Europe after World War II are comparable (see McClintock, 1992;Oţoiu, 2003;Moore, 2001;Ştefănescu, 2012;and to some extent Borcila, 2014, among others), and the post-coloniality evident in territories and populations in places not traditionally considered to be post-colonial, such as Ireland and Eastern Europe, benefits from a nuancing of terms in the 'colonial' family. In fact, Anne McClintock observes that 'the term "post-colonialism" is prematurely celebratory and obfuscatory in more ways than one' (1992: 91), and further unpacks, problematizes and calls for a redefinition of such terms as colonialism, post-colonialism and neo-colonialism.…”

“Socialist in content, national in form:” the making of Soviet national art and the case of Buryatia

“…This ambivalence has led to arguments among contemporary researchers about the applicability of Edward Said's concept of "orientalism" and postcolonialism to the Russian-Soviet interaction with non-Russian peoples (Said 1979;Khalid 2000;Knight 2000;Todorova 2000;Moore 2001;Spivak et al 2006;Etkind 2011). The majority of those researching the Soviet national question are inclined to think that the colonial policy of tsarist Russia and the Soviet nationality policy were essentially different from the discursive, institutional, and material practices of the classical European colonialism criticized by Said. According to Etkind (2001) the main difference between the colonial experience of Russia and classical European colonialism is that in Russia, a cultural divide has been constructed not between imperialist conquerors and their overseas colonies, but between the higher and lower classes.…”