Western historians of "Russia" and Crimea: Why do they continue to use imperialist and racist frameworks?

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Western Historians of “Russia” and Crimea: Why do they Continue to Use Imperialist and Racist Frameworks?

Taras Kuzio, Doctor of Political Sciences, Professor, Department of Political Science, National University of “Kyiv-Mohyla Academy”, Ukraina, and a Non-Resident Fellow in the Foreign Policy Institute, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

The body of the article goes on to discuss the problem of Russian imperial historical frameworks used prior to the disintegration of the USSR. The article sheds the light on the issue of histories of Ukraine that derided as “nationalists” by the Soviet and post-Soviet Russian regimes and by Western historians of “Russia”. According to the western historians, the Russian empire used to position itself as a homogeneous nation-state rather than as a multi-ethnic empire. Noteworthy, the author delves into the problem of Russian-imperial and racist approaches to disclosing the history of Crimea and Crimean Tatars. Consequently, such interpretation would treat Crimea as the “primordial” part of “Russia”, “Russians” as the “native people” of Crimean whilst the Crimean Tatars are hardly viewed as indigenous community.

Written by western academics “Russian History” in Russian imperial and nationalistic historiography until nowadays, which is still recognized as Kyivan Rus or Grand Duchy of Vladimir - Tsardom of Muscovy - the empire of the former USSR that is presently known as Russian Federation. Subsequently, from the historical perspective, this phenomenon has led to the crucial consequences: firstly, Ukraine is mostly disregarded, not speaking of the Pereyaslav Agreement of 1654, which represents Ukrainian history as the part of the “Russian” history. Secondly, Crimea is marked as the “Russian” territory, and Russia's annexation in 2014 is considered as Crimea returning to “its native lands”. The first statement denies Ukraine with its own history and creates the image of a quasi-state being incorporated into “Russia”, and the second one concludes that the history of Crimea prior to its Russia's annexation in 1783 is completely neglected.

To conclude, ignoring European civic approaches, Western histories of “Russia” continue to use an imperialist framework and are similar to Russian politicians who do not equate “Russia” with the Russian Federation.

Keywords: “Russian history”, Russian imperialism, Russian racism, Russian historical falsifications.

Çàõ³äí³ ³ñòîðèêè "Ðîñ³¿" òà Êðèìó: ×îìó âîíè ïðîäîâæóþòü âèêîðèñòîâóâàòè ³ìïåð³àë³ñòè÷í³ òà ðàñèñòñüê³ ðàìêè?

Ó ñòàòò³ äîñë³äæóþòüñÿ òà ðîçêðèâàþòüñÿ îñíîâí³ ïîñòóëàòè ³ìïåðñüêèõ êîíöåïö³é «Ðîñ³¿», ÿê³ ïðèñóòí³ ó ïðàöÿõ çàõ³äíèõ ³ñòîðèê³â, êîòð³ çîáðàæóâàëè ¿¿ ÿê ãîìîãåííó íàö³îíàëüíó äåðæàâó, à íå ÿê áàãàòîíàö³îíàëüíó ³ìïåð³þ. À òàêîæ ðîñ³éñüêî-³ìïåðñüê³ ³ ðàñèñòñüê³ êîíöåïö³¿ ³ñòî𳿠Êðèìó òà êðèìñüêèõ òàòàð. Êðèì çîáðàæóºòüñÿ â íèõ ÿê «ñïîêîíâ³÷íà» ÷àñòèíà «Ðîñ³¿», êðèìñüê³ òàòàðè - ÿê íå êîð³ííèé íàðîä, à «ðîñ³ÿíè» - ÿê «ð³äíèé íàðîä» Êðèìó. Çàõ³äí³ â÷åí³, ùî ïèøóòü ïðî «Ðîñ³þ», í³êîëè íå çì³íþâàëè ñâîãî ï³äõîäó ï³ñëÿ ðîçïàäó ÑÐÑÐ. «Ðîñ³éñüêà ³ñòîð³ÿ», íàïèñàíà çàõ³äíèìè â÷åíèìè, ïðîäîâæóº ôîðìóëþâàòèñÿ â ðîñ³éñüê³é ³ìïåðñüê³é òà íàö³îíàë³ñòè÷í³é ³ñòîð³îãðàô³¿ ÿê Êè¿âñüêà Ðóñü-Âîëîäèìèð-Ñóçäàëü-Ìîñêîâ³ÿ-Öàðñüêà ³ìïåð³ÿ-ÑÐÑÐ, ³ Ðîñ³éñüêà Ôåäåðàö³ÿ ÿê çàâåðøàëüíèé åòàï. Íå ³ñíóº æîäíî¿ çàõ³äíî¿ ³ñòî𳿠íàö³îíàëüíî¿ äåðæàâè Ðîñ³éñüêî¿ Ôåäåðàö³¿, ÿê, íàïðèêëàä, ³ñòî𳿠Ôðàíö³¿, ²òà볿 ÷è Óêðà¿íè. Òîìó çàõ³äí³ ³ñòîðèêè «Ðîñ³¿» ³ãíîðóþòü çàõ³äí³ ³ñòî𳿠Óêðà¿íè Îðåñòà Ñóáòåëüíîãî, Ïîëà Ð. Ìàãî÷³, Ñåðã³ÿ Ïëîõè òà ³íøèõ, à òàêîæ ³ñòîð³¿, íàïèñàí³ óêðà¿íñüêèìè ³ñòîðèêàìè.

Îçíà÷åíà ñèòóàö³ÿ ïðèçâåëà äî âèíèêíåííÿ äâîõ âàæëèâèõ íàñë³äê³â. Ïî-ïåðøå, Óêðà¿íó çíà÷íîþ ì³ðîþ ³ãíîðóþòü, çà âèíÿòêîì òàêèõ ïîä³é, ÿê Ïåðÿñëàâñüêèé äîãîâ³ð 1654 ð., ùî ïðèçâîäèòü äî çîáðàæåííÿ ³ñòî𳿠Óêðà¿íè ÿê-òî ÷àñòèíè «ðîñ³éñüêî¿» ³ñòîð³¿. Ïî-äðóãå, Êðèì çîáðàæóºòüñÿ ÿê «ðîñ³éñüêà» òåðèòîð³ÿ, à àíåêñ³ÿ Ðîñ³¿ â 2014 ðîö³ ââàæàºòüñÿ ïîâåðíåííÿì òóäè, êóäè âîíà íàëåæèòü. Ïåðøèé çàïåðå÷óº Óêðà¿íó ç ¿¿ îêðåìîþ ³ñòîð³ºþ ³ ñòâîðþº îáðàç øòó÷íî¿ êðà¿íè, ÿêà º ÷àñòèíîþ «Ðîñ³¿», à äðóãèé ³ãíîðóº ³ñòîð³þ Êðèìó äî àíåêñ³¿ Ðîñ³¿ â 1783 ðîö³. Òîìó çàõ³äí³ ³ñòîðèêè Ðîñ³¿ ïðîïàãóþòü ³ìïåð³àë³ñòè÷í³ òà ðàñèñòñüê³ ðàìêè äëÿ «ðîñ³éñüêî¿» ³ñòîð³¿.

Êëþ÷îâ³ ñëîâà: «ðîñ³éñüêà» ³ñòîð³ÿ, ðîñ³éñüêèé ³ìïåð³àë³çì, ðîñ³éñüêèé ðàñèçì, ðîñ³éñüê³ ³ñòîðè÷í³ ôàëüñèô³êàö³¿.

The Crimean Peninsula is the heartland of Russian nationhood. It was here in Khersones that Prince Vladimir adopted Orthodoxy as the official religion of the peoples of Rus.

Richard Sakwa Richard Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine. Crisis in the Borderlands (London I.B. Taurus, 2015), p.12.

Everything in Crimea speaks of our shared history and pride. This is the location of ancient Khersones, where Prince Vladimir was baptised. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilisation and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

President Vladimir Putin “Address by President of the Russian Federation”, 18 March 2014

Western scholars, writing about “Russian” history, continue to use Russian imperial historical frameworks that were used prior to the disintegration of the USSR. Although a Russian nation-state emerged in 1992 and has been independent for over a quarter of a century there are no histories of the Russian Federation. Since the late 1980s, Western historians of Ukraine, such as Orest Subtelny, Paul R. Magocsi, Serhiy Plokhy, Serhiy Yekelchyk and George Liber, have adopted this civic-territorial approach Orest Subtelny, Ukraine. A History, four editions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,1988, 1994, 2000, 2009), Paul R. Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, two editions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996 and 2010, Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe. A History of Ukraine (London and New York, Allen Lane and Basic Books, 2015), Serhy Yekelchyk, Ukraine. Birth of a Modern Nation (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), and George O. Liber, Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914-1954 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016). Subtelny (first reprinting in Ukraine was in 1990), Magocsi's and Plokhy's hi stories have been re-published in Ukraine where they are extensively used since the early 1990s.. Western histories of “Russia” thereby continue to ignore its territorial limitations by conflating empire with nation-state and in so doing they subsume Ukrainians within “Russian” history and Crimea is viewed as always being “Russian”.

Western historians of “Russia” have not adapted to the emergence of an independent Russia by using standard Western frameworks whereby the histories of countries are the territories of nation-states. The history of France and Great Britain, for example, includes all events that took place within the internationally recognised boundaries of these nation-states.

Magosci's two editions of A History of Ukraine uses a civic-territorial approach to Ukrainian history where instead of focusing upon ethnic Ukrainians his book encapsulates all of the events and peoples who have lived, and still live, on Ukrainian territory. Magosci's A History of Ukraine surveys a 2,500-year-history of Ukrainians and other peoples (Greeks, Crimean Tatars, Poles, Russians, Jews, Germans, Hungarians and Romanians) living within the borders of the Ukrainian nation-state.

Western histories of “Russia” and Ukraine, and histories of Ukraine published since 1991 in Ukraine, are incompatible with one another Stephen Velychenko, National History as Cultural Process. A Survey of the Interpretations of Ukraine's Past in Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian Historical Writing from the Earliest Times to 1914 (Edmonton: Canadian In-stitute of Ukrainian Studies, 1992) and Shaping Identity in Eastern Europe and Russia (New York: St Martin's Press, 1993).. Histories of Ukraine are no different to standard European histories of states that cover all of the events that took place within the territory of the Ukrainian nation-state. Ignoring European civic approaches, Western histories of “Russia” continue to use an imperialist framework and are similar to Russian politicians who do not equate “Russia” with the Russian Federation (as seen at the beginning of this paper). These histories of “Russia” expropriate history that took place on Ukrainian territory for “Russian” history”. Instead of histories of the Ukrainian and Russian Federation there continues to be “Russian” history with Ukrainians as an accident of history who appear from time to time but are always eager to re-embrace Moscow. Pal Kolsto writes that Western historians backed their Russian colleagues over questions such as the “ownership” of Kyivan Rus and utilised Russian imperialist historiography: “Western historians have generally accepted the Russian time perspective” Pal Kolsto, Political Construction Sites. Nation-building in Russia and the Post-Soviet States (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000), p. 35..

The incorporation of a Russian imperialist framework into Western histories of “Russia” was, and remains, the norm and was never viewed as manifestations of imperial thinking. Historical alternatives published by Ukrainian émigrés were derided as “nationalistic”. Kolsto writes, “true enough, certain emigre Ukrainian historians have always maintained that this was a theft of the history of the Ukrainian people, but most of their Western colleagues have brushed these objections aside, dismissing them as rather pathetic manifestations of Ukrainian nationalism” Ibid.. Nicholas V. Riasanovsky's well known A History of Russia, for example, made only one reference to the doyen of Ukrainian history writing Mykhaylo Hrushevskyy when briefly discussing the Zaporozhzhian Cossacks Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1977). p. 198.. Usually, when Western historians mentioned Hrushevskyy it was to deride him as someone providing a “nationalistic viewpoint” James H. Billington, The Icon and the Axe. An Interpretative History of Russian Culture (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), p. 624..

Histories of Ukraine were derided as “nationalists” by the Soviet and post-Soviet Russian regimes and by Western historians of “Russia”. Meanwhile, historians who always used imperialist historiography were lauded as “objective”. This was surely fake news long before the appearance of social media and Russia Today.

In continuing to use Russian imperialist historiography, Western historians and political experts on Russia have become apologists for Russian imperialism in the Crimea. Russia's annexation of the Crimea in spring 2014 was “normalised” by Western historians and political experts on Russia by claiming the Crimea had “always been “Russian”. In supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin's imperialism, they had to air brush out the Tatar claim to be the indigenous people of the Crimea. By taking this road, they are treading on dangerous territory because an argument claiming white settlers were the indigenous peoples in North and South America, Australia or New Zealand would be condemned as racist. Claiming Russians are the indigenous people of the Crimea is no different.

Western histories of “Russia” therefore treat Ukrainians as a branch of the “Russian” people and Tatars as not the indigenous First Nations of the Crimea. De-colonisation of Western history writing of “Russia” is long overdue.

Western Histories of “Russia” are Imperialist

Western historians working in conditions of academic freedom were free to pursue the study of “Russian history” in as objective manner as possible. Nevertheless, Western histories of imperial Russia and the former USSR usually portrayed it as a homogenous nation-state rather than as a multinational empire. Mark von Hagen wrote, “Certainly, no mainstream Russian historian ever described the empire as such; rather, they chose to write the history of Russia more or less as the history of a nationstate, or at least one in the making” Mark von Hagen, “After the Soviet Union: Rethinking Modern Russian History”, The Seventeenth Annual Philadelphia Theta Distinguished Lecture on History, 1977, p. 9..

Western histories of “Russia” unconsciously followed the assumption previously laid out by Tsarist officials that nationality policy should be tailored to create a “nation-state” from the Russian empire. This, in turn, could only be undertaken by assuming that Ukrainians and Belarusians were also “Russians” - as Russian President Putin repeatedly asserts. Tsarist policies and Russian historiography were patently misplaced and could only be premised upon a denial of any history for Ukrainians and Belarusians separate to Russian. As Theodore R. Weeks argues “And yet the Russian Empire was not, and could not be, a nation-state. Any effort to make the Russian Empire into a national state was doomed to failure”¹¹.

Attempts to transform the Tsarist Russian Empire into a “nation-state” modelled on Germany and based on the core “Russian” (Russkii understood as encompassing three eastern Slavs) peoples assumed three factors. Firstly, that Ukrainians and Belarusians were “ethnographic raw material” and simply regional ethnoses of the larger Russkii people Theodore R. Weeks, Nation and State in Late Imperial Russia. Nationalism and Russification on the Western Frontier, 1863-1914 (De Kalb, IL: Northern Illinois University Press, 1996), pp. 3-4. Ibid, pp. 46 and 64.. That is, they were simply “Little” or “White Russians”-- not separate nations. The only choice, therefore, given to Ukrainians and Belarusians by the Tsarist authorities was to become Russians or less favourably Poles. Secondly, the non-Slavic peoples of the Tsarist Empire would agree to assimilation into this planned “Russian nation-state” or enter into “voluntary union” with it. This policy, supported by Tsarist officials and all non-left-wing political parties, rejected any group rights (cantons, autonomy or federalisation) for the empire. In the Russian civil war, all Russian political groups (including the liberal Kadets [Constitutional Democrats]) opposed Ukrainian autonomy or independence Ana Procyk, Russian Nationalism and Ukraine: The Nationality Policy of the Volunteer Army During the Civil War During the Civil War (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1995)..

Thirdly, writing “Russian” history as that which equates empire with nation-state and “Russian” with the eastern Slavs would be the equivalent of German nationalists and Nazis claiming prior to World War II that the “German World” includes Prussia, Germany, Bavaria, Austria, Switzerland and parts of France, Italy, Czechoslovakia and Poland. A “German World” encompassing an area that belonged to “German civilisation” would be the equivalent of the Russkii Mir (Russian World) covering Orthodox and Slavic civilisation in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.

France, Spain and Great Britain all have links to Rome and the Roman Empire, but their histories are confined to the borders of the nation-states created during the past two centuries. This should be the model for the Russian Federation with its origins in the Novgrorod Republic, Vladimir-Suzdal, and Muscovy, rather than Kyivan Rus. The pre-1945 German World and contemporary Russkii Mir are never equated because the former is seen as belonging to the evils of Nazism while the latter is not viewed as extremist but merely as bringing together three “fraternal” branches of the “Russian” people. But, what happens if one “branch” of the “Russian” people - Ukrainians - seeks to break free and build a future outside Putin's Russkii Mir?

The dissemination of a historiography, which viewed the Russian empire as a “nation-state”, was influenced by Michael Karpovich at Harvard University that “shaped the post-war generation of Russian historians in North America and Europe” M. von Hagen. “After the Soviet Union”.. Two surveys of “Russian history” by Russian émigrés Michael Florinsky and Riasanovsky were influential in Western historiographies of “Russia” Michael Florinsky, Russia. A History. Two volumes (New York: Macmillan, 1953) and N. V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia.. Riasa- novsky surveys “Russian history” from “Kievan Russia” to “Soviet Russia” as one continuous narrative of the “Russians”. “Kievan Russia” is therefore described as the “first Russian state” and the region geographically coined as “southern Russia” which spoke the “Old Russian language” N. V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia, p. 25..

Although Riasanovsky admits the term “Russian” was coined much later, he nevertheless applies it to the medieval Kyivan Rus while only briefly mentioning Ukraine during the sixteenth-seventeenth centuries. Riasanovsky's terminological confusion is evident when he discusses the division of the eastern Slavs into three nations after the disintegration of Kyiv Rus. Riasanovsky, in the tradition of Soviet, post-Soviet and Western historiographies, describes Kyivan Rus as a united state of eastern Slavs whose unity was only broken because of the Mongol invasion. Viewed in such a framework, Ukrainians and Belarusians are accidents of history and their “natural” state is to be in union with Russians.

Vladimir Volkoff begins his history of Russia with the phrase, “... Russia begins with Vladimir the baptist and ends with Vladimir the apostate?” Vladimir Volkoff, Vladimir the Russian Viking (n.p.: Honeyglen Publishing, 1984), p. XIII. “Holy Russia” was only to be later artificially divided into fifteen republics. Another similarly poor use of methodology is by John Lawrence who writes that his book is, “about the Russian people, not about their neighbours” John Lawrence, A History of Russia (New York: New American Library, 1969).. The Kyivan era is described as “the cradle of Russia” (a phrase similar to that of Sakwa's and Putin's) with its “famous Russian black earth” and “first Russian farmers”. “Southern Russia” is where the “Russians” first entered history in the seventh century, and the region where the “Russian religion” was established. This would be perfectly at home with Putin's and the Russkii Mir understanding of “Russia”.

The imperialist school of “Russian history” is once again clearly reflected in James H. Billington who writes of “Russian culture” as the tale of three cities - Kyiv (the “mother of Russian cities”), Moscow (“the heart”) and St Petersburg (“the head”) J. H. Billington, The Icon and the Axe.. We read about “early Russians”, “Kievan Russia”, “Russian soil”, “Old Russia”, the “Russian language” and “Russian theology” Ibid, pp. 3, 7, 8 and 13..

Basil Dmytryshyn and Janet Martin incorporate Kyiv Rus within “Russia history” with the Kyivan legacy transferred to Vladimir/Suzdal and then to Moscow and St Petersburg Basil Dmytryshyn, Medieval Russia. A Source Book, 900-1700 (New York: Praeger, 1973) and Janet Martin, Medieval Russia 980-1584 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).. Martin writes, “In the year 980, an obscure prince landed on the northern shores of a land that became known as Rus” and later, Russia”. The transfer of “Russian” history from Kyiv Rus has its origins in the imperialist Russian school of history expounded by nineteenth century historians Sergey M.Solovyov and Vasily O. Kliuchevskyi. Martin only devotes four lines to the alternative view propounded by the Ukrainian historian Hrushevskyy. Martin claims “Kievan Rus” and Muscovy were “inextricably if paradoxically, linked” nonetheless he adds, “Muscovy's political structures contrasted sharply with those of Kievan Rus” J. Martin, Medieval Russia 980-1584, p. 375..

Lionel Kochan uses the term “Kievan Rus” to refer to the medieval era but includes it within a survey of “Russian history” because this period represented, “The formative centuries of Russian history...” Lionel Kochan, The Making of Modern Russia (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974), p. 11.. Florinsky also follows the standard Russian imperialist historiography with Kyiv Rus the first “Russian state” covering “the first three centuries of Russian history” in the “fertile regions of southern Russia” M. Florinsky, Russia, pp. 18 and 19.. Florinsky writes, similar to all Western historians of “Russia”, that after the disintegration of Kyiv Rus, “Russian history” divided into two directions, which led to the, “territorial distribution of the three chief divisions of the Russian people.” Ibid, p.41..

Western history writing of “Russia” has never believed there has been a need to adapt to the disintegration of the former USSR and the formation of an independent Russian state. Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard continued to write, “This book is and is not an account of the emergence of a thing called Russia. The further we pursue the thing into the past, the more misleading our modern vocabulary becomes .If we picture Russia as a state inhabited mainly by people who think of themselves as Russians-if, that is, our notion of Russia is coloured by current political or ethno-cultural geography- then most of this book is not about Russia at all, or at least not about Russia alone” Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard, The Emergence of Rus 750-1200 (London and New York: Longman, 1996), p. XVII.. Their book is the first volume of Longman's History of Russia where Kyiv Rus is understood to be the first “Russian” state.

Geoffrey Hosking aims to break new ground by focusing upon how “Rossiia obstructed the flowering of Rus” or, “if you prefer it, how the building of an empire impeded the formation of a nation” Geoffrey Hoskings, Russia. People & Empire, 1552-1917 (London: Harper-Collins, 1997), p. XIX.. Hoskings differentiates Rus/Russkii, the people, from Rossiiski, the empire in order to separate the pre-imperial state and imperial Russian Empire into two distinct objects of study to show how the growth of the Russian empire (Rossiia) obstructed the evolution of the pre-imperial Rus into a nation. Hence, “my story concerns above all the Russians”. Hoskings also therefore treats the people living in Kyiv Rus as “Russians”.

Hoskings does not attempt to deal with a secondary problem; namely, Russia's Russkii problem as Russia has not one but two conundrums: Russkii versus Rossiiski and inter-Russkii. Writing about the Russkii as encompassing the three eastern Slavic peoples is historically wrong, intellectually confusing and serves to perpetuate Russian imperialist views of Russians and Ukrainians constituting, as Putin loves to say, “odyn narod” (one people). Implicit in Hoskings writing is that Rus constituted one united entity that would have evolved into a Russian nation-state if only its unity had not been destroyed by the Mongol invasion. Ukrainians and Belarusians would have presumably never emerged. Hoskings and other Western historians of “Russia” cannot explain how “Russians” who allegedly happened to live in today's Ukraine in the medieval era, were then replaced by “Ukrainians” at an undisclosed later stage.

Hoskings typically for many Western historians of “Russia” belittles the Belarusians who do not seem to know who they are. He also repeats the canard about the alleged division of Ukrainians into the “nationalist, Ukrainian-speaking west” and the “pro-Russian, Russian-speaking east and south” Presentation by G. Hoskings at the launch of Russia. People & Empire at the School of Slavonic and East Eu-ropean Studies, University of London, 23 April 1997.. Such a depiction of Ukrainians is also commonly used in Moscow to allege that most Ukrainians seek to remain within the Russkii Mir. This poor analysis of Ukrainian national identity lay behind Putin's assumption that Ukraine's Russian speakers would support Russian intervention in “Novorossiya” (eastern-southern Ukraine) in spring 2014. Western historians of “Russia” as much as Russian politicians cannot comprehend why Russian speakers are Ukrainian patriots and do not want to be part of Putin's Russkii Mir. 60% of Ukrainian soldiers fighting Putin's proxies in the Donbas are Russian speakers and the neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region has the highest number of military casualties.

The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Russia and the Former Soviet Union, edited by Archie Brown, Michael Kaiser and Gerald S. Smith, includes no separate section devoted to any non-Russian republic of the former USSR. The authors, typically of Western historians, confuse and use interchangeably the terms “Russia”, “Russian empire” and the “USSR”. “Russia” and “Russian” are interchanged with “imperial Historiography” throughout the Encyclopaedia Archie Brown, Michael Kaiser and Gerald S. Smith eds., The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Russia and the Former Soviet Union (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1994).. Kyiv Rus is again called “Kievan Russia” with everything to do with it termed “Russian”.

A similar approach is undertaken by the Concise Columbia Encyclopedia, which describes Kyiv as the capital city of “Kievan Russia” which was allegedly the “earlier forerunner of Russia and the USSR”. The Concise Columbia Encyclopaedia admits that Kyiv Rus included all of present-day Ukraine and Belarus and only northwestern Russia, but this does not influence its conflation of Kyiv Rus into “Russian” history.

Martin Gilbert's Atlas of Russian History was reprinted in 1993 with only minor revisions to the modern period to take into account the disintegration of the USSR Martin Gilbert, Atlas of Russian History (London: Routledge, 1993).. The Atlas of Russian History spans “Russian history” from 800 BC to the present through the prism of the standard translation of “Russian statehood” from “Kievan Russia”, Vladimr-Suzdal and Muscovy to Peter the Great's Russian Empire. Anything to do with the pre-Vladimir-Suzdal era (economics, territory, religion), is termed “Kievan Russia” and the inhabitants of this state are “Russians”.

John Channon's and Robert Hudson's Penguin Historical Atlas of Russia utilises the same imperialist framework with its opening chapter entitled “The Origins of Russia” John Channon and Robert Hudson, Penguin Historical Atlas of Russia (London: Penguin Books, 1995).. Channon and Hudson interchange between using “Kievan Russia” and “Kievan Rus” in a manner, which leads one to assume that they believe them to be one and the same; that is, they were populated by “Russians”. The history of Rus is therefore assumed to be the part of “The Origins of Russia” which allegedly Christianised itself in 988. This is also, what Putin believes and, in both cases, it is historically inaccurate.

The Soviet state commemorated the millennium of “Russian” Christianity in Moscow in 1988 in a city that did not exist until nearly two centuries after Christianity arrived in Kyiv and six centuries after the founding of the city of Kyiv itself. Kyiv celebrated its 1500^th anniversary in 1982. Putin subscribes to this mythological history of “Russia” and in November 2016, a 17-metre monument to Kyiv Rus Grand Prince Volodymyr (Vladimir) the Great was unveiled in Moscow. Volodymyr ruled Kyiv Rus from 980-1015, which was long before the first reference to Moscow in 1147 as a minor town lying on the western border of the principality of Vladimir-Suzdal.

In continuing to use an imperialist history of “Russia”, Western historians are in agreement with Russian nationalists such as Putin about “Kiev Russia” being the first stage of “Russian” history. They are equally as confused about why Ukrainians stubbornly refuse to follow Belarusians as a branch of the Russkii people. This confusion is even more the case since the 2014 crisis, which has widened the gulf between Ukrainian and Russian national identities. Their confusion will only grow because the Ukraine-Russia divorce that began in 1992 and speeded up after 2014 is irreversible See Trajectory of the Conflict: The Model of Ukrainian-Russian Relations in the Near-Term Outlook (Kyiv:

Razumkov Centre, August 2017). and three special issues of Natsionalna Bezpeka i Oborona, nos. 3-4, 7-8 (2016);1-2 (2017).

Western Histories of the Crimea are Racist

Current debates about whether monuments to racists, imperialists and those who committed crimes against humanity against native peoples have had no impact upon Western historians of “Russia” and Russian politics experts. It would be impermissible to write a history of any country in North and South America, Australia and New Zealand in the manner as histories of “Russia” continue to be written where European settlers are depicted as the “indigenous” people. Australian Labour opposition leader Bill Shorten reminded his fellow Australians that “Our history didn't start when Captain Cook sailed into sight of Australia in 1770”. If the approach of Western scholars on “Russian history” were used in the Americas, it would mean their history began when European colonists arrived in the 15th and 16th centuries and its peoples could no longer be called “First Nations” and “Native Peoples”. If scholars and journalists wrote that European settlers who landed in 1607-1608 in Virginia and Quebec were “native peoples” they would be rightly accused of racism. Yet, Russian and Western historians and Russian politicians continue to describe “Russians” as the “native people” of the Crimea.

Adding to Western and Russian racism towards Crimean Tatars is a continued unwillingness to accept that Russian rule over the Crimea has been disastrous for the indigenous Crimean Tatars, in the same manner as European settlers were for First Native and indigenous peoples in North and South America, Australia and New Zealand. In these continents and countries, First Native and indigenous peoples experienced forced assimilation, the taking away of children from their parents, destruction of cultures and genocide. The history of British colonial rule over Australia, “is steeped in the blood of violent dispossession, of attempted genocide, of enduring trauma” Jack Latimore, “It's convenient to say Aboriginal people support Australia Day. But it's not true”, The Guardian, 21 January 2018. . Canada is seeking to redress its mistreatment and abuses of Canada's indigenous Inuit, First Nations and Metis. Museums and school history textbooks no longer portray European settlers arriving in an empty Canadian land. Prime Ministers have publicly apologised for past mistreatment of First Nations and described them as Canada's indigenous people “Canada's indigenous people are still overlooked”, The Economist, 29 July 2017.. Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull stated, “The impact of European settlement on Aboriginals was tragic, of course it was. There are many wrongs that were done in the past which we seek to right today” Bernard Lagan, “Australia Day marked by biggest protests”, The Times, 26 January 2018..

Australian First Nation indigenous people react to the official Australia Day on 26 January each year with an “uneasy blend of melancholy approaching outright grief, of profound despair, of opposition and antipathy, and always of staunch defiance” J. Latimore, “It's convenient to say Aboriginal people support Australia Day”.. In 2018, 60,000 marched in Melbourne and hundreds of thousands throughout Australia calling for Australia Day to be changed to a different date in order not to celebrate the day in 1788, only five years after the Crimea was annexed, when British settlers arrived. The marchers called for an end to the “racist” holiday and chanted “no pride in geno- cide” Christopher Knaus and Calla Wahlquist, “Abolish Australia Day”: Invasion Day marches draw tens of tho u-sands of protestors”, The Guardian, 26 January 2018.. Well-known film actor Russell Crowe called for the replacement of the Australia Day holiday with an inclusive annual commemoration: “Take away the contention, let's have a date we can all embrace” B. Lagan, “Australia Day marked by biggest protests”.. Tatars have two similar days of genocide committed against them: 10 May 1944 when they were ethnically cleansed and 28 February 2014 when Russia launched its invasion of the Crimea.

Continents and countries that have experienced European settlers are coming to terms with their past racism, exploitation, assimilation and genocide of First Nation indigenous peoples. Centre-left, liberal and green governments are seeking to redress past crimes. All political forces, including on the centre-right, describe the indigenous native peoples as First Nations.

How does the situation look like in the Crimea?

Russian rule over the Crimea included all of the elements found in white settler rule of the America's, Australia and New Zealand. 200,000 of the 300,000 Crimean Tatars emigrated to Ottoman Turkey in the nineteenth century. In the Crimea they were subjected to racism, ethnic and religious discrimination, assimilationist policies and in 1944, ethnic cleansing to Soviet Central Asia. Tatars commemorate the ethnic cleansing of Crimean Tatars in May 1944 as a genocide each year because half of them perished during the deportation Chapter 8, “The Crimea during World War II” in P. R. Magocsi, This Blessed Land. Crimea and the Crimean Tatars (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2014), pp.109-122..

Since 2014, Russian occupation authorities in the Crimea have revived Soviet era repressive policies. These have included imprisonment of activists, closing down of Tatar institutions (such as the unofficial parliament Majlis), destruction of Tatar culture and deportations and expulsion of Tatar leaders and abduction and possible murder of up to seventeen Crimean Tatar activists Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Situation of human rights in the tempo-rarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine), A full list of UN reports on human rights in Ukraine and Crimea can be found here. Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz was sentenced to eight years imprisonment by Russian occupation authorities Halya Coynash “Human rights abuses in Russian-occupied Crimea: Russia sentences Crimean Tatar leader Akhtem Chiygoz to 8 years in openly lawless trial”, 12.09.2017. .

How have successive Soviet and Russian political leaders and parties, and their proxies in Ukraine (Party of Regions, Communist Party) related to these crimes?

• These political leaders and parties support the 1944 Soviet ethnic cleansing by buying into Joseph Stalin's claim that it was justified because they had allegedly “collaborated” with the Nazis.

• They have no remorse for the suffering inflicted upon Crimean Tatars.

• They oppose the return of Crimean Tatars to the Crimea and the return to them of their stolen property and other assets.

• They claim that the Crimea was always and is “Russian” and deny that Tatars are the indigenous people.

• They continue to hold a racially constructed white European superiority towards “backward” and “Muslim interlopers”.

In presenting the Crimea as “always Russian”, Western historians and experts on Russian politics have depicted Crimean history in a racist manner by excluding, marginalising or ignoring the indigenous Crimean Tatars. Their pre-occupation with claiming the Crimea as “Russian” has led to them muting and denying current human rights violations and crimes committed against Crimean Tatars. Neil Kent's otherwise informative and balanced history of the Crimea writes that the referendum “was joyfully received by most Crimean's”. He continues: “There is no doubt that the majority of the population of Crimea supported joining the Russian Federation” Neil Kent, Crimea. A History (London: Hurst & Co, 2016).. Kent repeats the widely held view amongst Western historians of Russia and many experts on Russian politics that the “reunion” of Crimea and Russia returned the peninsula to its “natural” home. In Western books written about the 2014 crisis, repression of Crimean Tatars is marginalised or downplayed by apologists and some experts on Russian politics. Sakwa makes the incredible claim that Crimean Tatars “welcomed the reunification with Russia” and that “Crimean Tatars are ready to be loyal citizens of Russia” R. Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine, p.112.. Such racism is incompatible with Sakwa's left-wing views Ibid, pp.112 and 281..

The Crimea “was always Russian” is a common refrain of Western historians of “Russia”. But, a major question arises as to whether we should start the clock ticking in 1783 and buying into the racist claim the Crimea was an empty land prior the arrival of “Russians”. Canadians, Americans, Australians and other white settler countries also built museums and published textbooks with a similar claim that the Europeans had arrived in an empty land, but these have been long replaced by greater inclusivity incorporating indigenous First Nations. University of Toronto Chair of Ukrainian Studies Professor Magocsi says the only people who can claim to be indigenous to the Crimea are Tatars Paul R. Magocsi, “Crimea is not Russian: History of Crimea, Ukraine”.. The Karaites and Krymchaks are also indigenous to the Crimea. Western and Russian scholars and Russian politicians continue to use an imperialist approach to “Russian” history and a racist exclusion of indigenous Crimean Tatars.

Magocsi and Andrew Wilson both point out that if length of time within a state is the criterion we use to decide to whom Crimea should belong, and then it should be returned to Tatars who ruled the peninsula from the thirteenth to the late eighteenth century. For the longest period of approximately 330 years, the Crimea was within the Crimean Khanate, a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. The Slavic (Russian and Ukrainian) population of the Crimea only arrived in the nineteenth century. Magocsi says, “This means Slavs (including Russians) cannot be considered the indigenous inhabitants of the Ukrainian steppe and certainly not of the Crimea”. Magocsi continues: “Therefore, pride of place as the population which has lived longest in Crimea goes to the Tatars” P. R. Magocsi, “Crimea is not Russian”.. The Crimea, Magocsi says, is the historic homeland of Tatars - not Russians.

Wilson calculates that the Crimea, although annexed by Russia in 1783, “was only ever truly Russian from the Crimean War of 1853-56 until 1917” and again from 1945-54; that is, it was under Russian rule for seventy-three years. The Crimea was a Soviet republic from 1921 to 1945. The Crimea was within Soviet and independent Ukraine for a slightly shorter period of sixty years from 19542014; that is, only thirteen years less than it was included within “Russia” Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis. What it Means for the West (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014), p.100..

A second manner in which the Crimea is depicted as “always Russian” is through the continued use of an imperialist history that includes the Crimea as part of “Kiev Russia” as the first stage of “Russian” history. Plokhy has written how Russian imperial identity was forged during Muscovy's expansionism when it asserted “myths of origins” by laying historical, ideological and dynastic claims to Kyiv Rus S. Plokhy, Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation; From 1470 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 2017).. Muscovite Tsars and contemporary Russian presidents claimed descent from Kyiv Rus Grand Princes as the birthplace of the “Russian” state. As part of this mythology, they claimed Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians are branches of the “Russian” people. Moscow the “Third Rome” became the successor to Constantinople, which had fallen to the Ottoman Turks. This imperialist history became - and remains - the norm for Western historians when writing about “Russia” and the Crimea.

Muscovy and the Tsarist Russian Empire sought to block and repress the emergence of Ukrainian national identity while it was being promoted in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. The Ukrainian language was the only one to be banned in Tsarist Empire in the nineteenth century David Saunders, “Russia and Ukraine under Alexander II: The Valuev Edict of 1863”, The International History Review, vol. XV11, no.1 (February 1995), pp. 23-50, and “Russia's Ukrainian Policy (1847-1903): A De-mographic Approach”, European History Quarterly, vol.25, no.2 (April 1995), pp. 181-208..

“Ukrainian nationalism” was viewed as a threat because it undermined Russian claims to Kyiv Rus and destroyed the myth of three branches of the “Russian” people Taras Kuzio, “Nation-State Building and the Re-Writing of History in Ukraine: The Legacy of Kyiv Rus”, Nationalities Papers, vol.33, ¹ 1 (March 2005), pp.30-58.. Anne Applebaum discusses the origins of Chekist Ukrainphobia in the early 1930s during the Holodomor and mass arrest of national communists, educators and cultural elites. This took place amid a frenzied search for “Petlurite counter-revolutionaries” allied to external enemies of the Soviet Union Anne Applebaum, Red Famine. Stalin 's War on Ukraine (London: Allen Lane, 2017), pp.149, 155, 159.. Stalin and Putin both talked of their fear of “losing” Ukraine. Paranoia about Ukrainian nationalism “was taught to every successive generation of secret policemen, from the OGPU to the NKVD to the KGB, as well as every successive generation of party leaders. Perhaps it even helped mould the thinking of post-Soviet elite, long after the USSR ceased to exist” A. Applebaum, Red Famine, p. 161..

Imperialist thinking permeates even left-wing scholars, such as Sakwa and Chris Kaspar de Ploeg De Ploeg who support Russia's “natural” ownership of the Crimea and do not acknowledge the Tatars as the indigenous First Nation of the Crimea. de Ploeg writes, “Indeed, Crimea has been a part of Russia for 170 years, much longer than its history as a Ukrainian province” Chris Kaspar de Ploeg, Ukraine in the Crossfire (Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, 2017), p.117. misunderstanding that Ukrainians do not quarrel with Russia over the Crimea and instead support the Crimean Tatars as the indigenous First Nation in their Crimean homeland. Kent describes Crimea as the “Cinderella of the Ukrainian state” N. Kent, Crimea, p. 150. in a phrase that could be also repeated for a “Russian Cinderella”.

Russia claims proprietorial rights over the Crimea because it had allegedly belonged to “Kievan Russia”. Putin's imperialism and racism emerged in 2007 with the launch of Russkii Mir, which elaborates a common, “fraternal” and ever-lasting Slavic and (Russian) Orthodox “civilisation” for Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians. This was further crystallised during the 1020^th and 1025^th anniversaries of the adoption of Christianity by Kyiv Rus in 2008 and 2013 respectively. During those two anniversaries, Putin was invited by his Ukrainian satrap, President Viktor Yanukovych, to participate in celebrations organised by the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

Putin described Crimea as part “of our shared history” and the location where “Vladimir” was baptised which, “predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilisation and human value that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus”. Putin's renewed emphasis on the “fraternal” and “irrevocable unity” of the three eastern Slavic peoples and thus Ukraine's destiny as lying within the Russkii Mir therefore predates the 2014 crisis by many years.

Sakwa writes that the Crimea was “the heartland of Russian nationhood” R. Sakwa, Frontline Ukraine. p.12.. In so doing, he openly buys into Putin's imperialist historiography of whitewashing Ukrainians from history by referring to the Crimea as part of “Kiev Russian” history.

The Russian Orthodox Church and President Putin persistently highlight the eternal “fraternal” bonds of Russians, Ukrainians and Ukrainians stretching from “Kievan Russia” to the present. Ukraine as the origin of “Russian” civilisation was clearly laid out in Putin's 18 March 2014 speech to the State Duma and Federation Council welcoming Crimea's accession to the Russian Federation. In March 2014, during the official celebrations to incorporate the Crimea into the Russian Federation, Putin said:

“To understand the reason behind such a choice it is enough to know the history of Crimea and what Russia and Crimea have always meant for each other.

Everything in Crimea speaks of our shared history and pride. This the location of ancient Kherso- nes, where Prince Vladimir was baptised. His spiritual feat of adopting Orthodoxy predetermined the overall basis of the culture, civilisation and human values that unite the peoples of Russia, Ukraine and Belarus. The graves of Russian soldiers whose bravery brought Crimea into the Russian empire are also in Crimea. This is also Sevastopol - a legendary city with an outstanding history, a fortress that serves as the birthplace of Russia's Black Sea Fleet. Crimea is Balaklava and Kerch, Malakhov Kurgan and Sapun Ridge. Each one of these places is dear to our hearts, symbolising Russian military glory and outstanding valour”.

Putin continued: “After the revolution, the Bolsheviks, for a number of reasons - may God judge them - added large sections of the historical South of Russia to the Republic of Ukraine. This was done with no consideration for the ethnic make-up of the population, and today these areas form the southeast of Ukraine. Then, in 1954, a decision was made to transfer Crimean Region to Ukraine, along with Sevastopol, despite the fact that it was a federal city.

But on the whole - and we must state this clearly, we all know it - this decision was treated as a formality of sorts because the territory was transferred within the boundaries of a single state. Back then, it was impossible to imagine that Ukraine and Russia may split up and become two separate states” “Address by President of the Russian Federation”, 18 March 2014, .

Kent, believing that popular sentiment in the Crimea was “Russian” writes, “There is no doubt that the majority of the population of Crimea supported joining the Russian Federation” N. Kent, Crimea, p. 160.. What there can be no doubt about is that the official referendum result of 97% in support of joining the Crimea with the Russian Federation was falsified; the OSCE and Council of Europe refused to accept the validity of a referendum result undertaken at gunpoint. Tatars and Ukrainians accounted for 36% in Ukraine's 2001 census (with ethnic Russians 54%) and many of them did not support Russia's annexation in spring 2014.

It is also impossible to accept that Sergei Aksyonov, who was installed by Russian troops as Crimean Prime Minister, was a popular political figure. In the 2010 elections, Aksyonov's neo-Nazi Russian Unity party, which harbours racist and xenophobic attitudes towards Crimean Tatars and Ukrainians, won only 4% of the vote. Aksyonov is also dogged by allegations of links to organised crime with a nom de guerre of “Goblin” Taras Kuzio, “Crime, Politics and Business in 1990s Ukraine”, Communist and Post-Communist Politics, vol.47, no.2 (July 2014), pp.195-210..

Towards Non-Imperial and Non-Racist Histories of Russia

After 1934, Soviet historiography reverted to its pre-Soviet roots and re-adopted the imperialist schema created in the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries. This imperial framework was and continues to be followed by Western historians of “Russia”. In Tsarist, Soviet and Western histories of “Russia” the medieval state of Kyiv Rus was nationalised on behalf of “Russian” history and described as the “first Russian state”. Ukrainians and Belarusians were ignored and only appeared briefly in the midseventeenth century as Cossacks who allied themselves with Muscovy and then again in 1917. It was never made clear how Ukrainians came to be living on territory that had been “primordial Russian” unless one believed, as does Putin and Russian leaders, that there are no Ukrainian people because there are three “branches” of the “Russian” people.

Since 1992, Russia's first nation-state should become the basis for a new history of Russia based upon the territory of the Russian Federation. This civic-territorial approach would support Russia's democratisation by dropping imperialist and racist approaches to history. In the post-Soviet era, imperialist and racist Tsarist, Soviet and Western histories of “Russia” are out of step with scholarly, government and parliamentary discussions about the injustices of imperialism, colonialism and racism in the America's, Australia and New Zealand See the largely negative review of post-Soviet books on Russia by Plokhy in the Journal of Ukrainian Studies, vol.21, nos.1-2 (Summer-Winter 1996), pp. 342-345..

Following the disintegration of the USSR, historians should write new histories of Russia, which are confined to the territorial boundaries of the Russian Federation. Instead, by continuing to utilise eighteenth-nineteenth century imperialist and racist approaches, Western and Russian historians support the mythology underpinning Russian territorial claims to the Crimea and “Novorossiya”, and Russian hegemony over a Ukraine that “naturally” belongs to the Russkii Mir. This approach defines Russians - not Tatars - as the so-called “indigenous” people of the Crimea.