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

A history of Russia territorially based upon the Russian Federation would accomplish three tasks. Firstly, it would no longer equate the Russian empire with a budding Russian nation-state. Secondly, it would no longer incorporate Belarusians and Ukrainians within “Russian” history. “Russian” history that incorporates the three eastern Slavs treats Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians as organically close and destined to forever live in “fraternal brotherhood”. Thirdly, it would support civic Russian nation building within the borders of the Russian Federation. Vera Tolz found that civic nation building in the Russian Federation is weak Vera Tolz, “Forging the Nation: National Identity and Nation Building in Post-Communist Russia”, Europe- Asia Studies, vol.50, no.6 (September 1998), pp. 993-1022 and “`Homeland Myths” and Nation-State Building in Postcommunist Russia”, Slavic Review, vol.57, no.2 (Summer 1998), pp. 267-294. and Hoskings writes that a civic definition of Russian identity “runs counter to Russian traditions” and “It is historically very weakly grounded” G. Hoskings, “Can Russia become a Nation-state?” Nations and Nationalism, vol.4, no.4 (October 1998), p. 457.. By supporting an imperialist approach to history, Western historians make a Russian civic identity even weaker.

In the twenty-first century, and a quarter of a century after the USSR disintegrated, it is incumbent upon Western historians to end their use of an imperialist historiography. Imperialist historical writing leads to chauvinism towards Ukrainians and racism towards Crimean Tatars that should have no place in the twenty first century.

nation empire racist crimea

References

1. “Address by President of the Russian Federation”, 18 March 2014,

2. 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).

3. Andrew Wilson, Ukraine Crisis. What it Means for the West (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2014).

4. Anne Applebaum, Red Famine. Stalin's War on Ukraine (London: Allen Lane, 2017).

5. 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).

6. 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).

7. Bernard Lagan, “Australia Day marked by biggest protests”, The Times, 26 January 2018.

8. “Canada's indigenous people are still overlooked”, The Economist, 29 July 2017.

9. Chris Kaspar de Ploeg, Ukraine in the Crossfire (Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, 2017).

10. Christopher Knaus and Calla Wahlquist, “Abolish Australia Day”: Invasion Day marches draw tens of thousands of protestors”, The Guardian, 26 January 2018.

11. 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.

12. David Saunders, “Russia's Ukrainian Policy (1847-1903): A Demographic Approach”, European History Quarterly, vol.25, № 2 (April 1995), pp. 181-208.

13. Geoffrey Hoskings, “Can Russia become a Nation-state?” Nations and Nationalism, vol. 4, № 4 (October 1998).

14. Geoffrey Hoskings, Russia. People & Empire, 1552-1917 (London: Harper-Collins, 1997).

15. George O. Liber, Total Wars and the Making of Modern Ukraine, 1914-1954 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016).

16. 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,

17. Jack Latimore, “It's convenient to say Aboriginal people support Australia Day. But it's not true”, The Guardian, 21 January 2018.

18. James H. Billington, The Icon and the Axe. An Interpretative History of Russian Culture (New York : Vintage Books, 1970).

19. Janet Martin, Medieval Russia 980-1584 (Cambridge--New York--Melbourne--Madrid-- Cape Town--Singapore--Sao Paulo: Cambridge University Press, 2008).

20. John Channon and Robert Hudson, Penguin Historical Atlas of Russia (London: Penguin Books, 1995).

21. John Lawrence A History of Russia (New Y ork: New American Library, 1969).

22. Lionel Kochan The Making of Modern Russia (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1974).

23. Mark von Hagen, “After the Soviet Union: Rethinking Modern Russian History”, The Seventeenth Annual Philadelphia Theta Distinguished Lecture on History, 1977.

24. Martin Gilbert, Atlas of Russian History (London: Routledge, 1993).

25. Michael Florinsky, Russia. A History. Two volumes (New York: Macmillan, 1953).

26. Natsionalna Bezpeka i Oborona, nos. 3-4, 7-8 (2016) 1-2 (2017)

27. Neil Kent, Crimea. A History (London: Hurst & Co, 2016).

28. Nicholas V. Riasanovsky, A History of Russia (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1977).

29. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Situation of human rights in the temporarily occupied Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (Ukraine)

30. Orest Subtelny, Ukraine. A History, four editions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,1988, 1994, 2000, 2009).

31. Pal Kolsto, Political Construction Sites. Nation-building in Russia and the Post-Soviet States (Boulder, CO: Westview, 2000).

32. Paul R. Magocsi, “Crimea is not Russian: History of Crimea, Ukraine”.

33. Paul R. Magocsi, A History of Ukraine, two editions (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1996 and 2010).

34. Paul R. Magocsi, This Blessed Land. Crimea and the Crimean Tatars (Toronto: University of Toronto, 2014).

35. Presentation by G. Hoskings at the launch of Russia. People & Empire at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London, 23 April 1997.

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

37. Serhii Plokhy, Lost Kingdom: The Quest for Empire and the Making of the Russian Nation; From 1470 to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 2017).

38. Serhii Plokhy, The Gates of Europe. A History of Ukraine (London and New York, Allen Lane and Basic Books, 2015).

39. Serhy Yekelchyk, Ukraine. Birth of a Modern Nation (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2007).

40. Simon Franklin and Jonathan Shepard, The Emergence of Rus 750-1200 (London and New York: Longman, 1996), p. XVII.

41. 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 Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1992).

42. Stephen Velychenko, Shaping Identity in Eastern Europe and Russia (New York: St Martin's Press, 1993).

43. Taras Kuzio, “Crime, Politics and Business in 1990s Ukraine”, Communist and PostCommunist Politics, vol.47, no.2 (July 2014), pp.195-210.

44. Taras Kuzio, “Nation-State Building and the Re-Writing of History in Ukraine: The Legacy of Kyiv Rus”, Nationalities Papers, vol.33, № 1 (March 2005), pp.30-58.

45. 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).

46. Trajectory of the Conflict: The Model of Ukrainian-Russian Relations in the Near-Term Outlook (Kyiv: Razumkov Centre, August 2017).

47. Vera Tolz, “`Homeland Myths” and Nation-State Building in Postcommunist Russia”, Slavic Review, vol.57, no.2 (Summer 1998), pp. 267-294.

48. Vera Tolz, “Forging the Nation: National Identity and Nation Building in Post-Communist Russia”, Europe-Asia Studies, vol.50, no.6 (September 1998), pp. 993-1022.

49. Vladimir Volkoff, Vladimir the Russian Viking (n.p.: Honeyglen Publishing, 1984).

Размещено на Allbest.ru