Postcolonial studies and post-Soviet societies: The possibilities and the limitations of their intersection
pages: 458-480
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.2298/FID1502458SAbstract
Starting with a short review of the postcolonial studies’ origins, this paper considers the question of their application in the study of history and contemporary state of the post-Soviet societies. Aspirations of the leading theorists of postcolonial studies not to restrict their field of research on the relation of imperial metropoles (First World) and its (post)colonial periphery (Third World) have not met with the acceptance in post-Soviet societies’ academia. With the exception of the famous debates on „the Balkans“ that are not the subject of this paper, the paradigm of post-colonialism is rarely used in the interpretation of past and present of the former socialist states (Second World). Rejecting the thesis of their own (post)colonial status in most of Eastern European countries is usually based on a rejection of the assumption of the Soviet-style communism’s „civilizing mission“. From the same perspective, the Soviet Union is not considered a colonial metropole, but an occupying force, and the epoch of socialism is interpreted as externally imposed breach of the historical developments based on the European model. On the other hand, the concept of these countries’ transition opens up the issue of their (post)colonial status in relation to „Europe“ as the center of economic, political and cultural power. Therefore, the postcolonial critique of post-Soviet societies is more often focused on the thematisation of neo-imperial domination and neo-colonial dependency phenomena, than on the explanation of their socialist past. The author’s opinion is that it doesn’t mean that a number of concepts of postcolonial theory - such as „internal colonialism“ - cannot be productively used to a fuller understanding of the Soviet past, nor that in the interpretation of post-Soviet realities’ „hybrid forms“ the postcolonial studies cannot be of use. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 149026] Keywords: postcolonialism, post-Soviet societies, colonialism, empire, internal colonialism, subaltern studies
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Parry, Benita (1997), „The Postcolonial: Conceptual Category or Chimera?“, The Yearbook of English Studies 27: 3–21.
Pletsch, Karl (1981), „The Three Worlds, or the Division of Social Scientific Labor, circa 1950–1975“, Comparative Studies in Society and History 23 (4): 565–590.
Platt, Kevin (2013), „Occupation versus Colonization: Post-Soviet Latvia and the Provincialization of Europe“, in: U. Blacker, A. Etkind and J. Fedor (eds.), Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe, New York: Palgrave Macmillan:
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Prakash, Gyan (1994), „Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism“, The American Historical Review 99 (5): 1475–1490.
Pratt, Merry Louise (1992), Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, London: Routledge.
Quayson, Ato (2000): Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Process?, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Račevskis, Kârlis (2006), „Toward a Postcolonial Perspective on the Baltic States“, In: Violeta Kelertas (ed.), Baltic Postcolonialism, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi: 165–186.
Ram, Harsha (2003), The Imperial Sublime: A Russian Poetics of Empire, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Ram, Harsha (2006), „Between 1917 and 1947: Postcoloniality and Russia-Eurasia“, PMLA 121 (3): 831–833.
Riabchuk, Mykola [Рябчук, Микола], (2013), „Разновидности колониализма: О возможностях применения постколониальной методологии к изучению посткоммунистической Восточной Европы“, Политическая
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Young, Robert (2001), Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Yurchak, Alexei (2006), Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, Princeton University Press.
Adams, Laura (2008), „Can We Apply Postcolonial Theory to Central Eurasia?“, Central Eurasian Studies Review 7 (1): 2–7.
Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth; Tiffin, Helen (2001), Key Concepts in Post-Colonial Studies, London and New York: Routledge.
Ashcroft, Bill; Griffiths, Gareth; Tiffin, Helen (2004), The Empire Writes Back: Theory and practice in post-colonial literatures, (2nd edition), London and New York: Routledge.
Bassin, Mark (2006), „Geographies of imperial identity“, in: Cambridge History of Russia: Imperial Russia 1689–1917, (Edited by A. Lieven), Cambridge University Press: 45–63.
Beissinger, Mark (2005), “Rethinking Empire in the Wake of Soviet Collapse“, in: Zoltan Barany and Robert G. Moser (Eds.), Ethnic Politics and Post-Communism: Theories and Practice, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press: 14–45.
Beissinger, Mark (2008), „The Persistence of Empire in Eurasia“, AAASS News Net. 48 (1): 1–8.
Buckler, Julie A. (2009), „What comes after “Post-Soviet” in Russian studies?“, PMLA 124 (1): 251–263.
Burbank, Jane [Бёрбанк, Джейн] (2012), „Связанные законом: подданные, служащие и имперский суверенитет в Казанской губернии, 1890-1917 годы“, u: Там, внутри. Практики внутренней колонизации в культурной истории России (Сб. статей под ред. А Эткинда, Д. Уффельманна, И.Кукулина), Москва: Новое литературное обозрение: 349–375.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2000), Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Chakrabarty, Dipesh (2000a), „Subaltern Studies and Postcolonial Historiography“, Nepantla: Views from South 1 (1): 9–32.
Chari, Sharad and Verdery, Katherine (2009), „Thinking between the Posts: Postcolonialism, Postsocialism, and Ethnography after the Cold War“, Comparative Studies in Society and History 51 (1): 6–34.
Chatterjee, Partha (2006), „A Brief History of Subaltern Studies“, Transnationale Geschichte. Themen, Tendenzen und Theorien, Gunilla Budde / Sebastian Conrad / Oliver Janz (Hg.), Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht: 94–104.
Chernetsky, Vitaly (2003), „Postcolonialism, Russia and Ukraine“, Ulbandus Review 7: 32–62.
Ćirjaković, Zoran (2012), „Subalterne studije i tumačenje postjugoslovenskog prostora“, Godišnjak FPN, Beograd, (12): 91–112.
Condee, Nancy (2006), „The Anti-imperialist Empire and After: In Dialogue with Gayatri Spivak’s Are You Postcolonial?“, PMLA 121 (3): 829–831.
Cooper, Frederick (2005), Colonialism in Question: Theory, Knowledge, History, Berkeley: University of California Press.
Cooper, Frederick and Stoler, Ann Laura (1997), „Between Metropole and Colony: Rethinking a Research Agenda“, Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World, Berkeley: University of California Press: 1–48.
Deltcheva, Roumiana (1998), „The Difficult Topos In-Between: The East Central European Cultural Context as a Post-Coloniality“, Sarmatian Review 03: 557–562.
Doyle, Michael (1986), Empires, Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press.
Eagleton, Terry (1999): „In the Gaudy Supermarket“, London Review of Books 21 (10): 3–6.
Etkind, Alexander (2011), Internal Colonization: Russia’s Imperial Experience, London: Polity press
Gerasimov, I; Glebov S; Mogilner, M. (2013), „The Postimperial meets the Postcolonial: Russian Historical Experience and the Postcolonial Moment“, Ab Imperio 2: 97–135.
Hagen, Mark von (1995), „Does Ukraine Have a History?“, Slavic Review 54 (3): 658–673.
Hagen, Mark von (2004), „Empires, Borderlands, and Diasporas: Eurasia as Anti-Paradigm for the Post-Soviet Era“, American Historical Review 109 (2): 445–468.
Hiddelston, Jane (2009), Understanding Postcolonialism, Stocksfield: Acumen Publishing.
Hladík, Radim (2011), „A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space“, Teorie vědy / Theory of Science, Praha, XXXIII (4): 561–590.
Hokanson, Katya (2008), Writing at Russia’s Borders, Toronto: Toronto University Press.
Hosking, Geoffrey (2006), Rulers and Victims: The Russian un the Soviet Union, Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Karletas, Violeta (2006), „Baltic Postcolonialism and its Critics“, in: Baltic Postcolonialism, (ed. Violeta Kelertas), Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi: 1–10.
Khalid, Adeeb (2007), „Introduction: Locating the (post-)colonial in Soviet history“, Central Asian Survey 26 (4): 465–473.
Kiossev, Alexander (2008), „The Self-Colonizing Metaphor“ (internet) dostupno na: https://uni-sofia.academia.edu/AlexanderKiossev (pristupljeno: 16. jula 2014).
Kritika (2006), „The Imperial Turn“ (From the Editors), Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 7 (4): 705–712.
Kundera, Milan (1984), „Oteti Zapad ili tragedija Srednje Evrope“, Češko pitanje, (ur. Biserka Rajčić), Beograd, 1990, str. 63–75 (prevod s češkog B. Rajčić).
Layton, Suzan (1994), Russian Literature and Empire: Conquest of the Caucasus from Pushkin to Tolstoy, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Martin, Terry, (2001), The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Moore, Chioni David (2001), „Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Toward a Global Postcolonial Critique“, PMLA 116 (1): 111–128.
Parry, Benita (1997), „The Postcolonial: Conceptual Category or Chimera?“, The Yearbook of English Studies 27: 3–21.
Pletsch, Karl (1981), „The Three Worlds, or the Division of Social Scientific Labor, circa 1950–1975“, Comparative Studies in Society and History 23 (4): 565–590.
Platt, Kevin (2013), „Occupation versus Colonization: Post-Soviet Latvia and the Provincialization of Europe“, in: U. Blacker, A. Etkind and J. Fedor (eds.), Memory and Theory in Eastern Europe, New York: Palgrave Macmillan:
125–147.
Prakash, Gyan (1994), „Subaltern Studies as Postcolonial Criticism“, The American Historical Review 99 (5): 1475–1490.
Pratt, Merry Louise (1992), Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation, London: Routledge.
Quayson, Ato (2000): Postcolonialism: Theory, Practice or Process?, Cambridge: Polity Press.
Račevskis, Kârlis (2006), „Toward a Postcolonial Perspective on the Baltic States“, In: Violeta Kelertas (ed.), Baltic Postcolonialism, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi: 165–186.
Ram, Harsha (2003), The Imperial Sublime: A Russian Poetics of Empire, Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Ram, Harsha (2006), „Between 1917 and 1947: Postcoloniality and Russia-Eurasia“, PMLA 121 (3): 831–833.
Riabchuk, Mykola [Рябчук, Микола], (2013), „Разновидности колониализма: О возможностях применения постколониальной методологии к изучению посткоммунистической Восточной Европы“, Политическая
концептология (3): 116–125.
Shohat, Ella (1992), „Notes on the Post-Colonial“, Social Text 31/32: 99–113.
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty (2006), „Are You Postcolonial? To the Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Literatures“, PMLA 121 (3): 828–829.
Subotić, Milan (2004), Put Rusije: Evroazijsko stanovište, Beograd: Plato.
Subotić, Milan (2013), „Edvard Said i ‘ruski orijentalizam’“, Treći program II (158): 115–139.
Sunderland, Willard (2007), „Imperial Space: Territorial Thought and Practice in the Eighteen Century“, in: J. Burbank, M. Hagen and A. Remnev (eds.),
Russian Empire. Space, People, Power, 1700–1930, Bloomington: Indiana University Press: 33–66.
Sunderland, Willard (2010), „The Ministry of Asiatic Russia: The Colonial Office That Never Was but Might Have Been”, Slavic Review 69 (1): 120–150.
Suny, Ronald Gregor. (1995), „Ambiguous Categories: States, Empires, and Nations“, Post-Soviet Affairs 11 (2): 185–196.
Thompson, Ewa (2000), Imperial knowledge: Russian Literature and Colonialism, Westport: Greenwood Press.
Todorova, Marija (2006), Imaginarni Balkan, Beograd: Biblioteka XX vek (drugo izdanje; prevod s engleskog Dragana Starčević i Aleksandra Bajazetov-Vučen).
Young, Robert (2001), Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, Malden MA: Blackwell Publishing.
Yurchak, Alexei (2006), Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation, Princeton University Press.
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27.05.2015
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Subotić, M. (2015) “Postcolonial studies and post-Soviet societies: The possibilities and the limitations of their intersection: pages: 458-480”, Filozofija i društvo/Philosophy and Society. Belgrade, Serbia, 26(2). doi: 10.2298/FID1502458S.
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