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THE IMAGE RUSSIA presents to the world is one of imperial innocence. However, even the most casual glance at European history during the last 500 years shows that when it comes to imperialism, Russia is a veteran, not a virgin.
While European empires have by and large lost or relinquished their colonies, Russia retains most of its conquests and seeks more.
That Russia baulks at describing its past and present relationship with conquered populations as colonial does not change the character of these associations, nor is it disguised by the Kremlin’s ostentatious anti-imperial garb.
Not all empires are the same. European sea empires were, by and large, separate from the imperial polity. England’s colonies in Africa and Asia, for example, retained separate names and were not represented at Westminster.
By contrast, Russia incorporated all conquered territories; each new defeated people became part of an enlarged Russian state ruled directly from Moscow or St Petersburg.
If the origins of land and sea empires differed, so too did their demise. Whereas sea empires were usually dismantled incrementally, land empires tended to collapse suddenly. This was certainly the case for the long-established Ottoman, Austrian-Hungarian and Russian variants as well as the short-lived Napoleonic and Nazi regimes.
Land empires differ from sea empires not only in the manner of invasion, but also in how they close the door behind them. When twentieth-century sea empires decolonised, they exited faraway exotic possessions, whereas Moscow’s land empire was more fundamentally fused.
Russia wasn’t leaving distant colonies, but simply acquiring new but familiar postcolonial neighbours. And whereas only the most ardent British imperialist might want to retake India, Kenya or Nigeria, many Russians consider it natural for their government to re-invade former colonies.
When dealing with conquered indigenous peoples, land empires opted for elimination, subordination, or assimilation. Russia tried each of these to varying degrees depending on the time, circumstances and adversary. Having colonised the territory, the next step was to colonise the mind. There were systematic attempts to undermine the cultures, languages, and religions of the dispossessed.
Russian history is characterised by long periods of authoritarianism interrupted by brief periods of chaotic upheaval, euphemistically termed “times of troubles”. When the tsarist and Soviet empires came to an end, Russians were provided with opportunities to embark on a democratic trajectory.
However, after each cataclysm subsided, there was always a reversion to the authoritarian template. When the USSR collapsed, Russia was on the edge of a Western-dominated world order. Its marginalisation was underlined by having to adopt the capitalist system of its erstwhile competitors, which it neither understood nor fully embraced.
With its economic clout gone, only its military and nuclear weaponry allowed it to punch above its weight in global affairs. For Putin, foreign policy is very much an extension of national security. Spanning 11 time zones, Russia exploits its sprawling geography to position itself in several key regions.
To be post-Soviet is to be postcolonial. For Moscow, the countries of what it calls “the near abroad” cannot be treated as equals, or, indeed, as fully sovereign states with divergent interests. The geographical scope of Russia’s declared interests at a minimum extends to all former Soviet republics, but Putin has also asserted Moscow’s right to challenge the geopolitical orientation of countries that used to be part of the Warsaw Pact or the tsarist empire.
The “near abroad” is not merely a geographic term; it describes Russia’s perception of its political backyard where it believes it can exert control by virtue of economic and security interests, cultural affinity and “shared history”. The term conveys both distance and familiarity, suggesting a temporary separation but not necessarily a permanent divorce. Russia looks at the region through a historical and security lens, emphasising the need to protect Russian-speaking populations and deter Western “encroachment”.
The invasion launched on 24 February 2022 was first and foremost a war against Ukraine as a country and Ukrainians as a people. Amongst the political elite in Russia, and, indeed, society at large, there is a pervasive belief that Ukraine is not a country but, at best, a historical part of Russia and, at worst, a political Frankenstein, artificially stitched together during Soviet times and now sustained by Russia’s adversaries.
From this perspective, if there is no separate Ukrainian nation, how can they enjoy the right to self-determination? It is no surprise, then, that in the occupied regions of Ukraine, Russia has made immediate and concerted efforts to wipe out all traces of Ukrainian language and culture.
The Kremlin’s war against Ukraine has also shone a light on the rarely advertised dynamics of colonialism within the Russia Federation, which is home to scores of conquered and colonised non-Russian nations. Most of Russia’s wealth is derived from the conquered nations of Siberia and Asia, but is spent in the European metropole. A young man from Buryatia or Tuva is much more likely to die fighting in Ukraine than a Muscovite, even though these regions are much smaller and further from the battlefield.
It has taken a brutal war of conquest for many to recognise the character and ambition of Russia’s imperial enterprise.
With daily reminders of Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine, the need to interrogate Kremlin myths about the post-Soviet region and beyond presents itself with an intolerable urgency.
We have a pressing duty to engage more intimately and empathetically with the scores of nations that for too long have been in Russia’s shadow.
Donnacha Ó Beacháin is Professor of Politics at Dublin City University. For more than two decades, he has worked and researched in the post-Soviet region and has been published widely on the subject. His new book, Unfinished Empire: Russian Imperialism in Ukraine and the Near Abroad, is out now.
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