Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-mlc7c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T04:21:11.371Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The ghost of essentialism and the trap of binarism: six theses on the Soviet empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Epp Annus
Epp Annus*
Affiliation:
Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Ohio State University (Newark), 1179 University Drive, Newark, OH 43055, USA Research Group in Cultural and Literary Theories, Estonian Literary Museum, Tartu, Estonia
*
*Emails: [email protected], [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article endeavors to open a new critical space for Soviet studies and for nationalities studies more generally. Through analyses of recent trends in Soviet studies, the article dismantles the frequently used opposition between subjective and objective approaches to Soviet empire and suggests instead that truths and categories, whether considered “subjective” or “objective,” are constructed discursively, through legitimizing certain interpretive models over the others. The article also argues against disciplinary avoidance of “what is” questions (e.g. “what is a nation?”) and claims that an excessive concern for (re)producing essentialism should not hinder scholarly inquiry. Several new lines of inquiry for the study of the Soviet empire are suggested and also applicable in nationalities studies more generally: research on the role of symbolic violence in manufacturing consent and research concerning the role of affect in producing linkages between the performative life of a singular human being and the pedagogical discourse of a nation or empire. The article also offers an analysis of the Soviet Union as an empire in becoming and it advocates for postcolonial approaches within Soviet studies. The practical dimensions of Soviet rule are exemplified with data from the Baltic borderlands in the postwar years.

Keywords

Soviet Unionpostcolonial studiesempirenationthe Baltic states
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , July 2015 , pp. 595 - 614
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Annus, Epp. 2012. “The Problem of Soviet Colonialism in the Baltics.” Journal of Baltic Studies 43 (1): 21–45.Google Scholar
Annus, Epp. 2014. “Layers of Colonial Rule in the Baltics: Nation-Building, the Soviet Rule and the Affectivity of a Nation.” In (Post-)Colonialism Across Europe, edited by Goettsche, Dirk and Dunker, Axel, 353–378. Aisthesis: Bielefeld.Google Scholar
Annus, Epp, ed. forthcoming. Special issue “Between Arts and Politics: A Postcolonial View on Baltic Cultures of the Soviet Era.” Journal of Baltic Studies.Google Scholar
Beissinger, Mark. 2005. “Rethinking Empire in the Wake of Soviet Collapse.” In Ethnic Politics After Communism, edited by Dennis Barany, Zoltan and Moser, Robert G., 14–45. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Beissinger, Mark. 2006. “Soviet Empire as “Family Resemblance.” Slavic Review 65 (2): 294–303.Google Scholar
Beissinger, Mark. 2008. “The Persistence of Empire in Eurasia.” NewsNet: News of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies 48 (1): 1–8.Google Scholar
Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bolaffi, Guido, Bracalenti, Raffaelle, Braham, Peter, and Gindro, Sandro, eds. 2003. Dictionary of Race, Ethnicity and Culture. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Brubaker, Rogers. 1996. Nationalism Refrained: Nationhood and the National Question in the New Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Burbank, Jane, and von Hagen, Mark. 2007. “Coming into the Territory: Uncertainty and Empire.” In Russian Empire: Space, People, Power, 1700–1930, edited by Jane Burbank, Mark von Hagen, and Remnev, Anatolyi, 1–29. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, Stephen F. 2013. Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Davoliūtė, Violeta. 2014. The Making and Breaking of Soviet Lithuania: Memory and Modernity in the Wake of War. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Fitzpatrick, Sheila. 1999. Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gelman, Susan A. 2003. The Essential Child: Origins of Essentialism in Everyday Thought. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hechter, Michael. 1975. Internal Colonialism: The Celtic Fringe in British National Development, 1536–1966. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Francine. 2005. Empire of Nations: Ethnographic Knowledge and the Making of the Soviet Union. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hoffman, David L. 2000. “From the Editor: The Soviet Empire: Colonial Practices and Socialist Ideology.” Russian Review 59 (2): vi–viii.Google Scholar
Hvostov, Andrei. 2011. Sillamäe passioon. Tartu: Petrone Print.Google Scholar
Kaljuvee, Arto. 2007. “Kallas, Savisaar, Made, Titma: Ettepanek: kogu Eesti NSV täielikule isemajandamisele.” Eesti Päevaleht, September 26. Last accessed November 20, 2014. http://epl.delfi.ee/news/arvamus/kallas-savisaar-made-titma-ettepanek-kogu-eesti-nsv-taielikule-isemajandamisele.d?id=51102407.Google Scholar
Kalnačs, Benedikts. 2013. “Zur Lettischen Literatur in Der Sowjetzeit: Strategien Des Widerstandes Aus Postkolonialer Perspektive.” Interlitteraria 18 (2): 534–544.Google Scholar
Kaplinski, Jaan. 1967. Tolmust ja värvidest. Tallinn: Perioodika.Google Scholar
Kasekamp, Andrus. 2010. A History of the Baltic States. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Kelertas, Violeta, ed. 2006. Baltic Postcolonialism. Amsterdam: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Kiin, Sirje, Ruutsoo, Rein, and Tarand, Andres. 1990. 40 kirja lugu. Tallinn: Olion.Google Scholar
Lampland, Martha. 2000. “Afterword.” In Altering States: Ethnographies of Transition in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, edited by Daphne Berdahl, Matti Bunzl, and Lampland, Martha, 209–218. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Lane, Thomas. 2014. Lithuania: Stepping Westward. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lieven, Dominic. 1995. “The Russian Empire and the Soviet Union as Imperial Polities.” Journal of Contemporary History 30: 608–609.Google Scholar
Lieven, Dominic. 2001. Empire: The Russian Empire and Its Rivals. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lotman, Juri. 1982. Vene kirjandus: õpik IX klassile. Tallinn: Valgus.Google Scholar
Martin, Terry. 2001. The Affirmative Action Empire: Nations and Nationalism in the Soviet Union, 1923–1939. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Martin, Terry. 2002. “The Soviet Union as Empire: Salvaging a Dubious Analytical Category.” Ab Imperio 2: 91–105.Google Scholar
McClintock, Anne. 1992. “The Angel of Progress: Pitfalls of the Term ‘Postcolonialism'.” Social Text 31 (32): 84–98.Google Scholar
Mertelsmann, Olaf. 2010. “Patterns of Mobility in a Soviet Republic.” Regional Review: Research Papers = Regionalais Zinojums: Petijumu Materiali 6: 20–29.Google Scholar
Naan, Gustav, ed. 1957. Eesti NSV ajalugu. Tallinn: Eesti Riiklik Kirjastus.Google Scholar
Nagai, Kaori. 2007. “Glossary of Terms Used.” In Cambridge Introduction to Postcolonial Literatures in English, edited by Lyn, Innes C., 233–242. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Nanda, Meera. 2005. “Postcolonial Science Studies Ending ‘Epistemic Violence'.” In Theory's Empire: An Anthology of Dissent, edited by Patai, Daphne and Howard Corral, Wilfrido, 575–584. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Nathans, Benjamin. 2007. “The Dictatorship of Reason: Aleksandr Vol'pin and the Idea of Rights under ‘Developed Socialism.”’ Slavic Review 66 (4): 630–663.Google Scholar
Northrop, Douglas. 2004. Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Oras, Rein, and Oras, Anne. 2013. Kodu loomine Nõukogude ajal. Personal archive.Google Scholar
Paperno, Irina. 2011. Stories of the Soviet Experience: Memoirs, Diaries, Dreams. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Peiker, Piret. 2006. “Postcolonial Change. Power, Peru and Estonian Literature.” In Baltic Postcolonialism, edited by Kelertas, Violeta, 105–137. New York: Rodopi.Google Scholar
Poulantzas, Nicos. 2000. State, Power, Socialism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Raffass, Tania. 2012. The Soviet Union: Federation or Empire? London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Riekstiņš, Jānis. 2009. “The Struggle of Latvian Communists Against the Colonization and Russification of Latvia (1956–1972).” In Regaining Independence: Non-Violent Resistance in Latvia 1945–1991, edited by Blūzma, Valdis, Jundzis, Tālavs, Riekstiņš, Jānis, Sharp, Gene, and Strods, Heinrihs, 167–228. Riga: Latvian Academy of Sciences.Google Scholar
Rogers, Alisdair, Castree, Noel, and Kitchin, Rob. 2013. A Dictionary of Human Geography. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Saat, Mari. 1990. Võlu ja vaim. Tallinn: Õllu.Google Scholar
Sepp, Urmas. 1995. Estonia's Transition to a Market Economy 1995. Helsinki: Bank of Finland Institute for Economies in Transition (BOFIT).Google Scholar
Skultans, Vieda. 2002. The Testimony of Lives: Narrative and Memory in Post-Soviet Latvia. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Smith, Graham. 1998. “Post-Colonialism and Borderland Identities.” In Nation-building in the Post-Soviet Borderlands, edited by Smith, Graham, Viven, Law, Wilson, Andrew, Bohr, Annette, and Allworth, Edward, 1–20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smurr, Robert W. 2003. “Soviet Industrial Colonialism Versus the Culture of Estonian environmentalism.” In The Baltic Countries under Occupation: Soviet and Nazi Rule 1939–1991, edited by Mai Kõll, Anu, 385–418. Stockholm: Stockholm University, Department of History, Almqvist & Wiksell.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1985. “The Rani of Sirmur: An Essay in Reading the Archives.” History and Theory 24 (3): 247–272.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1987. In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. New York: Methuen.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 1988. “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, edited by Nelson, Cary and Grossberg, Lawrence, 271–313. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty. 2006. “Are you Postcolonial? To the Teachers of Slavic and Eastern European Literatures.” PMLA 121 (3): 828–829.Google Scholar
Stoler, Ann Laura. 2009. “Considerations on Imperial Comparisons.” In Empire Speaks Out: Languages of Rationalization and Self-Description in the Russian Empire, edited by Ilya Gerasimov, Jan Kusber, and Semyonov, Alexander, 33–55. Leiden: Brill.Google Scholar
Suny, Ronald Grigor. 2006. “Nationalism, Nation Making, and the Postcolonial States of Asia, Africa, and Eurasia.” In After Independence: Making and Protecting the Nation in Postcolonial and Postcommunist States, edited by Barrington, Lowell W., 279–296. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Tammer, Enno, ed. 2004. Nõukogude aeg ja inimene. Tallinn: Tänapäev.Google Scholar
Tannberg, Tõnu. 2005. “Hilisstalinistlik Eesti NSV.” In Eesti Ajalugu VI. Vabadussöjast taasiseseisvumiseni, edited by Vahtre, Sulev, 271–287. Tartu: Ilmamaa.Google Scholar
Undusk, Jaan. 2003. “Retooriline sund eesti nõukogude ajalookirjutuses.” In Võim ja kultuur, edited by Krikmann, Arvo and Olesk, Sirje, 41–68. Tartu: Eesti Kirjandusmuuseum, Eesti Kirjandusloo ja Folkloristika Keskus.Google Scholar
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. 2009. Philosophische Untersuchungen [Philosophical Investigations]. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Yekelchyk, Serhy. 2004. “Interpreting Russia's Imperial Dimension.” Canadian Slavonic Papers/Revue Canadienne des Slavistes 46 (3/4): 475–476.Google Scholar
Zantop, Susanne. 1997. Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770–1870. Durham: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Žižek, Slavoj. 2009. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. London: Profile Books.Google Scholar
Zubkova, Elena. 2008. Pribaltika I Kreml', 1940–1953. Moskva: Rosspen.Google Scholar