Hotmail  |  Gmail  |  Yahoo  |  Justice Mail
powered by Google
WWW http://www.JusticeForNorthCaucasus.com

Add JFNC Google Bar Button to your Browser Google Bar Group  
 
 
Welcome To Justice For North Caucasus Group

Log in to your account at Justice For North Caucasus eMail system.

Request your eMail address

eMaill a Friend About This Site.

Google Translation

 

 

Prague Watchdog: Orientalism Versus Imperialism - The Caucasus Versus The North

posted by eagle on July, 2009 as Imperialism


July 17th 2009 · Prague Watchdog / Kirill Kobrin.  ALSO AVAILABLE IN: RUSSIAN 

Orientalism versus Imperialism - the Caucasus

Some thirty years ago, a book by Edward Said called Orientalism provoked a stormy public reaction and laid the foundations of an entire new academic discipline in the English-speaking world – that of postcolonial studies. It was translated into dozens of languages, and produced an enormous secondary literature of refutations and apologetics.

The book traces the history of how Europeans (and later also Americans) formed a relation to an Other which they called the “Orient”, and which we now know as the Middle East. This historical and cultural construction, which became established in the European consciousness around the end of the eighteenth century, turned into a giant machine for the creation of ideas and for their discussion and interpretation. The machine’s additional function was to turn these ideas into political solutions, which were embodied in hundreds of thousands of soldiers, diplomats, entrepreneurs and colonial officials. To all of this, Said gave the name “Orientalism”.

If we examine the concept from the point of view of how it manifested itself in Russia, the Russian Empire and the consciousness that developed from it, we find that there are several versions. One of these was based on the perception that in the Russian Empire – unlike the empires of the British or the French – the metropolitan centre was never separated from the colonies by seas and oceans. From the nineteenth century onwards, the Russian ruling class constructed its own "Orient” inside its own country. The role of the mysterious turban-wearing Turks and mummified Pharaohs was played by Russia’s own so-called "people”. This object was endowed with a variety of attributes which together may be characterized as "extreme exoticism”. The Russian “muzhik" was the principal bearer of exoticism in the Russian society of the time. In nineteenth century works of literature he appears as a figure in homespun coat and bast shoes who is not only quite impossible to understand but also bear no external resemblance to the author in his frock-coat or civil service uniform. He is the Other.
 
Adherents of a different approach to Russian imperial thinking perceive the Other in the south-west, and Ukraine. Here, of course, a fateful role was played first by Pushkin in his narrative poem Poltava, and then by Gogol with his Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka and his Mirgorod stories. For Pushkin, the Ukrainians of the eighteenth century were akin to the Red Indians of American romantic authors like Philip Freneau and James Fennimore Cooper. The story of Ivan Mazepa, who deserts the Russians for the Swedes, is little different from that of some Huron or Iroquois chief who deserts the British for the French during the Seven Years’ War. The Prisoner of the CaucasusThe GypsiesThe Fountain of Bakhchisarai and Poltava are “colonial poems”, “colonial” in the same sense as prose works like Journey to Arzrum. In all of these, Pushkin appears, as it were, in a pith helmet, holding a stake, on a hill surrounded by native orderlies, sepoys and Zulu tribesmen.

With Pushkin, we arrive at the Caucasus. Here, too, we should recall the fateful birth of "Orientalism." While for the West it entailed Napoleon’s adventure in Egypt, for Russia it meant the Treaty of Georgievsk, which established Georgia as a protectorate of the Russian crown. This valuable territorial acquisition had only one drawback – between Russia and Georgia lay the Caucasus, unbowed, alien and restless.

The author Lev Tolstoy was the forerunner of colonial writers like Somerset Maugham, Graham Greene and Louis-Ferdinand Céline. But Orientalism was a disappointment. The romantic veil of the East became absorbed into the mass culture that was already emerging in those days, in the form of advertising and commercial art and, some fifty or seventy years later, in cinema and pop music. The “Orient” split into tiny details and individual human beings, each with their own fate, psychology, social status, digestion and sexuality. The inhabitants of the Caucasus turned from being imaginary savages, morally neutral barbarians, into ordinary folk for whom one could feel both pity and revulsion. The colonizer and the colonized became indistinguishable – this is the path traversed by Tolstoy in his Caucasus novellas, from The Raid and The Wood-Fellingto Hadji-Murat.

At first sight, the Russian (Soviet) Empire does not look much different from the British or the French one, from Rome or Byzantium. On closer inspection, however, we observe that from the sixteenth (or seventeenth) to the twentieth century Russia experienced a period of vigorous territorial expansion – but to call it "colonial" would be stretching a point. While the Caucasian wars and the accession of Central Asia were typical colonial conflicts, if we look at the map we can see that Russia’s southward expansion looks quite modest compared with its subjugation of the East, and – of course – the North. Actually, Russia’s territorial expansion was primarily an “acquisition of lands” and only afterwards a "capture of states" and a "subjugation of peoples." And the principal object of that expansion was not people, but physical space.

The capture and acquisition of new territories has always been considered a feature both of imperialism and of colonialism. The two concepts are often confused: also, colonialism can exist without imperialism (it is sufficient to remember the colonies of Ancient Greece) and imperialism without colonialism. Colonialism is a deliberate pragmatic policy aimed at the capture and exploitation of territories, and the subjugation of the local population. Imperialism is also related to territory and physical space, but is ideological throughout. It is therefore often both a cause and a consequence of colonialism. Moreover, unlike colonialism, imperialism is associated more with the giant expanses of territory and physical space which are under the control of the metropolitan centre. Imperialism can be seen as the realization of the idea of power over immense geographical areas ( "The empire on which the sun never sets”).

Russian (or rather Soviet) imperialism found its primary expression in the so-called "acquisition of the North". In itself the idea is not a colonial one, but is based in imperialism. From the Middle Ages until our own time the North has been viewed as a realm of emptiness, the mastery of which can give a sense of pure power which bears almost no relation to power over conquered peoples. Mastery of the North is to some extent a metaphor for power in general, power per se, an ideal power that has a subject but no object. In Western tradition, however, the imaginary “Orient” (which embraced both the geographical East and the geographical South) was strictly speaking the object not of imperialism, but of colonialism: it involved peoples, their religions, cultures, trade and resources. While the North was empty and homogenous, the East was rich and varied.

Russia’s colonization of the North gave way to Russian imperialism in the second half of seventeenth century, when the colonizers reached the eastern geographical limit – the Pacific Ocean. It was then that expansion finally turned to the North – an empty region of eternal ice and snow. Colonization was replaced by a “pure" imperialism which had no pragmatic component. The more deserted and uninhabited the geographical space acquired, the greater was the role of the Russian state. When the North was also finally "conquered", it was replaced by outer space, in the apotheosis of the new imperialism that became known as the "conquest of the cosmos". On an everyday level, the Soviet fashion for polar explorers was supplanted by the vogue of cosmonauts. Whenever there was a light lull in the fighting in Chechnya during the past ten years, the Russian authorities began to send expeditions to the bottom of the Arctic Ocean.

Picture: rcnc.ru.


(Translation by DM)


http://www.watchdog.cz/?show=000000-000024-000008-000003〈=1


comments (0)


1 - 1 of 1

Post comment

Your name*

Email address*

Comments*

Verification code*







 RSS FEED


New Posts



Search Imperialism



Imperialism



Archive


 january 2015

 march 2014

 november 2013

 september 2013

 july 2013

 march 2013

 february 2013

 january 2013

 december 2012

 november 2012

 september 2012

 july 2012

 april 2012

 february 2012

 july 2011

 june 2011

 april 2011

 march 2011

 february 2011

 january 2011

 december 2010

 november 2010

 october 2010

 september 2010

 august 2010

 july 2010

 june 2010

 may 2010

 april 2010

 march 2010

 february 2010

 january 2010

 december 2009

 november 2009

 october 2009

 september 2009

 august 2009

 july 2009

 june 2009

 may 2009

 april 2009

 march 2009

 february 2009

 december 2008

 november 2008

 october 2008

 september 2008

 august 2008

 july 2008

 june 2008

 may 2008

 april 2008

 march 2008

 february 2008

 january 2008

 december 2007

 november 2007

 october 2007

 september 2007

 august 2007

 july 2007

 june 2007

 may 2007

 april 2007

 march 2007

 february 2007

 january 2007

 december 2006

 november 2006

 october 2006

 september 2006

 august 2006

 july 2006

 june 2006

 may 2006

 april 2006

 march 2006

 february 2006

 january 2006

 december 2005

 november 2005

 october 2005

 september 2005

 august 2005

 july 2005

 june 2005

 may 2005

 april 2005

 january 2005

 july 2000





Acknowledgement: All available information and documents in "Justice For North Caucasus Group" is provided for the "fair use". There should be no intention for ill-usage of any sort of any published item for commercial purposes and in any way or form. JFNC is a nonprofit group and has no intentions for the distribution of information for commercial or advantageous gain. At the same time consideration is ascertained that all different visions, beliefs, presentations and opinions will be presented to visitors and readers of all message boards of this site. Providing, furnishing, posting and publishing the information of all sources is considered a right to freedom of opinion, speech, expression, and information while at the same time does not necessarily reflect, represent, constitute, or comprise the stand or the opinion of this group. If you have any concerns contact us directly at: eagle@JusticeForNorthCaucasus.com


Page Last Updated: {Site best Viewed in MS-IE 1024x768 or Greater}Copyright © 2005-2009 by Justice For North Caucasus ®