Internal colonization of Russia from the perspective of Alexander Etkind

Abstract

The article aims to present the most important theses contained in the book of an outstanding Russian postcolonial researcher Alexander Etkind. At the heart of his deliberations lies the assumption that the Russian empire not only dominated foreign territories, but also native territories located in the central governorates of the state. The process was accompanied by colonization of the local population, above all — peasants. Etkind considers the Russian serfdom law and rural community as typical colonial institutions. His interests remain in some writers’ attempts to explain the phenomenon of internal colonization. A combination of methods used in historical and literary research results in an interesting interpretation of texts written by Daniel Defoe, Leo Tolstoy, Nikolai Gogol, Joseph Conrad, Immanuel Kant and Mikhail Bakhtin, reflecting their authors’ imperial experience. In the article, I focus on the issues included in the introduction and the first two parts of the book.