RETHINKING EMPIRE: How Ukrainians Should Approach the Imperial Legacy
Andrii Krasnozhon and Oleh Luhovyi
This is one of the issues the war has sharply brought to Ukrainians’ attention. We offer a summary of several arguments Huxley found particularly interesting in the academic discussion “Defining the Concept: Empire, Colony, Postcolonial Syndrome”, held as part of a decolonization discussion series organized by the memory culture platform Past / Future / Art and the Green Theatre in Odesa.
The discussion featured Andrii Krasnozhon, Doctor of Historical Sciences and Rector of Ushynsky South Ukrainian National Pedagogical University, and Oleh Luhovyi, Candidate of Historical Sciences and Associate Professor at Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF COLONISATION
W
e were taught that the Assyrian Empire was the world’s first classical empire. It is quite difficult to define what an empire actually is, because throughout history this term has referred to very different phenomena that are not always typologically similar. We propose the following definition: an empire is a state that pursues a colonial policy. Such a state is always multi-ethnic, because its expansion extends beyond the territory inhabited by a single ethnic group. Conquest-driven colonial policy should be distinguished from colonization, because people often confuse the two.
Both processes are often called colonization. But there is political colonization — the seizure of territory, its subordinate status, the extraction of resources, and so on. Settler colonization, by contrast, involves the physical relocation of people from the metropolis to the colony. Among the ancient Greeks, the latter generally existed in its pure form. Local populations were rarely harmed and usually benefited from new markets. But political colonization often involves resettlement as well. Consider, for example, the English settlers who became Americans.
In 2017, a monument to the ancient Greek colonists who first brought classical civilization to the territory of today’s Odesa Region was erected near the Vorontsov Palace in Odesa. These colonists were not colonizers in the sense of early modern European colonizers. The difference is that ancient Greek city-states colonized by developing new territories using their own resources. Imperial colonial policy, by contrast, extracted resources from the conquered colonial periphery and transferred them to the imperial center.
UKRAINE IN THE IMPERIAL CONTEXT
What was the fate of the territories that now form modern Ukraine within the empires that once controlled them — Roman, Byzantine, Ottoman, Austro-Hungarian, Russian? Were they objects of Greek-type colonization, or victims of imperial policies that extracted resources from them? Or are we dealing with a third model, in which a colony becomes an integral part of the empire, contributing materially and intellectually to its construction? In different periods of Ukrainian history, we can find a wide range of such models.
The next question is whether what Ukraine gained or lost in each case benefited Ukraine itself. At different historical stages, Ukraine had qualitatively different relationships with various empires — that is simply how history unfolded. But should we feel inferior or embarrassed because we were part of someone else’s imperial history? We believe not.
Take Odesa, for example. It was undoubtedly a city of the Russian Empire, but we must remember there is another Odesa. The Russian period in Odesa’s history does not erase either its pre-Russian or post-Russian eras. Yes, two hundred years of Russian imperial presence left an indelible mark on the city’s appearance. That truly happened; it is the past, and it can no longer be changed. The same can be said of Ukraine as a whole.
DID THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE HAVE COLONIES?
When we speak of colonies in the modern era — British, French, Spanish, and others — we usually mean occupied overseas territories with non-European populations who did not belong to the titular imperial nation, had a special legal status, and possessed fewer rights than their “white masters”. This type of colony also existed in the Russian Empire, where certain ethnic categories officially classified as inorodtsy — “aliens” or “non-Russians” — had a marginal legal status. These included inhabitants of Central Asia, Jews, Tatars, and certain peoples of the Caucasus, Siberia, and the Far East. But some ethnic groups were also regarded as belonging to the imperial peoples.
These were mainly white Europeans — Germans, Poles, and Ukrainians. An important marker of full legal status was the existence of an aristocracy recognized at the imperial level and regarded as an organic part of the Russian elite. Many German, Finnish, Polish, and Ukrainian nobles existed, but it is impossible to imagine an Evenk or a Turkmen among the Russian nobility and aristocracy.
This produced an ambivalent perception of Ukraine in imperial St. Petersburg. On the one hand, it appeared as a kind of distant South Slavic exoticism, something akin to an eastern colony in British eyes. On the other hand, unlike an Indian subject of the British Empire, nothing prevented a Ukrainian nobleman from becoming an imperial minister, chancellor, general, and so on. As is well known, Count Alexei Razumovsky, the son of the registered Ukrainian Cossack Rozum, was the morganatic husband of Empress Elizabeth Petrovna. It would be virtually impossible to imagine an Indigenous American or an African in a comparable role beside an English queen.
AN “UNCONVENTIONAL” COLONY
The colonization of Ukraine differed radically from, for example, the colonization of Siberia or Alaska. Grigory Shelikhov, the founder of Russian America, simply moved southward and “staked out” the lands he passed through as imperial territory until he naturally encountered a similar process being carried out by the British. In other words, the empire’s territorial expansion continued until it met the first shot fired by a rival. Ukraine, however, was different. The Russian advance to the Black Sea and the annexation of Crimea were not initially the ultimate objectives of expansion; imperial propaganda declared them a geopolitical triumph only much later. The real objective was capturing former Constantinople — Ottoman Istanbul.
At first, the Russian Empire saw the southern Ukrainian territories only as a bridgehead for further aggression. Understanding this and resisting Russian ideological narratives, we must nevertheless know where to stop. Otherwise, we risk throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The Potemkin Stairs and the monument to the Duke de Richelieu, for example, are obvious imperial symbols. But if we are entirely principled and consistent in fighting them, we would ultimately have to demolish all of Odesa.
OUTPLAYING RUSSIA: OUR CLAIM TO THE IMPERIAL LEGACY
What criteria should be used to distinguish “good” imperial symbols from “bad” ones? This is not a simple question, but it is an extremely important one for Ukrainian statehood. We need somehow to integrate Ukraine’s imperial period organically into the broader context of Ukrainian history. Total rejection of Russian expansion in the Black Sea region should not make us forget that a large part of modern Ukrainian territory once belonged to the Ottoman Empire. Odesa didn’t exist then either; instead stood the Ottoman fortress of Khadjibey. Unfortunately, this issue is not unique to this region of Ukraine.
We can easily reject any Russian narrative and declare that it has nothing to do with us. At the same time, we may inadvertently renounce parts of the imperial legacy that rightfully belong to us. We should not forget that, using Russian resources and acting through the machinery of empire, Ukrainians — who had dreamed for centuries of a unified state — were able to gain access to the Black Sea region and Crimea. We must acknowledge that, despite initially lacking sufficient resources of its own, Ukraine paradoxically managed to outplay the Russian Empire.
MEDIEVAL PATTERNS: KYIV AS A NEW JERUSALEM
The claim that the Russian Empire brought the light of European Enlightenment to the territories it conquered was invented only in the Soviet period. Before then, it was far too obvious that, at least in Ukraine’s case, the opposite had been true: the celebrated Russian intelligentsia was itself the product of the educational efforts of representatives of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Moreover, their patron was the Russian monarchy. All the more painful for Russian rulers was the realization that, despite every imperial effort, Ukraine remained infected with “Mazepism”, never entirely its own. Added to this was fear of competition over the claim to primordial “Russianness”, with Kyiv regarded as the cradle of Russian Orthodoxy.
Actual history contradicted the ideological concept of the “elder brother”, and Ukraine therefore never felt organically at ease within the secondary role assigned to it by the historical scheme of the “triune people”. From this perspective comes the strategically senseless yet sacralized idea of seizing Kyiv, attempted on 24 February 2022 — a reminiscence of medieval mentality, something akin to a crusade for Jerusalem.
When copying materials, please place an active link to www.huxley.media
Select the text and press Ctrl + Enter
