Russia's Familial Colonialism

Colonialism comes with many ideological justifications. Like, the desire to “civilize” the “backward” native. To more efficiently extract and utilize natural resources. Because of racial superiority or religious mission. Or simply to settle “empty” and “unused” land. Russia, according to Galina Bogatova, casts its colonialism in familial terms. So, the various peoples within the former Russian empire are one big family where ethnic Russians serve as patriarchs. Like any good father, Russia is supportive, nurturing, and protective. But sometimes a father must discipline his family for stepping out of line. Like when Ukraine wants to abandon the family for another (the EU, West, etc) For Russia, this is the ultimate betrayal. Or how peoples in the Caucasus are like a wild mistress–both a subject of exotic desire but also abuse. I was skeptical of this conflation of family with colonialism until Galina Bogatova's book, Casting War as Love: Russian Colonialism in Familial Terms. She shows how concepts of the family saturate Russia’s colonial discourse. Where does this rhetoric come from? Why family? And how does the rhetoric of Russian imperialism compare with its Western peers? The Eurasian Knot spoke to Bogatova to learn just how Russia lords over its imagined regional family.

Guest:

Galina Bogatova is a Professor of Political Science at Butte College and a visiting scholar at New York University. She is the author of Casting War as Love: Russian Colonialism in Familial Terms published by Palgrave Macmillan.

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