INTERNAL COLONIZATION
Alexander Etkind
INTERNAL COLONIZATION
INTERNAL COLONIZATION
RUSSIA'S IMPERIAL EXPERIENCE
ALEXANDER ETKIND
polity
Copyright © Alexander Etkind 2011
The right of Alexander Etkind to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in 2011 by Polity Press
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ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5129-3 ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-5130-9(pb)
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments vi
List of Illustrations viii
Introduction 1
Part I The Non-Traditional Orient
Less than One and Double 13
Worldliness 27
Part II Writing from Scratch
Chasing Rurik 45
To Colonize Oneself 61
Barrels of Fur 72
Part III Empire of the Tsars
Occult Instability 93
Disciplinary Gears 123
Internal Affairs 150
Part IV Shaved Man's Burden
Philosophy Under Russian Rule 173
Sects and Revolution 194
Re-Enchanting the Darkness 214
Sacrificial Plotlines 231
Conclusion 249
References 257
Index 283
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In writing this book, I have built up a number of debts that cannot be returned. My parents, art historians Mark Etkind and Julia Kagan, defined my interests in unaccountable ways. My stepfather, philosopher Moisei Kagan, and my uncle, literary scholar Efim Etkind, gave examples of brilliance and courage. Every page of this book keeps the breath, temper, and care of Elizabeth Roosevelt Moore, my muse, opponent, and editor. Our sons, Mark and Moses, have inspired and distracted me in the proportion that has been, and will always be, quite right.
Igor Smirnov, Nancy Condee, Svetlana Boym, and Mark Lipovetsky gave this work early and invaluable encouragement. Oleg Kharkhordin, Irina Prokhorova, Irene Masing-Delic, and Alastair Renfrew edited the first versions of some of these ideas; their long-standing support is much appreciated. Conversations with Gyan Prakash helped me receive some wisdom from the mainstream of postcolonial studies. Eli Zaretsky and John Thompson were instrumental in making me write it all down. An exciting conference, Russia's Internal Colonization, which Dirk Uffelmann and I organized at the University of Passau - an adventure from which we, along with Ilia Kukulin, have still not returned - resuscitated my interest in the subject. Simon Franklin, Emma Widdis, Rory Finnin, Jana Howlett, Caroline Humphrey, and Harald Wydra have been wonderful colleagues throughout these years.I presented parts of this book at the brown-bag seminar of the Slavonic Department of Cambridge University, a "Found in Translation" conference at the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem, a Eurasian conference at Hangyang University in Seoul, and also at lively seminars at Durham, Sodertorn, and Stanford. The questions and comments of colleagues in these and other places found their way into this book. Several scholars read parts of this manuscript and commented generously. They are, in chronological order, Willard Sunderland, Maria Maiofis, Simon Franklin, William Todd, Mark Bassin, Dirk Uffelmann, Marina Mogilner, Eric Naiman, David Moon, Ruben Gallo, Michael Minden, Peter Holquist, Jana Howlett, Valeria Sobol, Jane Burbank, and Tony La Vopa. Sarah Lambert, Sarah Dancy, and two anonymous reviewers of Polity Press were very helpful.
Parts of Chapters 6, 7, and 12 were published in the Russian journals, Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie and Ab Imperio. Part of Chapter 10 was published as "Whirling With the Other: Russian Populism and Religious Sects," Russian Review 62 (October 2003), pp. 565-88. Part of Chapter 8 was published as "Internalizing Colonialism: Intellectual Endeavors and Internal Affairs in Mid-nineteenth Century Russia," in Peter J. S. Dunkan (ed.), Convergence and Divergence: Russia and Eastern Europe into the Twenty-First Century (London: SSEES, 2007), pp. 103-20. Part of Chapter 5 was published as "Barrels of Fur: Natural Resources and the State in the Long History of Russia," Journal of Eurasian Studies 2/2 (2011). Part of Chapter 12 was published as "The Shaved Man's Burden: The Russian Novel as a Romance of Internal Colonization," in Alastair Renfrew and Galin Tihanov (eds), Critical Theory in Russia and the West (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 124-51.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Figure 1: Joseph Swain, "Save me from my friends!", 1878. 33
Figure 2: Charles Malik and Eleanor Roosevelt working
on the Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. 40
Figure 3: Viktor Vasnetsov, Rurik's Arrival
at Ladoga, 1909. 46
Figure 4: Sergei Uvarov, portrait by Orest Kiprensky (1815). 54
Figure 5: Aleksei Olenin, Demeter-Ceres, a Greek-Roman
Goddess 1812. 57
Figure 6: Vasilii Surikov, Ermak's conquest of
Siberia, 1895. 80
Figure 7: Coat of Arms of the Stroganovs, 1753. 85
Figure 8: The coat of arms of Abram Gannibal (c. 1742). 96
Figure 9: Karl Briullov, A Portrait of an Officer
with his Servant (1830s). 117
Figure 10: Johann Reinhold Forster. The map of German
colonies on the Volga,1768. 130
Figure 11: A cavalry training ring in Selishche,
near Novgorod, built in 1818-25. 137
Figure 12: The Perovsky descendants of Aleksei
Razumovsky (1748-1822). 153
Figure 13: Karl Briullov, Vasilii Perovsky on the capital
of a column, 1824. 154
Figure 14: Pushkin and Dal presented on
an icon as St Kozma and St Damyan. 163
Figure 15: Andrei Bolotov's self-portrait, c. 1790. 183
Figure 16: Afanasii Shchapov, 1872. 195
Figure 17: Lenin and Bonch-Bruevich, October 16,
1918. 209