Western Historians of “Russia” and Crimea: Why do they Continue to Use Imperialist and Racist Frameworks?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31861/mhpi2020.41.113-125Keywords:
“Russian history”, Russian imperialism, Russian racism, Russian historical falsificationsAbstract
The body of the article goes on to discuss the problem of Russian imperial historical frameworks used prior to the disintegration of the USSR. The article sheds the light on the issue of histories of Ukraine that derided as “nationalists” by the Soviet and post-Soviet Russian regimes and by Western historians of “Russia”. According to the western historians, the Russian empire used to position itself as a homogeneous nation-state rather than as a multi-ethnic empire. Noteworthy, the author delves into the problem of Russian-imperial and racist approaches to disclosing the history of Crimea and Crimean Tatars. Consequently, such interpretation would treat Crimea as the “primordial” part of “Russia”, “Russians” as the “native people” of Crimean whilst the Crimean Tatars are hardly viewed as indigenous community. Written by western academics “Russian History” in Russian imperial and nationalistic historiography until nowadays, which is still recognized as Kyivan Rus or Grand Duchy of Vladimir – Tsardom of Muscovy – the empire of the former USSR that is presently known as Russian Federation. Subsequently, from the historical perspective, this phenomenon has led to the crucial consequences: firstly, Ukraine is mostly disregarded, not speaking of the Pereyaslav Agreement of 1654, which represents Ukrainian history as the part of the “Russian” history. Secondly, Crimea is marked as the “Russian” territory, and Russia’s annexation in 2014 is considered as Crimea returning to “its native lands”. The first statement denies Ukraine with its own history and creates the image of a quasi-state being incorporated into “Russia”, and the second one concludes that the history of Crimea prior to its Russia’s annexation in 1783 is completely neglected. To conclude, ignoring European civic approaches, Western histories of “Russia” continue to use an imperialist framework and are similar to Russian politicians who do not equate “Russia” with the Russian Federation.
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