How Russia ‘Colonized Itself’
Journal: International Journal for History Culture and Modernity
Year: 2015

In the late imperial period, Russian historiography was dominated by the self-colonization school. Russian historians wrote detailed accounts of Russia’s takeover of the Crimea, Finland, Ukraine, Poland, and other lands, but they did not describe these areas as Russian colonies. Instead, mainstream Russian historians argued that ‘Russia colonized itself’. The discourse of self-colonization was a specific, though longterm and surprisingly robust, moment in Russian historiography. Appropriating th