“The shadow of the object fell upon the ego:” colonial melancholia, reading Freud through Fanon’s sociogeny, and implicit memory
Journal: Studies in East European Thought
Year: 2025

Abstract Russia’s full-scale aggressive war in Ukraine launched in 2022, once again, opened the debates on the inclination of humans towards destructiveness. The paper argues that the predisposition to the war was driven by colonial melancholia. Melancholia, in this case, is characterized by colonial attachments, internalization of “loss of empire,” and destructive and genocidal drives. The analysis of the issue is sought through the intersection of psychoanalytic theory and memory studies, read