201. Alexander Etkind - Does Russia Know where its Borders Lie? Will the Imperial Obsession Destroy it?

Much of Russian history was shaped by the “imperial experience”.
Alexander Etkind suggests the process was a simultaneous of internal
colonization as well as the more obvious external one. The
characteristic phenomena of colonialism, such as missionary work, exotic
journeys, and ethnographic scholarship, were directed inwards toward
the interior provinces of the Russian empire – villages and timeless
peasant lifestyles, as well as outwards and overseas. To an extent
Russia is still an ‘undiscovered country’ from the perspective of its
urban elites, and we see this starkly in the current war – with the
burden of fighting and dying falling on minorities and the impoverished.
We also see a radical lack of empathy for other people within the
empire experiencing violence, whether that be Belgorod or Buryatia. It
even leads us to ask, can Russia even be compared to the modern nation
states of Europe?

#alexanderetkind #colonisation #ukraine #ukrainewar #russia #zelensky #putin #propaganda
#war #disinformation #hybridwarfare #foreignpolicy #communism #sovietunion #postsoviet

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SPEAKER:
Alexander Etkind is a historian and cultural scientist. Alexander Etkind
was born in 1955 in St. Petersburg, Russia, and is a professor at CEU
Vienna. He was formerly a professor of history and the Chair of
Russia-Europe relations at the European University Institute in
Florence. He is fellow of the European Institute for International Law
and International Relations. Etkind's research focuses on European and
Russian intellectual history, memory studies, natural resources and the
history of political economy, empire and colonies in Europe, and Russian
politics, novels, and film in the 21st century. His has written many
compelling books, including Russia Against Modernity, Rethinking the
Gulag and Nature's Evil: A Cultural History of Natural Resources. Links
will be added to the video description.
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LINKS:
Alexander Etkind on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sasha_Etkind
Alexander Etkind on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Etkind
Alexander Etkind at the Moscow Times: https://www.themoscowtimes.com/author/alexander-etkind-2
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BOOKS:
Russia Against Modernity (2023)
Rethinking the Gulag: Identities, Sources, Legacies (2022)
Nature's Evil: A Cultural History of Natural Resources (2021)
Eros Of the Impossible: The History of Psychoanalysis In Russia (2019)
Development and Dystopia: Studies in Post-Soviet Ukraine and Eastern Europe (2018)
War and Memory in Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus (2017)
Cultural Forms of Protest in Russia (2017)
Warped Mourning: Stories of the Undead in the Land of the Unburied (2013)
Internal Colonization: Russia's Imperial Experience (2011)
Remembering Katyn (2013)
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