The narratives of exclusion and self-exclusion in the Russian conflict discourse on EU–Russian Relations

The article focuses on the interplay of the narratives of ‘exclusion’ and ‘self-exclusion’ in the Russian discourse on EU–Russian relations. Since the late 1990s, this discourse has acquired an increasingly conflictual orientation, whereby the official foreign policy objectives of ‘strategic partnership’ with the EU and Russia's ‘integration with Europe’ are increasingly problematised across the entire Russian political spectrum. In the analysis of the Russian conflict discourse we shall identify two at first glance opposed narratives. Firstly, the EU enlargement has raised the issue of the expansion of the Schengen visa regime for Russian citizens, travelling to Europe. Particularly acute with regard to Kaliningrad Oblast', this issue has also generated a wider identity-related discourse on the EU's exclusionary policies towards Russia. Secondly, the perception of Russia's passive or subordinate status in EU–Russian cooperative arrangements at national, regional and local levels resulted in the problematisation of the insufficiently reciprocal or intersubjective nature of the EU–Russian ‘partnership’ and the increasing tendency towards Russia's ‘self-exclusion’ from integrative processes, grounded in the reaffirmation of state sovereignty that generally characterises the Putin presidency. This article concludes with the interpretation of the two conflict narratives in the wider context of debates around the project of European integration.     

What Is the State? The Russian Concept of Gosudarstvo in the European Context

What allows us to talk about the state as an active agent when we understand that only individuals act? This article draws comparisons between Quentin Skinner's exposition of the history of the concept of the state in major European languages and the history of its equivalent Russian term gosudarstvo in order to provide some general hypotheses on the development of the phenomenon of the state, and on the origins of this baffling usage. First, summing up a vast number of historical and lexicographical works, it attempts a detailed reconstruction of the conceptual development of the term in the Russian language. Second, a peculiarity of the Russian case is discussed, in whichabsolutist thinkers (and not republicans, as in western Europe) stressed the difference between the person of the ruler and the state. Third, political interests in introducing such novel usage are discussed, together with the role of this usage in the formation of the state. This allows us to see better the origins of current faith in the existence of the state as a more or less clearly designated and independent actor, predicated on the mechanism of what Pierre Bourdieu described as “mysterious delegation.”     

Resource Curse Contested—Environmental Constructions in the Russian Periphery and Sustainable Development

In this article the development perspectives of a peripheral and socio-economically marginalized, but ecologically valuable Russian locality are examined. An analysis is made on how two local level administrations construct nature, resource use and environmental questions. These constructions give insights into the future perspectives of sustainable development in peripheral, resource-rich and ecologically central localities of Russia. Light is also shed on potential conflicts between industrial resource development and ecological tourism in this exceptional context.     

Core and Periphery in the Evolving Russian Economy: Integration or Isolation of the Far East?

An American social scientist explores the relations between core and periphery in the post-Soviet economy, using the Russian Far East as a case study. His analysis draws on Western and Russian conceptual literature on economic peripheries, as well as on the Russian periodical press and recent interviews with officials in the Far East (conducted during research in Primorskiy Kray in January-February 1996). A concluding section outlines policy options for regional development, either in concert with Moscow or through an independent course of action. 52 references. Journal of Economic Literature, Classification Numbers: O10, P2, R58.     

Peasant Settlers and the ‘Civilising Mission’ in Russian Turkestan, 1865–1917

This article provides an introduction to one of the lesser-known examples of European settler colonialism, the settlement of European (mainly Russian and Ukrainian) peasants in Southern Central Asia (Turkestan) in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It establishes the legal background and demographic impact of peasant settlement, and the role played by the state in organising and encouraging it. It explores official attitudes towards the settlers (which were often very negative), and their relations with the local Kazakh and Kyrgyz population. The article adopts a comparative framework, looking at Turkestan alongside Algeria and Southern Africa, and seeking to establish whether paradigms developed in the study of other settler societies (such as the ‘poor white’) are of any relevance in understanding Slavic peasant settlement in Turkestan. It concludes that there are many close parallels with European settlement in other regions with large indigenous populations, but that racial ideology played a much less important role in the Russian case compared to religious divisions and fears of cultural backsliding. This did not prevent relations between settlers and the ‘native’ population deteriorating markedly in the years before the First World War, resulting in large-scale rebellion in 1916.     

Constructing Familiarity in Finnish–Russian Karelia: Shifting Uses of History and the Re-Interpretation of Regions

This paper will present evidence of regionalization processes taking shape in “Finnish–Russian” Karelia based on the construction of “familiarity”. This region-building strategy harks back to the well-known Euroregion model developed within the context of European integration. However, if Euroregions can be seen as largely public sector projects of “place-making” the construction of familiarity is a much more socially grounded process. The major shift under consideration is that of transcending the national appropriations of Karelia that have characterized Finnish, Russian and Soviet policies in the past. The focus will be on two aspects: (1) notions of a common regional space in order to promote cross-border co-operation and (2) the re-framing of history and the influence of tourism in developed multifaceted (partly post-national) regional ideas of Karelia. Rather than understand Karelia within the framework of nationalizing historiographies, these contemporary interpretations depict Karelia as a borderland—as a space of cultural and historical ambiguity marked but not dominated by alternating phases of Russification, Finnishization and Sovietization.     

Grey and the Russian Threat to India, 1892–1915

ABSTRACT

As Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs in the Liberal Government from August 1892 to June 1895, Sir Edward Grey was exposed to the damage that an anti-British, Franco-Russian Alliance could do to the interests of the British Empire. The experience of those years left an enduring impression upon him. Between June 1895 and December 1905 Grey espoused the cause of agreement with the Russian Empire wherever possible. As Foreign Secretary, he advanced this cause through the Anglo-Russian Conventions of August 1907, whose objectives were to achieve what he described as ‘repose’ on the North West Frontier of India, and the reduction of Russian pressure on Persia in particular. So far as the outbreak of war in 1914 is concerned, Grey's known propensity to maintain good terms with Russia gave the latter a degree of leverage which they exploited to the full in insisting on British support in standing up to Germany and Austria-Hungary following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand. Grey's position within the Liberal Government, and his clear determination to resign unless Russian demands were met, swung the British government from a neutralist stance to one of full participation in the Great War.     

Allied Intervention and the Russian Civil War, 1917–1922

MICHAEL KETTLE. Russia and the Allies, 1917–1920: Vol. II: The Road to Intervention, March–November 1918. London and New York: Routledge, 1988. Pp. 401.

RICHARD LUCKETT. The White Generals: An Account of the White Movement and the Russian Civil War. London and New York: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1987. Pp. xvi, 413.

TERENCE EMMONS, trans, and ed. Time of Troubles: The Diary of Iurii Vladimirovich Got'e. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988. Pp. xvii, 513.

DONALD J. RALEIGH, ed. A Russian Civil War Diary: Alexis Babine in Saratov, 1917–1922. Durham, N.C. and London: Duke University Press, 1988. Pp. xxiv, 240.     

The use of stereoscopic images taken from a microdrone for the documentation of heritage – An example from the Tuekta burial mounds in the Russian Altay

To analyse, interpret and manage our cultural heritage it is important to have an accurate and realistic representation of it. Documenting this heritage involves geographic techniques such as photogrammetry, for which a lot of rather expensive and extensive platforms are already in use. However, a microdrone, a recently developed unmanned aerial vehicle platform is a cheaper and easy to handle tool. To test the very limits of the microdrone and its accompanying data-acquisition and data-processing software, we collected data from a remote area in Tuekta, in the Russian Altay Mountains. This paper presents the challenges faced during the whole photogrammetric procedure from planning the flights to producing the final deliverables.     

The Russian Military Mission and the Birth of the Persian Cossack Brigade: 1879–1894

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Qajar dynasty (1797–1925) of Iran engaged in a continuous process to build a regular army under the leadership and tutelage of professional European military missions. These continuous attempts at military reform and Europeanization reached a peak with the creation of the Persian Cossack Brigade (1879–1921) by the Russian military mission. This article focuses on the genesis of the Brigade and the Russian military mission, which followed some of the previously unsuccessful European military missions. The scholarly literature has paid little attention to the fitful beginnings of the Brigade. This article, however, deals with the early challenges faced by the Brigade during the period between 1879 and 1894, at the end of which it was on the verge of dissolution. The article tackles formative issues raised in under-explored Russian archival material and supplemented by Russian-language primary sources, as well as other relevant sources. It attempts to re-evaluate the origins of the Persian Cossack Brigade and provide a well-balanced portrait of the Brigade in light of the changing regional politics of the period.     

‘Between All Parts of the Universe’: Russian Cosmographies and Imperial Strategies in Early Modern Siberia and Ukraine

In the early seventeenth century, learned Muscovites, as they set themselves to the task of working out a Russian and Orthodox vision of their place in the world, began to read, translate and modify the atlases produced by their slightly earlier European counterparts: Ortelius, Mercator, Blaeu and others. The Russian solution to this geographical puzzle grew out of and reflected a sense of the tsardom's unique location and imperial ambitions. The position that Muscovite cosmographers and geographers generally assigned to their realm was a connective one: the tsardom lay proudly between points on the globe; it linked vastly different lands and peoples; and it contained within its purview a heterogeneous assortment of peoples, faiths, tongues and cultures. In this article, I examine the different manifestations of that thinking and of Muscovite ideological conceptions of empire in two widely separated parts of the tsardom—Siberia, at some length, and then, more briefly, Ukraine/Belarus—and explore how their ideological frameworks affected the subject populations of those two areas.     

Constructing (Un)familiarity: Role of Tourism in Identity and Region Building at the Finnish–Russian Border

This paper investigates the role of tourism in the construction of (un)familiarity in Karelia at the Finnish–Russian borderland. From a historical perspective, it deals with a culturally homogenous space, which more recently became divided by the border into two nation states that differ politically, ethnically and linguistically. In the course of the Cold War, unfamiliarity was one of the tools used by the Soviet political elite in construction of national identity. However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when the border regime became liberalized and cross-border interaction began, familiarity became one of the key factors of the regional identity construction. The case of Sortavala, on which this study focuses, allows us to analyse how identity was constructed in official and media discourses. Although familiarity in the local context is more prominent, unfamiliarity is also at stake, not only in a negative sense, but also from a sense of curiosity about historical ties between the different parts of Karelia. This paper contributes to an understanding of EU external bordering politics. It also highlights the role of local actors in the (re-)construction and (re-)interpretation of borders. Tourism is seen as one of the facets of local identity formation. This study attempts to understand tourism-driven cross-border region-building processes.     

The Russian Orthodox Church and ‘Patriotic’ Support for the Stalinist Regime during the Great Patriotic War

Soviet wartime propaganda and contemporary Russian work on the activities of the Orthodox Church during the war promote the Church’s claim that it was motivated by patriotism, a point it used to claim legitimacy in the USSR and now in contemporary Russia. In contrast, this paper argues that the hierarchs and laity of the Patriarchal Church were not essentially motivated by patriotism or the desire to show loyalty to the Soviet regime in 1941, but instead acted to use the war to achieve three goals: first and most important, to become relevant in the everyday life of the Soviet people by promoting Christian beliefs and values; second, to earn legitimacy in the eyes of anti-clerics and non-believers by lending moral and practical support to the war effort; and finally, to obtain legal standing by showing its trustworthiness and loyalty through displays of Russian (not Soviet) patriotism consonant with its historic role, all the while without endorsing communist ideology. The hierarchs orchestrated a campaign from the top down throughout the clerical hierarchy, to achieve the aforementioned goals whilst from below the faithful, independently of the hierarchs, used their local displays of patriotism as leverage to reopen local churches and to force the regime to respect their right to worship. The grassroots response by believers and parish clerics in support of the Church and its wartime activities represents primarily an endorsement of the Church, Christianity, Russian patriotism, and only secondarily, if at all, loyalty to the Stalinist regime.     

Stuff of boundaries? Kyrgyz–Russian marriages and the actualization of ethnic difference

ABSTRACT

What are ethnic boundaries made of? How do people come to experience such boundaries? Notwithstanding the formidable analytic attention to the role and effects of boundary drawing in social life, such questions are rarely asked. We look at the apparently stable boundary between Russians and Kyrgyz villagers in the Issyk-Kul region to trace how its dimensions were naturalized through settler colonialism, Soviet modernization, and post-socialist upheaval. But even if naturalized, the boundary behaves as a ‘presence absence’ whose relevance fluctuates and whose momentary features remain unpredictable, as we demonstrate by focusing on transgressive mixed marriages between Russian and Kyrgyz villagers.