The Tensions of the Colonializing and Hybrid Empire: The Colonization Question in the State Duma Debates, 1905-1911

• In Event: Modern Challenges of the Russian Empire: Nationalism, Imperial Governance, and Hybridity

Abstract

It is well-known that Vasily Klyuchevsky characterized Russia as a “country that colonizes itself.” But the post-reform and revolutionary context of the early twentieth century Russian Empire is rarely taken into account in the analysis of Klyuchevsky’s perspective. This paper explores the emergence of the modern vision of the national and colonializing empire in the wake of the Great Reforms and centers on the failure of this vision to achieve hegemony in context of the State Duma debates.

Author

• Alexander M. Semyonov, Amherst College