Decolonization in Eurasia: Revisiting the Unfinished Business of Empire

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

Decolonization has resurfaced as a prominent and urgent topic of discussion in global discourse, especially in the wake of the Russian full-scale war against Ukraine in February 2022. This conflict has cast a spotlight on the unfinished and perhaps misunderstood nature of decolonization in the context of the former Soviet Union. While the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was widely regarded as the end of its imperial structure, recent events have forced a reckoning with the lingering colonial dynamics that persist in the region.
After the fall of the Soviet Empire, the newly independent states and ethnic republics within these states embarked on varied paths toward establishing national identities and political sovereignty. Their successes, however, have been uneven, shaped by a complex interplay of historical legacies, geopolitical pressures, and internal challenges. For many, the project of decolonization remains incomplete and in danger of being reversed, as exemplified by Russia's refusal to fully relinquish its imperial mindset. The ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war underscores Russia's denial of the sovereignty of its neighbors.
This panel seeks to interrogate the meaning of decolonization in the Eurasian context. What was overlooked or left undone when the Soviet Union dissolved over three decades ago? What structures, both political and cultural, need to be dismantled or reimagined to enable genuine decolonization today? How do the aspirations and strategies of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities within Russia, as well as former Soviet states, inform our understanding of decolonization?

Sub Unit

• Politics/Law

Chair

• Adam Charles Lenton, Wake Forest U

Papers

• Cultural Professionals as Political Leaders: The Baltic National Movements as Case Study - Matthew Reichert, Harvard U

• Bound by the State: Women, Forced Labor and Communist Colonial Legacies in Eurasia - Khasan Redjaboev, U of Wisconsin-Madison

• Decolonization and Recolonization of Russia through Chechnya - Yoshiko M. Herrera, U of Wisconsin-Madison; Marat Iliyasov, College of the Holy Cross

• State-led Tourism Development as Neocolonialism in the North Caucasus - Christine Le Jeune, U of Florida

Discussant

• Ronald Grigor Suny, U of Michigan