SUMMARY:

In her response to both the idea of a forum on Orientalism in Russia in the framework of the special issue on Paradoxes of Modernization and the articles by David Schimmelpenninck van der Oye and Alexander Etkind, Elena Campbell engages the problem of the interpretative potential of theory of Orientalism, paying special attention to the discourse of Russian officialdom. She notes that the Orient in the Russian perspective was often disguised in the concept of Islam, which proved to be the unifying and power-laden category for the varying nationalities and regions of the empire’s Asiatic periphery. Focusing on the relationship between the imperial government and science (Oriental studies, and, in particular, studies of Islam), Campbell argues in favor of a Saidian interpretation of the Russian case, at least on the part of the imperial government’s apprehension of the importance of modern and secular knowledge for the administration of Asiatic territories within the borders of the empire and penetration to territories to the empire’s “East.” She also argues in favor of a more interactive perspective on relationship between the imperial “West” and its Orient, pointing to the fact of usage of the orientalist discourse by the representatives of Muslim nationalities, who creatively adopted imperial knowledge about the East to defend and negotiate their interest vis-а-vis the imperial center.