SUMMARY:

The interview begins with Alexander Etkind’s explication of the genealogy of his research on Russian “internal colonization” and proceeds with a discussion of the different aspects and limitations of applying the “second world” concept to historical reality; its connection to “nonclassical” colonialisms including the “internal one” and to the Russian intellectual tradition of making sense of its own past. Ektind stresses the importance of Hanna Arendt’s concept of the “boomerang effect” for his understanding of internal colonialism, and the time frame of the Cold War for applying the “second world” concept, which has no meaning beyond this period. His evocation of the “internal colonization” concept has to serve the task of inscribing Russian history into the broader trends of world history, not to present it as something special. He further explains that the idea of ethnicity is needed to enable differentiation between external and internal colonizations and that many processes in Russian history can be described as “colonization” regardless of who its object was. In this regard, Etkind expresses regret that historians of the Russian empire who study policies such as Russification and other imperial policies and ideologies, or the imperial confessional order, did not engage his earlier works and avoided discussing his concept of “internal colonization.” He presents the latter not as an ideal type but as a vector connecting political, geographic, and cultural influences. Etkind further explains how “internal colonization” thus understood differs (as an analytical tool) from such categories as “modernization” or “nationalism” that are also treated in recent historiography as vectors rather than “real things” or ideal types. His distinction between them is based on the view that, unlike “modernization,” “internal colonization” is a nonteleological concept that chronologically preceded nationalism and is thus capable of describing processes in the longue duree perspective. Etkind concludes with the statement that Russian history is undertheorized; it is full of events, heroes, and practices but it lacks theories and ideologies. It is time to correct this unfortunate order of things.