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The ghost of essentialism and the trap of binarism: six theses on the Soviet empire

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Epp Annus
Epp Annus*
Affiliation:
Department of Slavic and East European Languages and Cultures, Ohio State University (Newark), 1179 University Drive, Newark, OH 43055, USA Research Group in Cultural and Literary Theories, Estonian Literary Museum, Tartu, Estonia
*
*Emails: epp.annus@gmail.com, annus.1@osu.edu
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Abstract

This article endeavors to open a new critical space for Soviet studies and for nationalities studies more generally. Through analyses of recent trends in Soviet studies, the article dismantles the frequently used opposition between subjective and objective approaches to Soviet empire and suggests instead that truths and categories, whether considered “subjective” or “objective,” are constructed discursively, through legitimizing certain interpretive models over the others. The article also argues against disciplinary avoidance of “what is” questions (e.g. “what is a nation?”) and claims that an excessive concern for (re)producing essentialism should not hinder scholarly inquiry. Several new lines of inquiry for the study of the Soviet empire are suggested and also applicable in nationalities studies more generally: research on the role of symbolic violence in manufacturing consent and research concerning the role of affect in producing linkages between the performative life of a singular human being and the pedagogical discourse of a nation or empire. The article also offers an analysis of the Soviet Union as an empire in becoming and it advocates for postcolonial approaches within Soviet studies. The practical dimensions of Soviet rule are exemplified with data from the Baltic borderlands in the postwar years.

Keywords

Soviet Unionpostcolonial studiesempirenationthe Baltic states
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 43 , Issue 4 , July 2015 , pp. 595 - 614
Copyright
Copyright © 2015 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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