Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Internal Colonialism and Stalin's Deportations

I have recently been reading a lot of older journal articles on internal colonialism. It seems that the original idea as elaborated by Robert Blauner certainly applies to the deported peoples of the USSR. But, despite the close fit of the concept it appears that nobody has ever applied the theory except in passing. Of course people studying the USSR have done almost no comparative or theoretical work what so ever. So this lack of scholarship is not all that surprising. I am aiming to remedy this particular blank spot in the near future. I just finished writing a section on how the 1941 deportations turned the Russian-Germans into an internal colony in the USSR for the book I am working on. In the next couple of days I also intend to start writing an article length piece on the subject of Stalin's deportations as an example of internal colonialism.

2 comments:

Kristina said...

Good to see that you are working on this topic, white spot in history! Also glad that you are back on blogger. I'm in Boston but will return to KZ soon!

Unknown said...

I am very glad to see that you are continuing to work on these important topics. And I hope that you are safe and sound in Bishkek during these times!