Russian intersec

While the video about decolonization has gained 150 thousand views, in the comments I am attacked with the intersectional theory. They write that the Russians were even rotten by serfdom, but at the same time they were not forbidden to speak their native language and study their native culture. Therefore, the small peoples of the empire experienced "double oppression." Let us leave aside the question of how much it was forbidden, and even the fact that mainly Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians suffered from serfdom. It is interesting here to discuss this concept of "double oppression" itself.

I remember when I first read an article by Kimberly Crenshaw (where "intersectional theory" and talk about "layers of oppression" came from), I was surprised that it was based on a very adequate idea. And as usual, it got lost in the translation into the language of mass activism. Crenshaw there refers to a 19th-century black activist named Sojourner Truth. There was once a certain council where white men acted in the genre of benevolent sexism, talking about the fact that fragile women should be protected in their lack of rights. To which this Sojourner gave out a speech that has become famous: they say, I have been carrying logs all my life on a par with men, no one protects me from anything, am I not a woman, or what? 100 years later, Crenshaw used this to illustrate that the experience of black women's oppression was very different from what white feminists could talk about. And the key word here is "other". Adding different forms of oppression (women + blacks) is not the result of arithmetic addition at all. Intersectionality in this sense is more like mixing colors - mixing two colors, we get another, third color. In general, this is not really about the "Olympiad of oppression", but about the fact that each group has its own unique experience.

Now let's talk about Russians. Let the Russians not be banned from "native language and culture." But there is a good question: what, in fact, is Russian culture? Is there a Russian culture that is not, one way or another, tied to the imperial and statist narrative? And here I like the approach of James Scott, who divides peoples into "peripheral" and "state-forming". According to Scott, only peripheral peoples have such a luxury as ethnicity, then the state-forming peoples are subjected to emasculation. For example, who are the Han Chinese? To become part of the dominant people of the Chinese empire, it only took a little: to switch to irrigated rice cultivation and to learn the cult of ancestors. That is, a Han Chinese is simply someone who is controlled by the state and pays a tax. That's the whole identity. And who are the Russians? The Russians in the empire are those who plow for the landowner and pay the poll tax. Therefore, it is not surprising that the peripheral communities, even if they were originally formed from ethnic Russians (such as the Cossacks), wrote themselves out of the Russians and treated the Russians with the contempt with which free people usually treat bonded people.

As the backbone of the empire, we Russians have two problems with identity. First, this identity was initially formed in the state and the state. It is extremely difficult for us to break away from the state. Hence our problems with self-organization, self-hatred and self-colonization. Secondly, as a state-forming people, we are a people-gateway. When Russian culture and the Russian language are equal to the culture and language of the empire, this also means that anyone can appropriate them. Where other ethnic groups can zealously defend identity as property (for example, driving everyone away with words about "cultural appropriation"), we begin: "all good people are Russian", "Russian means Orthodox", etc. In general, the Russians take any bastard without exams, the main thing is to demonstrate the loyalty of the empire (at the moment, for example, they take Ukrainian collaborators and traitors).

In general, my dear small peoples of the empire, it is very sad, of course, that you were banned from your native culture and language. But be glad you at least have it all. Let's finish the Olympiad - everyone has their own unique experience.

Mihail Pojarsky 2022-11-25