Russia, Empire, and the Case of the North Caucasus, 1820s - 2013

Abstract

This thesis investigates the possibilities and challenges of situating Edward Said’s influential yet controversial theory of Orientalism within the context of Russia with a special focus on the insurgent region of the North Caucasus as a particular case of Russia’s own Orient. I explore how Russia’s Other has been established, focusing mainly on the representation of the Caucasian people in contemporary (late 20th century - 21st century) mass media, fiction, and cinema and analyzing the texts by Russian and Caucasian authors. The unsuccessful or incomplete colonization of the Caucasian land, the Caucasians’ ways of cultural resistance to Russian imperialism, and the discourse of “terror” – all these issues extend the idea that Said’s concept of Orientalism should be applied to the Russian case with caution. Synecdochical Orientalism is a conceptual variant of Said’s theory of Orientalism that might be productively applied to other regions in the world to explain the exclusion and underrepresentation of peoples and cultures. Russia’s discourse on the North Caucasus falls into the trap of synecdochical Orientalism while Chechnya itself is subject to several layers of misrepresentation. Cultural texts by Caucasian authors and film directors recognize the subaltern position of the people in the North Caucasus and lack of representation of the region’s history. They express the need for Caucasian people to reclaim their past. My thesis recognizes the existence of Caucasian cultural texts and assembles an archive of them which serves as a tool of recording and retaining stories told by Caucasian authors and film directors.