russian colonialism 101: historical erasure.

slava ukraïni,

I often mention how there's little academic research on russian colonialism done. There's even fewer media coverage available. This issue has been intentionally marginalized and ignored for decades, if not centuries. Luckily all of this is slowly changing — albeit at the price of tens of thousands of lives Ukraine has been paying.

But while I am always excited to share with you new research or article I've found, there's nothing more powerful than personal stories illustrating everyday manifestations of russian colonialism. We can discuss and debate definitions, wording, and intellectual focus surrounding this topic, but we can't forget that colonization is, first and foremost, trauma. Systemic attempts to meddle, rewrite, assimilate or erase your identity are traumatic af — both on the personal level and societal. That's why it is so important for folks affected by it to keep sharing their intimate decolonization experiences. Not all have the time or desire to engage in loaded intellectual debates about what colonialism is or how it operates. But much more are ready to empathize with a person reclaiming their true selves. At least in my own experience.

So for this edition, I wanted to share several powerful and very personal decolonization stories, as well a small essay about how russian colonialism erased the history of several generations of my own family.

Thanks, once again, for supporting my work and making sure I have the resources and capacity to expand global awareness about the crimes of russian colonialism.

Djuakuju.

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From VMIU, a collective of wartime Ukrainian artists: Felix Kurtanich (ЛисПодільський), born in 1996, died while performing a combat mission to defend the Independence of Ukraine near the town of Rubizhne, Donetsk. He was the author of an ironic advertisement for the sale of a garage that hit the lens of reuters. Illustration by Pjaschanka (Nika Liubchych). Follow @vmiu.ua and @pjaschanka on Insta

here is what's in store for you this week:

• three intimate accounts how identity erasure by russian colonialism keeps manifesting in our everyday lives

• a Ukrainian activist explains, simply and clearly, why Western countries fail to see russia as a colonial power

• how russia created a colonial myth of 'Donbas' by severing human-plant connection in eastern Ukraine

• russian colonialism has been using mass deportations as one of its favorite ethnic cleansing tools in Ukraine for decades.

• russian colonialism has never been a bystander in Africa

like it?

then slava ukrajini and let’s go.