The Russian Colonialism 101 guidebook is now also an audio show, done in partnership between the Ukrainian legacy newsroom Ukraïnska Pravda and our Volya Hub.
The Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea is one of the most brutal examples of settler colonialism in human history. But this is not an association that most foreigners have with the region — most of them do not even know the region by its authentic name, Qirim. Why is that? You’ll understand better after we share with you one of the darkest secrets hidden within the walls of Western academia.
In this episode, we tackle Russian infiltration of Western intellectual circles and how it helped to keep Russian colonialism hidden in plain sight.
This is Matryoshka of Lies. The Infiltration Episode.
For this one, I booked one of my favorite anti-colonial voices:
Dr. Rory Finnin, Professor of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Cambridge. Despite Crimea-Qirim being central to Russian imperial mythology, Professor Finnin is the only prominent Western thinker who studies the region through the stories and perspectives of its indigenous people. He speaks the Qirimli language and works with authentic sources, not with just Russian translations and interpretations, as most of his colleagues do. Please check out his brilliant recent book ‘Blood of Others’ on the history of anti-colonial solidarity between Ukrainians and Crimean Tatars.
Dr. Vitaly Chernetsky, President of the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. The first Ukrainian elected to this position in 76 year-old-history of this central academic institution that shapes the Western outlook on Russia and its neighbors. Back in the late 1990s when Dr. Chernetsky was a young scholar from Ukraine just entering the halls of Western universities. He was one of the first there to publish studies on Russian colonialism in Ukraine, but they received mostly pushback. Chernetsky’s 2003 essay ‘Postcolonialism, Russia and Ukraine’ is a legendary must-read.
Natalia Antelava, a prominent Georgian journalist and founder of Coda Story news outlet. She also runs a storytelling festival ZegFest that became one of the decolonization hotspots of Eastern Europe in the last two years. Read her powerful essay on her own decolonization journey.
Romeo Kokriatski, Ukrainian journalist and Managing Editor at New Voice Ukraine. He is also a co-host of the cool ‘Ukraine Without Hype’ podcast. This is my favorite of his of all time.
Additionally, here are some notable stories we also feature in this episode:
Deportation Of The Crimean Tatars In 1944. How It Happened. Medjit Mambetov is 84. He remembers the night of 18th of May in 1944 when the soldiers knocked on his family's door. They gave the family only 15 minutes to collect their belongings. They couldn’t collect the most valuable things because the room where all the most expensive stuff had been held was occupied by a Russian colonial officer. Then there was a long road to Central Asia, a freezing winter in Uzbekistan, and mass deaths of Crimean Tatars - from starvation, thirst and cold. After 1954, Crimean Tatars were allowed to move through the USSR. But Crimea was still closed for them. Medjit came back only in 1988.
Key facts about the Sürgünlik, the 1944 genocide of the Qırımlı people.
Haytarma, a 2013 Ukrainian period drama by a promiment Qırımlı director Akhtem Seitablayev. It portrays Crimean Tatar flying ace and Hero of the Soviet Union Amet-khan Sultan against the background of the 1944 genocide of his people.
‘87 children’ (or Чужа Молитва in original Ukrainian title), is a 2017 New Ukraine Wave movie by the same Akhtem Seitablayev and based on a true story, documenting the extraordinary courage of Saide, a young Crimean Tatar girl, who during World War II, saved 88 Jewish children from imminent death.
‘Homeward’ by a Qırımlı-Ukrainian director Nariman Aliev. This is a 2019 New Ukraine Wave movie telling a story of Crimean Tatars Mustafa and his son Alim and their clash after collecting the body of elder son Nazim, a casualty of the Russo-Ukrainian War. The family's history with government displacement compel Mustafa on a pilgrimage to mourn and bury in Crimean Islamic tradition. Watch this movie using my promo code.
Rare collection of photos of the Sürgünlik survivors.
Crimean Tatars. Who are they? An explainer by the Ukraïner.
Read excerpts from a diary of an Eastern European anti-colonial legend Maro Makashvili. Browse this amazing website for more stories devoted to the memory of Georgians who were defending from Russian colonization their first democratic republic a century ago
You can listen the show on all major podcast platforms, too.
Ukrainian voices and media face lots of censoring and gatekeeping, both online and offline. Please rate and leave comments under this podcast wherever you listen to it — it will help it to break through the filters to the widest audience possible.
The empire will fall.
Matryoshka of Lies: The Infiltration.