russian colonialism 101: the superpower of ordinary people.
russian colonialism 101: the superpower of ordinary people.
ordinary people doing extraordinary resistance.
Russian Colonialism 101 is the first newsletter to shed light on Russian colonialism. The opening essay is public; the curated reading lists are behind a paywall. This newsletter is part of the Volya Hub network, expanding global awareness of Russian colonialism.
That cold January Saturday, Loreta Asanavičiūtė could have chosen to stay home and rest before another workweek as a seamstress in a tailoring shop. She had just majored as an accountant, and focusing on a career when you are 23 would be the most ordinary thing to do. Instead, Loreta went to the TV tower in her home city, Vilnius, for an overnight resistance vigil. The Russian troops were on the way there to punish her country for an attempt to leave the Soviet empire. So, tens of thousands of peaceful Lithuanians decided to stop Russian tanks with their own bodies. One can only speculate if any of those ordinary citizens expected to sacrifice their lives for freedom that night. Loreta wasn’t definitely expecting to get run over by a Russian tank that charged at a peaceful crowd. When she was taken to a local hospital, the last thing she said was a baffled ‘Will I live, doctor?’
"My then-manager, Dr. Ručinskas, invited me to help. When I came, Asanavičiūtė was already lying on the operating table. A young girl. The marks of the tank caterpillar were visible on her body. A creepy image. The girl was already in poor condition. We have failed to save her life. In fact, a miracle would happen if, after such injuries, we managed to save her," recalls Vladyslav Mečkovski, a doctor at a local Vilnius hospital who was on duty that night. He wasn’t supposed to be, but after hearing about a possible Russian attack, she showed up for a voluntary shift.
"We didn't feel fear. However, when the first wave subsided, we realized that soldiers might appear and arrest us. I think the hardest part was overcoming fear in myself. It is the enslaved mind that is the most terrible thing," Mečkovski told in a 2021 interview for Lithuanian public broadcaster.
Russian imperial troops killed 13 more ordinary Lithuanians that weekend: Virginijus Druskis (aged 21, a student) Darius Gerbutavičius (aged 17, a schoolboy,) Rolandas Jankauskas (aged 22, a student) Rimantas Juknevičius (aged 24, a student) Alvydas Kanapinskas (aged 38, a worker at a factory) Algimantas Petras Kavoliukas (aged 52, a butcher at a grocery store,) Vidas Maciulevičius (aged 24, a locksmith) Titas Masiulis (aged 28, a construction worker,) Alvydas Matulka (aged 35, a farmer,) Apolinaras Juozas Povilaitis (aged 53, a metalworker,) Ignas Šimulionis (aged 17, a schoolboy,) Vytautas Vaitkus (aged 47, a plumber,) Vytautas Koncevičius (aged 49, worked at a store.) They joined hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians whom Russian colonial troops murdered, deported, or repressed during a 50-year occupation. Their resistance wasn’t in vain, though: demoralized by the extraordinary pushback of ordinary people, Russians had to go back home that winter of 1991.
Despite learning about all this heartbreak, writing and researching Lithuanian chapters was one of my favorite moments working on this guidebook. Why? During my book shows many readers would share with me their shock of learning how many countless nations Russia invaded, abused, and erased. But I always remind them that I wanted to highlight how many of the same nations fiercely resisted those invasions. Not a single one welcomed Russian imperial boots. And some managed to send the colonial troops back home defeated. Like Lithuanians did.
The events of January 1991 and the bravery of ordinary Lithuanians, a small nation standing up to a massive, bloodthirsty empire, inspired dozens of colonized by Russian nations that year to resist the oppression. The next day after the Vilnius carnage, thousands of Ukrainians rallied in solidarity with the Lithuanian resistance at Maidan Square in Kyiv. It was still months before Ukraine would reinstate its own independence. Unsanctioned by Moscow public gatherings were a criminal offense. Despite crushing poverty, Ukrainians at the rally fundraised enough money to send a group of volunteers to defend Lithuanian independence. The average donation was a meager one rubble, but together, ordinary people raised over 10,000 - or approximately 1,000 of average monthly incomes at the time. It was the largest foreign group that arrived in Lithuania that January to support the anti-colonial resistance.
Decades later, the Russian colonial empire, sadly, still stands. It still invades, rapes, and loots its neighbors. But the bravery of ordinary Lithuanians back in January 1991 keeps inspiring anti-colonial fighters facing Russian aggression. In the last two years of the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, not a week would go by without me hearing or reading some Ukrainians mentioning Lithuania’s anti-imperial resistance. It is also not just a thing of the past.
Similarly to Ukrainians in 1991, Lithuania was one of the first to rush with help in 2022. When arming Ukraine was still a controversial thing to do, tens of thousands of ordinary Lithuanians made global headlines by fundraising for expensive Bayraktar drones. As of late 2024, the country is the third-largest donor of Ukrainian aid per GDP. Dozens of Lithuanian fighters joined Ukraine’s Armed Forces, and at least three of them sacrificed their lives for Ukrainian freedom: Valerijus Polkovnikovas, Petro Hlova, and Tadas Tumas. Another prominent Lithuanian film director, Mantas Kvedaravicius, was killed by Russians while trying to document the carnage of Mariupol.
When people abroad learn these names and stories of resistance to centuries of Russian colonial violence, what might they find in common? Bravery? Yes. A shared abuser? Yes. A disdain toward injustice and tyranny? Definitely, yes. But what I want them to see are the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things.
When you study the footprint of various stages of the Russian colonial empire, as long as I do, you start seeing serial behavior patterns more clearly. One of them is the empire insisting that one person doesn’t matter. That no matter how brave or motivated an individual is, everything in this world will be decided for them by a handful of powerful dudes. That it is always big powers vs. ‘small people.’ That an act of individual resistance is futile and pointless.
Many abroad are hypnotized by the same imperial propaganda. That’s why when Lithuania fought for its independence in 1991, only other Russian colonies supported it, but none of the so-called ‘big powers.’ That’s why when Russia decided to fully recolonize Ukraine in 2022, many abroad expected it to stand just for a couple of days, too.
“There is a consensus that the Russian Empire before 1917 was a colonial empire. However, during the Soviet period, nominally, there was one constitution for everyone. This led many to conclude that the Soviet empire was not colonial. We know that in January 1991, when Lithuania was the first republic to actually proclaim its independence, it did so based on the Soviet Constitution, which granted all republics the right to leave the Union. Yet, when Lithuania declared independence, the military violently suppressed this decision. So, what was written in the Constitution had little to do with reality. Therefore, we need a different analysis and explanation for the coupling of a dictatorship, totalitarian regime, and colonialism. We cannot simply apply Western concepts to Russian imperialism,” warns in a recent interview Dr. Botakoz Kassymbekova, the most prominent scholar of Russian colonialism.
Chapter after chapter in this guidebook proves this propaganda wrong. From ordinary Ukrainians and Lithuanians resisting and fundraising extraordinary sums out of their pockets to support each other’s fight for freedom. To Loreta Asanavičiūtė, an ordinary Lithuanian whose personal act of extraordinary resistance keeps inspiring 33 years later so many in their fight against Russian colonialism.
Ordinary people doing extraordinary things for their freedom is what makes the empires fall. And they always do.
REMINDER: founding subscribers to my Substack and members of the highest tier on my Patreon have access to the Russian Colonialism 101 micro-website — the only live-updating database with the most relevant sources about Russian colonialism.
here is what's in store for you this week:
how radical anti-environmentalism is integral to Russia’s existence;
how “all Slavs are the same” is an old imperial propaganda invented by Russia;
how come so few know about one of the worst war crimes in Europe’s history, committed by Russians in Ukrainian Vinnytsia in 1937;
as Russia keeps kidnapping and deporting tens of thousands of Ukrainian kids, learn powerful stories of the Latvian kids who survived the same 80 years ago.
curious for more? let's go.