EASTERN EUROPE THROUGH POSTCOLONIAL PRISM: ANALYSIS OF SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH

Abstract

The article examines the application of postcolonial theory to the analysis of the political transformations in post-communist countries in Eastern Europe. The question of the relevance of the application has become particularly important after the Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine. The question of the relevance of the application has become particularly important after the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. There is an obvious contradiction between the wide-spreading usages of the terms colonialism in the public discourse to characterize the essence of Russian aggressive policy and the near absence of scientific interpretation of this dramatic conflict from the postcolonial researchers. In order to investigate the reasons for the situation, the article raises the question about “double silence” – mutual ignoring by both postcolonial researchers of the Eastern European region and researchers of post-communist transformations of the colonial experience of Eastern European countries. We used a content analysis of the post-colonial scientific for the period from 2000 to obtain data on the number of publications about Eastern Europe. The content analysis proves the idea of the marginal character of Eastern European research within the framework of postcolonial theory and shows the complete absence of scientific interpretation of the Russian-Ukrainian war from a postcolonial perspective. The article considers the main reasons for this situation: the low level of interest in the region of Eastern Europe from Western scholars; the Marxist views of many researchers, which exclude the possibility of identifying colonialism not only with the capitalist states of the West but also with the socialist USSR; the dominance of the Russian-centric discourse in the scientific community. At the same time, examples of the combination of postcolonial theory and transitology to the analysis of social and political transformations in the region of Eastern Europe are given.