Home and Away: Why the Asian Periphery Matters in Russian History

Abstract

Only when USSR crumbled from outside in did most scholars and observers, Russian and Western alike, understand implications of its hierarchical, multinational structure. At that time, Salman Rushdie noted a similar ignorance of bounds of British history, writing in The Satanic Verses, the trouble with English is that their history happened overseas, so they don't know what it means. (1) Replacing overseas with overland or mountain and desert, would give us, I argue, a statement that applied not only to Mikhail S. Gorbachev and his band of reformers but also to many scholars of contemporary Russia, even as millions of post-Soviet migrants from Caucasus and Central Asia to Russian Federation underscore consequences of an entwined system. Writing periphery into metropolitan history has become a critical task for historians across Western world seeking to understand continued power of imperial linkages. (2) Interactions and relations with Central Eurasia have had profound effects on Russia, Russians, and Russianness. This essay serves notice to historians of Russia's core that a too-common neglect of its southern peripheries--beyond occasional mentions of far-flung lands that produced Kerenskii, Stalin, or other interlopers--limits understandings not just of tsarist empire or Soviet Union but also of Russian history proper. Conceptual tools from other (post)-imperial situations provide starting points, but above all what we need is a thorough understanding of myriad events and processes that intertwined mainland Russia's history with that of Central Eurasia. The relationship between Russia and its southern peripheries has fascinated me since my first trip to Moscow in 1992. Expecting to be surrounded by fair-skinned Slavs resembling hockey players and ballerinas--Canadian stereotypes of Soviet citizens--I found myself in an international city, rubbing shoulders with Caucasus and Central peoples, among those from Asia and Africa. Georgian restaurants highlighted our culinary experiences and fruits from Ferghana Valley helped us through immediate post-Soviet chaos, with empty store shelves and European Union food aid sold on streets. At Tret'iakov Gallery we encountered art of Vasilii Vereshchagin, whose canvasses of exotic Central locales earned him global recognition. In St. Petersburg, Hermitage hosts spoils of conquest, from jewels of Central khans to tent of Bukhara's emir. A statue of Russia's most renowned explorer of Central Asia, Nikolai Przheval'skii, in nearby Alexander Garden may, with camel below it, seem incongruous in Venice of North. But neighboring busts display not only famed Russian author Mikhail Lermontov, whose classic novel, A Hero of Our Time, is set in Caucasus, but also Russian diplomat Aleksandr Gorchakov, who as Tsar Alexander II's foreign minister, stated in an 1864 circular to European capitals that the task of civilizing ... her neighbors, on Continent of Asia, has been assigned to Russia as her special mission. (3) Central Eurasia--discussed here as North and South Caucasus as well as Central lands conquered by tsarist forces in 18th-19th centuries and then reconquered by Red Army in Civil War--transformed Russia, both conceptually and materially. The consequences of control over these lands permeated daily life, influencing how Russians thought of themselves, clothes they wore, food they ate, and how they interacted and understood frequent encounters with their Asian neighbors. The USSR's relatively closed borders accentuated Central Eurasia's economic and even demographic importance to Russia. Cities such as Yerevan and Tashkent emerged as hubs for Cold War foreign policy strategies, highlighting multitude of ways that Central Eurasia became implicated in Russia's quest to be seen as a transnational, regional, and global actor. …