Russian Colonialism

Russian Colonialism comprises the period of expansionism and social, political, economic and cultural policies Russia extended over regions forming modern Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Finland and the Baltic countries and Alaska primarily during the 19th to the beginning of the 20th century. Russian policies of frontier expansionism are present in colonization of Crimea, Siberia and Alaska, as well as the aborted attempt to control the Bosporus Strait during the Russo-Turkish war.

Colonial Policy

National movements pressing for sovereignty were subdued within cultural policies, such as Russification seen in official state policies like the Ems Ukaz, the Language Manifesto of 1900 in Finland and policies toward Belarusian language in the 1840s to early 1870s. In the late 19th century, industrialization became a driving force behind imperial policy, and coal and iron-ore extraction were rapidly developed in areas like the Donets Basin, eventually eclipsing production in the Urals. While industrial growth was successful, reciprocity with Russia was limited, as a result of underdeveloped secondary industries and tertiary industries in host areas. Finished goods were imported at excessively high prices set by Russia, while the prices for Donets' industrial products was low. [Subtelny, O: Ukraine, pp. 268-276. University of Toronto Press, 2000.] Vladimir Lenin, in exile in 1914 stated in a speech that "it [Ukraine] has become for Russia what Ireland was for England: exploited in the extreme and receiving nothing in return." [Doroshenko, D: Istoriia Ukrainy, p. 127. New York, 1974.]

The period of Russian imperial colonialism ended with the transition from imperial capitalism to communism in the 1920s when former economic and cultural policies were mollified within the developing communist ideologies.

See also

*Russian colonization of the Americas
*Russification
*Russification of Finland
*Colonialism

Notes

References

*Iavorsky, M. "Ukraina v epokhu kapitalizmu." Kiev: Derzhavne Vydavnytstvo Ukrainy, 1924.
*Kolarz, Walter. "Communism and colonialism." New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964
*Martin, Virginia. "Law and custom in the steppe: the Kazakhs of the Middle Horde and Russian colonialism in the nineteenth century." Richmond: Curzon, 2001
*Serbyn, Roman. "Lenine et la question ukrainienne en 1914". "Pluriel" no. 25, 1981.
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