Whose Presence, Whose Absences? Decolonising Russian National Culture and History: Observations Through the Prism of Religious Contact

Abstract

In the introduction to this special issue, the editors are concerned with how the Russian state defines its national culture and history mainly with reference to Slavic civilisation, Orthodox Christianity and imperial glory. This post-Soviet discourse of nation-building may be understood as an attempt to cope with a sense of loss in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. That discourse also affects how nationalist-minded observers interpret space as naturally Russian and as part of the empire of the past (or the present). Regrettably, little consideration is being paid to Russia’s ethnic and religious minority cultures, which hardly seem to contribute to Russian history and culture and sometimes do not even feature in representations thereof. Critically engaging with the ideas of presence and absence—the presence of one culture or tradition to the detriment of others—, the editors suggest, can potentially help to decolonise accounts and illustrations of Russian culture and heritage. In the best case, the outcome of such an exercise would be a more adequate involvement of minority representatives in the process of negotiating Russian national culture.