Melissa-Ellen Dowling - Writing Russia: The Discursive Construction of AnOther Nation

Melissa-Ellen Dowling

First published 2021

by Routledge

605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158

and by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

2021 Melissa-Ellen Dowling

The right of Melissa-Ellen Dowling to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.

Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

A catalog record for this book has been requested

ISBN: 978-1-032-00321-4 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-032-00325-2 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-003-17365-6 (ebk)

Typeset in Sabon

by Apex CoVantage, LLC

While steeped in facts and analysis, history is also a literary creation in the form of the narrative. In this regard, history exemplifies a transversal of science and art. This is particularly apparent in the case of national histories. They tell the story of a nation, yet that story is constrained by evidence of the past. In writing histories of Russia, Anglophone historians narrativise the past and use language in a way which constructs a literary rendition of Russia in the Western discourse-historical space. This literary Russia is an idea of Russia as a nation emerging from its textual representation. That a literary imagining of the nation is possible necessitates consideration of the writing of history and historys role in the imagining of communities.

The way in which national narratives are written from outside the relevant nation is central to this book. Historians belonging to nations other than Russia, predominantly nations of the West, are the dominant authors of English language histories of Russia. What might this mean for how Western historians construct a Russian nation for the Anglosphere, and what can the discursive patterns in this construction reveal about the geo-cultural paradigm in the contemporary context of the West?

Importantly, how Russia is constructed as a nation through history sheds light on contemporary Western categories for the organisation of knowledge about the past. Through examining several sweeping histories of Russia using approaches of critical discourse analysis, this book investigates how Anglophone historians construct the nation of Russia through their use of literary techniques. The purpose of this is twofold: to increase understanding of the role of historians in shaping national histories from the outside and to reveal relatively obfuscated facets of Western structures of knowledge and understand how such structures are discursively sustained.

Indeed, the concepts of history and nationalism are inextricably linked. History as an academic discipline developed alongside nationalism in the nineteenth century.1 From this time, history became indispensable in the construction of national identities. Although concepts of nationality are varied, most understandings of nationalism, nationality, and the nation rely on the idea of groups bound together by perceptions of a shared past.2 Nations are consolidated over time and cannot exist without a past.3 Of course, this makes historians particularly indispensable for the nation, since historians make the past accessible by writing history. The past has ended, so it cannot be directly accessed. The past can only be known through representations of it by history.4 Historians therefore have control (though not exclusively) of national narratives, which create and sustain nations. Jocelyn Ltourneau writes that history is an excellent way to inoculate the nation against the germs of its potential disintegration.5 How historians choose to shape these narratives is therefore significant for the construction of the nation.

However, history is not only a crucial ingredient for nation-building and the maintenance of national identity; it also discursively produces and reproduces the geo-cultural paradigm. The geo-cultural paradigm refers to concepts of nations, regions, and civilisations which are fundamental to viewing and structuring reality. In a similar vein, Mark Donnelly and Claire Norton describe how the geo-political division of territory into nation-states has had a profound influence both directly and indirectly on history writing.6 I contend that this relationship is mutually constitutive, and history contributes toward the reification of political and cultural communities. Nationalism as a concept frames histories, and such histories cannot avoid the use of the language of nationalism because it has become so ingrained into social reality. The nation has become a natural unit for comprehending, but also organising, the world.7 Historians have also criticised nationalism yet are nevertheless bound by the concept of the nation. While the practice of social and cultural history appears to be increasing, national history remains dominant in schools and universities. A look at the organisational structure of any university history department will attest to this.