The Paradigm of Colonialism in Post-Soviet Central Asia

Résumé 0

In post-Soviet space, debates about « colonialism » are stamped by the interpretation of the Soviet past and the dissociation between political discourses of victimhood and habituses which integrate and even assert elements of everyday Soviet life. In Central Asia, the topic of Russo-Soviet colonialism evokes contrasting responses: some states such as Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan cast themselves as victims of Russian colonialism, while Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan vacillate between victimization and approval of the logics of social, cultural and economic modernization that enabled the accession to independence. Underlying the difficulties involved in taking a stance on the colonialism debate, then, is an ideological foundation comprising many uncognized political issues tied to the eventful 20th century.