here is what’s in store for you this week:
What is ‘a mankurt,’ and why learning it will unlock for you the most fascinating story to explain russian colonialism to yourself and others;
One of the defining essays on russian colonialism of all time, by a Ukrainian anti-colonial filmmaker;
How russian colonialism took the Western anti-imperialist Left for a ride;
How Ukrainian culture and art made the bedrock of Ukrainian anti-colonial resistance;
How russia turns ‘great russian culture’ into a tool of colonial subjugation;
How bureaucratic and casual russification of indigenous names grew into a powerful russian weapon of identity erasure.
Russian Colonialism 101 is the first newsletter to shed light on Russian colonialism and is part of the Volya Hub network. What is happening to Ukraine has happened many times before, and the rest of the world has been conditioned to overlook or misdiagnose it. This isn’t history. It’s how you stop being shocked by what was always predictable.
