Russian colonialism is rarely discussed in the West. In the former Empire, it is widely understood and referenced. I have had many conversations with friends and strangers who repeat the half-truths or lies that are put out from Moscow. The situation is seen through a partially understood history, often distorted by the Russian view of themselves. This project aims to set the modern Ukrainian struggle, and that of Russia’s other neighbours, in the true context of their history. The medium of Prokudin-Gorsky’s photography makes that apparent at a glance: it subverts this historic Russian lens to bring critical thought back to the narratives which are emanated from the seat of the modern Russian Empire.

Tsar Nicholas II instigated an ideology in the 19th century, which codified the nation’s values as defenders against the new French Revolutionary democracy: “Orthadoxy, Autocracy, Nationality”. The latter is hard to translate, but in modern terms is something between nationalism and a soulful understanding of cultural national identity. This ‘Official Nationality’ doctrine continued to hold sway until the limited democratic reforms just before the Russian Revolution. Apart from the few years after the Soviet collapse, from Ivan the Terrible to the present, Russia has never had a functional democratic system and for most of that time it openly resisted the democratic idea of people choosing their own destiny. Russia has always been at the centre of an Empire and it has always experienced state censorship and control of information; the people’s narrative has always been controlled.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine - first in 2014, then, more openly, in 2022 - has been entirely justified by official doctrine which has been taken up by the people, much as Prokudin-Gorsky keenly enthused in his own time for the benefits of autocratic imperialism.

This project will use his pioneering colour process to subvert this Russian lens on its former Empire. I will travel through Ukraine photographing themes and scenes of historical and current effects of Imperialist thought. It aims to deconstruct some of the colonial narratives spewing from Russia in the hope of showing it for what it is to those of us in the West who have never seen the symptoms of past colonialism from Russia.

The empires we are familiar with were maritime empires, so the Russian system looks superficially different and appears geographically homogenous. It makes some logical sense and lends credence to the official line of ‘brother nations’ in this region. Arguments about linguistic communities are hard to unpick without the knowledge of how the Ukrainian and Russian speaking communities developed. The claims of Nazis in Ukraine are impossible to unpick without understanding the Russian/Soviet perspective on WWII (The Great Patriotic War - a title which intrinsically references the Imperial ‘Patriotic War’) in which their perception of why they were fighting is very different from that of the other Allies. The fate of the Tartars is entirely lost in the other wartime noise.

The only overtly expansionist land empire we have seen in Europe within living memory was the Fascist Germany. The crimes are described as ‘uniquely’ horrific: it is impossible to replicate this level of evil and we are therefore immune from repeating their sins.

The Soviet Union portrayed itself as chosen by its member states’ people and it is hard for a modern outsider to recognise the extent of Russian control and influence and the obscene crimes of the Bolsheviks in establishing control of its satellite states. That was a state based on lies and which weaponised lies against and with its people, or subjects; modern Russia does the same and if these lies go unchallenged internationally, they colonise our own minds in a very small way to enable the full colonisation of their ‘near-abroad’ or ‘Ruskii Mir’ satellite regions and states. 

In the UK and the West, the war in Ukraine is often presented as ‘Putin’s War’. Through centuries of conditioning, modern day repression and Russian nationalism, it is apparent that it is not. It is a war of Russia’s people, directed by their semi-legally elected leadership. The war is a direct result of Russia’s cultural mindset of national and racial superiority and its habit of control over its surrounding area through the use of force, coercion and cultural control.

You can see this widespread attitude by comparing the Wikipedia articles about the Circassian Genocide in English and Russian. The English version describes genocide and forced migration and murder. The Russian Wikipedia describes a benevolent effort of the Russian neighbours to rid the North Caucasus region of Ottoman slave trading and a ‘resettlement’ of the population to Turkey; Imperial control of the area was a mere byproduct of this generosity.

We will not see an end to the Cold War, Crimean War, Russo-Japanese wars or the modern-day war in Ukraine (including Crimea) or the (mostly) frozen conflicts in Abkhazia, South Ossetia/Sambochalo or Transnistria (where Russia continues to maintain total political hegemony and stations military forces) until the mindset of the Russian people comes to understand that they are not ethnically or culturally superior to their neighbours and their autonomous neighbours have the rights of sovereign countries.