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Author: Tomasz Kamusella

From Poland-Lithuania to science fiction

Science fiction is a genre that aspires to predict the human future through the lens of expected technological progress. Few realize that it emerged from the tragic experience of Poland-Lithuania’s Jewish community during the dark 20th century.

December 13, 2024 - Tomasz Kamusella

China, Iran and Russia: a curious alliance?

Many have expressed surprise at the emerging alliance of Beijing, Moscow and Tehran, which are three starkly different regimes. Do they have anything in common apart from authoritarianism? It is all too rarely noticed that above all China, Iran and Russia are the world’s sole surviving land empires.

October 31, 2024 - Tomasz Kamusella

Democracy or autocracy: what is the choice about?

After the fall of communism, democracy seemed to have won the day all over the world. Thirty years later, autocracy have steadily replaced democratic regimes and is on the rise in Western Europe and the United States, where democracy originated. Many naively believed that autocracy and democracy are mere labels, a choice that would not substantially impact our day-to-day lives.

August 12, 2024 - Tomasz Kamusella

Russia won the propaganda war in Barcelona

Following Russia’s inexcusable invasion of peaceful Ukraine in 2022, Ukrainian flags, ribbons and other signs of solidarity with this country under attack have been proudly displayed across democratic Europe. Shockingly, they are absent in Barcelona. Instead, quite open public support is lavished on neo-imperialist Russia.

June 10, 2024 - Tomasz Kamusella

Empire or democracy

Democracy and imperialism are mutually exclusive. No empire was, is or can be democratic. The British Empire was not, the imperial People’s Republic of China is not, nor will imperial Russia become a democracy, even when a self-professed democrat is installed at its helm. The necessary precondition of democratization in an empire is decolonization.

In February 2024, the death (or rather, extrajudicial killing) of the leading Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny sent shock waves across the democratic world. It could have been a subdued affair, as in the case of the Chinese 2010 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo. Beijing arrested him on trumped up charges in 2008 and withheld medical care, leading to the dissident’s premature death in 2017. The Chinese authorities did not want to turn Liu Xiaobo into a martyr for democracy. Hence, he was cremated and his ashes scattered at sea. No grave means no pilgrimage site.

April 11, 2024 - Tomasz Kamusella

Russia: weaponizing democracy to better fight the West

Russia ditched democracy as not fit for the country’s needs. As a result, the Kremlin identified elections and relatively brief terms of office as the system’s weak points. Since the 2010s, Moscow has learned how to use the openness of the internet and democracy for destabilizing the West. It costs little and brings huge returns. The Kremlin has successfully weaponized democracy for attacking Europe and North America.

April 3, 2024 - Tomasz Kamusella

Antisemitism: the foundation of the Polish nation?

The modern Polish nation was ultimately forged out of a union between former Poland-Lithuania’s nobility and Slavophone Catholic peasants. This process of creating ethnic Poles was anything but easy, with antisemitism often used as a means of overcoming the estate chasm between nobles and peasantry.

January 17, 2024 - Tomasz Kamusella

Going native: Russian studies in the West

The West’s endorsement of Russian imperialism comes in different forms, sometimes taking on the guise of “Eastern European studies” in renowned centres of learning.

August 11, 2023 - Tomasz Kamusella

Russia’s golden thousand and the last days

Russia’s propaganda, which is largely aimed at the so-called “global south”, denigrates the West as degenerate, poor, and being in “satan’s power”; while Vladimir Putin is portrayed as their representative and saviour. Never mind the fact that the Russian onslaught on Ukraine triggered a worldwide food crisis and made automobile transport and education once again unavailable for hundreds of millions in the global south.

Walking directly into the defunct Soviet Union’s ideological worn-out shoes, neo-imperial Russia of today poses itself as a friend of the poor and oppressed masses outside the West. The Kremlin’s top rashists criticise the “golden billion” (золотой миллиард zolotoi milliard), or the West’s inhabitants who enjoy peace and prosperity across the rich global north. On this platform, the Russian government usurps for Moscow the right to speak on behalf of the world’s poor and huddling seven billion, living the so-called global south. But who is Russia’s golden thousand (золотая тысяча zolotaia tysiacha) whom this rhetoric benefits and who literally own Russia?

July 4, 2023 - Tomasz Kamusella

Obstacles to Russian decolonisation

Debate has recently grown about the Russian Federation’s possible decolonisation in the future. Despite this, it is important to remember just how closely married Moscow’s current system is to empire. Spanning over centuries, this model continues to enrich the elite to the detriment of the population.

June 9, 2023 - Tomasz Kamusella

The unconscious imperialism of a convinced anti-imperialist

The famous writer Mikhail Shishkin is one of the few well-known Russians to voice strong opposition to Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Despite this, many of his words and actions still play into the hands of the Kremlin, ultimately aiding in the continuation of the war.

April 28, 2023 - Tomasz Kamusella

Neo-imperial Russia: a self-hating western country

Moscow’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine is speciously presented as a “clash of civilisations.” While Putin continues to stress Russia’s apparent uniqueness in relation to the “collective West”, it is ultimately western ideas that are powering his neo-imperial project.

April 7, 2023 - Tomasz Kamusella

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