Catalogue · ID 70

Russia's Steppe Frontier: The Making of a Colonial Empire 1500-1800

Author: Khodarkovsky M.
Year of publication: 2002
Published in: Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002. ISBN 978-0-253-21770-7
Describes Russian colonization of peoples: several peoples
Publication rights: not allowed (a 2002 publication under copyright)

Files not published

Where we got it

Edition: https://books.google.com/books/about/Russia_s_Steppe_Frontier.html?id=Ti51WfA68RYC

Where the knowledge base cites it

This material is cited in 8 places.

Campaigns

• Religious Frontier and the Fabrication of Historical Right (1550–1721)

  Historian Michael Khodarkovsky states that the government apparatus positioned the tsar as a "universal Christian ruler, who 'upheld the true Christian faith'"

  Invasions were motivated by a "divine obligation to rescue Orthodox Christians from infidel captivity"

  As a result, as the researcher summarizes, "Moscow's military and political interests could no longer be separated from the ideological and theological rhetoric of expansion"

  In parallel, fictitious grounds for territorial claims were being constructed: the author records that officials produced false reports for foreign rulers claiming that the indigenous peoples of the Caucasus had allegedly been Muscovite "subjects in the Riazan region since ancient times, and then fled from Riazan and settled in the mountains"

• Beginning of the political subjugation of the Nokhchi (1588–1591)

  The administration, however, unilaterally interpreted this act as unconditional submission: historian Michael Khodarkovsky points out that "in Moscow's eyes the shert now meant an oath of allegiance by the tsar's new and loyal subjects"

• Imposition of an Image of Backwardness and the “Civilizing” Mission (1721–1800s)

  Historian Michael Khodarkovsky states that by the mid-18th century officials had come to perceive their advance as a mission preordained by destiny to “bring both Christianity and civilization to the ‘wild and uncivilized’ peoples along its borders”

Procedures

• Religious Frontier and the Fabrication of Historical Right (1550–1721) — technique Justification Through Religion

  The government of the Tsardom of Muscovy used religious identity and the concept of protecting co-religionists as ideological cover for military expansion: historian Michael Khodarkovsky states that the diplomatic apparatus positioned the tsar as a "universal Christian ruler who 'upheld the true Christian faith'"

  while invasions were motivated by a "divine obligation to rescue Orthodox Christians from infidel captivity"

  as a result, as historian Michael Khodarkovsky summarizes, in the advance into new territories "Moscow's military and political interests could no longer be separated from the ideological and theological rhetoric of expansion"

• Religious Frontier and the Fabrication of Historical Right (1550–1721) — technique Rewriting of History

  …narratives to provide legal justification for the invasion of new territories: historian Michael Khodarkovsky points out that in diplomatic correspondence officials deliberately constructed fictitious claims that the Indigenous peoples of the Caucasus had allegedly, since ancient times, been Muscovite "subjects in the Riazan region, who then fled from Riazan and settled in the mountains"

• Beginning of the political subjugation of the Nokhchi (1588–1591) — technique Sham Treaties

  whereas historian Michael Khodarkovsky points out that «in Moscow's eyes, the shert now signified an oath of allegiance by the tsar's new and loyal subjects»

• Imposition of an Image of Backwardness and the “Civilizing” Mission (1721–1800s) — technique Imposition of a Backwardness Narrative

  The government of the Russian Empire justified expansion with ideas of enlightening undeveloped societies: historian Michael Khodarkovsky states the ambition of the metropole's officials "to bring both Christianity and civilization to the 'wild and uncivilized' peoples along its borders"

Techniques

• Forced Registration of Subjecthood

  To ensure legitimacy in the eyes of the local population, the colonizer often demands that an oath of allegiance be sworn according to the religious customs of the subjugated peoples themselves