1/ We are currently experiencing a decolonization moment in East European and Eurasian Studies that is becoming a new paradigm in the field. Over the last few months, I have attended several conferences in the area, and here are some of the observations and reflections. 🧵

2/ The conferences include the CBEES conference in December that explicitly aimed at decolonizing area studies. The BASEES conferences in April featured decolonization prominently, as will the upcoming ASEEES and Alexanteri conferences this coming fall.

3/ This trend is a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and there is now a lot of long overdue soul-searching in the field trying to figure out where we went wrong and how we erred. While the trend towards decolonization is positive, there are different drivers behind it.

4/ The first comes from scholars of Caucasus, Central Asia, and indigenous nations of RU who solidarize with Ukraine and are inspired by its resistance. The postcolonial approach, with tools developed by Fanon, Said, Spivak etc, fits perfectly with contexts like Central Asia.

5/ The second driver comes from a different region, which I would call the greater Eastern Europe, including Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, with strong links to the Baltics, Poland, Central Europe and the Balkans. This impulse is more immediately related to the ongoing invasion.

6/ It is connected to the postcolonial moment in Ukrainian literature and cultural studies that's been going on since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Works by Marko Pavlyshyn, Tamara Hundorova, Ewa Thompson, Mykola Riabchuk, Vitaly Chernetsky developed this optic over 30 years.

7/ As we look at these two different traditions, we see that they deal with somewhat different situations and challenges. They are called forth by the same force, Russian imperialism, and they share parallels and the same paradigm. Yet many problems they are facing are different.

8/ We are dealing with two different fields rather than one single unified field. We must give up the old field of “post-Sovietology” as we are dealing with different situations that require different approaches within the same decolonization movement. Let’s bury this corpse.

9/ Another observation is that while we see these two areas of greater Eastern Europe & greater Central Asia/Caucasus arise in solidarity and come into a vibrant dialogue with each other, the Russian Studies proper don't seem willing to change and are kind of self-marginalizing.

10/ The panels on Russia felt isolated and out of touch, and honestly not very interesting. This is not bad per se. We need to provincialize Russian Studies and put it on the periphery while centring the subaltern nations of the former Russian empire, USSR and now also Russia.

11/ My third observation is a warning that decolonization may be but a passing moment, a hype which will subside and not leave the mark that it should. Many within the traditional paradigm of Russian Studies are trying to jump on the bandwagon and move on to something trendy.

12/ Trendy at this time means Ukraine and subaltern nations and decolonization. There is a risk that the true decolonization that many scholars from subaltern nations have been working on can be drowned in the flood of superficial “decolonizing” (in fact, “re-colonizing”) studies

13/Finally, there is a question of responsibility. We have failed as a field, regardless of how we view knowledge epistemologically: whether we consider it a representation of reality that must be true to it or a constructive process leading to new knowledge changing the world.

14/ We have failed because our representations of reality were either crude, poor, and inadequate, or we failed to create the new knowledge that could have changed the reality so that this war wouldn't have happened.

15/ I am concerned that without any tangible responsibility for the people who knowingly spread false narratives, inadequate theories, caricatures, and ideological rubbish disguised as expertise and knowledge, we will not be able to move forward and make decolonization a reality.

16/ I am not talking about legal responsibility, although suing for defamation and libel may make sense in some cases. As scholars, we are supposed to be autonomous and self-regulating, and we should be able to sort out these failures on our own.

17/ The question is how we ensure that those who willingly became agents of influence for the Kremlin are held responsible and accountable for their actions so that this can serve as a warning sign for future generations and the future of our very field. END