Post-colonialism and Post-communism: His

In the last two decades, methods of post-colonial studies have entered the field of study of post-communist cultures and literatures. More and more frequently concepts such as "internal colonialism", "crypto-colonialism", "self-colonization", “Baltic colonialism” "decolonization", etc. are used. Is this “post-colonial turn” a productive approach, which is opening up new heuristic perspectives to the study of post-communist condition?  Or is it, on the contrary, another empty fad? The present course returns to the classic sources of the post-colonial and post-socialist studies and attempts to conduct a methodologically controlled comparison that is looking for similarities while carefully observing and respecting differences.

The methodological seminar will begin with an introduction aimed at clarifying the concepts and historical forms of colonialism. Ancient and medieval forms of colonization will be explored as distinct from modern colonialism, associated with a new type of navigation and shipping, with conquering the oceans and gradually creating modern colonial empires of global scope. Issues associated with the correlation between capitalism, colonialism and the types of nationalism in the 19th century, varieties of colonial conquest, governance and with colonial imagination will be discussed here (with special attention being paid to the concept of "self-colonization" in view of the global dominance of Eurocentrism in social imagination).

The second part of the course will involve reading and analysis of the great leaders of the anti-colonial movement such as M. Gandhi, Fr. Fanon and A. Césaire in comparison with some Russian and East European dissident thinkers from the late Cold War era (Al. Solzhenitsyn, V.Havel, Milan Kundera etc).  Important theorists of the post-colonial turn such as. Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak etc. will be read, too.

In its third part, the course will move to the present day and address its major topic.  It will compare rival analytical approaches to state communism and the transition period, introducing the similarities and variances between the decolonization processes during the second half of the twentieth century and the later collapse of Soviet totalitarianism. Competing methodological approaches and concepts (such as “”Balkanism”, “nesting orientalism”, |self-colonization”, “internal colonialism”, “Baltic Post-colonialism”  &