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TEORIE VĚDY / THEORY OF SCIENCE / XXXIII / 2011 / 4
////// studie / article //////////////////////////////////////////
A THEORY’S TRAVELOGUE:
POST-COLONIAL THEORY IN
POST-SOCIALIST SPACE
Abstract: This essay examines theoretical
arguments surrounding the use
of post-colonial theory as a way to fill
in the epistemological lacuna in the
studies of post-socialism. It reviews
the various streams of this theoretical
development and employs Edward
Said’s notion of “traveling theory” to
demonstrate that theoretical claims
made by proponents and opponents
of this particular comparative perspective
are historically, socially, and
geographically situated, although not
fixed. Disciplinary, national, and
institutional affiliations, instead of
theoretical justifications, are identified
as important factors in the propensity
to accept or resist the introduction of
post-colonial perspective on Central
and Eastern Europe and the former
Soviet Union. The essay concludes by
acknowledging the potential usefulness
as well as the limits of post-colonialism
in the conceptualization of the postsocialist
space.
Keywords: post-socialism; post-colonialism;
traveling theory; comparative
perspective
Zápisník z cest jedné teorie:
post-koloniální teorie v post-socialistickém
prostoru
Abstrakt: Tato studie se zabývá teoretickými
argumenty ohledně užití
post-koloniální teorie jako způsobu,
s jehož pomocí má být vyplněna epistemologická
mezera v  bádání o  post-socialismu.
Dále poskytuje přehled
různých směrů tohoto teoretického vývoje
a uplatňuje pojem Edwarda Saida
“cestující teorie” k poukázání na to, že
teoretická tvrzení vznášená zastánci
i odpůrci této specifické komparativní
perspektivy jsou historicky, sociálně
a geograficky situovaná, ovšem nikoliv
pevně ukotvená. Oborové, národní
a  institucionální příslušnosti jsou
na  rozdíl od  teoretických zdůvodnění
identifikovány jako důležité faktory
pro tendenci přijímat, nebo bránit se
zavedení post-koloniální perspektivy
na střední a východní Evropu a země
bývalého Sovětského svazu. Studie
v  závěru přiznává jak potenciální
užitečnost, tak i omezení post-kolonialismu
pro konceptualizaci post-socialistického
prostoru.
Klíčová slova: post-socialismus;
post-kolonialismus; cestující teorie;
komparativní perspektiva
RADIM HLADÍK
Filosofický ústav Akademie věd ČR, v. v. i.
Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Jilská 1, 110 00 Praha 1, Czech Republic
email / radim.hladik@fulbrightmail.org
562
Radim Hladík
Introduction
Few historical events have affected social theory as much as the end of the
Cold War. Almost overnight, an entire tradition of thought grounded in
Marxism-Leninism, the official paradigm in the social sciences and the humanities
in the state-socialist bloc, disappeared. The legitimacy of Marxism
of various strands around the globe also suffered. Even less politically less
politicized disciplines, from literature to economics, had to reevaluate their
hitherto well-established concepts. The once politically supported and burgeoning
Sovietology was converted from a political science into a historical
discipline.
As part of this larger theoretical restructuring of the academic field in
the wake of social change, there arose a need to produce knowledge relevant
to the new realities of the former Second World. This essay traces one specific
attempt to fulfill this need using post-colonial theory to conceptualize
the post-socialist space, with a  focus on Central and Eastern Europe. It
begins with a critique of the initial concepts of transition and transformation
and identifies post-socialism as a  specific problem, the recognition
and definition of which remains essential for a  scholarly understanding
of the aftermath of the Cold War. The urgency of the task inspired some
scholars, on the grounds of the perceived epistemological affinity of the two
“posts”, to utilize the well-established theory of post-colonialism to grasp
the emergent concept of post-socialism. The kernel of the essay examines
the various streams of this theoretical development. The guiding principle
of the analysis rests on Edward Said’s notion of “traveling theory”, which
conceives theory as a situated but not a fixed response to specific problems.
To pursue the metaphor further, when we encounter post-colonial theory in
the post-socialist space, we can ask what kind of traveler it is. It is a universalizing
conquistador? A well-meaning missionary? A curious translator?
A  superficial tourist, who, despite being abroad, surrounds herself with
familiar things and environments?
As there seems to be little consensus on the kind of propositions put
forward by the advocates of the uses of post-colonial theory for cognitively
mapping the post-socialist space, this essay reviews various theoretical
This work was supported by Czech Science Foundation grant no. P401/11/2338 “Contemporary
Approaches in Historical Epistemology”. I benefited greatly from conversations with Gil Eyal
and Yuri Shevchuk from Columbia University in the City of New York and Sean Field from
University of Cape Town. I also wish to acknowledge J. William Fulbright Commission for
Educational Exchange in the Czech Republic and the Charles University Sasakawa Fellowship
Fund for making such inspiring encounters possible.
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A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
arguments put forth in favor of this approach, as well as possible counterclaims.
The perspective of traveling theory adopted in this article leads to the
conclusion that, instead of arguing over epistemological adequacy, attention
should shift to the benefits and pitfalls of the actual uses of post-colonialism
in making sense of post-socialism.
Post-socialism: transcending the transition
Scholarly reflection on the historical rupture of 1989, the end of the protracted
Cold War, and the demise of the Soviet power in Central and Eastern
Europe and its weakening in Central Asia initially focused on transition and
institutional reform. In the “satellite” countries, transition, in the broad
sense, consisted of a program of “returning to Europe” and implementing
profound economic and institutional reforms to state-socialist structures,
the goal being to bring the suddenly post-socialist states closer to Western
European models of the free market and political plurality. However, the
framework of transitology1
– the name given to the perspective that primarily
supplanted the now defunct Sovietology – gradually came to be perceived
as insufficient, especially as the actual, real-world transition from state socialism
to private capitalism began to encounter numerous problems, such
as producing unexpectedly marginalized communities and localities.
Later, students of post-socialist countries attempted to offer a  more
complex picture of post-socialism. According to Michael D. Kennedy, the
process of leaving state socialism behind was not simply a technological or
policy problem of “transition”; rather, it was sustained by the emergence of
a whole new cultural formation, which he dubs “transition culture”. Kennedy
criticized the prevailing orientation of studies of post-socialism to date,
because they presented a tacit affirmation of neoliberalism and “accept more
or less transition’s metanarrative: that the problem is to figure out how capi-
1
Transitology is here understood broadly so as to encompass even some approaches that
a narrow definition would compete with, such as the consolidationist or the institutionalist
perspective, and to highlight the overarching and shared concern with social change; for
a discussion of the concept and its place in the studies of post-socialist region, see Jordan
GANS-MORSE, “Searching for Transitologists: Contemporary Theories of Post-Communist
Transitions and the Myth of a  Dominant Paradigm.” Post-Soviet Affairs, vol. 20, 2004,
no. 4, pp. 320–349. The concept developed earlier in response to democratization processes
in Southern Europe and South America. and without much following it has been applied
also in  the context of African decolonization; see, e.g. Patrick BONDk . Elite Transition:
From Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa. London – Pietermaritzburg: Pluto Press –
University of Natal Press 2000.
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Radim Hladík
talism and/or democracy can be built.”2
Kennedy instead proposes inquiring
into “cultural formations”, that is, the non-institutionalized movements and
tendencies in culture that yield considerably influential powers, especially
in the emergent and changing post-socialist societies. This focus should fill
in the gaps in knowledge that gave rise to a myopic perspective, in which
“culture and history are not recognized to be things that envelop the work of
transition itself.”3
Kennedy argues that “transition” is not a fatal trajectory,
but a type of culture that asserted itself against other cultural formations in
a conflict, a view that reinforces the notion that the establishment of postsocialist
societies was an eventful occurrence and not devoid of alternatives.
In Kennedy’s and similar studies that look at the actual processes in postsocialist
countries without measuring them up against a  purported goal,
“presentist history finds its counterpart here in futurist transitology.”4
”” The
reorientation of the gaze from the future to the present highlights, as Stark
and Bruszt have argued, the challenges of “transformations” (as opposed to
“transition”), “in which the introduction of new elements takes place most
typically in combination with adaptations, rearrangements, permutations,
and reconfigurations of already existing institutional forms.”5
Yet one more
positioning of the perspective in time is possible: the focus on the past. Such
emphasis emerges with works such as Gil Eyal’s treatise on the breakup of
Czechoslovakia, where he shows that the formation of the Czech and Slovak
political field after 1989 “was also strongly determined by the inherited
identities, tastes, and modes of reasoning of the political actors”.6
This is
not a kind of historicism, explicating the current situation simply in terms
of deterministic past factors; it is an approach that stresses the importance
of past social trajectories and forms of knowledge in the “reconfigurations
of already existing institutional forms” of the presentist approach. With the
focus on the past, collective memory takes the center stage in many branches
of research on the former state-socialist countries, where “memory and its
appropriation have become central issues in societies emerging from the
2
Michael D. KENNEDY. Cultural Formations of Postcommunism: Emancipation, Transition,
Nation and War. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2002, p. 22.rr
3
Ibid., p. 9.
4
David STARK – László BRUSZT, Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property
in East Central Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.1998, p. 84.
5
Ibid.
6
Gil EYAL, The Origins of Postcommunist Elites: From Prague Spring to the Breakup of
Czechoslovakia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press 2003, p. 136.
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A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
erasure of public memory and the survival of counter-memories.”7
As more
and more time passes since the collapse of state socialism, literature manifests
not less, but more interest in the importance that the state-socialist past
and durable cultural and knowledge formations holds for the post-socialist
present. Not long before the transition’s purported success in Central and
Eastern Europe, epitomized by the accession of many countries in the region
to the European Union in the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first
century, post-socialism has gradually come to be perceived as a subject of
inquiry meriting attention.
Besides the choice of theoretical framework and the positioning of
a research perspective in historical time, another issue that has troubled the
study of post-socialism is the question of a comparative approach. At stake is
not only the question whether post-socialist countries can be studied under
one disciplinary umbrella, but also whether the research can draw upon
methods, theories and concepts developed earlier and elsewhere. That is to
say, can post-socialist countries be clustered in a meaningful category of sufficient
breadth that would justify the notion of post-socialism as such? And if
so, is the category a class of its own, or is it a species of a more abstract entity?
In a debate that exemplifies the qualms surrounding the question of the (im)
possibility of comparative approaches in transitology, Philippe C. Schmitter
and Terry Lynn Karl proposed studying democratization in Central and
Eastern Europe through the lens of analogous processes in Southern Europe
and Latin America.8
An area studies proponent, Valery Bunce, responded
by casting doubts on the very premise of comparability between the two
7
William OUTHWAITE – Larry RAY, Social Theory and Postcommunism. Oxford: Blackwell
2005, p. 180. Irwin-Zarecka noted that “the future of what once was the Soviet empire may
very well depend on the rules established there for dealing with the Communist past, the
fact that whole region becomes a  ‘laboratory’ for students of collective memory.” Iwona
IRWIN-ZARECKA, Frames of Remembrance: The Dynamics of Collective Memory. New
Brunswick: Transaction Publishers 1994. The role of collective memory in post-socialism
has, by now become an immense field of research. See, for example: Richard ESBENSHADE,
“RememberingtoForget:Memory,History,NationalIdentityinPostwarEast-CentralEurope.”
Representations, vol. 1995, no. 49, pp. 72–96; Svetlana BOYM, The Future of Nostalgia. New
York: Basic Books 2001. Gil EYAL,“Identity and Trauma: Two Forms of the Will to Memory.”
History and Memory, vol. 16, 2004, no. 1, pp. 5–36; Beverly JAMES, Imagining Postcommunism:
Visual Narratives of Hungary’s 1956 Revolution. College Station: Texas A&M University Press
2005; Maria TODOROVA (ed.), Remembering Communism: Genres of Representation. New
York: Social Science Research Council 2010; etc.
8
Philippe C. SCHMITTER – Terry Lynn KARL, “The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists
and Consolidologists: How Far to the East Should They Attempt to Go?” Slavic Review, vol. 53,
1994, no. 1, pp. 173–185.
566
Radim Hladík
examples offered and maintained resolutely that “the differences between
postcommunism and the transition in the south are far more substantial
than Schmitter and Karl’s discussion seems to imply.”9
Nonetheless, even
Bunce, a defender of of the specific nature of post-socialism, admits that it
would be reasonable to engage at least in comparisons of democratization in
Eastern and Southern Europe, because they would “alert us to fundamental
problems in how transitologists have understood and analyzed transitions
from authoritarian rule.”10
For the argument that will be made below, it is
noteworthy that this debate in transitology was cast in metaphors of movement
from one geographical location to another: Schmitter and Karl’s essay
was called “The Conceptual Travels of Transitologists and Consolidologists:
How Far to the East Should They Attempt to Go?”, whereas Bunce’s answer
was entitled “Should Transitologists Be Grounded?” Once the concept of
post-socialism, with the emphasis on culture and the state-socialist past,
supplanted the research program of transition, concerns over the adequacy
of comparative approaches, which transitology is uncomfortable with, were
taken to a whole new level. The term “post-socialism” attempts to express
an essential ambiguity, a combination of elements, past and present, that
constitute the reality that the term aims to capture. Nonetheless, without
a  corresponding theory, post-socialism remains a  vague concept and
serves only as a descriptor, a naming of a problem area. It takes extensive
empirical research to provide a basis for generalizations and theory. Futureor
present-oriented approaches cannot provide the nuance required by the
ambiguous nature of what is, so to speak, “neither socialism, nor something
completely devoid of it”. An alternative way to conceptually grasp the reality
of post-socialism would be to apply or borrow from already existing
theories. As Chari and Verdery have noted, “postsocialist studies, a product
of a rupture in academic careers, thus generated new interdisciplinary traffic
in ideas.”11
One serious candidate theory for furnishing the scholars of
post-socialism with new conceptual tools has turned out to be the theory of
post-colonialism. The rest of the article will examine this particular aspect
of the emergent post-socialist studies.
9
Valerie Bunce, “Should Transitologists Be Grounded?” Slavic Review, vol. 54, 1995, no. 1,
p. 119 (111–127).
10
Ibid., p. 127.
11
Sharad CHARI – Katherine VERDERY, “Thinking Between the Posts: Postcolonialism,
Postsocialism, and Ethnography After the Cold War.” Comparative Studies in Society and
History, vo. 51, 2009, no. 1, p. 10 (6–34).
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A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
Before this essay proceeds to survey this specific line of development in
the studies of post-socialism, one general remark on the purpose of comparative
approaches in the social sciences and the humanities is in order.
The above described exchange on the comparability among democratization
processes across time and space shows that even the relatively narrow
framework of general transitology is not so constricted as to allow for unequivocal
comparisons among its cases. It would follow that post-socialism
and post-colonialism cannot be thought together at all, as they refer to quite
different political, economic, and cultural experiences. In fact, it could be
easily argued that socialism and colonialism are antithetical ideas and many
an anti-colonial struggle has been led under a socialist banner. It would thus
appear that making any connections between the two has little sense, especially
for comparative purposes. Not to dismiss the debate from the outset
in this manner, it is worth recalling a distinction made by William H. Sewell
between “comparative method” and “comparative perspective”. The former
“is a means of systematically gathering evidence to test the validity of our
explanations,”12
while the latter “reduces our biases by presenting us with
alternative systems of value and world views, and by imparting to us a sense
of the richness and variety of human experience; it provides us not with
rules, but with insights.”13
While in the first case – and such were arguably
the stakes in the transitology debate – solid basis is required in order to sustain
a shared approach to the treatment of data, the second instance leaves
more room for probabilistic and heuristic considerations and can benefit
from identifying differences as well as similarities. At least with regards to
the “comparative perspective”, there is an arguable justification to raising
the topic of post-colonialism in the post-socialist context.
The affinity of the prefixes
One of the first bids to carry the post-colonial paradigm into the postsocialist
space came from David Chioni Moore, who, in his now well-known
article “Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Toward a Global
Postcolonial Critique”,14
made an explicit and quite broadly conceived ar-
12
William H. SEWELL, “Marc Bloch and the Logic of Comparative History.” History and
Theory, vol. 6, 1967, no. 2, p. 209 (208–218).
13
Ibid., p. 218.
14
David Chioni MOORE, “Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Toward
a Global Postcolonial Critique.” PMLA, vol. 116, 2001, no. 1, p. 111–128. As for the issue of
priority, several studies with a similar theoretical pretext have appeared at around the same
568
Radim Hladík
gument for the relevance of post-colonialism. As is evident from the title
of his article, primacy is attributed to the “post-colonial critique”, which is
supposed to make the former Second World, and, in fact, the entire globe,
its new territory. Moore explains the premise of this perspective as follows:
It is no doubt true that there is, on this planet, not a single square meter of
inhabited land that has not been, at one time or another, colonized and then
postcolonial. The result of all this movement, much of which has been arguably
criminal, is that many cultural situations, past and present, can be said to
bear the postcolonial stamp, often in ways only partly corresponding to current
notions.15
It is not an overstatement to say that Moore tries to extend the explanatory
reach of post-colonial theory to the point where post-socialism
ultimately becomes no more than a variant of post-colonialism. Before this
essay moves on to examine Moore’s and other congenial propositions in
light of the concept of “traveling theory”, it is worth pausing for a moment
and reflecting on a factor that brought post-socialism and post-colonialism
together in the first place: as Moore’s article indicates in its very title, both
designations share the same prefix – “post”. The following discussion should
point out that there is more to this common feature than simply an obvious
and superficial grammatical association of the two terms.
The prefix “post” is (ostensibly)16
the principal question for Moore. Although
in general the “post” in post-socialism does not seem to invite much
critical reflection and refers to a taken-for-granted historical periodization,
for scholars interested in post-colonial theory it has been the subject of reflection
on more than one occasion. Ella Shohat foregrounded an important
nuance in the semantics of the prefix “post” as it occurs in “post-colonialtime
or even before this article (a coincidence that should lend some support to the outlined
thesis of a search for a new paradigm in post-socialist studies). Moore’s importance derives
from his making the question stand out as a central topic for theory. Nonetheless, one of
the original (early 1990s) references in this respect is Marko PAVLYSHYN, “Post-Colonial
Features in Contemporary Ukrainian Culture.” Australian Slavonic and East European
Studies, vol. 6, 1992, no. 2, pp. 41–55.
15
MOORE, “Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet?” p. 112.
16
While Moore, in reference to Appiah (see below), titled his essay “Is the Post- in Postcolonial
the Post- in Post-Soviet?”, he does not investigate the meaning of the prefix in depth; instead,
he focuses on the main nouns. his central question could thus be more appropriately rephrased
as “Is the Soviet the same as the colonial?”
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A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
ism”, where, on the one hand, it marks an intellectual innovation and, on the
other hand, it evokes a type of periodization:
The prefix “post,” then, aligns “post-colonialism” with a series of other “posts”;
“post-structuralism”, “post-modernism”, “post-marxism”, “post-marxism”,
“post-feminism”, “post-deconstructionism” – all sharing the notion of a movement
beyond. Yet while these “posts” refer largely to the supercession of
outmoded philosophical, aesthetic and political theories, the “post-colonial”
implies both going beyond anti-colonial nationalist theory as well as a movement
beyond a specific point in history, that of colonialism and Third World
nationalist struggles. In that sense the prefix “post” aligns the “post-colonial”
with another genre of “posts” – “post-war,” “post-cold war”, “post-independence”,
“‘post-revolution” – all of which underline a passage into a new period
and a closure of a certain historical event or age, officially stamped with dates.17
Shohat voices the concern that the temporal aspect of the prefix “post”
feeds into the narrative of progress, of surmounting the colonial legacy, and
thus obscures the lingering effects of the extended period of subjection of
non-European societies (a critique evoking that of the “transition” concept).
Her worries have resonated with theoreticians of post-colonialism and an
effort has been made to redefine post-colonialism as precisely an account
of sedimented colonial subjectivities.18
This emphasis links the prefix more
closely to its other, epistemological aspect. Here, post-colonial thought adjoins
post-structuralist and post-modernist notions.19
It builds on similar
assumptions and deconstructs such binaries of colonialism, as metropole
and colony, native language and lingua franca, subject and citizen. The ar-
17
Ella SHOHAT, “Notes on the ‘Post-Colonial’.” Social Text, vol. 1992, no. 31–32, p.  101
(99–113).
18
Stuart Hall responded by the following clarification: “It is possible to argue that the tension
between the epistemological and the chronological is not disabling but productive. ‘After’
means in the moment which follows that moment (the colonial) in which the colonial relation
was dominant. It does not mean, as we tried to show earlier, that what we have called the
‘after-effects’ of colonial rule have somehow been suspended. It certainly does not mean that
we have passed from a regime of power-knowledge into some powerless and conflict-free time
zone. Nevertheless, it does also stake its claim in terms of the fact that some other, related
but as yet ‘emergent’ new configurations of power-knowledge relations are beginning to exert
their distinctive and specific effects.” Stuart HALL, “When Was ‘the Post-Colonial’? Thinking
at the Limit.” In: CHAMBERS, I. – CURTI, L. (eds.), The Post-Colonial Question: Common
Skies, Divided Horizons. London: Routledge 1996, p. 252 (242–260).
19
Kwame Anthony APPIAH, “Is the Post- in Postmodernism the Post- in Postcolonial?”
Critical Inquiry, vol. 17, 1991, no. 2, pp. 336–357.
570
ticulation of fragmented and decentered identities and spaces requires new
conceptualizations, such as “hybridity”.20
While post-colonial theory has scrutinized both tendencies suggested
by the prefix “post”, the ambivalence of the prefix tends to vanish once it
is put in front of “socialism”. In post-socialism, the temporal aspect is far
more prominent, perhaps owing to the influence of transitology. In Central
Europe in particular, an entire mythology has been erected around the year
1989 as a historical rupture. Terms such as the “return to Europe” or “transition”
and “transformation”, which permeated much of the politics and
scholarship in/on the post-socialist space in Europe in the 1990s, indicate
that the experience of “socialism” was a deviation from the course of history.
Although the condition of post-socialism has occasionally been discussed in
relation to post-modernism, the periodization aspect of the prefix prevails
over intellectual affinities. According to Larry Ray,
good grounds for regarding postmodernity and post-communism as a part of
a common process [...] could be true only in so far as postmodernism is understood
as a trend or process that renders some social arrangements, in this case
centralized and autarkic systems, less viable than other, more decentralized and
globally integrated ones.21
Here postmodernism figures as a  historical epoch from which the statesocialist
countries had been shielded for a while, but which they had hurried
to “reach” after the collapse of their dictatorial regimes.
This rough analysis of the prefix “post” and of the ways in which it
has been treated in both scholarly domains indicates that the “post” in
post-colonialism is not quite the same as the “post” in post-socialism. To
reiterate, the “post” in post-colonialism contains a  fundamental ambivalence,
which has been reflected and used to refine the theory, whereas the
“post” in post-socialism tends to operate in a rather unequivocal manner
as a temporal signifier. Whether post-socialism needs to acquire a similar
kind of ambivalence or even to adopt the ambivalence of post-colonialism,
remains an open question. Since post-socialism has so far failed to develop
as a distinct “thought style”, the import of post-colonialism can perhaps best
be understood as the introduction of a surrogate theory, which aims to fill
in the epistemological void in research on the post-socialist condition. The
20
See Homi K. BHABHA, The Location of Culture. London – New York: Routledge 1994.
21
Larry J. RAY, “Post-Communism: Postmodernity or Modernity Revisited?” The British
Journal of Sociology, vol. 48, 1997, no. 4, pp. 543–560.
Radim Hladík
571
potential use of post-colonialism in the post-socialist space would entail
greater subtlety in the study of post-socialism beyond simple periodization
and lead to the exploration of the other ramifications of the prefix “post”. In
any case, an identical prefix is not enough to merge the two academic fields.
The topic requires more thorough consideration of the question of whether
the “socialism” in post-socialism is the “colonialism” in post-colonialism.
This essay, however, will remain more modest in scope and focus solely on
the theoretical arguments put forth in favor of the post-colonial approach
in post-socialist circumstances in the hope that such an exercise will itself
illuminate what is at stakes in this project.
Traveling theory
Moving a  theory between contexts is not a  straightforward process. The
practitioners of post-colonial studies may be well aware of this, as the issue
was addressed by one of the discipline’s founding figures, Edward Said, in
the essay “Traveling Theory”,22
where he states that “theories travel – from
person to person, from situation to situation, from one period to another.
[...] It necessarily involves processes of representation and institutionalization
different than from those at the point of origin.”23
Said’s metaphorical24
concept of “traveling theory” presents us with a suitable analytical tool with
which to elucidate the problems associated with fitting post-socialism into
the post-colonial agenda. Casting the issue in Said’s terms shifts the emphasis
to concerns other than either the purported universality of post-colonial
theory or the comparability of state-socialist and colonial conditions (and
the resulting adequacy of the theory to a new set of circumstances – as the
issue stood in the above-mentioned transitology debate).
As Janet Wolff has noted, the metaphor of travel is current in metatheoretical
considerations in two ways: firstly, there is the notion that “there is
22
Edward W. SAID, “Traveling Theory.” In: The World, the Text, and the Critic. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press 1983, pp. 226–247.
23
Ibid., p. 226.
24
The reason for insisting on “traveling theory” as a metaphor is, obviously, that a theory
never travels – only theoreticians do. The term should therefore not obfuscate the fact that
the movement of theory does not take place in the realm of ideas, but in socially concrete
environments (such as academic departments staffed by individual faculty members) through
specific communication vehicles (such as journals, conferences, or books). The metaphor,
however, is justified in the sense that theory is a discursive object that no single person controls.
A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
572
something mobile in the nature of theory.”25
In this case, the point is that
theoretical thought requires a  detachment from empirical data, bridging
distances between concepts, etc. In Said’s case – which, as Wolff remarks,
has often been misread as an instance of the previous meaning – the concern
is rather more straightforwardly with “‘what happens with theory”26
when it is adopted by new people in a new place or time. By employing this
perspective, the epistemology of either post-colonialism or post-socialism
ceases to be treated as something external to the theory, but rather begins
to be comprehended historically and discursively as a feature nested in the
theory itself.
In Said’s understanding, theory is a  malleable type of knowledge, at
least as far as cultural inquiry is concerned. This is especially so because
of two intertwined, yet potentially opposite reasons: “Fields like literature
or the history of ideas have no intrinsically enclosing limits, and [...] no
one methodology is imposable upon what is an essentially heterogeneous
and open activity – the writing and interpretation of texts.”27
The necessary
fluidity of cultural theories makes them susceptible to external influences,
through which they acquire concrete shape and orientation.28
Said therefore
advocates a decidedly historical approach to metatheoretical analysis of how
“[theory] as a  result of specific historical circumstances [...] arises. What
happens to it when, in different circumstances and for new reasons, it is
used [...]?”29
Despite the historical particularism of theoretical movement, Said
says that there is a discernible pattern to the four steps through which such
a movement passes. These are 1) the point of origin, 2) the distance traveled,
25
Janet WOLFF, “On the Road Again: Metaphors of Travel in Cultural Criticism.” Cultural
Studies, vol. 7, 1993, no. 2, p. 226 (224–239). See also James CLIFFORD, “Notes on Travel
and Theory,” [online]. Inscriptions, vol. 5, 1989. Available at: <http://www2.ucsc.edu/
culturalstudies/PUBS/Inscriptions/vol_5/clifford.html> [cit. 11. 12. 2011]. Clifford, in
a reflection on Said and the metaphor of travel, actually argues that the figurative denominator
of travel is a good fit for theory: “‘Theory’ is a product of displacement, comparison, a certain
distance. To theorize, one leaves home.” Ibid.
26
WOLFF, “On the Road Again,” p. 226.
27
SAID, “Traveling Theory,” p. 230.
28
To see that the issue of travel can be extended to knowledge in natural sciences, cf. Steven
SHAPIN, “Placing the View from Nowhere: Historical and Sociological Problems in the
Location of Science.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, vol. 23, 1998, no. 1,
pp. 5–12. For the purposes of this essay, however, it suffices to limit the claim to social sciences
and the humanities.
29
Ibid.
Radim Hladík
573
in another words, the impact of new contexts, 3) the conditions of either the
acceptance or the resistance with which the theory is met, 4) the transformation
of the theory as it now operates under novel circumstances.30
Said’s
concept of traveling theory thus comes equipped with a method for tracing
the movement by means of a description of these four moments; and this
method will guide our analysis here. The intention is to make us entertain
the idea that the first question about a theory on the move should not be
whether the movement is desirable, permissible, or appropriate, but what
kind of changes the theory undergoes along its travels.
The point(s) of origin
Post-colonial theory does not have precise coordinates, such as a  single
founding figure, a  manifesto, or an academic department. Rather, postcolonial
studies emerged as a  patchwork of various influences in various
places. Post-colonialism has several ties to the French intellectual milieu of
the 1970s – the work of Frantz Fanon is part of its canon – but perhaps more
importantly it draws upon post-structuralist thinkers like Michel Foucault
and Jacques Derrida. Other sources are found in Great Britain, especially
in the Marxist-oriented cultural studies represented by such scholars as
Paul Gilroy and Stuart Hall. Yet it was universities in the United States that
provided the platform in which post-colonialism took the strongest root and
where it was promoted most notably by such figures as Edward Said, Homi
K. Bhabha, and Gayatri C. Spivak. Post-colonial theory acquired a strong
institutional base mainly in the United States and Great Britain – although
its success has not led to the establishment of independent departments. In
institutional terms, post-colonial studies usually fall under departments of
English language and literature. The professional identity of post-colonial
scholars, however, profits from various cross-departmental centers, professional
associations, and several journals (e.g. Postcolonial Studies, Journal
of Postcolonial Writing,gg Interventions: International Journal of Postcolonial
Studies). Several dozen universities explicitly offer graduate programs in
post-colonial studies.
Some of the central ideas of post-colonial studies have already been expounded
above in the section on the prefix “post”.31
Here I would like to add
30
Ibid., p. 226–227.
31
For a theoretical overview of the discipline, the essential reference is Bill ASHCROFT –
Gareth GRIFFITHS – Helen TIFFIN, The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-
A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
574
that the theoretical as well as the geographical space of post-colonial studies
is disconnected, especially since the linguistic turn, but it is sustained by
powerful networks – conceptual and biographical. Parry describes institutionalized
post-colonial theory as “a project in which poststructuralists
vie with Marxists, culturalists with materialists, textualists with realists.”32
Nonetheless, it is also subject to significant centripetal forces and “postcolonial
criticism has come to be identified as postmodernist in its orientation
– an alignment promoted more or less actively by prominent critics in the
field.”33
The decentered space of post-colonialism seems to be doubly reflected;
besides the equivalent theoretical notions, the biographies of some of the
discipline’s most influential authors exhibit a parallel pattern. Many postcolonial
thinkers followed a similar path of moving from origins in a former
colony to education and a career at a prestigious Western scholarly institu-
tion.34
Their life trajectories thus encapsulate the dilemma often associated
with post-colonial scholarship – how to transcend knowledge inherited
from former colonial superpowers without resorting to the conceptual tools
offered by that very same system of knowledge?35
Yet another reason for the patchwork in post-colonial theory comes
from the fragmented nature of its object. From the very inception of postcolonial
studies in the 1970s it has been apparent that the history of coloniColonial
Literatures. London – New York: Routledge 1989. See also Robert C. YOUNG,
Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers 2001. Classic works
include: Frantz FANON, Black Skin, White Masks. New York: Grove Press 1968. Edward
W. SAID. Orientalism. New York: Pantheon Books 1978; Paul GILROY, The Black Atlantic:
Modernity and Double Consciousness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1993; Gayatri
CHAKRAVORTY SPIVAK, “Can the Subaltern Speak.” In: NELSON, C. – GROSSBERG, L.
(eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1988,
pp. 271–313; Dipesh CHAKRABARTY, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and
Historical Difference. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2000.
32
Benita PARRY, “The Institutionalization of Postcolonial Studies.” In: LAZARUS, N. (ed.),
The Cambridge Companion to Postcolonial Literary Studies. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press 2004, p. 66 (66–80).
33
Ibid.
34
“‘When exactly ... does the ‘post-colonial’ begin?’ [...] When Third World intellectuals
have arrived in First World academe.” Arif DIRLICK, “The Postcolonial Aura: Third World
Criticism in the Age of Global Capitalism.” Critical Inquiry, vol. 20, 1994, no. 2, pp. 328–356
(328–356).
35
Veeser illustrates some of these conflicting loyalties on the case of Said’s public exchanges
with Palestinian liberation movements. H. Aram VEESER, “The Postcolonial Godfather.” In:
HERMAN, P. C. (ed.), Historicizing Theory. Albany: SUNY Press 2004, pp. 255–275.
Radim Hladík
575
alism, even in its traditional understanding, is full of particularism. There
have been several overseas empires and within each empire almost as many
colonial arrangements as there were colonies. If post-colonial studies were
to embrace this diversity, it had to leave enough room for a corresponding
variety of concepts. The eclectic rise of post-colonialism has prevented it,
since the beginning, from developing firm theoretical contours.
Its malleable conceptual core makes post-colonialism prone to extension
beyond its original concerns. This flexibility cannot be infinite, otherwise it
could not be called a “theory”, which requires that some methodological,
conceptual – and perhaps even political – coherence be retained. For current
considerations about the utility of post-colonial criticism in post-socialist
studies, the apt conclusion is that the theory travels from a decentered point,
which makes it both an adaptable and unpredictable traveler.
The distance travelled
The other dimension of traveling theory – the “distance travelled” – relates
to the central issue of comparability between the post-colonial and the post-socialist
condition. The impact of new contexts, which Said takes for an
indicator of the space traversed by a theory on the move, is something that
the proponents of the comparability of post-socialism and post-colonialism
tend to downplay. The main thrust of the thesis is that both contexts are
actually quite similar, if not identical. In other words, in the extreme form of
the argument the distance travelled is assumed to be very short. This model
of theoretical argument perfectly suits the prevailing notion of epistemologically
stationary theory, under which specific cases are to be – justifiably
– subsumed. In the traveling theory perspective, distance is to be explored,
not explained away.
The nexus between the two contexts appears to be formed, for example,
by the following shared features: Post-socialist countries, just like their
post-colonial counterparts, have experienced a  heightening of national
consciousness36
in the course of socio-political change. Both contexts are
marked by a sense of an incomplete rupture of the cultural and economic
ties that bound the peripheries to metropoles. And in both instances, at some
36
See William OUTHWAITE – Larry J. RAY,. Social Theory and Postcommunism. Oxford:
Blackwell 2005. See also KENNEDY, Cultural Formations of Postcommunism, who argues
that the preoccupation of post-socialist countries with the transition to political pluralism
and competitive markets is essentially antithetical to nationalism, yet in order to succeed
transition must be articulated in national terms.
A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
576
point popular movements were faced with militarized governments that had
to be dismantled either by armed struggle or by negotiations backed up by
widespread civil disobedience. In addition, in terms of intellectual currents,
the (briefly) perceived “end of history” in the early 1990s reinvigorated the
notion of postmodernism and affiliated theories, such as post-structuralism,
feminism, or deconstruction (that is to say, of course, that these theories
have also travelled).37
Post-colonialism, however, did not reach the postsocialist
space until a decade later, when the transition paradigm has been
exhausted.38
Just as there are some features that make post-colonialism and postsocialism
mutually compatible, there are also others that complicate the
idea of a short distance between them. Consider, for example, that whereas
liberation struggles were formative of local nationalisms in traditional
colonies, the nationalisms in post-socialist states were often forged prior to
the emergence of the state-socialist regimes. Consequently, the anti-Russian
backlash witnessed in post-Soviet European countries bears little resemblance
to the troubled identity of a post-colonial subject fascinated with its
former colonizers. To account for this discrepancy, Moore introduced the
concept of “reverse colonialism” into his typology of colonial domination:
The standard Western story about colonization is that it is always accompanied
by orientalization, in which the colonized are seen as passive, ahistorical,
feminine, or barbaric. However, in Russian – Central European colonization
this relation is reversed, because for several centuries at least Russia has, again,
been saddled with the fear or at times belief that it was culturally inferior to
the West. Mittel-European capitals such as Budapest, Berlin, and Prague were
therefore seen in Russia, at least by some, as prizes rather than as burdens needing
civilizing from their occupiers. In return, the Central Europeans often saw
the colonizing Russo-Soviets as Asiatics.
37
For a  congenial discussion of the West-East travels of feminist theory, see Allaine
CERWONKA, “Traveling Feminist Thought: Difference and Transculturation in Central and
Eastern European Feminism.” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, vol. 33, 2008,
no. 4, pp. 809–832.
38
Consider this anecdotal observation: “A  1990 conference [...] proved in some respects
premature; eastern European scholars were not yet ready to perceive a genuine comparability
between the states involuntarily enclosed within Soviet imperial space, whose point of
reference was ‘normal’ states in western Europe, and the states of Africa.” Mark BEISSINGERk
– Crawford YOUNG, “Comparing State Crises Across Two Continents.” In: BEISSINGER,
M. – YOUNG, C. (eds.), Beyond State Crisis?: Post-Colonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia in
Comparative Perspective, Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press 2002, p. 3 (3–18).
Radim Hladík
577
It is remarkable that even Moore’s universalizing project for post-colonialism
cannot dispense with a specific rubric for the study of the particular
dynamics between the colonizer and the colonized in Eastern Europe.
Even if nationalism could still work as a bona fide conceptual shortcut,
the issue of race looms as a formidable obstacle on the theory’s road. Needless
to say, the history of state-socialism is enmeshed with instances of brutal
racialized policies, notably in the Stalinist era, and post-socialist countries
to this day have had to deal with ethnic conflicts at various levels of intensity.
However, it has yet to be shown that race has in some way been central to
Soviet imperialism as a key mode of subjection, especially in Central and
Southern Europe, where the satellite states were run by indigenous elites,
which sometimes attempted to shake off Soviet control.39
In a  rare attempt to account for race, Sharad Chari and Katherine
Verdery’s espousal of a post-Cold War perspective that would unify postcolonialism
and post-socialism confronted the problem.40
One of their central
tenets is, therefore, the notion of “state racisms”, and the authors call for
a “strong body of historical and ethnographic research to think in comparative
and interconnected ways about how colonialism, socialism, and their aftermaths
constructed ‘race’ and ‘enemy,’ employing racial technologies and
expertise to differentiate spaces and populations through their contrasting
propensities to life and death.”41
While they include the example of Crimean
Tatars forcibly relocated and branded as “enemies” under Stalin’s reign, this
case remains an isolated one, compared to the much more extensive list of
instances of racial “othering” in traditional colonies. Thus, Chari and Verdery
also make room for some qualifications by enlarging the notion of race
to include “state-sanctioned racisms that rely not necessarily on biological
conceptions of race but on institutional and biopolitical mechanisms, which
differentiate populations into subgroups”.42
With this move, however, they
also dispense with the fatality of color line and the inscription of colonial
Tito’s Yugoslavia could be a  success story in this regard, while Hungary in 1956 and
Czechoslovakia in 1968 represent failed attempts.
40
Sharad CHARI – Katherine VERDERY, “Thinking Between the Posts: Postcolonialism,
Postsocialism, and Ethnography After the Cold War.” Comparative Studies in Society and
History, vol. 51, 2009, no. 1, pp. 6–34.
41
Ibid., p. 27.
42
Ibid., p. 12.
A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
578
knowledge onto the surface of the colonized body. Can a Party membership
card truly function in the same manner as white skin?43
In a possible counterclaim, despite the obvious Russification pressures
within its domains, the Soviet Union seems to differ from other empires in
that it enabled individuals of various ethnicities and nationalities to participate
in the top echelons of administration on the periphery, and occasionally
even in the metropole. While Stalin’s Georgian origins could be considered
as an almost absurd exception, further indices suggest that nationality, race,
or ethnicity were indeed not the ultimate factor in the distribution of power
under the Soviet system. In what, at first glance, looks like an example to the
contrary, Lane and Ross, in their survey of the ethnic composition of four
generations of the Soviet Politburo,44
showed that the pre-1980 Politburo
still included 14 non-Russian members out of its total of 33, and despite the
subsequent drop in numbers, there were still always around 7 non-Russians
out of roughly the same total over the 1980s. Lane and Ross concluded that
“in an ethnic and national sense, the Politburo had not been a representative
body; members having a regional affiliation were linked to institutions
operating in the area.”45
” As long as it applies to the marginalization and underrepresentation
of non-Russian minorities in the Soviet Union, Lane and
Ross’s argument retains substantial force. However, when their observations
are applied to the issue of the presumed colonial shaping of Soviet governmental
institutions, it reveals the permeability of the periphery/metropole
borderline for career trajectories and creates a serious challenge for finding
an analogous example in other imperial administrations.
The similarity or dissimilarity of post-colonial and post-socialist contexts
seems to depend more on the perspective and the level of abstraction
adopted by a theoretician than on the substantive identity of social, political,
43
See also Janusz KOREK, „Central and Eastern Europe from a Postcolonial Perspective.“
Postcolonial Europe [online]. 2009. Available at: <http://www.postcolonial-europe.eu/index.
php/en/essays/60--central-and-eastern-europe-from-a-postcolonial-perspective> [cit 16. 11.
2011]. Korek proposes “national chauvinism” as a surrogate concept for racism under statesocialism:
“But is racial chauvinism not comparable to national chauvinism? Obviously there
exists a fundamental difference, since group or individual identity can be shaped and variously
constructed, whereas racial affiliation cannot be changed... Racism and national chauvinism,
however, discriminate against the individual in a similar way, collectivising him or her and
writing him or her into some greater community, which is then regarded, for various reasons,
as less valuable or indeed completely worthless.”
44
, David Stuart LANE – Cameron ROSS, The Transition from Communism to Capitalism:
Ruling Elites from Gorbachev to Yeltsin. Palgrave Macmillan 1999.
45
Ibid. p. 35.
Radim Hladík
579
or cultural elements. For the transitologists of the 1990s, the distance from
one post-socialist country to another appeared too great to be crossed. The
preoccupation of area studies with particularities contrasts with the generalities
and giant leaps of post-colonialism. If, however, we admit that a theory
can travel and therefore move from one particular place and historical
constellation to another, the differences are no longer insurmountable nor
something to be minimized. In fact, it is precisely the more or less nuanced
difference between the two contexts that needs to be foregrounded and used
analytically in order to provide innovative insights.
Acceptance and resistance
Chari and Verdery note that the “question [of ‘thinking between the
posts’] has been posed primarily, if not only, by scholars of socialism and
postsocialism.”46
” What, then, should we make of the silence from “proper”
post-colonial scholars on the subject? Is it a sign of approval or of doubt? The
reason why post-colonial theorists do not want to “travel” to post-socialist
regions is open to debate. There are some exceptions,47
including the seminal
article by Moore,48
who could be cast as a scholar of post-colonialism.
However, it is reasonable to speculate that since post-colonial studies have
achieved a  considerable level of institutionalization and their subject is
already quite vast, the incentives to move to a new and epistemologically uncertain
territory remain low. Post-socialist studies offer a somewhat different
picture, since post-socialism has never become the kind of buzzword that
could raise funds and faculty positions at the same rate as post-colonialism.
Therefore, post-socialist scholars feel more inclined to attach themselves to
post-colonialism than vice versa. The situation also differs depending on
disciplinary affiliations.
Departments of Slavic languages and literatures have been firmly entrenched
in both Central and Eastern European and Western universities
46
CHARI – VERDERY, “Thinking Between the Posts,” p. 9.
47
Gayatri Chakravorty SPIVAK, “Are You Postcolonial? To the Teachers of Slavic and Eastern
European Literatures.” PMLA, vol. 121, 2006, no. 3, pp. 828–829. See also Alison RICE,
“Francophone Postcolonialism from Eastern Europe.” International Journal of Francophone
Studies, vol. 10, 2007, no. 3, pp. 313–328.
48
Moore’s work does not figure in Chari’s and Verdery’s bibliography, nor do other humanities
references that deal with the same topic. This absence can perhaps be attributed to the authors’
focus on anthropological and sociological ethnography. Since post-colonialism has a strong
presence in comparative literature, this omission is a bit unfortunate one.
A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
580
for many decades, and although their position weakened with the end of
Cold War, they are in no dire need of seeking out novel approaches as long
as the old ones seem to work satisfactorily. Still, some of the most convincing
attempts to date to use the post-colonial framework to think about postsocialist
cultures have emerged in the study of literature at Slavic depart-
ments.49
The main strength of these and similar literary interpretations rests
in their grounding of contemporary works in traditions of creative writing
that have historically far-reaching origins, stretching back to Russia’s undeniably
colonialist expansion into Central and Eastern Asia before 1917.
As the authors guide readers from, for example, Lermontov’s colonialist
fascination with the exotified Caucasus to hybrid elements in contemporary
Ukrainian fiction, post-colonial theory every attempt is made to demonstrate
post-colonial theory’s utility in the post-socialist context. Yet, while
Ewa Thompson argues that the fall of state socialism obscured the fundamentally
colonial character of Russian domination within the Soviet Union,
Myroslav Shkandrij admits that the post-colonial interpretative prism must
be applied with caution to post-socialist writing:
The more relaxed, ‘postcolonial’ attitude can take root only when the threat
of engulfment or apostasy has receded. Culturally enforced assimilation or
brutally enforced hybridity entail very different relations to ambiguity than the
playful artistic use of ambiguity. As Anne McClintock has pointed out. ‘the
lyrical glamor cast by postcolonial theorists over ambivalence and hybridity
is not always historically warranted.’ This having been said, however, endlessly
rehearsing the narrative of national liberation or victimization is also
stultifying.50
Apart from literary science, which have mediated the introduction
of post-socialist scholarship into post-socialist studies rather seamlessly,
calls for a  new paradigm have come also from disciplines more directly
concerned with the nature and effects of social change in or around 1989,
such as sociology, anthropology, and area studies. These fields were among
those most impacted by the “end of transition paradigm”.51
As has become
49
Cf. Myroslav SHKANDRIJ, Russia and Ukraine: Literature and the Discourse of Empire
from Napoleonic to Postcolonial Times. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s Press 2001; and Ewa
M.  THOMPSON, Imperial Knowledge: Russian Literature and Colonialism. Westport:
Greenwood Press 2000.
50
SHKANDRIJ, Russia and Ukraine, p. 274.
51
Thomas CAROTHERS, “The End of the Transition Paradigm.” Journal of Democracy,
vol. 13, 2002, no. 1, 5–21.
Radim Hladík
581
increasingly evident, at least since the turn of the millennium, teleological
narratives treating the state-socialist history as a temporary deviation en
route to Western-style modernization and democracy were insufficient to
account for all the vicissitudes of post-socialist development. Despite their
need for fresh theoretical frameworks, these – unlike literary science – empirically
oriented disciplines have placed more emphasis on topics where the
putative resemblance of the two contexts is questionable.52
An important factor in the acceptance or resistance to the post-colonial
perspective on post-socialism appears to be not a researcher’s field but his/
her national affiliation and/or geographical focus. With respect to regional
specialization, there may be objective reasons that warrant the adoption of
a post-colonial stance. The case of Russia’s former internal colonies lends
itself more easily to a post-colonial perspective than do the Soviet Union’s
European satellite countries. Carey and Raciborski, for example, used democratization
indexes to test the “post-colonial hypothesis” and asses the
performance of post-socialist states in comparison to post-colonial ones.
They concluded that on the human rights record “the experience in the
former Sovietized states and Yugoslavia has shown many similarities with
other colonies, both those traits common to all former colonies and those
reflecting the particular types of colonialism.”53
They also found, however,
a  significant clustering that distinguishes the former Soviet republics in
Asia from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe. Other studies also
suggest that the region of Central Asia makes the best candidate for postcolonial
denomination.54
Even so, the newly independent states and Russian
Federation republics in Central Asia do not square fully with either of the
hitherto recognized models of colonization practiced by Western European
empires, as Kandyioti concludes:
52
Besides literary scholars, anthropologists of post-socialism (see references to Verdery
and Kandiyoti) are among the most likely to be attracted to post-colonial theory. Stenning
and  Hörschelmann document the more reserved attitude of social theory; cf. Alison
STENNING – Kathrin HÖRSCHELMANN, “History, Geography and Difference in the Postsocialist
World: Or, Do We Still Need Post-Socialism.” Antipode, vol. 40, 2008, pp. 312–335.
53
Henry F. CAREY – Rafal RACIBORSKI, “Postcolonialism: A  Valid Paradigm for the
Former Sovietized States and Yugoslavia?” East European Politics & Societies, vol. 18, 2004,
no. 2, p. 231 (191–235).
54
See Deniz KANDYIOTI, “How Far Do  Analyses of Postsocialism Travel? The Case of
Central Asia.” In: M. HANN, C. M. (ed.), Postsocialism: Ideals, Ideologies, and Practices in
Eurasia. London – New York: Routledge 2002, pp. 238–257; Adeeb KHALID, “Locating the
(Post-) Colonial in Soviet History.” Central Asian Survey, vol. 26, 2007, no. 4, pp. 465–473.
A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
582
It would [...] be unnecessarily sterile to pitch comparisons at such a high level of
abstraction and merely add the case of Central Asia to a growing body of postcolonial
scholarship that concerns itself principally with a critique of Western
modernity. That would not only fail to capture the specificities of the Soviet
case, with its distinctive approach to the institutionalization of ethnonational
difference as the basis for the distribution of social rewards and its consequent
implications for post-independence nationalisms; it would also limit
more open-ended explorations into the possible meanings of post-coloniality
itself.55
In light of this “resistance” that the case of Central Asia puts up to its
inclusion in the post-colonial framework, it may seem quite surprising that
so far the majority of post-colonial/-socialist literature centers on the Soviet
Union’s purported European colonies. The former Soviet republics in the
Baltics and Ukraine, alongside Poland, have drawn the most attention. Two
edited collective monographs document this regional bias: Janusz Korek’s
From Sovietology to Postcoloniality: Poland and Ukraine from a Postcolonial
Perspective56
and Violeta Kelertas’s Baltic Postcolonialism,57
both of which
assemble a good number of contributions from scholars – mostly literary –
from the said countries.
Of the aforementioned authors, Korek and Thompson have a  Polish
background, and Kelertas is of Lithuanian and Shkandrij of Ukrainian descent.
These and other authors who advocate the post-colonial perspective
for Central and Eastern Europe bear a striking resemblance to the original
theorists of post-colonialism in that they too are diasporic scholars at
Western universities. The academic community of the Central and Eastern
European diaspora seems to be the milieu in which traveling post-colonial
theory is met with the greatest acceptance. The journal Postcolonial Europe58
55
Deniz KANDYIOTI, “Post-Colonialism Compared: Potentials and Limitations in the
Middle East and Central Asia.” International Journal of Middle East Studies, vol. 34, 2002,
no. 2, p. 294 (279–297).
56
Janusz KOREK, From Sovietology to Postcoloniality: Poland and Ukraine from a Postcolonial
Perspective. Huddinge: Södertörns högskola 2007. For the case of Poland, see also Clare
CAVANAGH, “Postcolonial Poland.” Common Knowledge, vol. 10, 2004, no. 1, pp. 82 –92.
57
Violeta KELERTAS, Baltic Postcolonialism. Amsterdam – New York: Rodopi 2006. See also
Epp ANNUS, “The Problem of Soviet Colonialism in the Baltics.” Journal of Baltic Studies,
vol. 43, 2011, no. 1, pp. 21–45.
58
In the “Note of Intent”, the editors state: “Our special concern will be identity-forming
processes as they affect individuals, social groups, ethnic minorities and nations of Central
and Eastern Europe from the perspectives provided by postcolonial theory.” Postcolonial
Europe [online]. Available at: <http://www.postcolonial-europe.eu/> [cit. 11. 12. 2011].
Radim Hladík
583
was established in 2009 (at Stockholm University) to provide a publication
platform on which to debate further research and theoretical issues relating
to the post-colonial status of Central and Eastern Europe. Several conferences
on the subject have also been held.
In light of these efforts, the silences that have nothing to do with lack of
interest among traditional post-colonial scholars, mentioned by Chari and
Verdery, are noteworthy. For one thing, some countries that emerged from
Soviet control or influence do not figure in the post-colonial accounts to
the extent that Poland, Ukraine, and Lithuania do. What does the absence
of Hungry, the Czech Republic, or Slovakia mean? Why is post-colonial
theory more popular in the Romanian59
than the Bulgarian context? Yet, the
most disquieting silence hovers over Russian academia. Vitaly Chernetsky
(an American scholar of Ukrainian descent) noted that “throughout the
1990s, postcolonialism was perhaps the only major contemporary theoretical
discourse persistently ignored by Russian academics.”60
Although
the comparison between post-colonialism and post-socialism is no longer
“ignored or ridiculed”, Russian academia continues to resist it. While this
resistance finds its best expression in silence, occasionally it is voiced, albeit
in passing. Thus, in the work of Alexei Yurchak, a Russian diasporic scholar
in the United States, a single footnote can be found that indicates serious
reservations:
Drawing any parallels between socialism and colonialism, which is a growing
trend, must be done with extreme caution to avoid equating one with the other
at the expense of the profound political, ethical, and aesthetic differences between
these projects.61
The discrepancy between Russian resistance to the post-colonial paradigm
and its acceptance by scholars of/from Central or Eastern Europe is
59
See Adrian OTOIU, “An Exercise in Fictional Liminality: The Postcolonial, the
Postcommunist, and Romania’s Threshold Generation.” Comparative Studies of South Asia,
Africa and the Middle East, vol. 23, 2003, no. 1–2, pp. 87–105; see also Monica POPESCU
“Translations: Lenin’s Statues, Post-communism and Post-apartheid.” The Yale Journal of
Criticism, vol. 16, 2003, no. 2, p. 406–423.
60
Vitaly CHERNETSKY, “On Some Post-Soviet Postcolonialisms.” PMLA, vol. 121, 2006, no.
3, p. 834 (833–836). See also Annus’s claim that “Post-Soviet Russia is a unique postcolonial
(and arguably still colonial) oppressor that refuses to acknowledge its colonial past.” ANNUS,
“The Problem of Soviet Colonialism in the Baltics,” p. 24.
61
Alexei YURCHAK, Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet
Generation. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2006, p. 9.
A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
584
often overlooked. However, it demonstrates that post-colonial theory possesses
a political charge that needs to be accounted for. One of the most
significant achievements of post-colonial studies in the West has been its
contribution to raising awareness in former imperial metropoles of, in the
terms of Janna Thompson,62
their historical obligations to their former colonies.
In the case of Russia and its Soviet past matters are more complicated.
At the core of these political, economic, but also ethical and epistemological
claims lies the attribution of victim status. Thus, for example,
when Račevskis claims that “there are indeed excellent reasons why the
Baltic countries should be and always should have been seen as the victims
of colonization,”63
it is also worthwhile recalling Todorov, who argues that
appropriation of victimhood may actually be quite desirable in certain
respects:
To have been victim gives you the right to complain, to protest, and to make demands.
[...] It is more advantageous to stay in the role of a victim than to obtain
reparation for the suffered offence. [...] Instead of momentary satisfaction, one
keeps a permanent privilege, and the attention, and thus, the recognition from
others is assured.64
It must be recognized that Russia has its own stake in claiming victim
status:65
regardless of the putative advantages they derived from belonging
to the ruling nation, “Russian subjects were [...] deprived of the same rights
denied to subalterns”66
– and, we may add, subjugated as citizens to the
same oppressive measures of an authoritarian state-socialist government
as their civic counterparts in other state-socialist regions. The concept of
“reverse colonization” implies, moreover, that Russians were in turn also the
object of orientalizing knowledge, which after 1989 occasionally assumed
62
Janna THOMPSON, Taking Responsibility for the Past: Reparation and Historical Injustice.
Cambridge: Blackwell Publishers – Polity 2002.
63
Kārlis RAČEVSKIS, “Toward a Postcolonial Perspective on the Baltic States.” In: KELERTAS,
V. (ed.), Baltic Postcolonialism. Amsterdam – New York: Rodopi 2006.
64
Tzvetan TODOROV,VV Les Abus De La Mémoire. Paris: Arléa 1995, p. 56 [my translation].
65
Kujundzic, makes a claim for post-colonial reading of Russian identity based on a “selfcolonial
impulse in Russian history”, epitomized most notably by the Petrine reforms; an
argument that should not be taken lightly by the proponents of post-colonial perspective on
Eastern Europe. Cf. Dragan KUJUNDZIC, “‘After’: Russian Post-Colonial Identity.” MLN,NN
vol. 115, 2000, no. 5, pp. 892–908.
66
Julie A. BUCKLER, 2009. “What Comes After ‘Post-Soviet’ in Russian Studies?” PMLAPP ,
vol. 124, 2009, no. 1, p. 255 (251–263).
Radim Hladík
585
the form of an anti-Russian backlash.67
If, as Condee points out, in Central
and Eastern Europe “a descriptor more familiar than Soviet colonialism [...]
has been Soviet occupation,”68
it should also be stressed that this seemingly
minor distinction activates very different registers and discourses, which
help shape the identity of the colonized and occupied peoples.69
Amidst this
competition of moral claims, acceptance and resistance to post-colonialism
in the former Second World begs, above all, the question of a reflexive theorization
of a theorist’s position – as the theoretician’s back seems to provide
the best vehicle for a traveling theory.70
The theory’s transformations
For a traveling theory to be transformed, the distance it has traveled should
be properly acknowledged. As this essay has indicated, the case for post-colonial
theory tends to be argued in the opposite manner: it aims to postulate
the essential identity of both historical conditions. In a pure sense, this goal
is unattainable – besides considerable similarities, one also finds significant
differences that no scholar can overlook. Examples of specific features that
complicate the assimilation of post-colonialism and post-socialism include
the following: the contiguous expansion of the Russian empire, the concept
of “reverse colonization”, or distinct conceptualizations of dominance by
a foreign power, i.e. colonization vis-à-vis occupation, or the engagement of
the Soviet Union in anti-colonial struggles. Despite Moore’s explicit call for
the universalization of the post-colonial paradigm71
to the point where postsocialism
ultimately becomes no more than a variant of post-colonialism,
67
Annus, on the other hand, argues, mostly on the grounds of the linguistic privilege accorded
to Russian, against the “flattening of differences between the unhappy experience of Russians
and of those populations subjected by Communist Russia.” ANNUS, “The Problem of Soviet
Colonialism in the Baltics,” p. 25.
68
Nancy CONDEE, “The Anti-imperialist Empire and After: In Dialogue with Gayatri
Spivak’s ‘Are You Postcolonial?’” PMLA, vol. 121, 2006, no. 3, p. 830 (829–831).
69
Annus is exceptional in explicitly alerting her readers to the fact that this distinction had
immense impact on the treatment of different region under international law (ANNUS, “The
Problem of Soviet Colonialism in the Baltics,” p. 28). In general, Annus’s article does a good job
of attending to the arguments that might work against the presence of post-colonial theory in
the post-socialist space, although she herself eventually concludes that the use of post-colonial
theory is relevant, precisely because occupation, according to her, develops into colonization.
70
For the sake of argument, it should be noted that the author of this essay is a Czech sociologist.
71
“As for universalizing the postcolonial condition, I  close by supporting such a  move.”
MOORE, “Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet?” p. 123.
A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
586
post-colonial critique cannot be simply superimposed on the post-socialist
space without further adjustments. The multilayered experience of statesocialism
needs to be attended to and, in effect, the theory has to undergo
a transformation.
Acceptance or resistance to post-colonialism’s travel informs the importance
that is then accorded to the issues specific to post-socialism, i.e.
whether they get interpreted as merely circumstantial or as more or less defining
features. Consequently, different demands are placed on transforming
the theory. At one extreme, the theory itself has to change very little; instead,
our perception of post-socialism needs to transform and acknowledge its
fundamentally post-colonial character. Thompson, for instance, tends to represent
this line of thought, and although she admits some distinct features of
post-socialism, according to her, they only “mitigate the perception of Russia
as a colonial power”.72
At the other end of the spectrum, the theory needs
not to transform either, as the substantial difference precludes anything but
tentative comparisons. Alison Stenning and Kathrin Hörschelmann suggest
that post-socialism as a concept remains relevant, even after the inclusion of
Eastern European countries into Western European structures and the postcolonial
inspiration has been useful in helping to understand the difficulties
that accompany “extrication” from the oppressive past of state-socialist history
and geography. Nonetheless, the authors argue for a specific treatment
of the post-socialist world and state their position clearly in this respect: “We
do not see post-socialism as a variant of post-colonialism (though acknowledge
that others do so), but instead seek to use post-colonial approaches as
heuristic tools for exploring post-socialism.”73
Other scholars, especially
those from Western universities with no national ties to the post-socialist
region, stake out their positions in between these two conceivable extremes.
The notion of a  transformed theory – or, rather, a  demand on its
transformation – stems mainly from an awareness of the interplay between
similarities and differences, in which neither part of the equation gains the
upper hand. Adeeb Khalid, for example, argues that considering Central
Asian post-Soviet republics as former colonies requires a reflection on some
of the tenets of post-colonial studies. Many of the crucial elements – the his-
72
THOMPSON, Imperial Knowledge, p.  15. See also Ewa M. THOMPSON. “Postcolonial
Russia.” In: PODDAR, P.  – PATKE, R. – JENSEN, L. (eds.), A  Historical Companion to
Postcolonial Literatures: Continental Europe and Its Empires. Edinburgh: Edinburgh
University Press 2008, pp. 412–417.
73
STENNING – HÖRSCHELMANN, “History, Geography and Difference in the Postsocialist
World,” p. 313.
Radim Hladík
587
tory of this region under the rule of Tzarist Russia, its considerable ethnic,
linguistic, and religious distance from the Russian metropole – combine in
a mode of subjection that closely resembles the typical colonial arrangement.
Khalid reminds us, however, that even the Asian post-socialist geography
defies annexation to the post-colonial world in several key respects, the
reflection of which can serve to challenge some taken-for-granted aspects of
post-colonial theory itself:
The Soviet Union cannot simply be measured up against static definitions of
empire or colonialism, nor will the mechanical ‘application’ of postcolonial theory
developed elsewhere lead to fruitful insights. [...] Soviet history can broaden
the horizons of postcolonial studies by introducing a vast array of historical
and cultural encounters little known to the field, but the Soviet case can also
inject new caveats and perhaps a new scepticism toward generalizations built
on the basis of the experience of mainly bourgeois, western European overseas
empires.74
Another example of a  proposition to re-think post-colonial studies
comes from Monica Popescu, a  scholar of Romanian origin. According
to Popescu, the key feature that distinguishes post-colonialism and postsocialism
is the politics implied in the respective theories. Although she sees
their relationship as “reciprocal” and does not attempt to subsume the postsocialist
world completely under the post-colonial perspective, she supports
this conceptual encounter and concludes that post-colonial studies need to
establish a critique of its Marxist origins:
Post-colonial discourse lends its Eastern European counterpart critical tools
for discussing relations of power between center (Moscow) and periphery,
as well as issues of migration, dislocation, hybridized communities, and hegemonic
discourses. Post-communism offers the Marxism indebted wings of
post-colonialism the necessary check of reality: the crumbling of the systems
based on Marxist utopia and the failure of their revolutionary projects cannot
be ignored.75
The merit of Said’s concept of traveling theory rests in its abdication of
orthodoxy and its assertion that a theory does not become epistemologically
flawed simply on the grounds of its situatedness. In a later essay on the
74
KHALID, “Locating the (Post-) Colonial in Soviet History,” p. 471.
75
POPESCU “Translations: Lenin’s Statues, Post-communism and Post-apartheid,”
p. 417–418.
A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
588
subject of traveling theory, Said clarifies his earlier notions and points out
that a contextualization of theory in a new setting can stimulate not merely
new insights, but also a better meta-theoretical understanding:
To speak here only of borrowing and adaptation is not adequate. [...] As a way
of getting seriously past the weightlessness of one theory after another, the
remorseless indignations of orthodoxy, and the expressions of tired advocacy
to which we are often submitted, the exercise involved in figuring out where the
theory went and how in getting there its fiery core was reignited is invigorating.76
However, he also hints at what, with these considerations in mind, could
be a criterion of the integrity of traveling theory: “an intellectual, and perhaps
moral, community of a remarkable kind, affiliation in the deepest and
most interesting sense of the word.”77
If this theoretical “community” should
be the glue that holds a transformed theory together, then such an association
obviously lacks in the case of post-colonial theory in the post-socialist
space. As I argued in the preceding section, acceptance of and resistance to
post-colonialism have a marked distribution along disciplinary, geographical,
and national lines. Fragmentation better describes the state of the theory
than transformation. To truly exploit the advantages of a traveling theory
– in a metaphorical sense, to turn the travel into an exploratory voyage and,
at the same time, resist the temptations of conquest as well as of disinterested
tourism – new interdisciplinary and cross-national alliances need to
be forged.
Conclusion
This essay presented some observations on the transposition of post-colonial
theory to the post-socialist space. It does not claim to offer a complete itinerary;
rather, it takes the form of a travelogue – a collection of impressions
from the theory’s journey. On the one hand, the form of sketches itself shows
the manifold obstacles on the road that the theory has to follow and that is by
no means straight and clear. On the other hand, the perspective of traveling
76
Edward W. SAID, “Traveling Theory Reconsidered.” In: Reflections on Exile and Other
Essays. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 2000, p. 452 (436–452).
77
Ibid. In this respect, one must concur with the statement that “the role of the Baltic scholar
in this context should not be just the application of thoughts and terms applied elsewhere, but
an active and creative participation in the global field of postcolonial studies.” ANNUS, “The
Problem of Soviet Colonialism in the Baltics,” p. 38.
Radim Hladík
589
theory, which eschews the judgmental attitude of “right or wrong”, makes
it possible to appreciate the warm welcome with which some post-socialist
scholars have received post-colonialism.
The idea that post-colonial theory could conquer the whole world rightly
draws skepticism. At the same time, the application of post-colonial theory
to problems of post-socialist provenance is no longer a speculative question.
Although this essay has focused primarily on theory, it has also demonstrated
that numerous empirical and conceptual studies have been carried
out that make the post-colonial approach to post-socialism a fait accompli.
At stake, then, is no longer merely the possibility of fusion or comparative
perspective on post-socialism and post-colonialism, but the actual advances
in the understanding of post-socialist phenomena that the amalgamated
approach will furnish. These knowledge gains will also determine whether
the imported paradigm will ever leave the sidelines of research on postsocialism,
to which it has been – despite many deserving efforts – relegated
thus far. Post-colonial theory, for its part, can benefit from this exchange by
being required to rethink its own purposes and affiliations, but also simply
by strengthening its institutional position through its new agenda and audience.
For the study of the post-socialist space, the alliance promises a chance
to improve its relatively marginalized status.
As a double-edged sword, however, post-colonial theory also consigns
the students of post-socialism to a state of dependency on what is seemingly
a Southern endeavor, but what, in reality, expresses yet again the NorthAtlantic
hegemony in the academe. Likewise, the political uses of postcolonialism
by post-socialist scholars can support their cause in important
socio-political campaigns to redress past wrongs or foster empowered identities.
However, political engagement of the imported theory also leaves it
vulnerable to attacks on its academic and epistemological integrity. In short,
besides being of considerable heuristic value, the merger of the “posts” amplifies
the uncertainties that surround the notion of post-colonialism and, in
addition, raises some of its own.
Perhaps, in the end, it will not be so much the theory that will be transformed,
but rather the place to which it has travelled. Unlike in the East, in the
West the relevance of post-colonialism for understanding current societies
has been more readily apparent. Former imperial metropoles, like Belgium,
France, or the United Kingdom, are post-colonial by definition, although
the meaning of their post-colonial condition bears little resemblance to
their former colonies. The post-colonial agenda has been reintroduced to the
European continent by another geopolitical development, EU enlargement
A Theory’s Travelogue: Post-Colonial Theory in Post-Socialist Space
590
and the accompanying process of newly conceived “Europeanization”.78
Curiously,
the colonialist conceptualization of Europeanization brings together
the two modes of imperial control that seem to be difficult to reconcile in
the theory reviewed herein: the neocolonial domination of overseas countries
and territories and the contiguous expansion through annexation of
marginalized locations and borderlands. Gurminder Bhambra alerts us
to the need of recognizing that “the relationship of Europe to non-Europe
(the ‘non-Europe’ within, as well as outside, ‘Europe’) is a relationship that
is largely unacknowledged, even if it is regarded as integral.”79
Eventually,
post-colonial theory may perhaps become important not only for the analysis
of the dependence of post-socialist countries on their past in the Soviet
periphery, but also of their current and future dependencies after shifting
into the margins of the West.
78
See Peo HANSEN, “European Integration, European Identity and the Colonial Connection.”
European Journal of Social Theory, vol. 5, 2002, no. 4, pp. 483–498; Enrica RIGO, “Citizenship
at Europe’s Borders: Some Reflections on the Post-Colonial Condition of Europe in the
Context of EU Enlargement.” Citizenship Studies, vol. 9, 2005, no. 1, pp. 3–22.
79
Gurminder K. BHAMBRA, “Postcolonial Europe, or Understanding Europe in Times of the
Postcolonial.” In: RUMFORD, C. (ed.), The SAGE Handbook of European Studies. Thousand
Oaks: SAGE 2009, p. 69 (69–85).
Radim Hladík