Colonial erasure
Author:
Lia Dostlieva
Translation from Ukrainian: Viktoriia Grivina
Editor: Clemens Poole
Colonial erasure is used by the coloniser for the implementation of the colonial project, to establish and maintain its domination, to create universal categories, and the only possible apparatus of representation and power over reality [1, 2, 3].
Colonial erasure can occur through direct physical influence, implementation of censorship, and imposition of taboos, forced cultural assimilation, and the use of various manipulations [4].
Examples of physical violence include mass murder, repressions, and deportations of bearers of culture, and in the Ukrainian context the Holodomor, executions of the Ukrainian cultural elite during Stalin's repressions (in particular shootings in the Sandarmokh forest), Operation Vistula, Soviet mass deportations (in particular the deportation of Crimean Tatars), arrests, imprisonment and murder of the Sixtiers [Shistdesiatnyky] movement, and kidnapping and forced adoption of Ukrainian children by the Russian families during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war [5].
Physical violence towards representatives of a particular cultural group is the most basic level of colonial erasure, given that culture, unable to exist and develop without the existence of its carriers, turns into an archival record. The fewer carriers of culture there are, the less the potential threat of undermining the grand narrative of the colonial power is; however, to implement colonial ambitions coloniser needs living people — as a workforce to service extractivist projects, to support the functioning of the repressive apparatus, or to participate in colonial wars. Thus, the aim of such violence is to exterminate the cultural elite and establish dominance over the part of the population that is ready to give up its cultural identity in order to survive.
Examples of colonial erasure through the use of physical force also include the destruction of material cultural heritage — among other things, objects of cultural significance and places of memory, i.e. memorials, churches, cemeteries, museums, archives, libraries and other cultural and architectural landmarks. It can be either a purposeful act, or a consequence of modernisation or extractivist projects, as well as colonial wars. An example of this is the destruction or conversion of religious objects by the Soviet government, for instance, the demolition of St. Michael's Golden Domed Cathedral, the construction of parks of recreational facilities in place of cemeteries in the Soviet times (for instance in Vinnytsia or Dnipro), the destruction of Hryhorii Skovoroda museum in the Kharkiv region, the mining of the Kamyana Mohyla archaeological site in Zaporizhzhia oblast, and the theft of artworks in Kherson Art Museum by Russian invaders.
Another type of colonial erasure is censorship and imposition of a number of prohibitions — for instance, multiple bans on the Ukrainian language during the Russian Empire, attempts to replace Ukrainian Cyrillic graphics with Latin in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, bans on teaching and publishing in Ukrainian, the closure of Ukrainian schools, bans on religious rites, nativity scenes, etc.
The practices that are allowed are censored, and this contributes to marginalisation of the carriers of culture rather than the cultural development of these practices — the entire body of culture is flattened to ethno-kitsch. The allowed forms of culture are those that do not pose a threat according to the coloniser, since they don't have emancipative potential. Due to the arbitrary nature of such an assessment, the same elements of culture can be banned or allowed at different times.
The culture of colonised peoples is always perceived in contrast to the culture of the coloniser — the latter symbolises progress, while the former appears frozen in time, serving as a marker of backwardness and a reason for shame. In this way, the image of Ukrainians during the Soviet period (for instance, on decorations of official institutions, or in painting), peasants in primitive national costumes dominate, a depiction that assigns a status of "rural" to Ukrainian culture. It also highlights that the colonised people were appointed the role of service personnel for natural resources.
Cultural assimilation is another mechanism of colonial erasure, inherent to the Ukrainian context. It is a set of processes through which the colonised community accepts traditions and values inherent to the culture of the coloniser, in this way assimilating its cultural and ethnic identity on a performative level. Cultural assimilation can be either entirely forced, vertical, and implemented through force, or serve as one of the tactics of survival in an oppressive regime. For example, Ukrainians could make a career in Soviet institutions, but their career opportunities depended on their ability to mask their Ukrainian identity. Another example is the Russification of names, which could be both forced and arise from the desire to hide one's non-Russian origin. Language played an important role in the process of cultural assimilation, whereas receiving education and functioning in the public sphere were conducted in the language of the coloniser (in various periods in, among others, Russian, Polish, German, Romanian), while access to local languages became complicated or impossible. The Soviet period was characterised with the so-called Soviet identity, the Russian language playing a significant role in this process [6].
Colonial erasure gives rise to epistemic exclusion and oppression [7]. Education is a powerful tool of erasure, and one of the mechanisms for establishing the epistemic apparatus of dominance. The production of knowledge is most often made possible only through the language of the coloniser, while the languages of the colonised communities are declared insufficiently developed and unsuitable for the production of scientific knowledge, or account for a fracture of the created product.
The coloniser also resorts to multiple manipulations, controls mechanisms of representation, claims power over the reality and forms it. (Let us recall the 1863 Valuev Circular stating, “A separate Little Russian [the common imperial term for Ukrainian at the time] language never existed, does not exist, and can never exist” — the visible daily use of Ukrainian among many people does not seem to have mattered.). Reassignment and/or appropriation (often through direct theft) of cultural artefacts takes place alongside the establishment of archives related to the culture and history of the colonised peoples in the metropolis, as well as the restriction of access to cultural artefacts and archives. Examples include the so-called 'Russian' avant-garde, the act of defining artists who represented colonised cultures as Russian, alongside appropriation of Ukrainian (and other) cultural artefacts located in the Hermitage and other museums.
A special expression of colonial erasure is double erasure [8], when the very fact of erasure is being concealed. A typical example is the concealment of the Holodomor and other crimes of the Soviet times. However, the rehabilitation and returning of the silenced events into public space alone is insufficient, since colonial erasure creates a space for manipulation, stigmatisation and instrumentalisation of parts of the collective memory.
Endnotes
02. Vázquez, Rolando. 2020. Vistas of Modernity: Decolonial Aesthesis and the End of the Contemporary. N.p.: Mondriaan Fund., 6
03. Quijano, Anibal, and Michael Ennis. 2000. “Coloniality of Power, Eurocentrism, and Latin America.” Nepantla: Views from South 1 (3): 533-580.
04. Tlostanova, Madina V., and Walter Mignolo. 2012. Learning to Unlearn: Decolonial Reflections from Eurasia and the Americas. N.p.: Ohio State University Press. 74
05. Kassymbekova, Botakoz, and Erica Marat. 2022. “Time to Question Russia’s Imperial Innocence.” PONARS Eurasia Policy Memo, no. 771 (April): 1-5.
06. Kassymbekova, Botakoz. 2016. Despite Cultures: Early Soviet Rule in Tajikistan. N.p.: University of Pittsburgh Press.
07. Vázquez, Rolando. 2011. “Translation as Erasure: Thoughts on Modernity’s Epistemic Violence.” Journal of Historical Sociology 24, no. 1 (March): 27-44. 10.1111/j.1467-6443.2011.01387.x.
08. Vázquez, Rolando. 2020. Vistas of Modernity: Decolonial Aesthesis and the End of the Contemporary. N.p.: Mondriaan Fund., 41.
Author
Lia Dostlieva
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