Soviet Emancipation in the Post-Soviet Present

Abstract

What happened with the Soviet emancipation of natsionalka after the “Soviet empire” came to an end? And what happens to the memory of that Soviet campaign? How is it approached in the Russian center and in its borderlands? In this chapter I look more closely at several post-Soviet revisions and evaluations of the emancipation’s results, as well as at the post-Soviet changes in categories of “Othering.” First, I discuss the place that the history of emancipation of natsionalka had in the reevaluation of the Soviet past by the post-1991 Russian state and some non-state actors. I also analyze challenges to the Soviet narrative coming from within Russia, in particular, from the new Russian nationalism and ideologists of the “Russian civilization”. In the second part I deal with the issues of national and religious rebirth in the Volga-Ural region and the challenges they pose with respect to evaluating the results of the Soviet modernization and emancipation. Finally, in the third section I explore how the Soviet emancipation, coloniality, and post-Soviet gender order are questioned and subverted in the artistic productions of female filmmakers and scriptwriters from the Volga-Ural region.