Work

Was Tolstoi a Colonial Landlord? The Dilemmas of Private Property and Settler Colonialism on the Bashkir Steppe

Year: 2022

Type: article

Abstract: Using new archival research, this article establishes key facts about the most understudied aspect of Lev Tolstoi's biography—his Samara estate—assessing its role in the Tolstoi family economy and property structure. Integrating imperial history with the theoretical perspective of settler colonial studies, the article argues that the estate functioned within the context of Russia's settler colonialism in Bashkiria. While this experience contributed to Tolstoi's rejection of private property, it never erased his enthusiasm for Russia's manifest destiny as a settler civilization. Sympathizing with the plight of Russian settlers, Tolstoi remained perplexingly indifferent to the suffering of the semi-nomadic Bashkirs they displaced. These findings complicate Tolstoi's status as Russia's premier anti-colonial writer, urging a more capacious framing of the problem of empire in Tolstoi's art and thought, one that balances his critiques of the military conquest of the Caucasus against his embrace of settler colonialism.

Source: Slavic Review

DOI: 10.1017/slr.2022.148

Author: Edyta M. Bojanowska

Institution: Yale University

Language: English

Topic: Soviet and Russian History

Subfield: Political Science and International Relations

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,255

Funder: Whitney and Betty MacMillan Center for International and Area Studies