Adapted from the blogpost by HLS Communications (https://blogs.iu.edu/hamiltonlugar/2020/10/02/distinguished-panels-ask-do-black-lives-matter-in-russia/)
In the second half of September, REEI’s Russian Studies Workshop addressed the past and present of race relations in Russia by convening two panel discussions via Facebook to ask, “Do Black lives matter in Russia?” Links to recordings of both panels can be found at https://rsw.indiana.edu/workshops-conferences/blm-in-russia/index.htm .
Panel 1: Histories of race, blackness, and Otherness in Russia/September 18, 2020
The first panel considered the historical experiences of African-Americans and Africans in Russia, as well as the Soviet treatment of its own ethnic minorities in the context of a state that explicitly claimed to be anti-racist. Moderated by Dr. Maxim Matusevich, Professor and Director of the Russian and East European Studies Program at Seton Hall University, the panel featured presentations by Dr. Raquel Greene, Associate Professor and Department Chair of Russian at Grinnell College; and Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon, doctoral student in History at the University of Pennsylvania.
While the world was saturated with images and news stories of racist violence in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, the Soviet Union advanced a narrative according to which racial animus within its borders had been resolved. But to what extent was this true? Dr. Greene provided some nuance to this debate, using popular culture to show how the concept of race evolved in the Soviet Union in the 20th century and how stereotypes of Africans became prevalent in the late Soviet period and into the post-Soviet 1990s.
Black Lives Matter was front and center for panelist St. Julian-Varnon, who drew on her "Russia as a Mirror of American Racism" (The Conversationalist/ September 17, 2020) by pointing to the striking and paradoxical ways that Russian dissidents and critics of Putin draw inspiration and language from the Black Lives Matter movement while simultaneously borrowing alt-right and racist arguments about the need to protect white Russians. St. Julian-Varnon also explored the experience of Black Americans, such as Langston Hughes, who travelled to the Soviet Union. “What does it mean to be Black in a place that doesn’t technically see race?” asked St. Julian-Varnon. These Black American “travelers” had different experiences of the USSR, with some noticing its dearth of economic power but others feeling liberated by its lack of explicitly racist institutions. Paraphrasing Hughes, St. Julian-Varnon said, “When I am here, I do not have to worry about the threat of violence” due to skin color.
Dr. Matusevich echoed the ways that the USSR attempted to show off its anti-racist global message by promoting itself as the “guarantor of freedom and emancipation of non-white populations and colonized populations.” Yet, as he pointed out, actual Black Russians may not have agreed with such an assertion, even if it was supported by Black American travelers. He said, “What people found in the Soviet Union and the United States did not always map onto the experiences of those who lived there.” Domestic racism is not merely a national issue but central to international relations. The anti-racist message of the Soviet Union contrasted sharply with the racism of the United States, affecting how those nations were viewed and how they were able to interact globally.
During the Q & A, panelists considered the extent to which the Soviet Union’s anti-racism in the 1960s was a genuine expression of solidarity rather than an anti-capitalist and anti-American strategy to argue for the moral superiority of the Communist system of government. The Soviet idealization of Angela Davis emerges from this murky water of solidarity and hypocrisy, especially in light of the Soviet Union’s crackdown and imprisonment of its own dissidents. Moving closer to the present, the panelists considered Russia’s harsh treatment of its LGBTQ population. Another concern was voiced by Dr. Matusevich, who asked: “What will Russia do to stem the very frightening rise of white supremacists and alt-right groups that are very connected to ethnic nationalism?”
Panel 2: Russian media and public response to Black Lives Matter/September 25, 2020
Picking up where the first panel left off, the second panel focused on contemporary realities of Blackness in Russia with a particular emphasis on popular media and the public response to the Black Lives Matter movement. The panelists included Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon once again, as well as Dmitry Dubrovsky, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg (Russia) and Amalia Zatari, Journalist and Producer at BBC News Russian. Eliot Borenstein, Professor of Russian & Slavic Studies and Senior Academic Convenor at Global Network, New York University, served as moderator.
Providing a local perspective, Dr. Dubrovsky explained how different groups are responding to BLM, from the state and ultra-right conservatives to liberals and the Russian left. Racist language in the US, he argued, is “very actively translated into the Russian context.”
St. Julian-Varnon joined again to explore Russian criticisms of BLM that significantly overlap with right-wing critiques of the movement in the US. Both groups argue, for instance, that Martin Luther King took part in “an appropriate kind of protest,” without contextualizing King’s larger social message or the violence directed against him. The concept of race can help understand Russia’s response to BLM, she said. “Why can Russians see and support the Belarusian protests, which are always portrayed as positive, in contrast to the protests in the United States?” she asked.
Zatari provided the perspective of ordinary Russians, drawing upon lengthy interviews that she has conducted with diverse individuals about racism in Russia.
The panel concluded with an audience Q & A, which expanded the conversation to consider how racism operates in Russia, particularly regarding Russia’s Central Asian community, which faces significant discrimination.