Is Russia in Europe or Asia?

Lecture

Geographically based in both Europe and Asia

whether to build closer links to Europe or Asia

Not quite European; not quite Asian

European and Asian continents are sometimes treated as one mega-continent called

Eurasia

Dilemma

Natural physical barrier between Europe and Asia

the choice of the Ural Mountains was largely arbitrary and based on history and politics.

If there is Eurasia as continent, then this would be biggest with 4 B population

Ural Mountains

Straddles in two continents: Europe and Asia

Its former Russian Empire straddled in three continents:

1. Europe in the west 2. Asian Russia in the east 3. North America where it had Russian

American colonies in Alaska and Northern California.

Russian Federation

Russia sold/ceded Alaska to US

Realm- geographical division of earth’s surface;

“imagined” boundaries; fluid; may cut across regional divisions or countries

“imagined communities” (Benedict Andersen)

Covers European and Asian countries

Russian Realm

1924-1989 – USSR or Soviet Russia

World Power emanating from the Kremlin that destroyed Hitler and the Third Reich (Empire)

USSR as the Third Empire; first and second are the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire

USSR collapsed in 1989

Union Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR)

State-run collective farms

Communal ownership (communism); no private ownership; “from each according to his ability to each according to his need”- Karl Marx

Economic collapse

Communism- Means of production is owned by the masses

Class struggle

Socialism-social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy

Communism/Socialism

Authoritarian govt

Best goods and services go the government

Focused on production quota

Also rife with corruption much like capitalism

Errors

Gorbachev dissolved the Central Committee then he resigned; dissolved all party units

Supreme Soviet indefinitely suspended all CPSU activity on Soviet territory ending communist rule in 1991.

Demise of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

cultural trauma; created a political vacuum

Russia, however, did not retreat from the European geographical space

Political boundaries prove to be elusive and fluid

Soviet disintegration

1. ethnically based domestic and international military conflicts in Caucasus, Moldova, Tajikistan and Chechnya

Present geopolitical issues

2. still weak new independent states: Georgia, Krygyztan, Tajikistan

Present geopolitical issues

3. repressions against liberal and religious opposition: Azerbajian, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan

Present geopolitical issues

4. instability of borders with countries outside the former Soviet Union; illegal immigration and narcotics trafficking in Sino-Russian and Tajik-Afgan borders

Present geopolitical issues

5. human and sex trafficking (women and children)

Present geopolitical issues

Why have they been angry

Opulence of Tsars vs. abject poverty massespeople

Strife in Russian history