Rivals of the past, children of the future

This research project analyses the significance of Russia and Russian bodies for US identity formation and the negotiation of Western values from a historical perspective. It identifies Russian tropes as occupying a central place within the current cultural discourses on US national values and enquires into the roots of this trend. In other words, it looks at the emergence of Russians/Russia as a medium against which to distinguish American exceptionalism within American popular culture. It argues that the significance of Russian bodies for American identity formation dates back to the late eighteenth century, when American-born explorer developed an interest in Russian America (Alaska). While the importance of American westward expansionism and explorer culture for American identity formation has already been established by American studies scholars, such as Henry Nash Smith back in 1950, Alaska and its Russian colonizers have never been considered within such studies. This project fills this research gap, analyzing American sources on Russias colonial history in Alaska, nineteenth- century anthropological and historical works on Alaska, and oral histories of Alaskan Indigenous people. Examining early American imaginaries of Russia will shed light on the full range of at times incongruent American ideas about Russian bodies within American popular culture from a cross-sectional historical perspective. It will provide a better understanding of the simultaneous existence of two very different views on Russia: on the one hand, as dangerous place, where Russian vulnerable bodies have to face Russian authoritarian power and, on the other hand, as an almost magical land, populated by figures that embody artistic sophistication and intellectual superiority. I argue that the current assemblage of Russia imaginaries consists of elements that date back to the time of the American fight for independence, nineteenth-century popular culture, and American humanitarianism, and are neither sufficiently explained by the legacies of European Orientalism (Wolff 1994) nor through the continuation of Cold War cultures (Whitfield 1996). Researchers such as Larry Wolff (1994) and David Engerman (2004) trace US cultural discourses of the twentieth century back to the European Enlightenment and its project of orientalism. Orientalism localized Russia as in-between the two poles of racialized barbarian Others and white European civilization as anti- or half-modern, not-yet-civilized. Without disputing these scholars findings, I question their universality. More recent scholarly work views contemporary Russia discourses through the lens of European orientalism and identifies therein the crucial role Russia imaginaries have played in the construction of US identity as progressive and modern (Williams 2012), Sadowksi-Smith 2018, Basulto 2015 etc.). This line of thought, however, fails to consider both US independence from Europe and the USs specific take on modernity, which manifested itself during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries alongside Russias colonial imperial power. In focusing exclusively on (elite) discourses that followed European orientalist thinking, these scholars present an unbalanced historical picture of US Russia imaginaries and discourses. This one-sided view additionally leads to a lack of recognition of the strong influence that nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian art and music had in the US from Anton Rubinstein or Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky to the prima ballerina Anna Pavlova, and the designer Léon Bakst. Last, but not least, it misses the significance of Russian ideas for many emerging progressive social movements during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the afterlife of these ideas within more recent modernity discourses. In other words, the strong focus in enduring cultural notions of Russia as backward and a latecomer to modernity makes those ideas in which Russia was conceptualized as a modern power, progressive and civilized seem more of an anomaly or an exception rather than any kind of discursively significant or lasting influence. Yet, Russian colonialism significantly influenced discourses of American expansionism and the emerging American nationalism and theories of race and ethnicity. Moreover, the Russian Revolution(s) and their aftermath significantly shaped US humanitarianism and internationalism. US Marxists, suffragettes, Jewish progressives, and anti-segregation activists engaged intensively with Russia, the early Soviet state and the Russian people during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. This engagement needs to be analyzed, given how important these liberal and progressive movements were for future ideas about US identities, progress and development. Last, but not least, the continued imaginary of Russians as ballerinas or piano virtuosi in contemporary popular culture (e.g. in the movies Orphan 2009 and Red Sparrow 2017) as well as its enduring image as a nation of exceptional talent, prompts a re-evaluation of the significance of nineteenth-century geniuses such as Rubinstein or Tchaikovsky, Pavlova, Bakst etc. The fame and influence of these artists left a deep impression on the US public and created an image of Russia as a land of groundbreaking art, an image that continues to survive today.

Today we see Russia through the lens of war. But it was once a cultural epicenter, sometimes a colonial power raging in Alaska, for others a place of refuge. Katharina Wiedlack, Assistant Professor for American Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna, traces the various images of Russia in U.S. history. Her project "Rivals of the Past, Children of the Future: Localizing Russia within US National Identity Formations from a Historical Perspective" takes her back to the 19th and 20th centuries, to Russian colonizers in Alaska and Black Americans who experienced solidarity and anti-racism in Russia. It investigates Americans' past enchantment with Russia, for example, Mark Twain's love of Russian prima ballerinas, the Romanovs, and Russian literature reflected in his writings, which shaped American perceptions of the Russian tsarist empire. It also analyzes the impact of Russian colonizers on what is now American territory. Russians had occupied much of Alaska for about 100 years when it was sold to the U.S. in 1867. They left behind an indigenous Russian Creole population that is still reflected in the census of the Russian Orthodox Church in Alaska. The Russian model of colonization and governance was followed with great interest in the neighboring USA. The image of the Russian colonialists was used both to differentiate itself and to better understand American mechanisms. Russia's war against Ukraine has made it clear in one fell swoop that Russia is blatantly continuing its imperialist policy. Probably the most important resistance to imperialism comes from those who have suffered under it for centuries: Russia's indigenous peoples, such as the Buryats. They are being used on the front lines of the current war far more than white ethnic Russians, which is a continuation of the genocide, and the indigenous groups are resisting it. They find coalitions and solidarity in other initiatives, such as Native Americans, and especially Alaska Natives. Wiedlack's historical research seeks out the invisibilized intersections that can form ideas and alternatives for transoceanic solidarity. Rivals of the Past analyzes the legacy of Russian influence beyond the political sphere, exploring religious, cultural, and artistic legacies. It delves deeply into the entanglement of the nascent Black movement of the early twentieth century with the forces of solidarity forming in Russia, whose Bolshevik Revolution viewed the United States with suspicion and hostility. It revisits the accounts and fictional writings of Black American intellectuals who visited Russia, including activist Louise Thompson, Langston Hughes, and writer Dorothy West, and their engagement with state socialism and communism. Through the lens of Soviet modernization as an alternative to American anti-black society, the profound influence of Soviet Russia and Soviet Central Asia on the American Black movement becomes visible.