Russian irredentism

Expansion of Russia 1500–1800

Russian irredentism refers historically to the irredentist movement of the Russian Empire from the 16th century up to the 1900s. It included territorial expansion eastwards, towards Siberia, which led to its Russian conquest, but also towards south, in the Caucasus area and central Asia, which led to Russian conquest of the Caucasus, Russian conquest of Turkestan and Russian conquest of Uzbekistan. The Caucasian War of 1817–1864 was an invasion of the Caucasus by the Russian Empire which resulted in Russia's annexation of the areas of the North Caucasus, and the ethnic cleansing of Circassians. It consisted of a series of military actions waged by Russia against territories and tribal groups in Caucasia including: Chechnya, Dagestan, the Circassians (Adyghe, Kabarday), Abkhaz, Abazins, and the extinction of the Ubykh, as Russia sought to expand southward.[1] In Dagestan, resistance to the Russians has been described as jihad.[2] This led to the Chechen-Russian conflict which lasted for centuries. In Europe, Russian expansion led to Partitions of Poland as early as 1772.

After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, it was thought that Russian Federation gave up on plans of territorial expansion or kin-state nationalism, despite some 25 million Russians living in neighboring countires outside Russia.[3] However, in modern times, it has been proposed that the annexation of Crimea in 2014 proves Russia's adherence to irredentism even today.[4][5][6][7] This led to a new wave of Russian nationalism, with large parts of Russian far right movement aspiring to annex even more land from Ukraine, including the unrecognized Novorossiya.[8] Vladimir Socor proposed that Vladimir Putin's speech after the annexation of Crimea was a de facto "manifesto of Greater-Russia Irredentism".[9] In November 2016, Putin said that Russia's borders "do not end anywhere".[10] Some Russian nationalists seek to annex parts of the "Near abroad", such as the Baltic states,[11] while there are fears of potential escalation due to Russian irredentist aspirations in northern Kazakhstan, as well.[12]

In April 2014, the Croatian Helsinki Committee issued a statement condemning the "Greater-Russian aggression against Ukraine", comparing it to Slobodan Milosevic's plan to create Greater Serbia in the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s.[13]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Charles King The ghost of freedom: a history of the Caucasus Oxford University Press US, 2008 ISBN 0-19-517775-4 ISBN 978-0-19-517775-6
  2. ↑ Michael Kemper (2010). "An Islamd of Classical Arabic in the Caucasus: Dagestan". In Companjen, Françoise. Exploring the Caucasus in the 21st Century: Essays on Culture, History and ... Amsterdam University Press.
  3. ↑ Tristan James Mabry, John McGarry, Margaret Moore, Brendan O'Leary (2013). Divided Nations and European Integration: National and Ethnic Conflict in the 21st Century. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 365. ISBN 9780812244977.
  4. ↑ Armando Navarro (2015). Mexicano and Latino Politics and the Quest for Self-Determination: What Needs to Be Done. Lexington Books. p. 536. ISBN 9780739197363.
  5. ↑ Joseph J. Hobbs (2016). Fundamentals of World Regional Geography. Cengage Learning. p. 183. ISBN 9781305854956.
  6. ↑ Marvin Kalb (2015). Imperial Gamble: Putin, Ukraine, and the New Cold War. Brookings Institution Press. p. 163. ISBN 9780815727446.
  7. ↑ Stephen Saideman (March 18, 2014). "Why Crimea is likely the limit of Greater Russia". The Globe and Mail.
  8. ↑ Casey Michael (19 June 2015). "Pew Survey: Irredentism Alive and Well in Russia". The Diplomat.
  9. ↑ Vladimir Socor. "Putin's Crimea Speech: A Manifesto of Greater-Russia Irredentism". 11 (56). Eurasia Daily Monitor.
  10. ↑ Tom Embury-Dennis (25 November 2016). "Vladimir Putin says Russia's borders 'do not end anywhere'". The Independent.
  11. ↑ William Maley (1995). "Does Russia Speak for Baltic Russians?". The World Today. 51 (1): 4–6. JSTOR 40396641.
  12. ↑ Alexander C. Diener (2015). "Assessing potential Russian irredentism and separatism in Kazakhstan's northern oblasts". Eurasian Geography and Economics. 56 (5): 469–492. doi:10.1080/15387216.2015.1103660.
  13. ↑ "HHO: U Ukrajini se ponavlja ono što smo vidjeli u bivšoj Jugoslaviji [HHO: Repeat of what we saw in ex-Yugoslavia in Ukraine]" (in Croatian). Slobodna Dalmacija. 29 April 2014.
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