History with an attitude: Alaska in modern Russian patriotic rhetoric

Abstract

The article explores recent Russian patriotic fiction and non-fiction that deals with the history of Alaska, which was a Russian colony until 1867. It is argued that these books and articles represent an offshoot of mainstream patriotic history print media that reflects rising nationalist sentiments among many Russians. Rhetorical outbursts regarding such relatively marginal and obscure topic as the Russian presence in Alaska and lamentations about its sale to the United States reveal the tensions of Russian nationalism, which is closely entangled with the idea of empire. It is also pointed out that Russian nationalist imagination actively "domesticate" as "ours" borderland areas that formerly belonged to the Russian Empire and to the Soviet Union in order to enhance anti-foreign and especially anti-American sentiments. © Franz steiner Verlag GmbH, Stuttgart/Germany.

Publication Title

Jahrbucher fur Geschichte Osteuropas

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