The decolonisation trap and the quest to reclaim a “kidnapped” Europe
The decolonisation trap and the quest to reclaim a “kidnapped” Europe

Summary/Abstract: This article looks at how Moscow’s imperial mindset has long shaped the West’s view of Ukraine and East-Central Europe. It traces the problem back to Enlightenment thinkers and Hegel, whose ideas helped excuse ignoring smaller nations as real players on the world stage. Russia’s all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 forces scholars to rethink the old imperial narratives that have justified aggression and dulled the world’s response to it. The author argues that “decolonising” how the West sees Russia and Ukraine should mean more than borrowing the usual tools from postcolonial studies or fitting Russian colonialism into the larger story of Western empires. A critical interrogation of the deeper intellectual habits that kept the region on the margins of Western thought is required, with specific focus on Cold War knowledge production. Ukraine’s struggle matters far beyond its borders, because it shows the playbook empires use to impose their own cultural, political, and social rules on smaller nations – and the clever ways they defend those moves at home and abroad. That is why the debate – kicked into high gear in 2022 and still going strong three years later – over the foundations of Ukrainian and regional studies has mostly stalled and even met loud pushback from many quarters. This article sets out to uncover the deeper reasons behind that resistance to updating the way we create and share knowledge about the region.

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