Ideologies of Race

"When it comes to the history of race, it is not obvious where Russia fits in. Some have made the case that race has had little effect on how people were treated in Russia and the Soviet Union. Others, in contrast, have insisted that Russia was no less racist than its European neighbors and their overseas colonies. Race in Russia, it seems, is either irrelevant, or lurking underneath a thin veneer of "friendship-of-peoples" propaganda. This paradox has made it difficult to understand--both inside and outside of the region--rising racial tension in Russian and Eurasian societies in recent years. Ideologies of Race: Imperial Russia and the Soviet Union in Global Context is a collection of new studies that help to make sense of the paradox. Bringing together historians, literary scholars and anthropologist of Russia, the Soviet Union, Western Europe, the United States, the Caribbean, and Latin America, Ideologies of Race shifts the question from whether Russia and the Soviet Union had race or racism like the "classic" racialized regimes (usually Nazi Germany and the United States), to how race worked in Russia and the Soviet Union at various points. It approaches race as ideology, an approach that illuminates the complicated and sometimes contradictory intersection between ideas about race and racializing practices. Examining the ideologies of race in Russia and the Soviet Union yields crucial insights on the global history of race, and the ongoing effects of that history on the contemporary world."--