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20 Pol. Q. Int'l Aff. 5 (2011)
Ukraine as a Postcolonial State

handle is hein.journals/polqurint20 and id is 5 raw text is: ANDRZEJ SZEPTYCKI Ukraine as a Postcolonial State? Colonialism has been traditionally defined as West European powers' rule over overseas territories inhabited by other racial groups. What is the distinctive feature of colonial expansion, seen as a quality of the Western civilization? In a nutshell, it is the striving to turn advantage, control and ascendancy over other societies into domination and imposition of supreme authority. A colony is a territory subordinated politically and economically, lying outside the colonizers' own state and their own civilization.' Coming as an important part of such understanding of colonialism is the belief that its specific traits manifested themselves most fully towards the close of the imperialist stage of 19t-century capitalism.2 That definition needs to be broadened. Colonialism should be described as a protracted rule over another racial/ethnic group, coupled with a policy of economic exploitation and forced acculturation. So understood, the notion of colonialism can be applied to Antiquity (Rome), white settlers' colonies (Australia, Canada), or the expansion of some non-European powers (Japan). It also embraces internal colonization, i.e. the policy pursued towards smaller discriminated peoples in a given state. A classic example here is offered by Ireland, Scotland and Wales, which, although finding themselves in a different situation than other possessions of the British Crown (now and, to some extent, also in the past), have in many respects resembled the traditional colonies. Increasingly more authors have been seeking to put the (post)colonial paradigm to use in interpreting the past and the present of the Soviet/Russian empire and states arising therefrom.3 Many publications on the colonial nature 1 J. Kieniewicz, Wprowadzenie do historii cywilizacji Wschodu i Zachodu, Warszawa, 2003, p. 241. 2 See V. I. Lenin, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism: A Popular Outline, www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/ 1916/imp-hsc. Among these publications, special mention is due to Ewa Thomson's book, where she points to the importance of Russian literature as an instrument to justify the expansion of tsarist Russia/USSR and the similarities between that Slavic empire and the West European colonial The Polish Quarterly of International Affairs, 2011, no. 1

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