The Penal Colony Empire: The Uniqueness of the Russian Model of Colonialism
When discussing the nature of the modern Russian empire, it is necessary to take into account a number of theses that deserve the status of methodological axioms for analysing this state phenomenon. These provisions allow us to highlight the specificity of the Russian model of imperialism and colonialism, which differs qualitatively from both classical European empires and other states based on criminal structures.
First, even considering that human history has provided numerous examples of states based on criminal structures, Russia stands out among them due to its role in the world, its territory, population, military power, and other factors that make it unlike other small criminal regimes and juntas that came to power as a result of criminal riots, uprisings, and revolutions. The scale of the Russian state, its geopolitical influence and historical longevity place this phenomenon beyond the typological range of ordinary authoritarian or criminal regimes, giving it the status of a unique phenomenon in world history.
Second, when comparing Russia with other colonial empires that existed in the past — British, French, Portuguese, Spanish — it should be emphasised that all of these empires had the characteristics of classical empires, based on the power of a legitimate, non-criminal aristocracy supported by legitimate military force. At the same time, this aristocracy and military force had the characteristics of classical legitimacy, based on the traditional institutions of feudal and later bourgeois society. The Russian Empire, on the other hand, unlike all other empires, was founded precisely on the assimilation and colonial conquest of a significant part of the territory through hard labour, imprisonment and criminal punishment. This is what makes it completely different from other countries and empires, as the penitentiary system became not just an instrument of repression, but the main mechanism of colonisation and state-building.
A comparative analysis with other states where the penal system played a role in colonisation only emphasises the uniqueness of the Russian case. The United States of America, despite the fact that criminals from England were sent there from the very beginning, was still a country of free people and developed as a country of free people, where the penal element quickly dissolved into the general mass of free colonists. Even if the French Empire sent prisoners to its colonies, their share was not significant enough to form a subculture that could influence the general population and determine the character of colonial society. Great Britain and Australia demonstrated an example where, even while saturating the Australian continent with convicts and criminals, this penal base was eventually absorbed by the culture of other colonisers, who could arguably be called free, law-abiding people who arrived in the colony voluntarily and formed the dominant cultural matrix.
In light of the above examples, it can be reasonably argued that the Russian state and the Russian colonial empire represent a completely different example, which has continued to develop according to the same canons and principles since the 16th century. Unlike other cases, where the penal element was assimilated or marginalised, in Russia it was the criminal-prison subculture that became the structuring basis of society in the vast colonised territories, determining the social norms, behavioural patterns and value orientations of the population.
Taking the above into account, it can be emphasised that this unique mixture of colonialism, imperialism, the penal foundation of the state and the criminal-prison subculture, which has transformed into a national culture, has made Russia a state phenomenon that is completely unlike any other historical examples. This phenomenon retains the enormous momentum of colonialism and imperialism and shows no signs of being ready to abandon these characteristics, as they are rooted not only in political structures but also in the deep layers of public consciousness and cultural identity.
In the context of studying the concept of the ‘Russian World,’ it is necessary to emphasise that the very ‘traditional values’ that form the ideological basis of this concept are not simply a construct of the regime or the elites, but an organic product of the historical development of the Russian population, which has been shaped over the last five centuries precisely within the framework of this colonial-imperialist policy with all its inherent characteristics, trends and social movements. The bearers of these values are the people themselves, formed in the unique conditions of symbiosis between imperial expansion and penal colonisation, which makes the ‘Russian World’ not a temporary ideological project but a deeply rooted cultural and historical phenomenon capable of self-reproduction and expansion regardless of specific political regimes.
