Abstract
In this chapter, the encounter between the Russian Empire and the nomads of the Eurasian steppe in the nineteenth century is analyzed using the theoretical framework of the standard of civilization. The creation of the Westphalian state-model in Europe in the seventeenth century, linked to the later emergence of the notion of the standard of civilization led to the ‘othering’ of the nomads of the Eurasian steppe as barbarians, as a threat to the borders of civilized Europe. The chapter presents also an argument to define ‘territoriality’ as not only an institution of international society of the time but also as a distinctive quality and requirement for being considered ‘civilized’. In this analytical framework, the nomads become the ‘other’, the ‘alien’, the ‘menace’, onto which projections of rationality and modernity were cast in order to prevent threats to Russia’s European and civilized identity. The chapter sheds light on the encounter between ‘fixed’ and ‘mobile’ units in the course of expansion of international society; contextualizes the role played by nomadic tribes in resisting the application of Westphalian spatial categories in the Eurasian space; and scrutinizes what the role of nomads was in constructing a European, civilized identity.
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Notes
- 1.
Another partial exception is Paul Keal’s (2003) work on colonialism in nineteenth-century international society. Yet, in that book, Keal focuses on indigenous peoples in general (and hence not just nomads), and ‘nomad/nomadism’ is not even featured in the index at the end of the book.
- 2.
For this chapter, the ES meaning of ‘institution’ is adopted. It refers to a durable practice, or set of practices, which inform and guide the behavior of actors in a specific social context, while at the same time defining them (Buzan, 2004).
- 3.
For ‘proper nomadism’ as characterized by the absence of agriculture, see Khazanov (1994, p. 19).
- 4.
Interestingly, this reliance on customary law and tradition was seen as an additional element to exclude nomads from civilized peoples. As Tylor (1871) put it when writing his study on primitive cultures at the end on the eighteenth century, “admitted that civilized law requires its key from barbaric law; it must be borne in mind that the barbarian lawgiver too was guided in judgement not so much by first principles, as by a reverent and often stupidly reverent adherence to the tradition of earlier and yet ruder ages” (p. 449). The emphasis on ‘first principles’ also reflects the shift to positive law, which was dealt with in the previous section.
- 5.
These were the concentric levels of territorial administration (from the biggest to the smallest) imported from imperial Russia.
- 6.
Not everyone in Russia shared the idea that nomads were necessarily ‘savage’ and ‘inferior’ ‘Others’. Eurasianists, for example, saw them as part of Russia’s past, when Russian territory was ruled by the Mongols in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and therefore as part of the Empire’s Eurasian identity (Polunov & Zakharova, 2005, p. 5). Yet, since the purpose of this chapter is to analyze how territoriality constituted and informed the Russian understanding of the standard of civilization, the focus here is on those segments of the population (or rather, of the élite) who rejected this reading of nomadism, which was on the contrary deemed as a relic of barbarism.
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The author would like to thank Jamie Levin, Andrew Linklater, Pablo de Orellana, Ann Towns, Aliya Tskhay and the participants at the EISA 2018 conference in Prague where this paper was presented for constructive comments and feedback.
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Costa Buranelli, F. (2020). Standard of Civilization, Nomadism and Territoriality in Nineteenth-Century International Society. In: Levin, J. (eds) Nomad-State Relationships in International Relations. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28053-6_5
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