Authors

Eeva Kuikka¹;  ¹ Tampere University, Finland

Discussion

The full-scale invasion of Ukraine has led to emergence of various resistance and anti-war movements such as the Feminist Antiwar Resistance (FAR), a feminist anti-war campaign that was established right in February 2022 on Telegram where it quickly reached over 30000 followers. The outburst of the war and its disproportionate mobilization rates from the non-Russian republics have also led to an emergence of several regional or “ethnic” anti-war movements such as the Free Buryatia Foundation or the Free Yakutia Foundation. Soon after their emergence, these movements have adopted an explicitly decolonial stand and their publications frequently address the imperialist and colonial history of Russia and its consequences to the present-day situation in the republics. In addition to these regional movements, there have emerged several non-ethnic-specific and cross-regional decolonial projects such as the Indigenous of Russia Foundation, Asians of Russia, or Yurt Community. Because of the severe restrictions on political activities and public expression, both FAR and the different decolonial projects operate in digital social media platforms that provide them important means of reaching out to mainly Russian-speaking but also to a lesser extent English-speaking audience both inside and outside of the Russian territory. 

This presentation addresses the intersections, interaction, and cooperation between the feminist and decolonial activist movements since the start of the war in Ukraine. For the presentation, I have analyzed interviews of activists from FAR as well as social media channels and publications by FAR and different regional and non-regional decolonial movements. Until very recently, feminism in Russia has been a phenomenon adopted by largely white, Moscow or Saint-Petersburg -centered audience and it has overlooked such issues that concern specifically women of non-Slavic ethnicities. Based on the analyzed materials, I argue that in the wake of the war, this Moscow and Saint-Petersburg centricity has started to give room to voices from the more marginalized regions with non-Russian titular nations and Indigenous peoples. Whereas questions of ethnicity and regionality are gaining more importance and visibility in publications and working of FAR as a feminist campaign, questions of gender and LGBTIQ issues arise frequently in publications by decolonial movements and activists. Drawing from theories of intersectionality and decolonial feminism, I ask how they can be applied in the Russian context and how these frameworks can shed new light on the points of congruence but also possible discordances between feminist and decolonial activists.