Margaret Dikovitskaya Challenges Ekaterina Dyogot's View on Russia and Postcolonial Discourse

Margaret Dikovitskaya responds to Ekaterina Dyogot's November 2001 article questioning Russia's qualification for postcolonial discourse. Dikovitskaya argues Russia should be studied as a colonizer, not as the colonized Other, citing its imperial expansion over five centuries and the Soviet Union's ideological imposition after 1945. She critiques Dyogot's conflation of racism and colonialism, noting methodological issues in comparing Russia to African American experiences. Dikovitskaya proposes postsocialist studies as more appropriate for Russia, given its shared communist past with Mongolia, China, and North Korea. She references scholars like Edward Said, Aimé Césaire, and Frantz Fanon, while dismissing Dyogot's reliance on Negritude theory. The response highlights Russia's historical role as the third-largest empire, after British and Mongol empires, and questions Dyogot's inconsistent positions on Russia's integration into the West. Dikovitskaya directs a summer course at Central European University in Budapest and holds a PhD from Columbia University.