Paleo Profiles: Yi qi

A reconstruction of the Yi qi. From Emily Willoughby, emilywilloughby.com, (May 2015)

Today on Paleo Profiles we will be looking at a very unique dinosaur from Jurassic China: the Yi qi (Strange Wing). This bat like dinosaur is a recent discovery and shows us how diverse dinosaurs were. So let's look at China's bat-like 'Strange Wing'.

Discovery and Fossils

Currently, we only have own partial specimen of Yi and it was only formally described in 2015. It was initially discovered by a farmer called Wang Jianrong in Qinglong County back in 2007; he recognised it as a possible dinosaur fossil so he sold it to the Shandong Tianyu Museum of Nature. As often with fossil discoveries, it remained in storage until someone could formally describe the fossil in 2015. A group of ten palaeontologists evaluated the fossil including Xu Xing - Xu is one of China's most prominent palaeontologists describing, or co-describing, many major discoveries including the bird-like Microraptor and the fossil which showed tyrannosaurs were feathered, Yutyrannus. In 2015 their findings were published in Nature and the little dinosaur was named Yi. Although partial, major sections of the Yi has been preserved including the majority of the pigeon-sized body, parts of the skull, and imprints from a membrane which made up the animal's wings.

Biology

Examples of the Yi qi soft tissue

Yi was in a family known as Scansoriopterygids - a family which was closely related to the ancestors to modern birds. Three genera, including Yi, made up the Scansoriopterygids which are all biologically similar and lived alongside one another. The largest, and best known before 2015, was the Epidexipteryx due to it being the best preserved. However, for years it had been reconstructed incorrectly. Yi was the first Scansoriopterygid to be discovered with preserved membranes which connected the long fingers together, and palaeontologists, and paleo-artists, at times have a general fault of 'skin-wrapping' fossils. This means that non-mammalian fossils are regularly reconstructed with the skin tracing the skeletons - features like muscles, filaments, or extra skin are often overlooked. As a result Epidexipteryx was reconstructed without membranes leading to palaeontologists believing that it lived similar to a species of lemur called the aye-aye. The BBC documentary Planet Dinosaur reconstructed Epidexipteryx in this way as well:

The discovery of the Yi showed that Scansoriopterygids were not like aye-ayes, but really bats or more likely flying squirrels. This had been suggested before the discovery of Yi - most notably by Andrea Cau. Although we have the membrane of the Yi it is not fully preserved so there are several different reconstructions of the wing - the discoverers stated that 'the flight apparatus of Yi cannot be confidently reconstructed...However, the range of possible flight apparatus configurations can be explored by considering different reconstructions'. When first discovered the media reported it as being a 'dinosaur bat' but the paper itself disagreed with that interpretation - Yi just vaguely resembled one. They argued that based on realistic membrane placement it would be a glider. Yi and other Scansoriopterygids had long tail feathers which have traditionally been seen as being for display. Likely that it still true, possibly brightly coloured it could be used to assert dominance or attract a mate, like with the feathers of a male peafowl. With the Scansoriopterygids they were also possibly used to help the dinosaurs glide - like the tail on a flying squirrel it could act as a rudder to steer. It did not have the exact body for relying solely on gliding so it could possibly rely on short bursts of powered flight.

One of the key discoveries associated with Yi and other Scansoriopterygids are the presence of feathers covering the body. They were closely related to the ancestors of modern birds, just instead being an evolutionary dead end, so it would be natural for them to be covered in feathers - albeit these were simple feathers, not something you would expect to see on a fully grown modern bird. Nevertheless, by use of an electron microscope it is possible to know, vaguely, what colour the feathers were. Preserved pigments leads us to believe that Yi had black feathers except on the head which was a yellow-brown hue. Yi and its cousins were perfectly adapted to life in the trees with flattened bodies and long fingers which allowed it to grip hold of tree trunks. The diet of Yi is still unknown but reasonable guesses can be made. Teeth and the presence of pterosaurs in the area with similar teeth would suggest that Scansoriopterygids were primarily insectivores, although their diet could include berries.

When and Where
Yi and other Scansoriopterygids lived during the Jurassic period, in particular the Callovian or Oxfordian, around 160 million years ago. During this time the world was warmer, wetter, and richer in oxygen. Where Yi came from was no exception. The Tiaojishan Formation in Northeast China has been believed to be either a sub-tropical or temperate climate, as well as being both warm and humid based on fossilised tree rings. As a result, the Yi would never experience the cold. Based on its arboreal lifestyle, and limited ability to undertake powered flight, this would mean that the Yi would be limited to forests. The region was very volcanic. Tiaojishan Formation has many layers showing occasional ash fall from volcanic eruptions - something that many Chinese fossil sights experienced. This is why Chinese dinosaurs are so well preserved that they regularly show evidence of feathers. Ash buries and preserves those unfortunate enough to be caught in the cloud - just think of how well-preserved the unfortunate victims of Pompeii are. Consequently, Chinese fossil sites every year gives us more and more well-preserved dinosaur remains - Yi is far from the only dinosaur that we know what colour they were due to their pigments being preserved.

Neighbours

A Jeholopterus, a pterosaur which lived alongside Yi

Yi had a wide variety of animal life living alongside it. Among these included the other two Scansoriopterygids genera, Scansoriopteryx and Epidexipteryx, but both were a lot smaller than the Yi. In fact, three of the smallest dinosaurs lived at the same time in the same place - Scansoriopteryx, Epidexipteryx, and Aurornis. Other arboreal dinosaurs resembled modern birds - such as Anchiornis - and likely competed with Yi. Pterosaurs were common in the region with around fifteen species being known to live alongside Yi. The Scansoriopterygids were not the only gliding animals - the flying squirrel like Volaticotherium could be found in the Tiaojishan forests. What about terrestrial dinosaurs? There are a few including a heterodontosaurid called Tianyulong and a few dinosaurs, including Anchiornis, lived alongside them. From other Chinese fossil sights around the same time we do know larger dinosaurs were roaming Jurassic China - such as Sinraptor, actually a relative of Allosaurus and not raptors. There is a possibility that a large carnivore related to Sinraptor stalked the land.

Thank you for reading. The sources I have used are as follows:
-Xing Xu, Xiaoting Zheng, Corwin Sullivan, Xiaoli Wang, Lida Xing, Yan Wang, Xiaomei Zhang, Jingmai K. O’Connor, Fucheng Zhang, & Yanhong Pan, 'A Bizarre Maniraptoran theropod with preserved evidence of membranous wings', Nature, 521:7550, (2015), 70-73
-'Yi', prehistoric-wildlife.com, [Accessed 20/03/2019]
-'Epidexipteryx', prehistoric-wildlife.com, [Accessed 20/03/2019]
-Gregory S. Paul, The Princeton Field Guide to Dinosaurs, Second Edition, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016)
-Trey the Explainer, 'Paleo Profile - Yi qi', Youtube, (29/04/2015), [Accessed 20/03/2019]
-Wang Yongdong, Saiki Ken'ichi, Zhang Wu, and Zheng Shaeolin, 'Biodiversity and palaeoclimate of the Middle Jurassic floras from the Tiaojishan Formation in western Liaoning, China', Progress in Natural Science, 16:9, (2006), 222-230

Comics Explained: The Skrulls

The Skrulls have been present in Marvel comics since the very start of the Lee-Kirby run. Since then they have remained a present force in Marvel's cosmology, and have managed to make many non-comic appearances, including the recently released Captain Marvel. As the Skrulls have appeared so regularly in comics we cannot go through every appearance, so we'll go over the basics and some stories which are worth reading.

Comic Origins

The Skrulls were some of the earliest parts of the Marvel Universe to be introduced - they, at times barely, predate the debut of the Hulk, Spider-Man, Dr Doom, and Thor. The Skrulls debuted in The Fantastic Four #2 which was released in January 1962. Paranoia and fear of infiltration were gripping the United States at the time - in 1956 the famous sci-fi movie The Invasion of the Body Snatchers was released - and the Skrulls reflected that fear. Skrulls could shape-shift and take the appearance of anyone, or anything. The Fantastic Four #2 opens with members of the team committing various crimes as another version of the team listens in horror from a remote lodge. The crime-committing team are revealed to be members of a reptilian race known as the Skrulls - with the Fantastic Four being the only super-powered individuals they offer the greatest threat to the invading Skrulls. By committing crimes disguised as the Fantastic Four the invading Skrulls hope for Earth to lose faith in the heroes. Instead, the Fantastic Four manage to capture the Skrulls and using comic books, in reality panels from Marvel's own Strange Tales and Journey Into Mystery, convince the Skrulls that Earth actually has many defenders. With their plan thwarted Mr Fantastic hypnotises three of the Skrulls into thinking that they were cows as the last one left to tell the Skrull mothership what had happened.

History of the Skrulls

The Skrulls in their debut

A common criticism of the sci-fi genre is that all the alien species are humanoids - Marvel has a loophole to explain this. A species of humanoid aliens called Xorrians spread their DNA millions of years ago which caused humanoid species to evolve across the universe. One of those planets Xorrian DNA was spread to was Skrullos in the Andromeda galaxy which would become the Skrull homeworld. The Xorrians would not be the only alien species to impact the evolution of the Skrulls. There is a race of god-like beings known as the Celestials who travelled the universe performing genetic experiments on the species they found - their experiments on Earth are why people can develop superpowers instead of just dying when exposed to radiation. Their experiments on Skrullos lead to the creation of three branches of the Skrull species: the Prime or Latent Skrulls, the unmodified Skrulls; the Deviant, the shape-shifters; and the Eternals, given superpowers and longevity. A war broke out between the three branches and the Deviants ended up wiping out the other two branches. Following the war the Skrulls began advancing their technology and formed a centralised state under the rule of a monarch. However, as the Skrulls began expanding off of Skrullos they started abandoning their initial violent ways. Upon arriving on new planets which were already inhabited they were happy to share their technology with other species. That is until they arrived on Hala. Hala was inhabited by two intelligent species - the blue-skinned humanoid Kree and the tree-like Cotati. Fearing that granting both the technology would lead to conflict the Skrulls devised a test: each would be dropped on a barren moon and had a year to do something fantastic. The Kree, on Earth's moon, built a great city while the Cotati grew a great forest. The Cotati was chosen enraging the Kree who massacred the Skrull party, including the emperor, and the Cotati. Skrull technology was reverse-engineered and the Kree formed their own empire to rival the Skrull Empire. An endless war began and the Skrulls lost their peaceful ways once more - they would conquer worlds now.

Kree-Skrull War

The periodic arrival of the Skrulls and Kree to Earth in the past were part of a wider war where Earth was caught in the crossfire. In a story beginning in 1971 by Roy Thomas we finally got to see the Kree-Skrull War in action. Thomas got the idea from This Island Earth and described it as 'apacious, galaxy-spanning races ... would be at war in the far reaches of space, and that their conflict would be threatening to spill over onto the Earth, turning our planet into the cosmic equivalent of some Pacific island during World War II.' Earth was a beachhead that both empires wanted in order to easier fight their opponents. Beginning in Avengers #89 when the Kree Captain Marvel returns to Earth we found out that a leading member of the Kree Empire, Ronan the Accuser, had seized control of the empire and aimed to fully bring the war to Earth. Ronan wanted Marvel assassinated for insubordination and planned to 'devolve' Earth - that way it would be no threat to the Kree and they could use it as a way to battle the Skrulls. The Avengers manage to fight off Ronan and the Kree, but some are attacked by cows which turn out to be the same cows who originally impersonated the Fantastic Four. In The Avengers #97 the Kree-Skrull War came to an end. The Kree Supreme Intelligence, a quasi-AI that once ruled the Kree Empire, gave friend of both Captain Marvel and the Hulk Rick Jones amazing powers which immobilised the space fleets of both empires. Unable to fight the sides stopped fighting. However, the Kree and Skrulls would occasionally restart their war after.

Secret Invasion

In 2008 we saw a story where the Skrulls had fully infiltrated Earth in a story by the fantastic Brian Michael Bendis and Leinil Francis Yu. This followed a series of story arcs which had already ruptured the superhero community - the Avengers had been disassembled, the Civil War had forced half the community underground, supervillains were gathering legal power through a team called the Thunderbolts, and most of the mutant population had lost their powers. During the Kree-Skrull War the Skrulls had gathered the DNA of major heroes as a Skrull diaspora emerged. Princess Veranke and her followers had been exiled from the Throneworld after predicting the planet's destruction; Galactus the World-Eater destroyed the Throneworld leaving Veranke as empress. Ninja Elektra was killed revealing that she was really a Skrull, and as Hank Pym and Mr Fantastic were performing an autopsy it turned out Pym was a Skrull who then attacked Fantastic. No hero or villain could tell if their allies were a Skrull or not. Vernake herself had taken over the identity of Spider-Woman and used that to undermine the Avengers. Skrull infiltration allowed simultaneous attacks on the S.H.I.E.L.D Helicarrier, the Raft (the prison for supervillains), the base of the Thunderbolts, and the Baxter Building (the HQ of the Fantastic Four). During the final battle the Wasp is killed and tensions arise about who is fighting who. Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin, went almost insane and relished the killing of several Skrulls who attempted to turn into Spider-Man. Using a weapon stolen from Deadpool Osborn shot and killed Veranke ending the invasion. The aftermath was not pleasant. S.H.I.E.L.D was dissolved, and a new organisation called HAMMER was formed under Osborn's rule. He formed his own version of the Avengers as the regular heroes went underground and he began solidifying his rule.

Some Skrulls

Super Skrull

The first Super Skrull was Kl'rt who debuted in Fantastic Four #18. He was a fierce Skrull warrior and Emperor Dorrek wanted him to battle the Fantastic Four after their earlier defeat. The Skrulls were adept at genetic manipulation so they gave Kl'rt new powers - the powers of the Fantastic Four. He managed to hold back the Fantastic Four, using their own powers against them, until Mr Fantastic realised that Super Skrull's powers were being augmented by an energy beam from the Skrull Empire. Invisible Woman managed to place a device on him disrupting the beam which stripped him of his powers. Since then Super Skrull has been a regular in Marvel and in Infinity #6 was even crowned emperor. Kl'rt has not been the only Super Skrull - any Skrull with modified powers has been classed as a 'Super Skrull'. For example, Veranke was a Super Skrull as she had been modified to also have Spider-Woman's powers - Skrulls normally cannot replicate superpowers.

Lyja

Lyja 'officially' debuted in 1991's Fantastic Four #357 but she technically appeared a lot earlier. Lyja was a female Skrull who impersonated the Thing's girlfriend, Alicia Masters, who then fell in love with, and married, the Human Torch. When her identity was revealed she decided to help the Fantastic Four save Alicia Masters from Skrull captivity and was willing to sacrifice herself to do so. Lyja and the Human Torch would have an off-and-on relationship until Secret Invasion. Due to her knowledge of the Fantastic Four she was tasked with eliminating them before the invasion began. As she had loved the Fantastic Four she refused to bomb the place, hence it was sent to a dimension to the Negative Zone instead. She travelled there as well and helped those trapped inside return to their regular universe. However, she wanted to remain in the Negative Zone to find who she was, and that was the last we have seen of her.

Talos

As Talos appears in the new Captain Marvel it seems right that we mention him in our section on notable Skrulls. Talos debuted in The Incredible Hulk #418 in 1994 and is unique among Skrulls. Thanks to a birth defect he was unable to change shape which would normally force him into a life of discrimination and prejudice. Talos made up for his inability to shape-shift by augmenting his body with machinery and earning a reputation for his brutal fighting earning him the title of Talos the Untamed. However, during the war against the Kree he was captured and he refused to commit ritual suicide vowing that he would only die in battle - the other Skrull disagreed, thought him dishonoured, and called him Talos the Tamed. Talos sought a new way to regain his honour and thought that by besting the Hulk he would regain his honour. However, the Hulk, at this stage, was intelligent and refused to fight and kill Talos - he even pretended to surrender so he wouldn't have to badly hurt Talos. The Skrull left outraged only to find that, as the Hulk refused to fight him, he had regained his honour. Since 1994 Talos has made a few small appearances here and there.

Reading Recommendations

Here are a few reading recommendations if you want stories featuring the Skrulls:

-The Fantastic Four #2

-The Fantastic Four #18

-The Fantastic Four #357

-The Avengers #89-97 - the Kree-Skrull War

-Skrull Kill Krew - a story where humans drank milk from the Skrull cows giving them superpowers and a desire to wipe out Skrull spies

-New Avengers #40 - where Spider-Woman is revealed to be a Skrull

-Secret Invasion

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

World History: Reforming Russia

Repin, Volga barge haulers, 1873

Throughout the nineteenth century several states tried to undergo a nebulous process called 'modernisation'. This basically meant industrialising and adapting institutions from Western Europe and the US. However, states did this for different reasons with varying outcomes. Today we'll be looking at one of these attempts in Russia. Russia has always been seen as a land of autocracy whether it be under tsar, soviet, or president, but there has been a tendency to overlook limits to autocracy and how people lived in Russia. In the last few decades nineteenth century Russia has started going through a change of image - particularly the reign of, quoting Edvard Radzinsky, 'The Last Great Tsar' Alexander II (1855-1881). Today we'll be looking at how Russia faced its challenges to autocracy ending just over a decade before the collapse of Russian tsardom during the Russian Revolution of 1917.

Russia at the Start of the Century

1920 painting of Napoleon's retreat from Moscow

As we saw last time when we looked at Russia we discussed how diverse Russia actually was - stretching from Poland to Alaska within Russia's borders many. national identities existed. Naturally, Russians were at the top of society but other national identities could exercise power. With it being a Grand Duchy Finland had a measure of self-autonomy granting Finnish national identity to continue. Meanwhile, other identities were ruthlessly persecuted - antisemitism was commonplace and many Jews were confined to 'The Pale' (a section of land in Eastern Europe), Polish nationalism was brutally crushed, and Central Asian pastoralists were regularly dispossessed of their land. There was a large disparity between the culture of the Russian peasantry (the overwhelming majority of the population) and the nobility. There was a push-and-pull among the nobles between adopting 'Slavic' or 'Western' policies and cultural practices - this would continue until the nobility was abolished by the Bolsheviks. While the peasantry spoke their own languages - whether it be Russian, Ukrainian, Yiddish, or any other language - the nobles spoke French, it was even made language of the court by Catherine the Great. Large part's of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace was written in French to show how this. The Christianity of the peasantry in Russia was very different to that of the nobility - it was a blend of Russian Orthodoxy and local pre-Christian beliefs. Of course, there were many other beliefs including Islam, Judaism, Catholicism, and Protestantism, to name a few, present in the empire. Serfdom was very present in Russia - by the time of emancipation in 1861 there were over 10 million serfs. Russian serfdom was brutal - treated like slaves they could be sold, beaten, and sexually abused by landowners.

In 1801 a court coup deposed tsar Paul I for trying to limit the power of the nobility and issuing in land reform. His son, Alexander I, was crowned after helping conspire to overthrow his father who then proceeded to solidify his power. By overturning some of his father's despotic laws and bringing loyal friends, including his mother Marya Feodorovna, to key positions of court he found support among the public and could outnumber the other conspirators. However, he did appeal to conservative forces - with the exception of Marya women in court were curtailed and he hoped to act as a mediator to prevent Napoleon's expansion. One of Alexander's major allies, Mikhail Speranskii, started implementing further reforms which angered the nobility as he expelled corrupt nobles, supported financial policies which harmed their interests, and formed the State Council as a buffer to their power. To win back noble support Alexander exiled Speranskii to Siberia at the worst possible time. Speranskii could see that Napoleon was gearing up to invade Russia so was preparing the army - his exile weakened these efforts. When the Grand Armée, numbering half a million (twice the size of the Russian army), invaded on June 1812. Knowing that Russia could not stand against Napoleon generals, especially Mikhail Kutuzov, decided to let the land itself wear down Napoleon. The Russian army would retreat and burn fields and cities, including Moscow in September, depriving Napoleon of using local resources - a tactic he had used during the wars in Central Europe. In fact, around half of the Grand Armée was made of non-French conscripts. Through lack of supplies, Russian partisans, and the weather only 10% of Napoleon's forces escaped. The Congress of Vienna of 1815 left Russia as one of the three conservative 'policemen' of Europe - the other two being Prussia and Austria.

Reform and Revolt

The Decembrists

The rest of Alexander's reign has been characterised as intense conservatism and autocracy - this is not entirely inaccurate though. David Ransell has argued that we should instead see this period split into two - one of conservative reform and one of repression. As late as 1818 Alexander discussed how he wanted a constitutional order for Russia and in 1820, in private, expressed hopes for the constitution being drafted. Emancipation of serfs had been slowly developing since the reign of Catherine the Great and Alexander continued this trend, although all that came of it were rejected proposals. Immediately following the defeat of Napoleon literature helped expand Russian vernacular which would pave the way for Dostoevsky and Tolstoy decades later. The reformist ethos collapsed after 1820. With the nobility again disliking emancipation of serfs Alexander abandoned any pretence of reform. The semi-independent Polish diet, the Sejm, angered him so in 1821 he argued to the French envoy that it was 'unworkable' in 'less educated societies'. In 1825 Alexander died and his conservative son, Nicholas I, would come to power - two revolts would set Russia on the stage for conservative repression for the next few decades.

The first was the Decembrist Revolt in 1825. Not all of Russia's powerful were opposed to reform - secret societies were deeply upset by Alexander's abandonment of reform. Seeing the ideas of both the American and French Revolutions had inspired a younger generation, and the Napoleonic Wars inspired by a deeper patriotism in Russia and gave them an opportunity to see the rest of Europe. One Decembrist, Nikolai Bestuzhev, testified saying 'My five months stay in Holland in 1815, when a constitutional administration was being introduced there, gave me my first concept of the benefits of laws and civil rights; then two visits to France and a voyage to England and Spain confirmed my attitude.' The secret Union of Salvation wanted serfdom to be abolished and for Russia to become a constitutional monarchy - as Freemasons were influential in America and France their secrecy and hierarchy was based off of Masons. Seeing Nicholas become tsar scared the Decembrists into action who rose up in St Petersburg in December but were soon crushed; a second rising in Ukraine was soon crushed. 282 were hanged and the rest were imprisoned or exiled - in a trend in Russian history women eagerly joined their husbands in exile seeing themselves as supporting a new Russia. Their writings in exile would start a literary model for Russian exiles. Several years later, in November 1830, Russia planned to send troops to help crush the rebellions in France and Belgium which Polish secret societies strongly disliked. Polish nationals had long looked to France for inspiration and Napoleon had established a Polish, but puppet, state. In November the Polish army rose up and the Congress supported the rebellion - after a year the Imperial Army crushed the revolt and Poland was declared to be 'an integral part of Russia'. These two revolts made the conservative Nicholas even more willing to crush nationalist, liberal, or socialist opposition - the famous image of the 'Russian exile' properly began in this period. Russia has had a long history of secret societies, and the repression of Nicholas' reign influenced their continuation. Nicholas helped out abroad - in 1849 Russia helped crush revolution in Hungary, as an example. Thanks to his socialist writings, like Poor Folk (1845), Fyodor Dostoevsky was exiled to Siberia in 1849.

Crimea - A Turning Point

Russia had long seen itself as the defender of Slavic peoples and the Orthodox Church - Russian influence helped bring independence to Greece in 1830. By the 1850s the Ottoman Empire was undergoing its own attempts to reform - one of our future World History posts - which other European powers were exploiting. Both France and Russia had been putting pressure on the Ottomans to grant special rights for Christian communities in Palestine - France for Catholics and Russia for Orthodox. When the Ottomans refused to grant Russia its demands Nicholas declared war in 1853 and quickly took Moldavia and Wallachia, however, he did not realise that the Ottomans had refused due to them being supported by Britain and France. Thus the Crimean War began. Crimea was a disaster. Russia had issues mobilising due to a lack of railways and infrastructure, serfdom meant that a properly trained army was hard to create, and the navy and army proved to be very outdated. Quoting Edvard Radzinsky 'It turned out that his army was fighting the army of Napoleon III with weapons of the era of Napoleon I'. The war soon became unpopular with all combatants - Lord Tennyson's poem Charge of the Light Brigade (1854) laments Britain's ineptitude during the Battle of Cardigan. It was also the first major war to have photographs sent home which soured opinion - war could not be celebrated when it looked so bloody. It was even worse for Russia - Nicholas I lost his ego upon seeing the enemy navy from his villa in Alexandria. Demoralising the army Nicholas died in 1855, and his son, Alexander II, had to sign a peace in 1856. No one could avoid reform now - Slavophile Iurii Samarin wrote that 'We were defeated not by external forces of the Western alliance, but by our own internal weakness...Stagnation of thought, depression of productive forces, the rift between government and people, disunity between social classes and the enslavement of one of them to another'. 

Alexander II

Abolishing Serfdom

As mentioned earlier there had been reforms of serfdom, enacted or just planned, since the reign of Catherine. The question is, why was Alexander so eager to abolish serfdom? There have been several theories why: the triumph of liberal humanitarian ideas, Romanticist Vassily Andreyevich Zhukovsky was made chief tutor to the young heir; the economic decline of the nobility when debts grew and estates became less productive; and the fear of peasant revolt, 1796-1826 there had been 990 disorders which rose to 1,799 in 1826-1856. Emancipation had been promised to those who enlisted in the army, when those promises had started to be broken there was a fear of reprisal. Despite the title of 'Tsar Liberator' Alexander II was still conservative. Emancipation was to be from 'above' which would ensure the nobility remained in power. Loosening hold on the press allowed liberal voices for reform to spread and committees were formed to plan emancipation. It came in 1861 it was a let down for the peasants. Similar to how freed slaves in the US viewed their emancipation a few years later the 10 million serfs hoped they would now own the land they had been tied to. Alexander hoped to turn the serfs into small landowners, but not immediately - they were segregated into 'village societies', mirs, which answered to a self-rule administration called volosti, and they had to pay a redemption payment initially estimated to take 49 years to pay off. Furthermore, payments were increased by inflated evaluations of the land and nobles could keep parts of their old estate. As a result, the 'emancipated' serfs were subjected to their set of laws, where corporal punishment remained legal, and Alexander's new zemstvos had no say in them. Immediately disorders rose - from 126 in 1860 to 1,889 in 1861. 

Other Reforms

From peasants to workers

Alexander did not just focus on emancipating serfs - he wanted a 'Western' but distinctly Russian state. We have already mentioned the zemstvos which were formed in 1864, and were followed by municipal councils in 1870, to form a network of elective local government systems. They were both progressive and conservative. Non-nobles, and some peasants, could finally have a chance to influence local politics - doctors in zemstvos rose from 613 in 1870, to 1,558 in 1890, and 3,082 in 1910. However, peasants were still excluded and the municipalities were very elitist - in St Petersburg the richest 202 individuals, 705 middle-class, and poorest 15,233 all had the same number of seats. Defeat in Crimea made the military supportive of any reforms which started being reformed on Western lines. A massive standing army with no reserves was replaced by universal military training; new training on Western lines was implemented; and the Universal Training Act of 1874 established all-class conscription where education determined length of service. This encouraged greater education, wealthy students stayed in university for as long as possible to avoid conscription, and wealthier peasants sent their children to elementary education for two-years as it reduced terms of service from six to two years. Rural primary schools rose from 23,000 in 1880 to 54,416 in 1890, however, rural peasants often saw little education regardless. Censorship, to an extent, was reduced - if the Chief Censorship Committee of Ministry of the Interior could ban anything they disliked. Preliminary censorship in 1865 ended for newspapers, periodicals, and books over 160 pages to lighten the load on the strict system - hence why radical socialist Leo Tolstoy managed to publish so much, War and Peace definitely exceeded 160 pages. Alexander also amnestied many exiles, especially surviving Decembrists, although there were many limits - most famously anarchist thinker Mikhail Bakunin. Industry also began in this period although it was very sluggish - it would take until the time of Stalin to properly industrialise. As late as 1910 Russia imported in the vast majority of its machinery. A novel way to raise money Alaska was even sold to the US.

Russification

One thing that Alexander wanted to do, and that of his successors well into the twentieth century, was tie the people to Russia - he wanted a nation, not a state. Panslavism was a very important driving force in the ideas of the elite - leading newspaper editor Mikhail Katkov regarded Russian identity as a super-nation like British identity. As Britain was composed of English, Scottish, Welsh and some Irish he hoped that Russia could be the same; something Dostoevsky also advocated for. Russian was implemented in local schools and governments, the Imperial Army absorbed minorities hoping it would turn them into Russians, and nationalists were deported. In Central Asia Russian settlers were encouraged to colonise the region, albeit not a new policy, to displace local peoples. Following the emancipation of the serfs Polish szlachta (land-owners) hoped this could pave the way for Polish emancipation, and secret societies were formed to agitate for Poland. When the Imperial Army was going to conscript Poles in January 1863 an uprising began which, like the Decembrists, were crushed. Over 18,000 nationalists were deported to Siberia and 365 leaders were publicly executed. Polish was banned in administration and schools, the University of Warsaw was converted into a Russian institution, and only Russians could become local governors. Geoffrey Hosking has highlighted the destructive nature of Russification of Russia's Jews - as the Pale started seeing restrictions very slowly lifted between 1859 and 1879 antisemitism became weaponised for nationalism. Panslavist Ivan Aksakov argued that Jews continued to live by their own rules and were backed by foreign powers. In 1903 the Protocols of the Elders of Zion first appeared - a conspiracy theory stating that leaders of 'international Jewry' were using liberalism and the French Revolution to take over the world and, eventually, Russia. Antisemitic violence broke out during times of political turmoil - in Kishinev in 1903 blood libel accusations led to a pogrom killing 47 Jews. Only the semi-independent Finland managed to escape the brunt of Russification, in 1863 it even was awarded its own parliament. However, under the reign of Nicholas II it was attempted again - the 1899 February Manifesto declared that Russia had supreme power over Finland, and the 1900 Language Manifesto forbade Finnish.

Jan Matejko, Polonia, 1864

Russification was not formerly implemented and was actively resisted. Despite banning Polish it was continued to be taught, and spoke, and this was repeated with Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Finnish. Throughout the 1870s the state continuously clashed with intellectuals in Ukraine who promoted Ukrainian as a language, so much so it that Galicia became known as a 'Ukrainian Piedmont'. Nationalist groups continued to grow across the political spectrum - Josef Pilsudki of the Polish Socialist Party tried to obtain arms from Japan during the Russo-Japanese War, and the Social Democratic Party of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania became Marxist. Meanwhile, Roman Dmowski of the National Democrats wanted Poland to be autonomous but in the empire. Persecution of Jews saw resistance - Zionism began growing in popularity (it would take until after this period for it to become a popular identity) and Jews disproportionally joined socialist and Marxist parties due to their emancipatory rhetoric. Leading Bolshevik Leon Trotsky was born to a Jewish family, as an example. This brings us neatly onto our next section.

The Left

Tolstoy organising famine relief in 1891

Despite most of Europe's socialist thought being directed at urban workers primarily rural Russia, but the Left became a strong force despite this and political repression. The lifting of some censorship restrictions allowed socialist papers to enter Russia - the 160 page limit even allowed Das Kapital to escape censorship for some time. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), which was socialist at the time, regularly translated Marxist papers and sent them to Russia. That is not to say that Russia lacked its own radical population. The reform era, and its limits, inspired a new class who saw themselves as 'the new people' or the 'intelligentsia' - N.G. Chernyshevskii's What is to be Done? (1863), which inspired Lenin years later, reflected this. Agrarian socialism, suitable for overwhelmingly rural Russia, became a driving force on the Left. Leo Tolstoy was a proponent of aiding the rural poor, he organised several famine reliefs, and advocated for a blend of Christianity, spiritualism, and anarchism. Tolstoy's views would become highly influential to Gandhi - both would steep themselves in spiritualism and dress as peasants. We also saw a look at the urban poor. We have already mentioned Mikhail Bakunin - one of the major thinkers behind modern anarchism - who travelled around Europe advocating worker revolt, and clashing with a young Karl Marx over property. Perhaps the most influential anarchist is Pyotr Kropotkin. Born into a landowning factory he became disillusioned with society and in the 1870s joined a revolutionary society. Like many other radicals he was imprisoned and eventually escaped to live in exile. In 1892 he published the very influential Conquest of Bread which went beyond Bakunin's collectivism and instead advocated for mutual aid. There were also Marxists - the most famous being Vladimir Lenin. Like other radicals he had been exiled and spent years developing his theories. Alexandra Kollontai became an advocate for Marxist feminism and Finnish independence, and her time in exile helped establish feminism in Scandinavia. Furthermore, Kollontai helped lay the groundwork for International Women's Day.

Not all left-wing activity in Russia was theoretical. Violent secret societies - very much in line with previous movements - aimed to shape society. The most famous was Narodnaia volia, 'People's Will', which broke off from another group, Zemlia i volia, in 1879 after a disagreement. Their aim was to destabilise the government by assassinating key officials until the state could be overthrown, and following this a new regime could be put in place which would convene an assembly to represent the people. They believed it could work. Emerging radical Vera Zasulich in 1878 was acquitted by court, and got widespread public sympathy, after she had almost successfully assassinated Fyodor Trepov - who had help put down the 1830 and 1863 Polish rebellions and had recently had a political prisoner flogged. Narodnaia volia had one figure in mind - Alexander II. After several failed attempts on March 1 1881 a bomb was thrown at Alexander's carriage in St Petersburg - he died shortly after thanks to his wounds. The aftermath saw an antisemitic wave across Russia, outpouring of grief for the tsar, and the very conservative Alexander III becoming tsar. Leon Trotsky would denounce People's Will and individual acts of terror on the basis that it created martyrs out of the slain, and justified harsh reprisals.

Alexander II's funeral procession

Reaction

Wanted poster for Sergey Degayez

With the death of Alexander II and the crowning of Alexander III Russia went from a conservative reformer to an outright reactionary. Reaction did happen under Alexander II, we can see this with the reprisals against peasants and nationalists. Following the tsar's assassination a secret police known as the okhrana was formed - they were tasked with disseminating false information, infiltrating left-wing groups or trade unions, and disrupting the labour movement. It is quite possible that The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was written by okhrana agents. There is an interesting case of leading inspector Georgy Sudeykin, who in 1879 had exposed the Kiev branch of People's Will, and was able to supervise all secret agents. Sudeykin arrested a key figure in People's Will, Sergey Degayez, and the two formed an agreement: Sudeykin would use the okhrana to eliminate Degayez's enemies in People's Will as Degayez would eleminate Sudeykin's enemies using People's Will. Together they arrested the group's leader Vera Figner. However, People's Will learnt of Degayez's betrayal and offered a new deal - kill Sudeykin or be killed. He killed his former ally and fled to the US. Meanwhile, jurist and adviser Konstantin Pobedonostsev was appointed to enforce conservative and reactionary rulings until his death in 1907. He managed to ensure that Alexander III heard his policies which included condemning elections and democracy, deviations from strict Christianity, a call for excommunicating Tolstoy in 1901, extensive Russification, and in 1882 he managed to implement the May Laws which persecuted Jews and reinforced the Pale of Settlement. When Alexander died in 1894 his son, Nicholas II, continued his father's reactionary politics - he himself had watched Alexander II bleed out. Bloody Sunday in 1905 saw his guard attack a protest killing hundreds and would set the stage for revolution.

Conclusion

Russia's nineteenth century was not a great time of liberalism which ended with a bomb, nor was it a time of overarching repression. Alexander II wanted reform that could keep the nobility in power but also create a new Russian, 'modern' state. Meanwhile, political repression, even under Alexander III and Nicholas II, was never total and saw resistance. The limits of reforms and changes in society would set the stage for the Russian Revolution in 1917. A question arises, would this post exist if it did not set the stage for 1917? Quite possibly. Russia was not the only state to attempt to 'modernise' in the 1800s - in future posts we'll also look at attempts in Japan, China, and the Ottoman Empire and Egypt. These ideas could be found across the world and were adapted or changed in each setting. We can see how malleable ideas and policies are by looking at this period. Of course, to understand the rise of the Russian Revolution we have to understand this time period. It has also becomes relevant in recent years - counteracting Soviet historiographies Alexander II in particular has been cast as 'The Last Great Tsar' or 'The Tsar Liberator' (a term also used during his life). Nicholas II has also seen a partial rehabilitation despite the political repression and antisemitism of his reign. Looking at the 1800s can we possibly discuss these narratives?

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Geoffrey Hosking, Russia: People and Empire, 1552-1917, (London: HarperCollins, 1997)

-Gregory Freeze, Russia: A History, Third Edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)

-Edvard Radzinsky, Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar, Trans. Antonia Bouis, (New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2005)

-Walter Moss, Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky, (London: Anthem, 2002)

-Christopher Read, 'In Search of Liberal Tsardom: The Historiography of Autocratic Decline', The Historical Journal, 45:1, (2002), 195-210

-N.G.O. Pereira, 'Alexander II and the Decision to Emancipate the Russian Serfs, 1855-61', Canadian Slavonic Papers, 22:1, (1980), 99-115

-Herburtus Jahn, 'Politics at the Margins and the Margins of Politics in Imperial Russia', Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History, 14:1, (2013), 101-116

-Alexandra Kollontai, The Autobiography of a Sexually Emancipated Communist Woman, Trans. Salvator Attansio, marxists.org

Thank you for reading and I hope you found it interesting. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. For other World History posts we have a list here. Next time we will be looking at the US Civil War, the Reconstruction era, myth, successes and failures.

Comics Explained: La Lucha, The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico

As I am writing it has recently been International Women's Day and in my local area a more radical version of the movement has came into being - one advocating internationalism, trans rights, and anti-fascism. This reminded me of a graphic novel released in 2015, and in our first for Comics Explained it is based on real events. Some of the best comics are ones detailing actual events - March is another good example. La Lucha, The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico follows human rights activist Lucha Castro of El Centro de Derechos Humanos de las Mujeres (the Center for the Human Rights of Women) in Juarez, Chihuahua. The city of Juarez has been caught in Mexico's War on Drugs as cartels and the police/military both commit human rights abuses, especially against women. La Lucha follows Lucha Castro and other human rights activists in a startling depiction of human rights abuses. The graphic novel, meanwhile, is a bleak one. Covering gendered violence and human rights abuses it is entirely monochrome and the drawings are not overly detailed. It works well in creating the feel of human rights abuses in Chihuahua. It is a bleak time - a happy future may never come around.

Background and Opening

La Lucha was drawn and written by writer and activist Jon Sack, and is edited by Adam Shapiro - the Head of Campaigns at Front Line Defenders. Front Line Defenders is an Irish based human rights organisation which helps fund poorer human rights groups in poorer countries. The Center for the Human Rights of Women (Cedehm) was formed in 2005 as a way to defend women against human rights abuses, and later defending human rights activists. Human rights abuses have largely been overlooked in Mexico - in the opening when crossing the border to El Paso, Texas a US border guard is surprised to learn that abuses are taking place. Since 1993 over 370 confirmed women have been found murdered, where over 137 showed signs of sexual abuse. The intensification of the War on Drugs under Vicente Fox in the early-2000s brought a militarised police to Chihuahua which increased human rights abuses. Cedehm was formed in order to challenge these abuses. Helping victims get justice became the focus of Cedehm. There is a spectre of abuse in the opening - while Sack and Shapiro was in Juarez saw the military patrol the streets following the shooting of two people, including a police chief. It highlights that a park is known as Praderas de Irak, the 'Prairies of Iraq', as one activist states 'Well, we're also in a war'.

Marisela
La Lucha does not focus solely on Lucha Castro - we get to see the stories of other human rights activists. The most striking one is the story of Marisela Escobedo - Lucha acted as her lawyer. Interviewing her son in El Paso, Juan Frayre Escobedo, he tells us the story of how his sister, Rubi, was murdered by her boyfriend Sergio Rafael Barraza Bocanegra in 2008. Rubi and Sergio vanished, and despite disinterest by the authorities, Marisela managed to track Serio to Fresnillo where he was arrested and revealed that he had murdered Rubi. They only found a third of her body. Despite the overwhelming evidence against him, he had shown them where Rubi's body was, the court absolved Sergio in 2010 for his connection to the powerful cartel Los Zetas. Enraged Marisela acted. Starting a grassroots movement the judges were suspended and a retrial found Sergio guilty in absentia but he had vanished. Marisela changed her tactic to try and find Sergio, marching in a dress with Rubi's face on it. She marched through Fresnillo, marched through Mexico City, and demanded to see Mexican president Felipe Calderon. The comic also graphically recreates one of present-day Mexico's darkest videos. December 16 Marisela was protesting outside the Capitol Building in Chihuahua. A sicario (hitman) arrives, she runs, and she is killed. As Marisela was buried her brother-in-law was found in the streets of Juarez with a plastic bag over his head. The rest of her family flee across the border being mistreated by border guards, and aim to continue her fight from the US.

Norma
Another key story, albeit a very short one, follows Norma Ledesma, the founder of Justicia Para Nuestras Hijas (Justice for Our Daughters). Norma's daughter Paloma disappeared aged 15 in 2002 and was found murdered a month later. Like Lucha, Norma aims to find what happens to disappeared women and find those who perpetrated human rights abuses. Norma bluntly summarises the situation 'There is no way of restoring life to someone no can life be turned backwards to a time before someone was raped or maltreated... so there is no Justice, but there is Truth'.

Josefina

Another major story follows the Reyes-Salazar family, now living in El Paso to escape both the military and cartels. Josefina and Saul Reyes-Salazar were raised by progressives who instilled in them an urge to fight what was right. In 1998 the siblings had successfully prevented a nuclear waste dump from being created in Sierra Blanca. When the femicides began in Juarez Josefina began protesting the murders which resulted in her house being sprayed by gun fire. In 2008 Calderon intensified the War on Drugs in Juarez creating a militarised zone where murders, extortion, and torture became endemic. While protesting the military they disappeared her son Miguel Angel and was returned 16 days later with signs of physical and psychological abuse. Three months later he other son was executed at a wedding, and Miguel Angel was again arrested on an accusation that he was a sicario for the Juarez Cartel. They moved from their home in Guadalupe but when visiting her home there was a kidnap attempt, and as Josefina resisted she was killed on January 3 2010. The family resisted and the local area became enraged by the murder of Josefina - they even started printing the disappearances of family members on milk cartons. In August 2010 Ruben Reyes declared 'Well...here I am' when armed men came to get him - he was then shot. Despite this the family pressed on but as more and more of them were disappeared or tortured, caught between cartels and the army, they fled to the US in 2011. Saul Reyes-Salazar concludes that 'Guadalupe is practically a ruin. I believe that for all these dead there will never be justice...no one will be detained... no one jailed... no one condemned'.

Conclusion

La Lucha concludes in pessimistic terms. It came out that Marisela's driver had been threatened by an attorney from the state attorney's office for refusing to claim that Marisela was working for the Sinaloa Cartel. More members of the Reyes-Salazar family had managed to received asylum in the US, and the Juarez Valley had lost 70% of its population through either murder or inhabitants fleeing. Lucha Castro offers a pessimistic and optimistic look to the future. She states that 'Disappearances and the killing of journalists with impunity is still occurring, but the government doesn't want to talk about it. Our doors, however, will remain open'.

Many of the readers of this blog is in the North Atlantic world (Western Europe, the US, and Canada) where International Women's Day has somewhat lost its radical roots. In many areas it has become an event only for white, middle-class, cis-women, and at its worst openly extorts bigotry - especially against trans women. La Lucha highlights the need for International Women's Day to return to its roots. Abuse and torture against women has become widespread in Juarez and the femicides have largely fallen out of media's attention. My local International Women's Day offers a hopeful future - it resoundingly condemned transphobia, saw talks from an organiser hoping to protect sex workers, and called for collaboration against Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil (and honoured murdered activist Mariella Franco). Hopefully, International Women's Day can help Lucha Castro and the activists at the Cedehm.

Lucha Castro

Thank you for reading and I hope you found this post interesting. Please leave any thoughts and comments. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

If you were interested in reading more on human and women's rights in Mexico here is a quick reading list:
-Jon Sack, Adam Shapiro, and Lucha Castro, La Lucha, The Story of Lucha Castro and Human Rights in Mexico, (London: Verso, 2015)
-J.Tuckman, ‘Mexico: The Graphic Tale of Lucha Castro’s struggle to defend women’s rights,’ (2015), https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/aug/05/la-lucha-the-story-of-lucha-castro-and-human-rights-in-mexico-graphic-novel; accessed 5 August 2017
-E.Edmonds-Pli and D.Shirk, Contemporary Mexican Politics, Second Edition, (Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2012)
-A.R.Schmidt Camacho, ‘Ciudadana X: Gender Violence and the Denationalization of Women’s Rights in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico,’ CR: The Centennial Review, 5:1, (2005), 255-292
-http://cedehm.org.mx

Left-Wing and the 'Other' History: Gayatri Spivak's 'Can the Subaltern Speak?'

Gayatri Spivak

One of the most influential works in postcolonial studies is Can the Subaltern Speak? (1983) by Gayatri Spivak. Spivak, in her own words, is a 'practical Marxist-feminist-deconstructionist' applying feminist, Marxist, and some postmodernist ideas to society, thought, and the past. Hence, this post will focus on both 'Left-wing' and the 'Other' history. Can the Subaltern Speak? is a complicated text and by applying both deconstructionism and Marxism it can become confusing. Today we will look at Can the Subaltern Speak? and discuss why Spivak wrote it, her ideas, and the issues she arises from the text.

What is Postcolonialism and Subalterns?

Antonio Gramsci

Postcolonial thought can be found in a variety of different subjects including philosophy, literature, and history. I would consider myself heavily inspired by postcolonial schools of thought. Postcolonialism aims to analyse and criticise colonial and imperial thoughts, and their impacts on culture and society in colonised societies. In particular, postcolonialism has looked anew at certain givens in thought, such as rationality and logic. We often see a rejection of Enlightenment thought, to certain degrees - the Enlightenment emerged in a European worldview to explain Europe, something which cannot properly map onto other societies. Dipesh Chakrabarty, as an example, criticised Henry Reynolds for calling Walter Arthur as 'the first Aboriginal nationalist' as it was applying a Eurocentric idea to a culture who would not viewed it in that sense. Postcolonial studies have produced many major figures including Frantz Fanon and Edward Said. Said's Orientalist theory has been very influential in this - Orientalism saw the intellectual creation of Orient by the Occident during colonialism. This polarisation created through misunderstanding or power dynamics 'the Oriental becomes more Orient, the Westerner becomes more Western'. You may notice similarities with postmodernist thought and you would be correct in noticing this - postcolonialism is heavily inspired by postmodernism. Marxism has played a great influence in postcolonial thought - Fanon, Said, and Spivak were all inspired by Marx himself. However, postcolonial thought has criticised complete application of Marxism to colonial theory. Again, Marx and Engels wrote in a very European context and their ideas were born in a European context. There is one particular aspect of Marxist thought which postcolonialism truly embraced - the subaltern.

Edward Said, one of the major postcolonial theorists

As you could probably see I am very influenced by the idea of the subaltern - hence why half of this series is described as the 'Other'. One of the major theoretical forces behind the subaltern was Italian communist Antonio Gramsci - he is perhaps one of the most influential Marxists with his ideas inspiring Said, Spivak, Fanon, Zygmunt Bauman, and Eric Hobsbawm to just name a few. Gramsci had been incarcerated by Mussolini's fascist regime and 'subaltern' was used in his prison notes as code for 'proletariat'. The subaltern is a group or population socially, politically, and geographically excluded from hegemonic power structures in society. As a result, we saw attempts to give voice to the subaltern including 'history told from bottom'. Marxist historians especially focused on Gramsci's subaltern concept - a good example is E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class (1963). The subaltern became integral to postcolonial studies - what better way to break from imperial history by studying history through the voices of the colonised? One of the major contributions to this was Subaltern Studies - a series of essays from 1979 to 1980 edited by Ranajit Guha aiming to study history from below. However, this is where Spivak comes in.

Problems with Subaltern Studies and Postcolonialism

Most of the criticisms of Subaltern Studies and postcolonialism will be discussed when we look at Spivak's essay itself, so to avoid repetition we'll only look at some of the criticisms. A key issue is that, especially with Subaltern Studies, attempts at discussing history from below often face issues about who is classed as an 'other'. Let's use a contemporary example. In the United States today there are many groups who can be classed as an 'other' - does a straight, cis, white male who is working class as a subaltern, or does a white, cis, gay man? Race and ethnicity in a country like the US are clear indicators of being subalterns but we face issues with this - different races face different forms of marginalisation, and factors such as class, sexuality, sex, and gender can impact this as well. This remains complicated in colonial settings. To avoid relying on imperial sources many postcolonial historians and theorists relied on indigenous sources, however, most of these sources were written by an indigenous elite. Colonialism was not simply European colonisers against colonised peoples - a local elite in many areas served as mediators between colonisers and the colonised. Dipesh Chakrabarty argued that elites and dominant groups could be classed as subalterns as: they were subjected to colonisation, could be subalterns in other regions, or could have subaltern pasts. However, by focusing solely on them early postcolonialism ended repeating elite ideas - just a colonised elite. There were other issues. For example, in Orientalism Edward Said focused on elite Western culture in creating Orientalist views - ranging from arts to political debates to Shakespeare - and not non-elite culture in forming Orientalism. Furthermore, Said had a habit of stripping agency away from the subaltern - Orientalism was thrust upon them universally. Said has escaped harshest of critiques as it was evident that he was aware of his own flaws.

Can the Subaltern Speak?
In 1983 Spivak wrote her criticism of Eurocentrism, postcolonialism and Subaltern Studies. Spivak argued that in both academia and postcolonialism there was a continued desire to have Europe, and European thought, remain the subject of discussion. Written records and indigenous intellectual texts were central to postcolonialism, but as a result it reduced other forms of indigenous thought to the periphery - other forms of thought were described as 'myth' or 'folklore' and thus discarded. The transparency of the intellectual was taken as a given - Sanskrit sources in India were produced by Brahmans who wanted to use discourse to their advantage. Instead, we have to undertake 'measuring silences'. Unorganised peasant labour, subsistence farmers, tribes, and communities of zero workers in India had no access to this. The issue becomes worse when discussing women 'the international division of labour, the subject of exploitation cannot know and speak the text of female exploitation...The woman is doubly in the shadow'. There were also issues of homogenising the subaltern which Spivak wished to critique. She reiterated what Guha stated that 'The same class or element which was dominant in one area...could be among the dominated in another'. India's colonial experience was different to that of Africa which was different to Latin America. Even in India colonialism was felt differently - Kashmir differed to Bengal which differed to the Punjab, and varied further based on ethnicity, gender, caste, class, and whether you lived in a town, city, or the country. Despite this, European aspects of thought were applied to come to terms with this so we have a double bind of applying European thought to a colonised setting, and using an indigenous elite. Spivak argued that 'radical practice should attend to this double session of representations rather than reintroduce the individual subject through totalizing concepts of power and desire'. Furthermore, she criticised postcolonial historians for having a knee-jerk reaction when looking at society and culture in pre-colonial, or colonial, settings. 'A nostalgia for lost origins can be detrimental to the exploration of social realities within the critique of imperialism'. Imperialism's legacies continue to plague India today - religious intolerance, intense misogyny, caste discrimination, and racism. These were made worse by British rule, but Spivak criticised postcolonial historians for romanticising a past implying that they were invented by Britain. Instead, Britain exploited these issues in order to rule.

A British depiction of suttee

Spivak particularly wanted to write the essay based on the historiography concerning one particular event. Among high-caste Hindus when a husband died his wife was immolated on his funeral pyre in a custom called sati, or suttee. Very few cases of sati actually happened - between 1800 and independence in 1947 there were around 100 cases out of a population of tens of millions - but the British East India Company (EIC) viewed it as an endemic issue. In 1829 the EIC banned the custom, and there would be several more attempts to ban it. Spivak's description of this has now become the phrase to describe justifications of colonialism: White men are saving brown women from brown men. Colonial and imperial historians repeated this justification - even when they viewed empire negatively it was seen as being needed to eradicate sati. Postcolonial historians instead looked at indigenous sources which painted a different image - women apparently wanted to immolate themselves. They wanted to keep up tradition so willingly immolated themselves. However, Spivak highlighted one key issue - both sources were not written by women. 'One diagnosis of female free will is substituted for another'. Women's voices, voices of the subaltern, were sidelined in favour of male voices - whether it be from the East India Company or from Brahmans. Spivak pessimistically concludes stating that 'The subaltern cannot speak'. The subaltern was always the object, not the subject, of study. We lose the voice of the subaltern consequently.

Legacies
Gayatri Spivak's essay greatly influenced postcolonial thought - so much so she is now seen as one of the 'founders of postcolonialism', something Spivak has refused to fully accept. Nevertheless, we have seen postcolonial history trying to avoid, or acknowledging, the over-reliance on indigenous elite sources. Increased engagement with oral stories has allowed engagement with subaltern voices - historians have managed to interview Scheduled Castes and women about their experiences during the Partition of India in 1947. Unfortunately, this is an impossibility, or a near impossibility, for discussing women's views of sati. Spivak never offered answers, just questions. It is something that anyone studying history or looking at politics has to take into account - how do we allow the subaltern to speak?

The sources I have used are as follows:
-Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, 'Can the Subaltern Speak?', in Cary Nelson and Lawrence Grossberg, (eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, (London: 1988), 271-314
-Robert Young, Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction, (Malden: 2016)
-Rochona Majumdar, Writing Postcolonial History, (London: 2010)
-Edward Said, Orientalism, (London: 1978)
-Vivek Chibber, Postcolonial Theory and the Specter of Capital, (London: 2013)
-Dipesh Chaktrabarty, Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference, (New Delhi: 2000)
-Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, (eds.), Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, (London: 1973)

Thank you for reading and please leave any thoughts down below. For future blog updates please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby. For other Left-Wing and 'Other' history we have a page for you to check out here.