Huw Houssemayne du Boulay

My current research is based upon the study of Crimea and how this is influenced and influences Russian national identity in the period 1991-2015.

My PhD research analyses the consistencies in the discourse of the Government of the Russian Federation regarding national identity and territorial integrity in Crimea in the period above. As this is the entire post-Soviet period of the Russian Federation, postcolonial theory will be used as the framework to unpack the power relations inherent in the rhetoric. Further to this, discourse analysis will be the method applied to the piece, in order to trace the similarities of the position of the Russian government on Crimea.

The intention of the piece is to use the theoretical framework to trace how Crimea has shaped and shapes the conception of “Russian national identity” and related concepts such as the "Greater Russian World" (the narrative on former USSR amalgamating culturally/ethnically/linguistically “Russian” areas) and also to use concepts such as "hybridity" from Bhabha's work to show how both the Russian Federation and Crimea have been shaped by their imperial encounter. In this sense, the piece will use some historical analysis of the Tsarist Russian Empire, as well as the USSR.