From the Editors: Friends and Enemies in the Imperial Context

14 From the Editors From the EDITORS The old wisdom “show me your friends, and I’ll tell you who you are” loses its universal applicability in the multifaceted imperial context with its much more than three “dimensions.” In an empire, parties can ally against the “metropole” or a neighbor “colony,” and in the changed circumstances befriend the metropole against a different colony, or be friends with all the oppressed and against all the oppressors, or unite with the oppressors and oppressed of one’s own nation against another nation, and so forth. Theoretically , this dynamism of the roles of friends and foes is characteristic not only of imperial societies (or those described as imperial). In the modern postnational epoch, we see with particular clarity that the construction of relations of solidarity and antagonism are complex and situationally determined : a composite “subject” sustains simultaneously several autonomous systems of relations that may contradict each other. This vision distinguishes new imperial history (and in general, modern studies of sociocultural diversity ) from traditional nationalism or postcolonial studies, which focus on unambiguous symbolic, discursive, and political relations that allow us to sustain clear-cut binary oppositions (e.g., between the normative modernity and the nonmodern) and unequivocally define the boundaries of a nation by juxtaposing it to some ultimate Other. In the four thematic issues of Ab Imperio in 2010, the editors invite authors and readers to shift their attention from the ontology and structurFRIENDS AND ENEMIES IN THE IMPERIAL CONTEXT 15 Ab Imperio, 1/2010 alist symmetry of the opposition of “friend–foe” to the fluctuations of the roles of “friend” and “foe” and functionality of these roles in the imperial situation. The editors suggest an exploration of the images and functions of “friend” and “foe” in the multilayered and heterogeneous imperial context . This allows us to discover and describe situations in which a “friend” simultaneously appears to be a “foe” (e.g., the Pole as a Slav and the Pole as an enemy of Russian imperial statehood). We can also detect situations in which these very basic dichotomies lose their specific content and their normative component. Consider the category of “neighbor.” Is “neighbor” a “friend” or “foe,” or is the concept of “neighbor” associated with one of the poles depending on the situation and the intention of historical actors? Is there room for the category of “stranger,” a neutral social interlocutor, in the repertoire of social experience? In other words, instead of elusive structural statics we are interested in the historical dynamics of the imperial sociopolitical, cultural, and economic experience. This experience is reflected in the discursive (and not only discursive) attachments and repulsions of groups, societies, and states. In contrast to the ideals of multiculturalism and tolerance that dominate today’s social sciences, historians have done much to show that past experience significantly deviates from these norms. How images of the enemy and of external danger were used for supporting and legitimizing political communities, national distinctiveness, and patriotic mobilization during wars and political crises have all been studied especially thoroughly. One cannot imagine today’s nationalism studies without thematic foci on hostility, repulsion, resentment, and the perceived dangers of the extinction of political independence and cultural distinctiveness of the national body. While recognizing the importance of these aspects of solidarity and conflict in past experience, the editors of Ab Imperio are proposing that we think about those (not necessarily obvious) important roles and situations that find themselves in the unmarked space between the extreme poles of friendship and animosity. Thus in 2010 the journal will focus on the practices of marking solidarity and differences and on motivations for these practices, from anthropological aspects of social interaction to the sphere of foreign policy. In the issue inaugurating the new annual program, two prevailing themes have been informed by the discussion of the dynamics of friendship and animosity in the imperial context. One theme deals with historiographic and methodological frameworks of our perception of the 16 From the Editors past, and the second theme concerns the practices of drawing boundaries between the “similar” (to various degrees) and “alien” groups. The Methodology section features the Russian translation of the introductory essay to the collection...