On 16th of April, the lecture “Russian Anatolia: Russian Imperial Colonization Projects of Western Armenia (1877–1916)” was delivered by Dr. Masha Cerovic, Associate Professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) and Director of the Centre for Russian, Caucasian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies (CERCEC). The event featured a thoughtful and engaging discussion with Dr. Naira Sahakyan, Assistant Professor at the American University of Armenia, who served as the discussant.
Dr. Cerovic’s lecture explored an understudied episode of Russian imperial ambition in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 1878, following the Russo-Turkish War, the Romanov Empire annexed the regions of Batumi and Kars. As she demonstrated, Russian military authorities did not regard these newly acquired territories as a mere extension of the existing administrative framework of Transcaucasia. Instead, they envisioned a new colonial endeavor—one that sought to correct the perceived failures of previous imperial governance in the Caucasus.
Rather than integrating Kars into the Armenian province or interpreting the annexation as a step toward Armenian unification, Russian authorities conceived of the region as a space for a distinct and transformative project. Through targeted land and demographic policies, they aimed to establish what Dr. Cerovic referred to as a “Russian Anatolia”—a Russian colonial frontier designed to break with the historical and institutional legacy of Transcaucasia.
The lecture traced both the ideological foundations and the practical efforts behind this project, offering a detailed analysis of how imperial visions played out on the ground. Ultimately, Dr. Cerovic highlighted the contradictions and limitations that led to the failure of the Russian Anatolia initiative, situating it within broader narratives of empire, colonialism, and the geopolitics of the region.
The event drew a diverse audience of scholars, students, and members of the public with interests in Russian and Ottoman history, Armenian studies, and imperial policy in borderland regions. The discussion that followed deepened the conversation by connecting these historical developments to contemporary questions of memory, identity, and territoriality in the South Caucasus and Eastern Anatolia.
This important lecture contributed significantly to our understanding of Russian imperial strategies and their long-term implications for the peoples and territories of the region.
