Imperial Complicity: Finns and Tatars in the Political Hierarchy of Races

Finnish and Tatar intellectuals shared a position of subordination and relative privilege in the Russian Empire from the early 19th century onward. They did not simply accept or reject Western racial knowledge production, which was increasingly used to justify colonialism and imperialism toward the end of the 19th century; they appropriated it and created a localized version of racial hierarchy, subverting derogatory racial stereotypes to sources of vitality. Within that framework, the heritage of another empire that had managed to menace the white West, the Mongol Empire, had an undeniable attraction to Finns and Tatars, who shared the experience of middle-men minorities providing experts and services to a multi-national empire, while aspiring for empires and colonies of their own.