Years ago, when I told a French friend that I was writing a book on colonialism, her remarkable comment was: are you also going to include the colonization of women by men? At about the same time I had to refuse the offer to write a paper on the colonization of the Ex-German Democratic Republic by the Federal Republic of Western Germany . Of course, both perspectives are possible and colonization, as well as colonialism, can easily be employed as a kind of universally applicable invective. As a historian, however, I feel obliged to make a narrower and more precise use of terminology. On the other hand, my use of terminology may sometimes look not extremely professional because I am no addict of extreme theorizing German style. For my part as historian of the expansion of Europe, I prefer a practical approach to the imperial turn (Hirschhausen 2015). But in doing this, I remain to some extent confined to general and West European perspectives because I lack expertise in the Russian and Chinese languages (but see Schorkowitz 2015, 2017). Nevertheless, my approach from outside may still help to sharpen our analytical instruments, and a general view of the longue durée may demonstrate the “powerful impact of trans-epochal path-dependencies” (Schorkowitz 2015, 2) of continental colonialism even more easily.
In short, in this chapter I intend to prove two propositions which should contribute to a better understanding of the other colonialism which is essentially continental and not maritime as usual. My first thesis claims that modern colonialism succeeded only because the hard core of every colonial empire was a modern national power state, whereas the colonial empire itself was not a state but something of different pre-modern political structure. In German, this is the difference between Staat and Reich, which unfortunately has been blurred in research. Secondly, I have every reason to believe that a convincing distinction between colonial empires and empires in general is not possible (Reinhard 2016).
Empire vs. State—Reich vs. Staat
Starting with the first proposition, we are immediately in trouble because of the implicit terminological difference between German Reich and English empire. Whereas empire just designates a particularly large state or polity, Reich in addition covers the structural difference between modern and pre-modern polities. It is a matter of quality not just of quantity. A Reich needed not be large at all. Instead of an Imperium in Latin terminology, it could also be a mere Regnum or even a small territorial unit like the Aachener Reich which covered not more than 8.7 square kilometers (Brecher 1957). But in any case, a Reich lacked essential qualities of the Staat in German or of the modern state in English. Therefore, if we want to be exact, we have to translate the simple German contrast of Reich and Staat into the complicated English terminology of pre-modern polity versus modern state. However, we are lucky because the Eurasian empires I am going to analyze were all pre-modern polities. Therefore, when additionally defining state just for once as the modern state, I can contrast empire with state in the same way as I would do it in German.
But is it still the state of the art to insist upon the historical development of structural differences between empire and state? Does this approach not pay tribute to an outdated modernization theory which considered the unitary national state superior to a plural empire, where different peoples lived peacefully together, a kind of polity we are inclined to prefer after so many ethnic and national excesses (Hirschhausen 2015, 724, 742)? But the insistence upon such structural differences between state and empire does not automatically imply an evaluation. The modern state’s superiority in power politics does not necessarily include a higher political morality or a better life for the subjects. Quite the opposite can be true. Just remember that the Holocaust was the ultimate performance of a modern power state.
My intention could not be more different. I simply want to use the concepts of empire and state in the sense of Max Weber as ideal types of political organization without any implicit evaluation. I have a reason to believe that they may prove useful instruments for analyzing colonialism in general and Eurasian colonialism in particular, because the success of modern colonialism is based upon the ambiguous European invention of the modern nation state and this is the most outstanding accumulation of power in the history of mankind (Reinhard 1999, 2007).
Expanding Europeans were organized as modern power states or at least they practiced forms of social and political life which produced an organization of that type. In contrast, even highly developed polities such as China remained pre-modern empires. Such an empire might deploy remarkable power but in the long run could not compete with the European power state. As long as this difference of power subsisted, European states remained superior and were able to add colonial empires to the nation state they had at home. Of course, the other side tried at once to imitate the European power state. The Japanese did it with immediate success. Others had to wait until decolonization. In the meantime, almost all polities of the world have become modern states, at least in theory, with the consequence that together with different political structure European superiority started to disappear.
Stateness: Territory and Population
But why are modern states stronger than other polities? The essential difference is the unity and uniformity of the modern state in contrast to the notorious plurality inside pre-modern empires. Unity and uniformity do not only produce power, they are also the very essence of modernity, whereas plurality is an attribute of pre-modern as well as of post-modern societies. Because of similar pre-modern political structure, ancient European polities could serve as contrasting examples as well as extra-European ones. During early modern times not only Spain and Britain were so-called composite monarchies consisting of several countries with unequal status but even such a small country as Tuscany . Accordingly, the official designation of Spain was las Españas. Down to 1918 neither Austria-Hungary nor the German Empire were modern states. The first consisted of two different groups of countries whereas the latter was in fact a confederation of semi-sovereign princes. It is not by chance that in our post-modern age of plurality Great Britain and Spain tend to disintegrate again. Just think of Scotland or Catalonia !
In contrast according to the traditional doctrine of German jurisprudence, the first and basic attribute of the modern state is the unity of territory. Not only composite empires, which consist of different countries with different status and territorially overlapping authorities such as con-dominions, contradict the nature of the modern state but any territorial difference of authority at all. Well defined linear borders outside and inside the country are essential. In contrast, quite often the intermediate level offices of the branches of pre-modern government such as administration, law courts, revenue, the military or the church resided in different towns with overlapping districts. In addition, political control tended to decrease together with the distance from the center. Between France and Germany and in Northern Italy the political membership of some territories was uncertain, others belonged to both domains. The town of Mulhouse (Mülhausen) remained a German island in French Alsace because it happened to be not only a free city of the Empire but also an associate member of the Swiss Confederation at the same time.
Spatial plurality could correspond to a different legal status of the inhabitants. In contrast, the modern state has a uniform and stationary population as a second basic quality. Nomads can create an empire but never a state. Therefore, Russia’s rulers down to Stalin have always tried to make the nomads of their steppe regions sedentary, often by force. As far as I know, the Chinese are still busy with that. Beyond territorial plurality, an empire’s population could also be divided into groups or strata with different status, with different relations to the central authority, and in addition speaking different languages. Besides local languages and dialects, the elites of Western Europe used Latin, later French, England’s lawyers Law French whereas China’s political class spoke Mandarin Chinese.
The inhabitants of a modern state are considered and consider themselves as only one people, a Staatsvolk in German, after the French Revolution as a nation. They identify themselves with their polity, enjoy or sometimes even lack the same rights and have the same obligations, they speak the same language and believe to be of the same ethnic origin. In reality, however, this is almost never the case (Anderson 1983 ; Gellner 1983). Therefore, states are inclined to enforce homogeneity, beginning with the language. In extreme cases, they proceed to murderous ethnic cleansings.
In contrast, the power of an empire is based upon a select part of its population only, upon one of its peoples, the Reichsvolk in German, such as the Castilians in Spain, the English in Britain or the Han in China. For the rest of the inhabitants this could result in discrimination, but also in toleration, and the protected existence of a minority with a culture and a language of its own, a status which China’s 55 minorities are supposed to enjoy. In other cases, all inhabitants were transformed into one single people, the Reichsvolk became a Staatsvolk or nation, either directly by linguistic, ethnic and cultural assimilation or indirectly and formally through a federal constitution. Russia tried both models. But successful integration of all inhabitants does still not transform a pre-modern empire into a modern state which is characterized by about a dozen of different attributes.
Colonialism
At this point, we touch the problem of colonialism for the first time. Does the rule of one people, of the core group, over other peoples inside an empire amount to colonialism? Were Egypt and Greece in antiquity Roman colonies although their cultures were much older and even idealized by the Romans? Or should this quality be reserved for Gallia and Germania which lived under the cultural impact of Rome?
Formally, Mexico and Peru enjoyed the same status of secondary domains of the Castili an monarchy as Aragon or Naples , governed by their own council at Madrid and by a viceroy as delegate of the monarch. In theory, their inhabitants were subjects of the same right. Therefore, they were called las Indias as the kingdoms of the Iberian Peninsula were called las Españas. It was not before the eighteenth century when the central authorities intensified their control that the designation colonies became common usage. This brings us closer to a solution of our problem. For in reality, an equal status of the different European and American countries and their inhabitants was always out of the question. But...
