Decolonization

Decolonization is the process by which a colony gains its independence from a colonial power, a process opposite to colonization. Decolonisation could be acheived by attaining independence, integrating with the administering power or another state, or establishing a "free association" status. The UN has stated that in the process of decolonization there is no alternative to the principle of self-determination. Decolonization may involve peaceful negotiation and/or violent revolt by the native population. Decolonization in the strict sense is distinct from the break-up of traditional empires, and in modern academic discourse the period of decolonization generally refers to two major waves of independence from European colonial rule:

Decolonization in broad sense

Stretching the notion further, internal decolonization can occur within a sovereign state. Thus, the expansive United States created territories, destined to colonize conquered lands bordering the existing states, and once their development proved successful (often involving new geographical splits) allowed them to petition statehood within the federation, granting not external independence but internal equality as 'sovereign' constutuent mebers of the federal Union.

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Even in a state which legally doesn't colonize any of its 'integral' parts, real inequality often causes the politically dominant component - often the largest and/or most populous part (such as Russia within the formally federal USSR as earlier in the czar's empire), or the historical conqueror (such as Austria, the homelands of the ruling Habsburg dynasty, within an empire of mainly Slavonic 'minorities' from Silesia to the shifting Ottoman border)- to be perceived, at least subjectively, as a colonizer in all but name; hence the dismemberment of such a 'prison of peoples' is perceived as decolonization de facto.

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To complicate matters even further, this may coincide with another element. Thus, the three Baltic republics -Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania- argue that they, in contrary with other constituant SSRs, could not be granted independence at the dismemberment of the Soviet Union because they never joined, but were militarily annexed by Stalin, and thus had been illegally colonized, including massive deportations of their nationals and uninvited immigration of ethnic Russians and other soviet nationalities. Even in other post-Soviet states which had formally acceded, most ethnic Russians were so much identified with the Soviet 'colonization' that they were made to feel so unwelcome that they migrated back to Russia.

Related Topics:
Estonia - Latvia - Lithuania - Post-Soviet states

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