Russia’s Reaction to the Colonial Division of Africa (Based on Materials From Russian Periodicals of the Late 19th Century)

The history of the African continent, perhaps more than any other, is full of cataclysms and turning points that radically changed the lives of indigenous peoples and predetermined the course of their further development. In the 15th century, such were the large-scale penetration of Europeans into Tropical Africa and the slave trade started by them, which brought untold tragedies to the inhabitants of the continent. In the 19th century, Africa began to be viewed by industrial circles in Europe as a vast market for industrial goods, an area for investment of capital and a source of raw materials. Africans were still assigned the role of slaves, but on their own lands. The abolitionists’ call for a crusade against the slave trade coincided with the desire of the governments of the most powerful European countries to begin establishing colonies on the continent. True, European colonies in Africa appeared much earlier, back in the 15th—16th centuries, if we consider the first Portuguese settlements as such, but this was limited, or enclave, colonialism. The colonial partitioning meant that all leading European powers of that time were involved in the fight for “a piece of the pie”. The authors of the paper focus on the still understudied Russian reaction to the colonial division of Africa and to the course and results of the Berlin Conference of 1884—1885

Ancient history · Archaeology · Arithmetic · Colonialism · Division (mathematics · Economic, Social, and Public Health Issues in Russia and Globally · History · Mathematics