The Unpredictable Past? Reshaping Russian, Ukrainian, and East European Studies

Description

The launch of an unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine by the Russian Federation in February 2022 was a jolting turn of events for the majority of Western scholars studying Eastern Europe. Moreover, the dramatic unfolding of the subsequent all-out Russo-Ukrainian war helped unmask an array of fundamental deficiencies—and even outright flaws—in the dominant Western perceptions of Russia and Ukraine and of their respective places in, and relation to, Europe’s past and present. The fast-moving geopolitical situation that erupted, in all of its dimensions, rocked the stability of an array of related scholarly disciplines—from the fields of history and cultural history to the study of current political events. As a result, many scholars have voiced the need for a reconceptualization and “decolonization” of the entire cluster of Russian, Slavic, post-Soviet, East European, and Ukrainian interrelated disciplines in Western scholarship.

The Unpredictable Past? Reshaping Russian, Ukrainian, and East European Studies, edited by Volodymyr Kravchenko and Marko Robert Stech, offers readers an extensive collection of insightful essays on the topic by thirty prominent international scholars. These invited academics discuss the state of the art in their respective disciplines and suggest feasible solutions for re-evaluating them in the context of recent events.

Contents:

Preface

Volodymyr Kravchenko, “‘Who Is to Blame?’ ‘What Is to Be Done?’ and Other ‘Cursed’ Questions”;

Marko Robert Stech, “Academic Theories Disproven in Practice: How the Russo-Ukrainian War Challenges Western Perceptions of Eastern Europe”;

Olga Andriewsky, “Ukrainian Studies in Practice: A Moment of Reflection”;

Heather J. Coleman, “War, History, and the Temptations of Russian “Exceptionalism”;

John Connelly, “German and Russian Imperialisms, East Central Europe, and the Place of Ukraine”;

Ilya Gerasimov, “Making the Past ‘Useless’”;

Tomasz Hen-Konarski, “Does Eastern Europe Have a History?”

Yaroslav Hrytsak, “War and History: How the Current War May Affect the Writing of History”;

Andrii Krawchuk, “Values and Identities in Ukraine and Russia: Patterns of Convergence and Resistance”;

Hiroaki Kuromiya, “Russia’s Invisible Hand in Western Historical Studies on the Soviet Union”;

Paul Robert Magocsi, “Inner Rus’, Outer Rus’, and Other Matters in Central Europe and Eastern Europe”;

David R. Marples, “Decolonizing Slavic Studies and Russia’s War on Ukraine”;

Olena Palko, “To Whom the Past Belongs: The History of Ukraine and the Limits of Area Studies”;

Joseph F. Patrouch, “Central Europe? Eastern Europe? Habsburg Europe? Where Are We Today?”

Serhii Plokhii (Plokhy), “Decolonizing the Past: An Agenda for the Future”;

Andrii Portnov and Tetiana Portnova, “The Issue of Colonialism in Ukrainian Historiography, 1900s–Early 1930s”;

Myroslav Shkandrij, “Reshaping the Field”;

Darius Staliūnas, “Peregiby (Excesses) of the Imperial Turn?”

Rafał Stobiecki, “History and Historians in the Perspective of Longue Durée: Some Remarks on the Historiographical Contexts of the War in Ukraine”;

Tomasz Stryjek, “Ukraine, Poland, and the Challenge of the Post-colonial Narrative in the Context of the Russo-Ukrainian War”;

Frank E. Sysyn, “Making Ukrainian History a Recognized Field”;

Tatiana Tairova (Yakovleva), “Decolonizing East European Studies: Thoughts on Resisting Imperial Doctrine”;

Igor Torbakov, “Is There a Russian Sonderweg? Deconstructing a Conservative Utopia”;

Andreas Umland, “Russian Narratives, Ukraine, and US Right-Wing Punditry: How Kremlin Propaganda Used a 2021 Washington Think-Tank Debate”;

Michael T. Westrate, “The Role of the Historian in Wartime”;

Andrew Wilson, “The Political-Technology Takeover of Russian History”;

Serhy Yekelchyk, “Toward Epistemic Sovereignty: Decolonization and Ukrainian History”;

Maria Zadencka, “Why the Classics? The Heritage of Oskar Halecki, Carl Schmitt, and Martin Malia”;

Andriy Zayarnyuk, “Bringing the War Back In”;

Sergei I. Zhuk, “Soviet Studies in the West, the Russian Fight against America, and the Case of Ukraine.”