Away from Russia? History Writing Before, During, and After the War

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Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Palko, Making Ukraine Soviet.

2 Khvylovy, The Cultural Renaissance in Ukraine.

3 On local agencies in determining the nationalities and educational policies, see: Pauly, Breaking the Tongue; Liber, Soviet Nationality Policy. On the role of Kharkiv in negotiating and drawing Ukraine’s borders, see Rindlisbacher, “From Space to Territory”; Palko and Ardeleanu, Making Ukraine.

4 Fowler, “Beyond Ukraine or Little Russia.”

5 Based on Martin, The Affirmative Action Empire, 12–3.

6 See numerous publications by Botakoz Kassymbekova, in which she rejects the modernization paradigm as applied to Central Asia, e.g. Kassymbekova and Chokobaeva, “Writing Soviet History of Central Asia.”

7 On the potential comparison between the two when the population policies are concerned, see a 2002 Slavic Review forum on the topic of race, sparked by Eric D. Weitz’s article “Racial Politics without the Concept of Race”. The forum included contributions from Hirsch, “Race without the Practice of Racial Politics”. In the same forum, Amir Weiner also rejected the notion that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany could be compared in terms of racial politics, “Nothing but Certainty”; and Lemon, “Without a ‘Concept’? Race as Discursive Practice”. See also Tismaneanu, The Devil in History.

8 For a discussion of why no major studies on the Holodomor (the manmade famine in Ukraine in 1932–33) have emerged in Germany, see, Wessel, “The Concept of Empire”.

9 Mayhill Fowler challenges this model as applied to the study of Soviet culture in the 1920s. See: Fowler, “Mikhail Bulgakov, Mykola Kulish”.

10 Plokhy, Unmaking Imperial Russia.

11 On the contested memory of the Pereyaslav agreement, see Plokhy, “The Ghosts of Pereyaslav”; Davies, “The Road to Pereiaslav”.

12 Smith-Peter, “What Does Decolonizing Russian History Mean?”

13 Mikhail Khodorkovsky was the Foundation Fellow of St Anthony’s College in Oxford, which is home to REES: Russian and East European Studies Centre; his Oxford-Russia Fund, which has provided financial support and scholarships for Russian students to study at the University of Oxford. The Library in St Anthony’s College also bears his name.

14 Jilge, “Die Ukraine aus Sicht der ‘Russkij Mir’.”

15 Address by President of the Russian Federation. 18 March 2014. http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/20603 (Accessed on 11 August 2023).

16 The Crimean question remains one of the most difficult to solve as Ukraine is trying to liberate her territory. Foreign Affairs Asks the Experts, “Will Ukraine Wind Up Making Territorial Concessions to Russia?” 24 January 2023. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ask-the-experts/will-ukraine-wind-making-territorial-concessions-russia. (Accessed on 11 August 2023).

17 Gerasimov, et al. “Ot Redaktsii”, 11.

18 Forum “The Ukrainian Crisis and History” and its criticism by Andriy Zayarnyuk, “A Revolution’s History, A Historians’ War”.

19 See, the documentary “What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy”, Directed by David Evans (2015).

20 Levada-Centre Polls “Konflikt s Ukrainoi: Oktiabr’ 2022 goda” https://www.levada.ru/2022/10/27/konflikt-s-ukrainoj-oktyabr-2022-goda/?fbclid=IwAR1cTy-jQ6Ba82zWhBJ99sLMTEauhAP45knEtlvhyZ84gd07W5zsOCJ3S3w. (Accessed 26 June 2023).

21 Kassymbekova, “How Western Scholars Overlooked Russian Imperialism”.

22 Schenk, “Russlands Überfall Auf Die Ukraine 2022”, 547.

23 Plamper, “Archival Revolution or Illusion?”.

24 Holquist, “A Tocquevillean ‘Archival Revolution’”, 77.

25 Fitzpatrick, “Impact of the Opening of Soviet Archives”.

26 Scholars associated with the Peripheral Histories Project are doing great work in challenging those perspectives. https://www.peripheralhistories.co.uk/about.

27 Kuromiya, “Russia’s undue influence on Western scholars”.

28 Shkandrij “The Archival Revolution and Contested Memory”.

29 Since 10 March 2022, citizens of Russia and Belarus cannot access archival collections in Ukraine. See: The International Council of Archives terminates relations with the state archival institutions of russia and belarus. 11 March 2022. https://archives.gov.ua/ua/2022/03/11/міжнародна-рада-архівів-припиняє-від/. (Accessed on 11 August 2023).

30 Kuromiya, “Russia’s undue Influence”.

31 Shkandrij “The Archival Revolution and Contested Memory”.

32 Kassymbekova, “Buty khoroshoiu liudynoiu”.

33 McGlynn, Memory Makers.

34 BASEES 2023 Keynote “From Cold War to Hot War: Reflections on an Academic Life in Area Studies”. Professor Judith Pallot (University of Helsinki) in conversations with Professor Sarah Badcock (University of Nottingham), 1 April 2023, University of Glasgow. https://youtu.be/36jI_-3G5Cg (Accessed on 11 August 2023).

35 Address by the President of the Russian Federation. 21 February 2022 http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/67828.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Olena Palko

Olena Palko is Associate Professor at the Department of History, University of Basel, and a co-convener of the BASEES Study Group for Minority History.