The Colonial, The Post-Colonial, and the Global (lecture)
Making of Modern Ukraine, 23
This final lecture in my public Yale class on “The Making of Modern Ukraine” gathers up the major theme of colonialism.
To see Ukraine as a subject in history, we have to understand how others have seen it as an object. This is patently obvious during the present war; but it is also important to the Polish and German factors in Ukrainian history.
The colonial element of Ukrainian history makes of Ukraine a bridge between European and world history.
It also helps us to see through the standard myth of European integration and moves us towards a harder but truer account of how the European Union works, one that Europe will likely need in the years and decades to come.
The video is here and the podcast version is here or here.
Readings:
Snyder, "The War in Ukraine is a Colonial War" New Yorker, 28 April 2022.
Snyder, "Integration and Disintegration: Europe, Ukraine, and the World."
Terms:
European Union
Kornkammer
Treaty of Riga
Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
Mykola Leontovych
Ostpolitik
Historikerstreit 1987-1988
Gerhard Schröder
Maidan 2013-2014
Ivan Ilyin
Lev Gumilev
Alexander Dugin
MH17
Holodomor
Ivan Rudnyts'kyi, Milena Rudnys'ka, Mykhailo Rudnyts'kyi
Vadym Stetsiuk
Vakhtang Kipiani
Vasyl Stus
Viktor Medvedchuk
Iulia Zdans'ka, Oksana Shvets, Dmyto Sydoruk, Oleh Yakunin, Oleksandr Makhov,
Maks Levin, Kateryna Diachenko, Artyom Datsishin, Oleksandr Shapoval, Pasha Lee, Volodymyr Vakulenko, Yuriy Kerpatenko.
Thank you for sharing these Yale lectures with your subscribers. It was reassuring to virtually sit in a real college classroom without any tech gadgets or media presentation devices (loved the chalkboard) and listen to a scholarly lecture based on historical facts. It inspired me to research the Maidan revolution and the Holodomor genocide of 1932-33. I was especially struck by your view that Europeans arrived at a “war is bad, peace is good” mindset less because of WWII than of their losing wars of imperialism in the late 20th century. Seems like losing wars may have had a similar effect on Americans. Please keep sharing your scholarship and insights.
Re: SOVIET prisoners-of-war in this lecture: For over a year now I've been thinking about that €10m reparation payment that Germany under Merkel handed over to Putin in 2015.