Elements in Soviet and Post-Soviet History – serie

This Element is a historical tour of Ukraine from the medieval Kyivan prince Volodymyr the Great through to Ukraine's twenty-first-century rock star president Volodymyr Zelensky. It presents Ukraine as an actor, not a pawn, in international history. And it focuses on people. In the past, historians wrote about Ukraine from a colonial perspective that portrayed it as a region, not its own entity. This shaped the way people thought about Ukraine and created mental maps where it was just part of something else. Put in contemporary terms, Ukraine was subjected to a historical disinformation war. This Element joins voices that are decolonizing that way of thinking by drawing a different mental map, one where Ukraine exists as itself. It explains how the people living on its lands have their own distinct history, how they shaped it, were shaped by it, and had an impact on both European and global history.

This Element explains the historical conditions for the seemingly anomalous presence of people outside of 'their own' Soviet republic and the sometimes-fraught consequences for them and their post-Soviet host countries. The authors begin their inquiry with an analysis of the most massive displacements of the Stalin era - nationality-based deportations, concluding with examples of the life trajectories of deportees' children as they moved transnationally within the Soviet Union and in its successor states. The second section treats disparate parts of the country as magnets attracting Soviet citizens from far afield. Most were cities undergoing vast industrial expansion; others involved incentive programs to develop agriculture and rural-based industries. The final section is devoted to the history of immigration and emigration during the Soviet period as well as since 1991 when millions left one former Soviet republic for another or for lands farther afield.

Russia's twenty-first-century military aggression has inspired calls for re-thinking the Soviet era and its aftermath - in particular, for drawing attention to the non-Russian parts of the (former) USSR. At the same time, the present era of anthropogenic climate change urges us to consider the global and planetary implications of local actions. This Element combines these two scholarly impulses to consider Soviet Estonian society between the 1960s and the 1980s: it investigates how natural environments and social ideas and circumstances were intertwined in fundamental ways. Estonian intellectuals cared deeply about their local environments, but they also took inspiration from environmentalist works of global importance. Various aspects of Estonian environmental thought and practices are analyzed as tied to local, intimate environments, while being at the same time connected to the global circulation of ideas, sometimes in dialogue with Soviet centers in Russia. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

This Element is a historical tour of Ukraine from the medieval Kyivan prince Volodymyr the Great through to Ukraine's twenty-first-century rock star president Volodymyr Zelensky. It presents Ukraine as an actor, not a pawn, in international history. And it focuses on people. In the past, historians wrote about Ukraine from a colonial perspective that portrayed it as a region, not its own entity. This shaped the way people thought about Ukraine and created mental maps where it was just part of something else. Put in contemporary terms, Ukraine was subjected to a historical disinformation war. This Element joins voices that are decolonizing that way of thinking by drawing a different mental map, one where Ukraine exists as itself. It explains how the people living on its lands have their own distinct history, how they shaped it, were shaped by it, and had an impact on both European and global history.

This Element assesses the claim that Central Asian countries hold a special position as Russia's near abroad. The region has been important for millennia, and only after conquest in the second half of the nineteenth century did Russia become important for Central Asia. This connection became stronger after 1917 as Central Asia was integrated into the Soviet economy, with rail, roads, and pipelines all leading north to Russia. After independence, these connections were gradually modified by new trade links and by new infrastructure, while Russia's demand for unskilled labour during the 1999-2014 oil boom created a new economic dependency for Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic. In 1991, political independence could not be accompanied by economic independence, but over the next three decades economic dependence on Russia was reduced, and the Central Asian countries have felt increasingly able to adopt political positions independent of Russia.

This Element assesses the claim that Central Asian countries hold a special position as Russia's near abroad. The region has been important for millennia, and only after conquest in the second half of the nineteenth century did Russia become important for Central Asia. This connection became stronger after 1917 as Central Asia was integrated into the Soviet economy, with rail, roads, and pipelines all leading north to Russia. After independence, these connections were gradually modified by new trade links and by new infrastructure, while Russia's demand for unskilled labour during the 1999-2014 oil boom created a new economic dependency for Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Republic. In 1991, political independence could not be accompanied by economic independence, but over the next three decades economic dependence on Russia was reduced, and the Central Asian countries have felt increasingly able to adopt political positions independent of Russia.

Why has Russia embraced a global foreign policy after 1991, despite its limitations when compared to the Soviet Union? What distinguishes the current moment from the long-standing Russian quest for major power status is the particular grand strategy adopted by Moscow since the mid-1990s. Here, the grand strategy is labelled as 'multipolarity', and it consists of a series of grand principles that reflect Russia's views on the roles of major powers, the West, and itself. In turn, the specific ways deployed have changed and adapted according to the changing circumstances in which Moscow's foreign policy is deployed. Notably, Russia differentiates in the means used in relations with its neighbours, with the major powers, and with the broader world, but all together are meant to reinforce the goals of Russian multipolarity.

Why has Russia embraced a global foreign policy after 1991, despite its limitations when compared to the Soviet Union? What distinguishes the current moment from the long-standing Russian quest for major power status is the particular grand strategy adopted by Moscow since the mid-1990s. Here, the grand strategy is labelled as 'multipolarity', and it consists of a series of grand principles that reflect Russia's views on the roles of major powers, the West, and itself. In turn, the specific ways deployed have changed and adapted according to the changing circumstances in which Moscow's foreign policy is deployed. Notably, Russia differentiates in the means used in relations with its neighbours, with the major powers, and with the broader world, but all together are meant to reinforce the goals of Russian multipolarity.

Russia's twenty-first-century military aggression has inspired calls for re-thinking the Soviet era and its aftermath - in particular, for drawing attention to the non-Russian parts of the (former) USSR. At the same time, the present era of anthropogenic climate change urges us to consider the global and planetary implications of local actions. This Element combines these two scholarly impulses to consider Soviet Estonian society between the 1960s and the 1980s: it investigates how natural environments and social ideas and circumstances were intertwined in fundamental ways. Estonian intellectuals cared deeply about their local environments, but they also took inspiration from environmentalist works of global importance. Various aspects of Estonian environmental thought and practices are analyzed as tied to local, intimate environments, while being at the same time connected to the global circulation of ideas, sometimes in dialogue with Soviet centers in Russia. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, the Warsaw Pact was a robust military alliance. It was capable of waging a large-scale war in Europe and was an instrument of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe, keeping orthodox Communist regimes in power. The alliance over the years had also become an effective mechanism of political coordination and consultation. In April 1985, the Warsaw Pact leaders met in Warsaw and renewed the Pact for another thirty years. Yet only six years later, the alliance was disbanded, having been rendered obsolete by the political transformation of Eastern Europe in 1989-1990. This monograph recounts what happened to the Warsaw Pact during its final years and explains why the organization ceased to exist in 1991.

When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, the Warsaw Pact was a robust military alliance. It was capable of waging a large-scale war in Europe and was an instrument of Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe, keeping orthodox Communist regimes in power. The alliance over the years had also become an effective mechanism of political coordination and consultation. In April 1985, the Warsaw Pact leaders met in Warsaw and renewed the Pact for another thirty years. Yet only six years later, the alliance was disbanded, having been rendered obsolete by the political transformation of Eastern Europe in 1989-1990. This monograph recounts what happened to the Warsaw Pact during its final years and explains why the organization ceased to exist in 1991.

Ukrainian Literature: A Wartime Guide for Anglophone Readers is an introduction for general readers and students to Ukrainian literature in English translation. It takes as its starting point the responses of Ukrainian poets and prose writers to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the preceding eight-year war. Each of the Element's ten sections describes a key event in Ukrainian cultural history in its literary context, surveying related works and their authors, Ukrainian and international literary and intellectual movements, and developments in political and social life. The Element gives preeminent attention to a theme which the war has foregrounded: the enduringly fraught relationship of Ukraine and Russia. While focussing mainly on texts in Ukrainian, the Element refers to other literary cultures - Polish, Russian, Jewish and Crimean Tatar, among others - whose participants were active on the territory of today's Ukraine.

Ukrainian Literature: A Wartime Guide for Anglophone Readers is an introduction for general readers and students to Ukrainian literature in English translation. It takes as its starting point the responses of Ukrainian poets and prose writers to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and the preceding eight-year war. Each of the Element's ten sections describes a key event in Ukrainian cultural history in its literary context, surveying related works and their authors, Ukrainian and international literary and intellectual movements, and developments in political and social life. The Element gives preeminent attention to a theme which the war has foregrounded: the enduringly fraught relationship of Ukraine and Russia. While focussing mainly on texts in Ukrainian, the Element refers to other literary cultures - Polish, Russian, Jewish and Crimean Tatar, among others - whose participants were active on the territory of today's Ukraine.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 radically changed the way many viewed the nature of the Russian state. The centrality of resentment and imperial nostalgia in Russian narratives led many to argue that Russian imperialism was a key force behind the invasion. By extension, this led to the idea that decolonization - largely in scholarship, but also among some policy circles - offered a way to better understanding Russia in this new context. To this end, this Element examines the debates over decolonization in the Russian case. It begins by contextualizing these debates through an examination of Russia's historical development as an empire. It then identifies and disentangles three key focal points: decolonization as domestic Russian politics, the transnational politics of decolonization, and decolonization as a scholarly endeavor. By doing so, this Element shows where decolonization has merit, but also where it is contested or limited.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 radically changed the way many viewed the nature of the Russian state. The centrality of resentment and imperial nostalgia in Russian narratives led many to argue that Russian imperialism was a key force behind the invasion. By extension, this led to the idea that decolonization - largely in scholarship, but also among some policy circles - offered a way to better understanding Russia in this new context. To this end, this Element examines the debates over decolonization in the Russian case. It begins by contextualizing these debates through an examination of Russia's historical development as an empire. It then identifies and disentangles three key focal points: decolonization as domestic Russian politics, the transnational politics of decolonization, and decolonization as a scholarly endeavor. By doing so, this Element shows where decolonization has merit, but also where it is contested or limited.

The Iron Curtain remains an iconic representation of the Cold War. But what was it really on the ground? Fortified borders to prevent citizens from leaving emerged first in the interwar USSR and then in socialist post-WW II Europe. Fortifications occurred both at borders between socialist states and at their external boundaries to the non-socialist world, but not in all cases. The most well-known case - the Berlin Wall - was both an extreme example as well as a latecomer. But since 1947, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia had fortified their borders to prevent exit. When East Germany started to build walls around West Berlin and at its borders to West Germany in the 1960s, Yugoslavia was already dismantling its border regime and Hungary was granting passports and exit visas to its citizens. Fortified borders also appeared at external borders in northern and southeastern Europe, in the Caucasus, and in Asia.