Europastudier: Ryssland och Östeuropa - nutid och dåtid

The course focuses on historical processes and their role in identity building in modern Russia and its three neighbouring countries - Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova, which all were included into the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics before 1991. Borderline events of Russian and Soviet history before and after 1917 (such as the Bolshevik October Revolution, the Famine and Great Terror of the 1930s, the World War II/Great Patriotic War, the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Bloc and Soviet Union in 1989 and 1991) are therefore studied and discussed in their historical context as well as from new post-Soviet and post-communist perspectives. Which history – old or recent - is found worth remembering and which is to be “forgotten”? How are the most important events being included into various historical narratives in order to give different meanings and develop new collective (national, religious, political etc.) identities? Who are the main activists behind these processes? And how have the developments in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Moldova since 1991 been related to the process of Europeanization, i.e. attempts to create a new, all-European identity?