Timothy Snyders onlinekursus The Making of Modern Ukraine (ENG) fra 2022 giver et enestående overblik over Ukrainens historie og dens betydning for Europa og verden. Med sin skarpe historiske analyse viser Snyder, hvordan Ukraine gennem århundreder har været centrum for politiske, kulturelle og ideologiske brydninger, fra middelalderens Kyiv-rige til nutidens kamp for frihed og selvstændighed. Kurset er en værdifuld nøgle til at forstå, hvorfor Ukraine ser ud, som det gør i dag, og hvordan landets erfaringer former den globale debat om demokrati, imperier og national identitet.
Der er i alt næsten 20 timers video og mere end 4 timers læsning i kurset. På youtube kan du se forelæsningerne i 23 afsnit.
Beskrivelsen af kurset på Yale Online
Often the most important historical experiences are difficult to see. Ukraine tends to exemplify the major trends in European and world history, but sometimes in forms so intense or radical that they escape notice and classification. Ukraine provides an early example of European state formation and an early example of anti-colonial rebellion.
We will thus begin with brief reflections on ancient history and geography and cover the middle ages and the early modern period, but will concentrate upon the nineteenth and the twentieth centuries, and will conclude with the current war. Topics therefore include the Kyiv state as well early modern Lithuania and Poland during the age of discovery.
Ukraine also provides an intense example of the confrontation between modern national politics and extreme colonial alternatives from the far right and far left. Modern topics therefore include Russian and Austrian empires; Jewish and Polish urban society; Romanticism and modern nationalism; the Bolshevik Revolution and its Ukrainian counterparts; Soviet modernization and terror; Nazi occupation, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing.
Finally, contemporary Ukrainian history poses in striking form the question of the functionality and durability of the post-imperial state. The last few topics include: the late Soviet Union; problems of post-Soviet rule, the Orange Revolution and Maidan and the war of 2014; and the present war.
