East European Borderlands

Catalog description

This class surveys the history of Eastern Europe from the late 18th century to the early 21st century, paying particular attention to the breakdown of the region’s multiethnic empires and the various social, economic, political, and geopolitical challenges faced by the nation-states that replaced these. Course themes include the contested nature of borders and identities, the underlying dynamics of inter-ethnic conflict (including the roots of the Armenian and Bosnian genocides, the Holodomor, and the Holocaust), and the impact of two world wars and the Cold War on governance, gender norms, class identity and organization, and economic and political change. Offered every two years.