Modern Ukraine: An Eastern European History of a Borderland

Catalog description

This course surveys the history of Ukraine from the nineteenth century to the present, tracing its transformation from a contested imperial borderland into an independent nation-state at the center of European and global politics. Topics include Ukrainian national awakening under Russian and Habsburg rule, the Revolution of 1917–1921 and the short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic, Soviet nationality policies and the Holodomor, World War II and the Holocaust in Ukraine, Soviet late socialism and Ukraine’s independence in 1991, the Orange Revolution and Euromaidan, and the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War. Students will engage with primary sources — state documents, literary texts, memoirs, maps, and photographs — alongside secondary scholarship, and will develop skills in historical argumentation and source analysis. No prior knowledge of Eastern European history is required