Suchergebnisse

Why was Kharkiv assigned the role of an alternative political capital of Ukraine during the Euromaidan revolution of 2014? Why did this plan fail? In this article the author tries to answer these questions by exploring Kharkiv's role and place in the regional context of ongoing Ukrainian nation-state building in the historical perspective, focusing on the period after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Issues of regional geopolitics on the Ukrainian-Russian border as well as the changing symbolic landscape of the city are explored. The proactive role of the central authorities as well as specific local traditions and identity played their roles in keeping Kharkiv on the sidelines of the "hybrid war" that engulfed the Donbas. The modernization matrix that promoted Kharkiv's growth from a provincial town into a regional leader prevailed over the rhetoric of Russian nationalism employed by Putin's regime during the annexation of the Crimea. At the same time, social apathy and national ambivalence, so typical of a borderland zone, also prevented the local population from falling into political extremes. Kharkiv's cultural space continues to be a battlefield of competing discourses, each of which has been projected into the past and the future.

The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) became the second academic institution in the Western world to fully specialize in exploring Ukrainian history, culture, and current affairs after the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI). Establishment of the CIUS in Edmonton was not predetermined. There were other ideas and competing projects with regard to place, profile, and institutional model of Ukrainian studies in Canada. Edmonton became a winner due to a unique combination of Western regionalism, multiculturalism, the makeup of the Ukrainian local community, and the personal qualities of that community's leaders. Contrary to widespread opinion, the CIUS did not copy the institutional model of the HURI. The CIUS model is unique, as it embraces a broad, interdisciplinary research agenda, and community-oriented activities related to education and culture.

<p><strong>Richard Sakwa. <em>Frontline Ukraine: Crisis in the Borderlands</em>. </strong>London: I.B. Tauris, 2015. xv, 297 pp. Maps. List of Abbreviations. Notes. Select Bibliography. Index. $28.00, cloth.</p><p> </p>

<strong>Marcel van Herpen, <em>Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism.</em> </strong>Lanham, MD: Rowman &amp; Littlefield, 2014.

Guest editors' introduction to the special thematic issue "Kharkiv: The City of Diversity."

The article attempts to identify Kharkiv's place on the mental map of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, and traces the changing image of the city in Ukrainian and Russian narratives up to the end of the twentieth century. The author explores the role of Kharkiv in the symbolic reconfiguration of the Ukrainian-Russian borderland and describes how the interplay of imperial, national, and local contexts left an imprint on the city's symbolic space.