Georgiy Kasianov

Article deals with the history of commemorations at Babyn Yar - the place of the mass killings of Jews and other civilians and POWs in Kyiv, Ukraine in 1941 - 1943. The paper presents an overview of contemporary controversies between different projects of commemoration, interests, and ambitions of different parties behind these projects.

Первая революция. Как изменится Украина после парламентских выборов Борьба за Украину Георгий Касьянов На президентских и парламентских выборах 2019 года впервые в истории Украины ее граждане законным путем радикально поменяли исполнительную и законодательную власть, частично устранив от власти верхи паразитического истеблишмента. Возможно, новая власть должна будет объяснить своим избирателям, что их победа-это конец сказки и начало реальной жизни События, разворачивающиеся на Украине зимой-летом 2019 года, напоминают сюжет сказки. Иван-дурак становится царем. Золушка на тыкве въезжает в приличную семью. Добрый доктор спасает пассажиров Ноева ковчега. Буратино добывает золотой ключик к двери, ведущей в светлое будущее. Все они преодолевают и побеждают темные силы, представленные Бармалеями, Змеями Горынычами и Карабасами-Барабасами. А в конце побеждает народ в лице лучших его представителей. Чудеса по партийной линии 21 апреля 2019 года человек, которого незадолго до этого его оппоненты (да и, наверное, спонсировавший его Карабас) считали кем-то вроде Буратино, стал президентом Украины. Поле чудес, где он закопал свои кровные, оказалось настоящим. Пытавшиеся надуть его жулики, враги и интриганы посрамлены. Главный спонсор Карабас подыскивает слова и, возможно, предъявит претензии на золотой ключик. Ровно через три месяца, 21 июля 2019 года, вышел сиквел сказки. Партия, крещенная именем популярного сериала и де-факто представляющая нашего героя, получила сказочно беспрецедентный результат на парламентских выборах. Поле чудес дало новые всходы.

The article is devoted to the history of use and misuse of the history in the Ukrainian - Russian relations in 1990s - 2000s: dealing with the 'common pasts', controversies over 'hot issues' (Holodomor, Ukrainian nationalist movement), memory wars, use of the past for warfare, annexation and aggression

Ukrainian Institute of National Memory (UINM) was created to pursue politics of memory/history in Ukraine, following an example of Polish Institute of National Memory. The paper observes history of institutional transformations and activities of UINM in the context of the politics of history in 2006 - 2015.

This account of historical politics in Ukraine, framed in a broader European context, shows how social, political, and cultural groups have used and misused the past from the final years of the Soviet Union to 2020. Georgiy Kasianov details practices relating to history and memory by a variety of actors, including state institutions, non-governmental organizations, political parties, historians, and local governments. He identifies the main political purposes of these practices in the construction of nation and identity, struggles for power, warfare, and international relations.

Kasianov considers the Ukrainian case in the context of a global increase in the politics of history and memory, with particular emphasis on a distinctive East-European variety. He pays special attention to the use and abuse of history in relations between Ukraine, Russia, and Poland.

The monograph dedicated to the analysis of the politics of history in Ukraine, 'Eastern Europe', and 'Western Europe' in the 1980s - 2010s. Rich empirical material, detailed analysis of roles and performances of state (President, government, local governing bodies, and non-governmental) actors (NGOs, political parties, media, historians),

A chapter from the collective volume The Emergence of Ukraine
Self-Determination, Occupation, and War in Ukraine, 1917–1922 (2015). Full text of the volume available at the open-access database https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/32934.

The second edition of the monograph, published in 2009. The book is devoted to the representations of the Great Famine of 1932 - 1933 in the Ukrainian SSR (Holodomor) in politics, historiography, and public space -  in the 1980s - to 2017. Special attention is paid to the political instrumentalization of the event: use and misuse in political discourse and action, in legislation (including attempts to criminalize 'the Holodomor denial'), in political struggle.

The Great Famine of 1932-33 (called Holodomor or "murder by hunger") and the Holocaust both occurred on the territory of contemporary Ukraine in the 1930s-40s. Both events were objects of deliberate or even forced amnesia and became suppressed memories in Soviet times, and both emerged in public and academic debates at the end of the 1980s as a form of collective memory bearing the status of "restored historical truth" or under the title of "restoration of historical justice." In both cases, all of the basic commemorative practices and discourses came from outside Ukraine. Both prove to be highly controversial topics, heavily instrumentalized by different social, political, religious, state, and civil actors. As a form of constructed collective memory, Holodomor and Holocaust interacted, intertwined, and even competed in the field of the politics of the past.

The article presents an overview of the process of expansion of the heroic memory narrative of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists and Ukrainian Insurgent Army to the whole territory of Ukraine in the 1990s - 2000s. The process presented as an evolution from political rehabilitation of these organizations towards their political appropriation and further apologetic representations as an all-nations' symbols. The article deals with the challenges and problems posed by these developments. Language - Russian.

English version of the article published in 2018. Ukrainian - Russian relations in the field of the 'common past': memory wars, memory warriors, analysis of politics and policies of memory. Past as a field of the contest in the present, use and abuse of the past in international relations, 1990s - 2000s.

This article focuses on Ukraine as a ‘nationalizing state’. The author relies
on the term and the analytical framework proposed by Rogers Brubaker
in the mid-1990s. Brubaker’s theoretical framework is a surprisingly
good fit when applied to the political reality of contemporary Ukraine.
The article focuses on the two most conspicuous and controversial
spheres of the nationalizing state: language policy (including the sphere
of education) and politics in the sphere of collective memory. The
author examines the activities of the nationalizing state in a historical
perspective, from the early 1990s to the end of 2010s. The state appears as
both the subject and object of nationalization. The article pays particular
attention to the reactions of society to the actions of the state, as well as
to the actions of external actors. The central thesis of the essay is that the
nationalizing state was relatively successful in implementing the project
of the ‘nationalization’ of ethnic Ukrainians themselves, who obtained the
political-symbolic status of the titular nation. However, the mobilization
resources of the policy of nationalization of the cultural-symbolic space are
exhausted at this point. As long as the project of the Ukrainian political
nation building maintained a balance between exclusive ethnic and
inclusive civic nationalism, nationalization did not cause significant
resistance in society. Breaking this balance in favor of ethnic nationalism
provoked tensions and conflicts within the country, as well as interference
from external neighbors, who professed the principles of ethnocultural
irredentism (Russia, Hungary, Romania, and to some extent Poland).
This interference, in turn, exacerbated the intensity and the scale of the
promotion of the principles of ethnic nationalism and provided arguments
for elevating them to the rank of state policy, which, in turn, led to new
conflicts.

This article is dedicated to the place of the Hortyca reserve in the Cossack myth and the historical
memory of Ukraine. The Cossack myth at different stages of its formation, in its post-Soviet-populist version,
144 Петербургские славянские и балканские исследования
Studia Slavica et Balcanica Petropolitana
was successfully integrated into the state policy of memory of independent Ukraine. The article reveals the
stages and the historical context of the creation of the Hortyca reserve, shows the lack of a historical base for
the «reconstruction» of the Zaporizhisn Sich. Nevertheless, the Cossack movement and the Cossack theme
gain an important place in the historical politics of the presidents. The Cossack movement also became
participants and organizers of public commemorative actions associated with significant events in Cossack
history. The events of the Maidan 2013–2014 added new colors to the Cossack myth. The use of the Hortyca
complex for the formation of an artificial place of memory associated with the Zaporizhzhya Sich and the
Cossacks is studies. It is shown that there was no historical or archaeological basis for the formation of
the memorial on Bolshaya Hortyca. Nevertheless, since the time of N. Yavornitsky, a number of stages in
the creation of such a place of memory can be traced. In particular, P. Shelest’s decisions on perpetuating
the memory of the Zaporozhian Cossacks. In 1965 was made a decision to create a historical and cultural
reserve «Hortyca». One of the key places is the grave of the ataman I. Sirko. The exhumation and further
investigation of Sirko’s remains became the subject of a war of memory. Only in 2000, the skull of the legendary
chieftain was buried. The reserve itself remained the subject of speculation and manipulation of the
Cossack myth, since would not be based on either historical or archaeological data, but it was based on the
idea of recreating a certain generalized image. As a result, the complex «Hortyca’s Sich» turned out to be a
generalized image of Cossack fortifications with an attempt to reproduce the structure of all eight Cossack
sections that existed in the 17th–18th centuries. The complex is actively used by reenactors and folklorists.

This article presents an overview of the Polish-Ukrainian debate from 1990s to 2010s over interpretation, representation and commemoration of the "controversial issues" of the past. It focuses on two themes: history of restoration of the "Cemetery of Eaglets" in the city of L'viv, and the story of political use and misuse of the memory of the Polish-Ukrainian conflict during the Second World War, which amounted in mass killings of civil Polish population by the armed units of the Ukrainian nationalist underground in Volhynia in 1943, and the likewise actions of the Polish underground and mutual bloodshed in 1943-1944. The essay analyses the roles and activities of social and political groups, state bodies and non-governmental institutions involved into debates, societal responses to the political controversies over the past. The whole story represents a clash between two similar ethnically centered memory narratives followed by the political actions and counteractions, public controversies, diplomatic polemics, and even memory wars. It is the case study of the use and misuse of the image of historical Other in the politics of history.