Timothy Snyder: The Making of Modern Ukraine

Lecture 1 is an introduction to the course and an exploration of questions raised by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ukraine must have existed as a society and polity on 23 February 2022, else Ukrainians would not have collectively resisted Russian invasion the next day. What does it mean for a nation to exist? Is this a matter of structures, actions, or both? Why has the existence of Ukraine occasioned such controversy? In what ways are Polish, Russian, and Jewish self-understanding dependent upon experiences in Ukraine? Just how and when did a modern Ukrainian nation emerge? For that matter, how does any modern nation emerge? Why some and not others? Can nations be chosen, and can choices be decisive? If so, whose, and how? Ukraine was the country most touched by Soviet and Nazi terror: what can we learn about those systems, then, from Ukraine? Is the post-colonial, multilingual Ukrainian nation a holdover from the past, or does it hold some promise for the future?

Class 2, The Genesis of Nations.

In Class 3, Timothy Snyder, recently back from a visit to Ukraine, explores the geography and ancient history of the region.

Do you speak the language or does the language speak you? In Class 4 Professor Timothy Snyder maps out the landscape 'Before Europe.'

In Class 5, Professor Snyder describes the foundations of the Kyiv state.

Class 6 continues the foundations of the Kyiv state at a time when Lithuania was much larger than most people think.

Class 7 continues the exploration of post-Viking states toward the rise of Muscovite power.

In Class 8, guest lecturer Glenn Dynner, Professor of Judaic Studies and Director of the Bennett Center at Fairfield University, explores the early Jews of modern Ukraine.

Class 9 explores the influence of the Polish state on how Ukraine developed.

Class 10 examines how several global empires shaped the development of Ukraine.

Class 11 looks at the 'triangle' and converging issues in the 18th Century.

Class 19 examines additional reminders of the impact Poland had on the formation of the Ukrainian state.

Was the Privilegium Maius true history? Class 12 traces the Habsburg family and their impact on Europe.

Class 13 details the converging forces and end of empires.

Why would a Polish guard help a Ukrainian cross into the Soviet Union in 1933? Class 14 takes you through the interwar years.

Class 15 explores a very dark and terrifying couple of decades.

Why the 1940s was such a terrible time for Ukraine is the subject of Class 16.

The impact of colonization in Europe in the 1950s through the 1970s is examined in Class 17.

Class 18 brings into focus Marxism, dialectics, consumerism and nationalism during the transition from Khrushchev to Brezhnev.

What can be that breaking point in a person’s life? Class 20 examines the Maidan and the Self-Understanding that resulted. Guest lecturer is Marci Shore, Associate Professor of History at Yale University.

Class 21 features guest lecturer, Professor Arne Westad, comparing Russian imperialism with other empires in recent centuries.

Class 22 brings us closer to the modern day and looks at the role of culture.

How does all this tie together? Class 23 brings the effects of the past century of imperialism into sharp focus.