The Twilight of an Empire: The Russo-Ukrainian War in the Eyes of a Historian

A lecture by Serhii Plokhii, Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History and Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University

Moderated by Serhiy Bilenky, Research Associate at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, Editor-In-Chief of East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies, and Director of the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute (HUSI)

IN-PERSON and ONLINE via Zoom Webinar (live). Registration is required to attend online. 

About the Lecture

Serhii Plokhy, a leading historian of Ukraine and the Cold War, offers a definitive account of this conflict, its origins, course, and the already apparent and possible future consequences. Though the current war began eight years before the all-out assault—on February 27, 2014, when Russian armed forces seized the building of the Crimean parliament—the roots of this conflict can be traced back even earlier, to post-Soviet tensions and imperial collapse in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Providing a broad historical context and an examination of Ukraine and Russia’s ideas and cultures, as well as domestic and international politics, Plokhy reveals that while this new Cold War was not inevitable, it was predictable. Ukraine, Plokhy argues, has remained central to Russia’s idea of itself even as Ukrainians have followed a radically different path. In a new international environment defined by the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the disintegration of the post–Cold War international order, and a resurgence of populist nationalism, Ukraine is now more than ever the most volatile fault line between authoritarianism and democratic Europe. [Source]

About the Speaker

Serhii Plokhii is the Mykhailo S. Hrushevs'kyi Professor of Ukrainian History and the Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute at Harvard University. His interests include the intellectual, cultural, and international history of Eastern Europe, with an emphasis on Ukraine. His recent books include The Russo-Ukrainian War: The Return of History (W.W. Norton, 2023); Atoms and Ashes: A Global History of Nuclear Disasters (W.W. Norton, 2022); The Frontline: Essays on Ukraine's Past and Present (HURI, 2021); Nuclear Folly: A History of the Cuban Missile Crisis (W. W. Norton, 2021); Forgotten Bastards of the Eastern Front: American Airmen behind the Soviet Lines and the Collapse of the Grand Alliance (Oxford University Press, 2019); Chernobyl: The History of a Nuclear Catastrophe (Basic Books, 2018); and The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine (Basic Books, 2015). Serhii Plokhii's books have won numerous awards, including the Ballie Gifford Prize and the Shevchenko National Prize (2018).

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This event is organized by Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) as part of the HUSI Public Lecture Series.

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