Soviet and Post-Soviet Politics and Society

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• Publisher: ibidem
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN:
  9783838276755
• Edition: 0

Combining social science with the multi-disciplinarity of area studies, Alexander Motyl discusses in fifteen essays the malleability and modernity of national identity, the attractions and limits of social constructivist imaginings of nations, the impact of national discourses, binary morality, and historical narratives on interpretations of the Holocaust and the Holodomor, the relationship between liberalism, nationalism, and fascism, and the role of national identity and nationalism in Eastern Europe in general and the Soviet Union, Ukraine, and Russia in particular. Throughout the chapters, Motyl questions conventional wisdom, exposes its inconsistencies and weaknesses, and encourages readers to rethink their views in light of conceptual clarity, theoretical rigor, elementary logic, and empirical evidence.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• 1 The Modernity of Nationalism Nations, States and, Nation-States in the Contemporary World*
• 2 Liberalism, Nationalism, and National Liberation Struggles*
• 3 Inventing Invention The Limits of National Identity Formation*
• 4 Imagined Communities, Rational Choosers, Invented Ethnies*
• 5 The Social Construction of Social Construction Implications for Theories of Nationalism and Identity Formation*
• 6 Why Is the “KGB Bar” Possible? Binary Morality and Its Consequences*
• 7 Building Bridges and Changing Landmarks Theory and Concepts in the Study of Soviet Nationalities*
• 8 Negating the Negation Russia, Not-Russia, and the West*
• 9 Can Ukraine Have a History?*
• 10 Should Ukraine Forget Its History?*
• 11 The Holodomor and History Bringing Ukrainians Back In*
• 12 The Paradoxes of Paul Robert Magocsi The Case for Rusyns and the Logical Necessity of Ukrainians*
• 13_Ukrainian Nationalist Movement and the Jews
• 14 On Nationalism and Fascism*
• 15_Fascist Russia