From War to War
Historical Research on Ukraine since 2014
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
The Euromaidan in the winter of 2013/2014 and the annexation of Crimea brought to light the fact that among the German public, Ukraine hardly existed as a nation and sovereign state with its own history. It was also marginal in East European history as a discipline. Institutionally, the expansion of historical research on Ukraine has hardly advanced since then. But in terms of content, there has been intensive work on topics such as memory culture and history policy, Galicia, World War II and the German occupation, Jewish history and the Holocaust. Works on economic and social history are rare, and classic political history is lacking. And this even though Ukraine’s archives offer a wealth of material to work with. Since the decommunization laws of 2015, the archives have been almost fully open to researchers. Putin’s war against Ukraine could reverse all of this progress. And no one knows whether Ukrainian collections will survive the war.
(Osteuropa 1-3/2022, pp. 309–318)