What does a postmodernist historiographical approach reveal about the driving determinants that inform post-Soviet Belarusian and Ukrainian textbooks’ origin of nationhood and conception of ‘nation’?
As one of the biggest stages for international conflict throughout the twentieth century, Eastern Europe has had little stability regarding definitive borders and nations in both its geographical and intellectual aspects. Therefore, many of the modern countries that constitute this region have evolved their conceptions of ‘nation’ and, subsequently, their origins of nationhood to help consolidate their national identity and strengthen their legitimacy. Such a phenomenon is particularly visible in Ukraine and Belarus; given their shared past as Soviet Socialist Republics within the Soviet Union, these two countries’ histories intersect and diverge from one another vis a vis Russian history. While greater historiographical discourses have identified a plethora of issues regarding the rigor of historicity in regards to national histories, the value of analyzing what, why, and how these national histories are constructed should not be dismissed. This project will use a postmodernist historiographical approach to examine post-Soviet Belarusian and Ukrainian scholarship on their respective origins of nationhood, uncovering the rudimentary driving forces that shape the structure and content of these histories; I intend to bring the dominant power structures that inform these phenomena to the forefront of historiographical research regarding the national history and the term ‘nation.’ My primary questions are as follows:
- What are the driving determinants that inform Ukrainian and Belarusian origins of nationhood and how has this affected their respective conceptions of the term ‘nation’?
- Why do these modern nations draw on their ‘origin of nationhood’ in the first place?
- Where do Ukraine and Belarus intersect ideologically with one another in this respect? Can this cross-analysis provide insight into how newer countries solidify their national identity?
I will first examine Ukrainian and Belarusian textbooks to delineate their origin of nationhood and conception of ‘nation’, bridging any gaps with their respective canonical historical scholarship. These primary texts will be directly sourced from Belarusian and Ukrainian institutions and authors, so I anticipate supplementing English translations where possible and producing my own translations when necessary. I will interact with some discourses of Russian historiography on these matters as a large portion of statehood for Ukraine and Belarus were in conjunction with Russian power. Preliminary research regarding both countries has emphasized the lineage of Kievan Rus’, a loose federation dating back to as early as the ninth century. Encompassing most of modern day Ukraine and Belarus, the origins of the term are typically attributed to Russian historiography in the nineteenth century. Rather than dissect the historical accuracy of these claims, I will focus on the sourcing and thematic structure of the textbooks and historiographical scholarship of Ukraine and Belarus. I will investigate how these works are referencing other nations and what models of nationalism they draw inspiration from. Interacting with secondary sources regarding ethnolinguistic nationalism, dynamics of language, and the conception of the ‘nation’ will help to situate Ukraine and Belarus within wider historiographical debates regarding Eastern Europe.
As I conduct my research, I will apply a postmodernist historiographical framework for analysis. Given the breadth of theories and intellectual stances that characterize a ‘postmodernist’ model, I narrow my definition of the term in correspondence to the main ideas of philosophers Jean-François Lyotard, Jacques Derrida, and Michel Foucault. Due to the vast amount of work they have collectively produced, I will limit myself to one publication per philosopher which is as follows: Lyotard’s The Postmodern Condition (1979), Derrida’s Specters of Marx (1993), and Foucault’s The Order of Things (1966). As these works are internationally renowned, I am confident of the reliability of their translated counterparts. Therefore, I will be referencing the direct English translations of these works.
Analyzing Ukraine and Belarus’s respective nationhood origins through this postmodernist framework intends to question some aspects of the unconscious hierarchy of historical knowledge at play within the construction of national histories and conceptions of ‘nation.’ National history and postmodernist historiography, in their own respects, are commonly characterized as problematic to history as a discipline. Through this project, I stray from the predominant historiographical discourses that regard postmodernist theory as impractical and anarchic to instead demonstrate the value postmodernist theory has as a conceptual framework for a fruitful analysis of national histories.