Any historical situation contains elements of both the particular and the universal. The job of the historian is to help disentangle the universal from the particular, and understand the relationship between them. No moment is ever exactly the same as any other, just like no human being is exactly the same as any other. Nevertheless, there are things that we do learn from the past about the human condition: we learn, for instance, how quickly people can normalize the abnormal. We learn how things that people believed totally unimaginable can become the new normal just a few months later. We learn that most people most of the time will behave in a way shaped by the social situation in which they find themselves.

Only a few months after Kyiv was retaken from the Nazis in November 1943, the returning Stalinists started avoiding public mention of what had happened at places like Babyn Yar. The anti-Semitism that had emerged in the resource-starved Soviet rear may have been the reason for hushing up the fate of Soviet Jews under the Nazis—a conclusion bolstered by a study of wartime Tashkent where many Jewish evacuees lived. At the same time, the Stalin regime’s wartime approval of Ukrainian nationalism to spur support for the Soviet cause was curtailed as the Kremlin encountered resistance to its return in Western Ukraine.

Meaningful and lasting reconciliation would require difficult compromises on all sides – be it by the residents of “big Ukraine” or by the residents of the non-government controlled Donbas. Since at present “big Ukraine” can only control its own choices, it is up to “big Ukraine” to decide whether to start an open but difficult dialogue that would break taboos about what constitutes a legitimate opinion or position to express. Creating public space for such a dialogue is something Ukraine has the power to do in the conditions of the continued Russian aggression and Russia’s support for the anti-Kyiv insurgency in Donbas. Inter-Ukraine dialogue by itself is not going to end Russian involvement in the Donbas conflict, but it can contribute towards reconciliation between “pro-Maidan” and...

Until the 1970s the dominant understanding of Canadian history was limited to that of the progress and development of an Anglo-Saxon, and to a smaller degree, French majority, which presupposed a history of successful conquest of the so-called “virgin lands” of the British and French empires. For a long time, the ideas of “progress” and “success” (of Anglo-Saxons and the French) served all major metaphors and concepts in scholarly, popular, and ideological reflections on the “building” and development of Canada as a state and nation. Two majorities – Anglo-Saxon and French – positioned themselves as the two principal Canadian nations. In the 1970s Canada reoriented itself towards a new course in its self-understanding as a nation, that is, by inventing a policy of multiculturalism.

Minority identities have come to figure centrally in constructions of Ukrainian identity, as post-Soviet Ukrainians seek to define themselves as modern and worthy members of the international community. The inclusion of ethnic and racial diversity serves as a marker of enlightenment and global connectedness, a counterpoint to stereotypes of Ukrainians as isolated, rural, and uncivilized. The image of Ukraine as cosmopolitan and inclusive is part of an effort to construct Ukraine as a globally and locally desirable brand, part of the global trend of the commodification and marketing of ethnicity and nation. Various scholars have argued that it is useful to view Ukraine as a postcolonial country. This approach supports a parallelism between Africans and Ukrainians as sharing histories of...

In a recent meeting with the new French president Emmanuel Macron, the Russian president Vladimir Putin referred to Anna Yaroslavna (also known as Anna of Kyiv) as "Russian Anne," in an attempt to point to both a long-standing connection between Russia and France, and to Russia's importance for French history. Playing on the ambiguity in the use of the adjective "Russian" – a use that removes the difference between the Rusian state – Kyivan Rus' (hence the use of one "s" in this adjective), the largest kingdom in Medieval Europe, – and the modern Russian state that grew out of Muscovy – the Duchy of Moscow. (In the Russian language, the difference is obvious: "russkiy" points to Kyivan Rus', while "rossiyskiy" points to "Rossiya," the modern Russia.) One, likely intended, consequence was..

Those who follow Ukrainian issues today know that many foreigners who consider themselves radical leftists oppose that country’s attempt to break away from its former imperial master. Surprisingly, they support the attempt of a capitalist Russian government that legitimates itself in terms of religion, has an imperialist foreign agenda based on settler-colonist minorities beyond its borders, and subscribes to “spheres of influence” thinking to re-impose its control over Ukraine. It is a re-imposition that, as of 2014, involved the use of military force in Ukraine. Their stance places such leftists alongside those they normally regard as their enemies: big bankers, corporate directors, and lawyers who profit from their contacts with Vladimir Putin and his associates...