The Thin Red-Blue Line: Soviet Ukrainian Patriotism Re-Considered

In his lecture, Andrii Portnov will reflect on the immanently complex, essentially contradictory, and profoundly important correlation between the notions of “Soviet” and “Ukrainian” as well as on the Soviet notions of “nationalism” and “patriotism.” Through a close reading of various texts from the 1920s to the 1990s, Portnov will try to elaborate on the attempts to portray the Soviet experience of Ukraine as a colonial and postcolonial one. Why and how did the supposedly internationalist state pursue imperialist policies and promote the ethnic-based legal category of “nationality” and a semi-federal structure? How did the state-sponsored Ukrainization of the 1920s turn into the Russification of the 1950s–1960s? How did Ukrainian Soviet patriotism gradually transform into Soviet Ukrainian patriotism? Portnov will also address the question why the Soviet Union never dared to proclaim the emergence of a “common Soviet nation” and how it helps to understand the dissolution of the USSR, the trajectory of post-Soviet Ukraine, and the ongoing Russian war of aggression against Ukraine.

Andrii Portnov is a Ukrainian historian, editor, essayist, and translator. He is Professor of Ukrainian History at the European University Viadrina (Frankfurt/Oder). Portnov is the author of more than 200 academic articles on Ukrainian historiography, Polish-Ukrainian-Russian relations, and memory issues in Central and Eastern Europe.

IWM Permanent Fellow Ivan Vejvoda will moderate the lecture and Q&A session.