Description
Book SynopsisSince 1991, post-Soviet political elites in Ukraine, Russia and Belarus have been engaged in nation -- as well as state-building. They have tried to strengthen territorial sovereignty and national security, re-shape collective identities and re-narrate national histories. Former Soviet republics have become new neighbours, partners and competitors searching for geopolitical identity in the new Eastern Europe," i.e. the countries left outside the enlarged EU. Old paradigms such as "Eurasia" or "East Slavic civilisation" have been re-invented and politically instrumentalised in the international relations and domestic politics of these countries. At the same time, these old concepts and myths have been contested and challenged by pro-Western elites. The main subject of this book is the construction of post-Soviet borders and their political, social and cultural implications. It focuses on the exemplary case of the Ukrainian-Russian border, approaching it as a social construct and a discursive phenomenon. The book shows how the symbolic meanings of and narratives on this border contribute to national identity formation and shape the images of the neighbouring countries as "the Other" thereby shedding new light on the role of border disputes between Ukraine and Russia in bilateral relations, in EU neighbourhood politics and in domestic political conflicts. The study also addresses "border making" on the regional level, focusing on the cross-border co-operation between Kharkiv and Belgorod and on the dilemmas of a Euro-region "in absence of Europe". Finally, it reflects the everyday experiences of the residents of near-border villages and shows how national and local identities are performed at, and transformed by, the new border.
Trade Review[The] analytical structure and trajectory of Zhurzhenkos work travelling from broad historical time and geopolitical space to the here and now practically means one could read it from the last chapter to the first as easily as the other, conventional, way around. I enjoyed immensely reading in the closing chapters the Ukrainian and Russian villagers own testimonies, their preoccupations, details of their changing lives. I could well have taken all this in first before proceeding to the so called 'bigger questions' of state-to-state relations and the changing geopolitical architecture of Eastern Europe. Either way, it is a carefully constructed narrative about the advent of a border in peoples minds and across their land. -- Debatte, vol. 19, issue 1-2, 2011
"I enjoyed immensely reading in the closing chapters the Ukrainian and Russian villagers' own testimonies, their preoccupations, details of their changing lives. It is a carefully constructed narrative about the advent of a border in people's minds and across their land. -- Marko Bojcun, Faculty of Governance and International Relations London Metropolitan University
"Overall, this monograph is an excellent piece of scholarship, which is well written and extremely well researched. It will be of interest to researchers and students of East European Studies as well as Post-Soviet Studies and of specific interest for individuals interested in border studies as an emerging sub-field within the social sciences. -- Peter Rodgers, University of Sheffield
[] many academic readers will find the fieldwork portion of Zhurzhenkos volume, as well as some of her theoretical analysis, informative and thought-provoking. [] Her detailed focus on the area and its problems is truly pioneering and is to be commended. -- Anthropology of East Europe Review 30 (1), Spring 2012
Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations List of Images Foreword: Ukraine en route to where?, by Dieter Segert Acknowledgements Introduction Part I. Remapping the Post-Soviet Space 1. "Eurasia" and its Uses in the Ukrainian Geopolitical Imagination 2. Slavic Sisters into European Neighbours: Ukrainian-Belarusian relations after 1991 Part II. Bordering Nations, Transcending Boundaries 3. Under Construction: the Ukrainian-Russian Border from the Soviet Collapse to EU Enlargement 4. Boundary in Mind: Discourses and Narratives of the Ukrainian-Russian Border 5. "Slobozhanshchyna": Re-inventing a Region in the Ukrainian-Russian Borderlands Part III. Living (with the) Border 6. Making Sense of a New Border: Social Transformations and Shifting Identities in Five Near-Border Villages 7. Becoming Ukrainians in a "Russian" Village: Local Identity, Language and National Belonging
