Memory Politics in Ukraine

Author, co-author, and co-editor of over twenty books on the history of Ukraine, Georgiy Kaisanov has devoted much of his attention to the study of memory politics.  In Memory Crash: The Politics of History in and around Ukraine 1980s-2010s, he reveals how Ukrainian history is based on a revamped, century-old, ethnonationalist history that excludes and alienates a significant part of the population.  Moreover, he highlights the unplanned, haphazard approach to the past driven by the actions and responses of particular interest groups seeking influence and advantage.  Rather than galvanizing the will of the people and harnessing the collective spirit of the nation, the past has been a battlefield that has divided more than united Ukrainians.