This account of historical politics in Ukraine, framed in a broader European context, shows how social, political, and cultural groups have used and misused the past from the final years of the Soviet Union to 2020. Georgiy Kasianov details practices relating to history and memory by a variety of actors, including state institutions, non-governmental organizations, political parties, historians, and local governments. He identifies the main political purposes of these practices in the construction of nation and identity, struggles for power, warfare, and international relations.

Kasianov considers the Ukrainian case in the context of a global increase in the politics of history and memory, with particular emphasis on a distinctive East-European variety. He pays special attention to the use and abuse of history in relations between Ukraine, Russia, and Poland.

Georgiy Kasianov is Head of the Department of Contemporary History and Politics at the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. He is an author, co-author and co-editor of more than twenty books on the history of Ukraine in the 19^th–21^th centuries.

Tables
Preface

PART I. Concepts and Contexts
Chapter 1. Notions and Definitions
Chapter 2. Contexts

PART II: Actors
Chapter 3. State Institutions
Chapter 4. Nongovernmental Organizations
Chapter 5. Historians

PART III: Practices
Chapter 6. Historical Politics: An Overview
Chapter 7. Spaces of Memory
Chapter 8. Historical Politics: Beyond Borders

Conclusions

Selected Bibliography
Index