Ateneo - UPO

The course will address the issue of the construction of national belongings in the contemporary age taking the Ukrainian nation and the conflict with Russiaas a privileged case study. The lessons will analyze the stages that led to the emergence of a Ukrainian national identity over the last two centuries and how this has been variously interpreted, sometimes in agreement and sometimes in opposition, with the specular dynamics that were developing in Russia as well. This will provide a more well-founded explanation of the reasons for the invasion with which Russia seeks to put an end to the project of an independent Ukraine since 2014.

A (all of the folowing):
• Simone A. Bellezza, Gli imperi del nazionalismo: politica e appartenenza nell’Europa centro-orientale, in L’età contemporanea. Prospettive di storia europea e globale, a cura di Marco Bresciani e Fulvio Conti, Carocci, Roma 2023, pp. 29-56.
• Nicola Gallerano, Storia e uso pubblico della storia, in L’uso pubblico della storia, a cura di Nicola Gallerano, Franco Angeli, Milano 1995, pp. 17-32.
• Serhii Plokhy, Il ritorno della storia. Il conflitto russo-ucraino, Mondadori, Milano 2023.
B. (one text chosen among the following):
• Yaroslav Hrytsak, Storia dell’ucraina. Dal medioevo a oggi, Il Mulino, Bologna 2023.
• Serhii Plokhy, Le porte d’Europa. Storia dell’Ucraina, Mondadori, Milano 2022.
• Orlando Figes, Storia della Russia. Mito e potere da Vladimir il Grande a Vladimir Putin, Mondadori, Milano 2023.

At a basic level, the aim of the course is to provide tools through which to know, understand and analyze the emergence of national identities in the contemporary age and understand how these dynamics have been both cause and effect of the major armed conflicts of this period.
At a more advanced level, the goal is to provide greater knowledge of Ukrainian and Russian national history. The tools for a comparative analysis of other national conflicts both in Europe and globally will also be provided.

None.

The course will consist mainly of frontal lectures, although they will sometime involve the direct involvement of students in reading and analyzing some primary sources.
The lectures are an integral part of the exam program: the lecturer will provide the slides of the lectures and other useful materials.

None.

The exam will consist of an oral test.
Here a synthetic description of the results requested by the lecturer to achieve different grade ranges:
- an imprecise knowledge of concepts and event structured as a series of notion without solid conceptual links between them, expressed in imprecise form will be evaluated as sufficient. Corresponding grade range: 18-22.
- a deeper but not particularly detailed knowledge of concepts and events, expressed in a correct language, sufficient to aptly describe the topic dealt with, will be considered as moderately good. Corresponding grade range: 22-26.
- A solid knowledge that displays a clear grasp of the connections between different phenomena and the capacity to autonomously handle the conceptual tools acquired with the study, applying them to different events, will be considered satisfying. It will be considered fully satisfying if the student will show a capacity to deal with the chosen texts in a critical way, pinpointing the author’s opinions and treating then as informed points of view with which to critically engage. Corresponding grade range: 27-30 cum laude.

The lectures will be conducted according to the following outline:
- Lesson 1: Introduction to the course: practical issues. What is a nation?: history and the public use of history.
- Lesson 2: Imperial Russia.
- Lesson 3: The birth of the Ukrainian national movement in the nineteenth century.
- Lesson 4: The Ukrainian independence option in the First World War and in the civil war.
- Lesson 5: Soviet identities.
- Lesson 6: Soviet Ukraine.
- Lesson 7: Ukrainians in Europe and the Second World War.
- Lesson 8: The Ukrainian diaspora in the West.
- Lesson 9: The Soviet Thaw.
- Lesson 10: Post-war Soviet Ukraine.
- Lesson 11: From autonomy to Ukrainian independence.
- Lesson 12: The history of Memorial.
- Lesson 13: The Orange Revolution and the Revolution of Dignity.
- Lesson 14: Putin’s construction of a Russian national identity.
- Lesson 15: Ukraine and the war.

At the basic level:
Knowledge and understanding:
Students must demonstrate that they have understood the dynamics through which national identities have emerged in the course of the contemporary age and how they are the result of social and political movements both from below and from above. Students must demonstrate knowledge of the specific path through which the opposing national identities of Ukraine and Russia emerged.
Applied knowledge and understanding:
Students must demonstrate that he is able to use the knowledge learned to understand and analyze other national contexts in the contemporary world and in particular in the case of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

At advanced level:
Applied knowledge and understanding:
Students must demonstrate that they have understood which factors determine the emergence of national conflicts and that he knows how to use them to analyze other wars between nations of the contemporary age.
Making judgments:
Students must demonstrate the ability to analyze the communication of the media on the ongoing conflict and to be able to identify the specific historiographical current to which the various texts analyzed during the course belong.
These learning outcomes are consistent with the provisions of the SUA of the Study Programme, framework A4.b2 (particularly for the Historical Area).