Ukraina: 30 lat bez ZSRR

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 99-123
Author(s):  
Hanna Bazhenova

The collapse of the Soviet Union was a momentous event for the entire world, but it was Soviet citizens for whom it was of the greatest importance. The fall of the USSR changed the geopolitical and economic map of the world and led to the emergence of fifteen new states. An independent Ukraine has become a significant component of this new geopolitical reality. The dissolution of the USSR gave the citizens of Ukraine a chance to build a sovereign state, consistent with the national interest, the state which could independently pursue its strategic goals in the area of domestic and foreign policy. Thirty years have passed since those events, which is a long enough time period to analyse changes made and to define how Ukraine has taken advantage of its historic opportunity. This paper examines the political and economic transformation of Ukraine, as well as the evolution of its foreign policy. The article also questions whether it is appropriate to compare the post-communist development of Ukraine to certain Central European countries. It also highlights the current attitude of the Ukrainian society towards the collapse of the USSR and to the Soviet past of this country.

2011 ◽  
Vol 65 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christian Reus-Smit

AbstractWe live today in the world's first universal, multicultural, and multiregional system of sovereign states. Five centuries ago, emergent sovereign states were confined to Europe and contained within the bounds of Latin Christendom. Through five great waves of expansion this nascent European system globalized. The Westphalian settlement, the independence of Latin America, the Versailles settlement, post-1945 decolonization, and the collapse of the Soviet Union each brought a host of new states into the system. How can we explain these great waves of expansion, each of which saw imperial systems of rule displaced by the now universal form of the sovereign state? After detailing the limits of existing explanations, this article presents a new account of the principal waves of systemic expansion that stresses the importance of subject peoples' struggles for the recognition of individual rights. Empires are hierarchies, the legitimacy of which has been sustained historically by traditional regimes of unequal entitlements—institutional frameworks that allocate individuals of different social status different social powers and entitlements. In the Westphalian, Latin American, and post-1945 waves of expansion, which together produced most of today's sovereign states and gave the system its principal regions, subject peoples embraced local interpretations of new, distinctly modern ideas about individual rights and challenged the traditional distribution of entitlements that undergirded imperial hierarchy. Each wave differed, not the least because different rights were at work: liberty of religious conscience, the right to equal political representation, and after 1945, a compendium of civil and political rights. But in each case a “tipping point” was reached when the imperial system in question proved incapable of accommodating the new rights claims and subject peoples turned from “voice” to “exit,” and each time the sovereign state was seen as the institutional alternative to empire.


Author(s):  
Yuriy Makar

On December 22, 2017 the Ukrainian Diplomatic Service marked the 100thanniversary of its establishment and development. In dedication to such a momentous event, the Department of International Relations of Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University has published a book of IR Dept’s ardent activity since its establishment. It includes information both in Ukrainian and English on the backbone of the collective and their versatile activities, achievements and prospects for the future. The author delves into retracing the course of the history of Ukrainian Diplomacy formation and development. The author highlights the roots of its formation, reconsidering a long way of its development that coincided with the formation of basic elements of Ukrainian statehood that came into existence as a result of the war of national liberation – the Ukrainian Central Rada (the Central Council of Ukraine). Later, the Ukrainian or so-called State the Hetmanate was under study. The Directorat (Directory) of Ukraine, being a provisional collegiate revolutionary state committee of the Ukrainian People’s Republic, was given a thorough study. Of particular interest for the research are diplomatic activities of the West Ukrainian People`s Republic. Noteworthy, the author emphasizes on the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic’s foreign policy, forced by the Bolshevist Russia. A further important implication is both the challenges of the Ukrainian statehood establishing and Ukraine’s functioning as a state, first and foremost, stemmed from the immaturity and conscience-unawareness of the Ukrainian society, that, ultimately, has led to the fact, that throughout the twentieth century Ukraine as a statehood, being incorporated into the Soviet Union, could hardly be recognized as a sovereign state. Our research suggests that since the beginning of the Ukrainian Diplomacy establishment and its further evolution, it used to be unprecedentedly fabricated and forged. On a wider level, the research is devoted to centennial fight of Ukraine against Russian violence and aggression since the WWI, when in 1917 the Russian Bolsheviks, headed by Lenin, started real Russian war against Ukraine. Apropos, in the about-a-year-negotiation run, Ukraine, eventually, failed to become sovereign. Remarkably, Ukraine finally gained its independence just in late twentieth century. Nowadays, Russia still regards Ukraine as a part of its own strategic orbit,waging out a carrot-and-stick battle. Keywords: The Ukrainian People’s Republic, the State of Ukraine, the Hetmanate, the Direcorat (Directory) of Ukraine, the West Ukrainian People`s Republic, the Ukrainian Socialist Soviet Republic, Ukraine, the Bolshevist Russia, the Russian Federation, Ukrainian diplomacy


2020 ◽  
Vol 56 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 179-199
Author(s):  
Ekaterina Entina ◽  
Alexander Pivovarenko

The article reflects on the issue of the foreign policy strategy of modern Russia in the Balkans region. One of the most significant aspects of this problem is the difference in views between Russia and the West. Authors show how different interpretations of the events in former Yugoslavia in the 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s predetermined the sense of mutual suspicion and mistrust which spread to other regions such as the post-Soviet space. Exploring differences between the Russian and the Western (Euro-Atlantic) views on the current matters, authors draw attention to fundamental differences in terminology: while the Western narrative promotes more narrow geographical and political definitions (such as the Western Balkan Six), traditional Russian experts are more inclined to wider or integral definitions such as “the Balkans” and “Central and Southeast Europe”. Meanwhile none of these terms are applicable for analysis of the current trends such as the growing transit role of the Balkans region and its embedding in the European regional security architecture. Therefore, a new definition is needed to overcome the differences in vision and better understand significant recent developments in the region. Conceptualizing major foreign policy events in Central and Southeast Europe during the last three decades (the 1990s, 2000s and 2010s), authors demonstrate the significance of differences in tools and methods between the Soviet Union and the modern Russia. Permanent need for adaptation to changing political and security context led to inconsistence in Russian Balkan policy in the 1990s. Nevertheless, Russia was able to preserve an integral vision of the region and even to elaborate new transregional constructive projects, which in right political circumstances may promote stability and become beneficial for both Russia and the Euro-Atlantic community.


1976 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 91-107
Author(s):  
Paul Marantz

AbstractThere has been a great deal of controversy among Western scholars concerning the direction of Soviet foreign policy in the final years and months of Stalin's rule.1 One of the crucial questions at issue is whether or not there were significant divisions of opinion within the Politburo over foreign policy matters. This article attempts to explore this particular question through an examination of a doctrinal controversy that surfaced during Stalin's last years. In one of his most famous works, Imperialism: The Highest State of Capitalism, Lenin argued that war was an inevitable concomitant of the capitalist system. He contended that the unending struggle for markets meant that periodic wars among the capitalist powers were unavoidable and inevitable.2 Stalin adhered to this view throughout his long reign, and it was not until three years after Stalin's death, in Khruschchev's speech to the Twentieth Party Congress, that it was finally revised. Yet despite Stalin's strict adherence to the Leninist analysis of imperialism, and despite the harsh discipline that characterized his rule, there is evidence that the official interpretation was being publicly questioned even while Stalin was still alive. Given the nature of esoteric communication in the Soviet Union,and the close connection between doctrinal and policy debates, an examination of the controversy concerning the inevitability of war can provide important evidence having a direct bearing upon our understanding of this period.3


2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodric Braithwaite

Sir Rodric Braithwaite was educated at Christ’s College, University of Cambridge, from where he went to serve in HM Diplomatic Service, having worked in Jakarta, Moscow, Washington, Warsaw, Rome, and Brussels, where he was a member of the British delegation to the European Community. From 1988 to 1992, Sir Rodric served as HM Ambassador in the Soviet Union during the decisive years of the Perestroika and the first British ambassador in Russia. Subsequently, he was appointed foreign policy adviser to the Prime Minister in the second John Major ministry and chaired the UK Joint Intelligence Committee between 1992 and 1993. He was appointed Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George (GCMG) in 1994. As a career diplomat, Sir Rodric gained decades of insight into the troubled relations between Russia and West, having taken part in numerous negotiations on arms control. His affinity with the decision-making circles in both Russia and Britain alongside with the mastery of the Russian language allow him to skillfully dissect the underlying causes of ups-and-downs in Moscow’s relationship with the West, employing the works of both English- and Russian-speaking analysts. Among his recent books are Across the Moscow River (2002), Moscow 1941: A City and Its People at War (2006), Afgantsy: The Russians in Afghanistan, 1979–1989 (2012), Armageddon and Paranoia: The Nuclear Confrontation (2017). In this essay, Sir Rodric reminisces of the years spent as a diplomat and provides his view on the usefulness and applicability of historical lessons while devising a foreign policy course.


Author(s):  
K. Demberel ◽  

The article deals with the issue of Mongolia's foreign policy during the Cold War. This period is divided into two parts. The first period, 1945-1960s, is a period of conflict between two systems: socialism and capitalism. In this first period of the Cold War Mongolia managed to establish diplomatic relations with socialist countries of Eastern Europe, as the “system allowed”. The second period, from the mid-1960s to the mid-1980s, is the period of the conflict of the socialist system, the period of the Soviet-Chinese confrontation. During this period Mongolia's foreign policy changed dramatically and focused on the Soviet Union. This was due to the Soviet investment «boom» that began in 1960s and the entry of Soviet troops on the territory of Mongolia in 1967. The Soviet military intervention into Mongolia was one of the main reasons for cooling the Soviet-Chinese relations. And military withdrawal contributed to the improvement of Soviet-Chinese relations until the mid-1980s and one of the conditions for improving relations with their neighbors. The internal systemic conflict had a serious impact on Mongolia's foreign policy over those years.


Author(s):  
James Mark ◽  
Quinn Slobodian

This chapter places Eastern Europe into a broader history of decolonization. It shows how the region’s own experience of the end of Empire after the World War I led its new states to consider their relationships with both European colonialism and those were struggling for their future liberation outside their continent. Following World War II, as Communist regimes took power in Eastern Europe, and overseas European Empires dissolved in Africa and Asia, newly powerful relationships developed. Analogies between the end of empire in Eastern Europe and the Global South, though sometimes tortured and riddled with their own blind spots, were nonetheless potent rhetorical idioms, enabling imagined solidarities and facilitating material connections in the era of the Cold War and non-alignment. After the demise of the so-called “evil empire” of the Soviet Union, analogies between the postcolonial and the postcommunist condition allowed for further novel equivalencies between these regions to develop.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 043-049
Author(s):  
Punit GAUR ◽  
Anurag TRIPATHI ◽  
Shovan Sinha RAY

After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Kazakhstan’s economy was weak since most of the industrial enterprises were located in Russia. To attain economic growth, Kazakhstan crafted a unique foreign policy known as the multi-vector foreign policy, which facilitated an easy inflow of direct foreign investments into the state economy. After economic liberalization in 1991, India took a serious interest in Central Asia, and since then the two nations have come a long way marked by complex interdependence in the international arena. They have demonstrated a successful and sustained upward trend in their bilateral relationship through soft power, trade and long-standing historical connections. Thus, the prospects of mutual cooperation between Central Asia, particularly Kazakhstan, and India are quite promising in the near future.


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