210078 VO BAK15: SpezialVO East European Studies (2021W)

Thirty years ago, the failure of the 1991 August coup in Moscow accelerated the disintegration of the USSR. Within a few months, the Soviet Union, a nuclear superpower that for decades had represented the political and economic alternative to the capitalist West ceased to exist. Fifteen former Soviet republics embarked on nation and state building, market reforms and democratization. Three decades later, the outcomes of the post-communist transition in the region could not be more diverse. While the Baltic states have built stable democratic systems and joined the NATO and the European Union, authoritarian tendencies dominate in Russia, Belarus and Azerbaijan. Such countries as Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, while having preserved political pluralism and competitiveness, are caught in a vicious circle of political instability. Do the post-Soviet states still have something in common? Is the ‘post-Soviet moment’ already gone or do the successor states still deal with the political, economic and cultural legacies of the Soviet Union? Is the process of disintegration completed? Mass protests and revolutions have shaken many countries of the region in the last decade. The political geography is also in flux: the post-Soviet space has been re-shaped by territorial and ethnic conflicts, secessionism and emergence of de facto states. The annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014 and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict have demonstrated the fragility of the European post-Cold war security architecture and raised fears of a new Cold war. Thirty years after the crash of the “Communist alternative”, Russia’s “anti-liberal capitalism” presents itself as a new alternative to the West.
This course offers an overview of the main developments in the post-Soviet space in the last decades and addresses such topics as transformations of post-communist political regimes, nation building and language politics, political protests, territorial conflicts and quasi-states, post-Soviet integration projects, and regional security. It covers various aspects of post-communist transition and different countries of the region in comparative perspective. The lectures will be given by international experts from Europe, the USA, Russia and other post-Soviet countries. The aim of this course is to introduce students to the main concepts and approaches in post-Soviet studies as well as to make them acquainted with recent publications and current debates. Each session will consist of a one-hour lecture followed by a discussion. The lectures will be given in digital format.