I am a student at the Research Master Modern History and International Relations at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands. My main field of interest is contemporary history of Central and Eastern Europe, and within this region Russia and Ukraine.

What is Contemporary History?

The period of time considered to be part of the contemporary history varies from time to time. At this moment one of the most used starting points of contemporary history is the end of the Second World War in 1956/1946. This also constitutes the start of the Cold War, decolonization, the first atomic bomb and the mass usage of electronics. At first sight these developments look like major separations from earlier times, but these should be seen within a long term- context.
The period of time that I study starts around 1989. In November of that year the Berlin Wall was teared down and in 1991 the Soviet Union collapsed. In the Central and Eastern European region this started a new era, an era of a slow and painful transformation of all parts of society.

Central vs. Eastern Europe

The region that is usualy called “Eastern Europe” is by no means a uniform region, there are enormous cultural, political and geografical differences between countries in this region. This means that simply calling this region “Eastern Europe” is not sufficient, therefor it seams more logical to make an other distinction: a distinction between Central and Eastern Europe. But what constitutes the border between Central and Eastern Europe. A threefold of distinctions are common:

• Satelitestates vs. republics of the Soviet-Union

• Western Christianity vs. Eastern Orthodoxy

• Cultural influence of the Habsburg Empire

If we accept the first border, than Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and the Baltic States are Eastern European and the other states in the region are Central European. This is nog very convincing, the cultural differences between the first three former Soviet republics and t Baltic states are enormous. And how big are the cultural differences between the first three former Soviet republics? Both three languages are written in Cyrilic and the traditional religion is Orthodoxy. If we are to accept a religious division than Romania, Serbia and Macedonia are to be considered Eastern-European. However a religious division is not sufficient. The Catholic Croations speak a variant of the same language as the Orthodox Serbs and the Muslim inhabitants of Bosnia-Herzegovina, and what to do with the Islamic Albanians? The third suggested border is also not sufficient, if we are to consider the former sfere of influence of the Habsburg Empire as border, than the Baltic states are to be considered as Eastern European. Also the most Western parts of Ukraine are to be considered as Central European. This all means that a definite division between Central and Eastern Europe is hard to give, but we must conclude that the two countries that is study are genneraly accepted to be Eastern European.

Fields of interest

• Memory of the historical past and international relations;

• National identity in the contemporary Russian and Ukrainian political discourse;

• Inter ethnic relations in Ukraine;

• International relations between Europe, the United States and Russia.