Borders Belonging: Eur E Edg

3 Credits · Level: Graduate, Undergraduate

What does it mean to have lived on the margins of Europe? Indeed, what are Europe’s borderlands today? Shifting boundaries, territorial dispossession, contested identities, and the creation and dissolution of states have all featured prominently in the histories of the lands located in between the core countries of the West and the Russian empire/USSR/Russian Federation. World War I resulted in the creation of a myriad of states in Eastern Europe; twenty-five years later these territories found themselves, often with changed borders and changed populations, behind the “Iron Curtain.” The collapse of communism gave Eastern European states and peoples a chance to renegotiate their alliances and to connect differently with the West. But as the Russian invasion of Ukraine has tragically demonstrated violent geopolitical and civilizational rivalries have not faded into obsolescence. From an interdisciplinary base, this course will examine nation-building, cultural and economic dis/integration, migration, violence, and security issues in the territory now comprising Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic States, Belarus, and Russia (with some attention to divided Germany as well).