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Sovereignty and Borders Amid the Collapse of the Soviet Empire

Participants at this roundtable, the third event in a series of discussions sponsored by the "After the End of History" project at the Neubauer Collegium, will reflect on shifting borders and conceptions of sovereignty amid the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of post-Soviet nationalisms. Building on a robust history of the political collapse, the discussion will focus attention on the republics and on processes of political decentralization. Among the questions we invite panelists to explore are: What is the relationship of post-Soviet border redrawing to emerging ethno-nationalisms across the former Soviet Union? To what extent was ethno-nationalism the result of the political collapse, and to what extent did it draw on longue durée histories of regional tensions? In what ways did post-Soviet nationalist sovereignty build on former Soviet visions of power and statehood? Did the post-Soviet breakup entail a postcolonial reimagining of Soviet power? What role did religion play in the reimagining of national belonging and state sovereignty? How was ethno-nationalism and/or racialization mapped onto state borders?

PARTICIPANTS
Leah Feldman (moderator), Assistant Professor of Comparative Literature, University of Chicago
Altay Goyushov, Professor of Turkic History, Baku State University; Director of the Baku Research Institute
Faith Hillis (moderator), Associate Professor of Russian History, University of Chicago
Tamta Khalvashi, Professor of Anthropology, Ilia State University
Jeff Sahadeo, Professor of Political Science, Carleton University
Anna Whittington, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Interdisciplinary Project in the Humanities, Washington University in St. Louis

Feb 19, 2021 10:30 AM in Central Time (US and Canada)