What are the reasons behind, and trajectories of, the rapid cultural changes in Ukraine since 2013? This volume highlights: the role of the Revolution of Dignity and the Russian-Ukrainian war in the formation of Ukrainian civil society; the forms of warfare waged by Moscow against Kyiv, including information and religious wars; Ukrainian and Russian identities and cultural realignment; sources of destabilisation in Ukraine and beyond; memory politics and Russian foreign policies; the Kremlins geopolitical goals in its 'near abroad'; and factors determining Ukraines future and survival in a state of war. The studies included in this collection illuminate the growing gap between the political and social systems of Ukraine and Russia. The anthology illustrates how the Ukrainian revolution of 20132014, Russias annexation of the Crimean peninsula, and its invasion of eastern Ukraine have altered the post-Cold War political landscape and, with it, the regional and global power and security dynamics.

Igor Torbakov explores the nexus between various forms of Russian political imagination and the apparently cyclic process of decline and fall of Russias imperial polity over the last hundred years. While Russias historical process is by no means unique, two features of its historical development stand out. First, the countrys history is characterized by dramatic political discontinuity. In the past century, Russia changed its historical skin three times: following the disintegration of the Tsarist Empire accompanied by violent civil war, it was reconstituted as the communist USSR, whose breakup a quarter century ago led to the emergence of the present-day Russian Federation. Each of the dramatic transformations in the 20th century powerfully affected the notion of what Russia is and what it means to be Russian. Second, alongside Russias political instability, there is, paradoxically, a striking picture of geopolitical stability and of remarkable longevity as an imperial entity. At least since the beginning of the 18th century, Russia has been a permanent geopolitical fixture on Europes north-eastern margins with its persistent pretense to the status of a great power. Against this backdrop, the books three sections investigate (a) the emergence and development of Eurasianism as a form of (post-)imperial ideology, (b) the crucial role Ukraine has historically played for the Russians self-understanding, and (c) the contemporary Russian elites exercises in historical legitimation.