Andrej Kotljarchuk | Uppsala University (original) (raw)

Uploads

Papers by Andrej Kotljarchuk

Gammalsvenskby is the only Swedish settlement to the east from Finland, founded in 1782. In the p... more Gammalsvenskby is the only Swedish settlement to the east from Finland, founded in 1782. In the past of Gammalsvenskby the history of the Soviet Union, Sweden, the international communist movement and Nazi Germany combined in a bizarre form. And even when the ploughmen of the Kherson steppes did not left their native village, the great powers themselves visited them with the intention to rule forever. The history of colony is viewed through the prism of the theory of “forcednormalization” and the concept of “changes of collective identity“. The author intends to study the techniques of forced normalization and the strategy of the collective resistance.

Andrej Kotljarchuk is an associate professor in history, working as a university lecturer at the Department of History, Stockholm University; and as a senior researcher at the School of Historical and Contemporary Studies, Södertörn University. His research focuses on ethnic minorities and role of experts’ communities, mass violence and the politics of memory. His recent publications include the book chapters “The Nordic Threat: Soviet Ethnic Cleansing on the Kola Peninsula” (2014), “The Memory of Roma Holocaust in Ukraine: Mass Graves, Memory Work and the Politics of Commemoration” (2014); as well as the articles “World War II Memory Politics: Jewish, Polish and Roma Minorities of Belarus”, in Journal of Belarusian Studies (2013) and “Kola Sami in the Stalinist terror: a quantitative analysis”, in Journal of Northern Studies (2012).

В этой книге рассказывается о встрече простых крестьян села Старошведское Херсонской области Укр... more В этой книге рассказывается о встрече простых крестьян села Старошведское Херсонской области Украины с властью, которая не желала мириться с их самобытностью. В рамках теоретической модели Мишеля Фуко и Альберто Мелуччи автор анализирует политику сталинского государства по принудительной нормализации шведских колонистов Укра ины с целью переориентации их социально-политической и культурно-лингвистической идентичности. Микроисторический подход и устные свидетельства позволили автору проанализировать стратегию коллективного сопротивления шведской общины – наименее изученную часть процесса принудительной нормализации. Исследование основано на малоизвестных архивных источниках из собраний Украины, Швеции и России.

The article analyses various instances of the memory politics of the Nazi genocide of Roma in Ukr... more The article analyses various instances of the memory politics of the Nazi genocide of Roma in Ukraine during wartime, Soviet and Post-Soviet periods of times through the prism of the theory of “path dependency” and the concept of “sites of memory“. One of the aims of this study is to interpret recent trends in contemporary memory politics in Ukraine, with focus on the Roma genocide memorials, and the documentation of the victims. The author shows how Soviet ‘path dependency’ designed the limits of commemoration of the Nazi genocide of the Roma in Ukraine.

During World War II the leading Soviet newspapers informed the public about the mass killings of Roma by the Nazis on the occupied territories and stressed that the systematic extermination of this group was motivated by racial goals. However, after 1945, the systematic extermination of the Roma population by the Nazis became a taboo and was ignored by Soviet historiography and memory politics. The absence of an educated strata within the Roma group and the aggressive forgetting politics made impossible the recording of testimonies of the Soviet Roma tragedy immediately after the war. Today it is simply impossible because of a lack of witnesses and archival records.

The author draws interesting parallels with memory politics in Ukraine, and its conciliation with Belarus and Russia. In recent years, about twenty monuments commemorating victims of the genocide of the Roma have been erected in Ukraine. According to decision of the Ukrainian Rada dated 8 October 2004, the International Day of the Holocaust of the Roma is held annually on 2 August. Following the countries of the European Union, Ukraine abandoned the official use of the word ‘Gypsies’ in favour of the more politically correct name ‘Roma’. At the same time, in Belarus there only three sites of memory devoted to the Roma genocide and in Russia – no one. In Ukraine, over the last few years, a number of conferences on the genocide of the Roma were held, collections of scientific papers were published, and research centres were formed. At the same time, in Belarus and in Russia, not a single scholar specializes in this subject.

The author explains such contradiction by the radical change of memory politics of World War II in the contemporary Ukraine, which influenced by both the internal and external factors. The most important internal factor is the humanization of memory politics that is the diversion of memory politics from heroes to the sufferings of ordinary people. The revising of the Soviet myth of World War II opened the previously closed topics. The author shows how the realignment of Soviet history around new narrative axes is taking place in the memory politics of today's Ukraine. The main external factor is a process of the integration of the Ukrainian state into the EU. It is worth noting that in contrast to the Soviet era, memory politics in the present-day Ukraine are being built on the basis of a European concept of reconciliation.

The study is focused on aspects that have been understudied by previous research on the Kola Sami... more The study is focused on aspects that have been understudied by previous research on the Kola Sami. First there is a quantitative analysis of the Sami victims of the Stalinist terror. Second there is a discussion of the short- and long-term roles of state violence for the affected indigenous community. Most prior studies of the ethnic aspects of the Stalinist terror have focused on the large Diaspora nationalities or post-war deportations, while this paper concentrates on a small homogenous indigenous community. The study reaches a new level of accuracy about the nature of Soviet terror, and who became victims and why.

This book examines and analyses the Union between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Sweden signed ... more This book examines and analyses the Union between the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Sweden signed in 1655 at Kėdainiai and the political crisis that followed. The union was a result of strong separatist dreams among the Lithuanian-Ruthenian Protestant elite led by the Radziwiłł family, and if implemented it would radically change the balance of power in the Baltic Sea region. The main legal point of the Union was the breach of Lithuanian federation with Poland and the establishment of a federation with Sweden. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania aspired to return to international relations as a self-governing subject. The Union meant a new Scandinavian alternative to Polish and Russian domination. The author places the events in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in the general crisis that occurred in Europe in the middle of the 17th century characterized by a great number of wars, rebellions and civil wars from Portugal to Ukraine, and which builds the background to the crisis for Lithuania and Sweden. The research proved the importance of lesser powers in changing the geopolitical balance between the Great Powers. The conflict over Lithuania and Belarus was the main reason for the Swedish-Russian, Polish-Russian and Ukrainian-Russian wars. The failure of the Union with Sweden was caused by both internal and external factors. Internally, various ethnic, confessional and political groups within the nobility of Lithuania were split in favour of different foreign powers – from Muscovy to Transylvania. The external cause for the failure of the Union project was the failure of Swedish strategy. Sweden concentrated its activity to Poland, not to Lithuania. After the Union, Swedish authorities treated the Grand Duchy as an invaded country, not an equal. The Swedish administration introduced heavy taxation and was unable to control the brutality of the army. As a result Sweden was defeated in both Lithuania and Poland. Among the different economic, political and religious explanations of the general crisis, the case of Lithuania shows the importance of the political conflicts. For the separatists of Lithuania the main motive to turn against Poland and to promote alliance with Sweden, Russia or the Cossacks was the inability of Poland to shield the Grand Duchy from a Russian invasion.The Lithuanian case was a provincial rebellion led by the native nobility against their monarch, based on tradition of the previous independence and statehood period. It was not nationalism in its modern meaning, but instead a crisis of identity in the form of a conflict between Patria and Central Power. However, the cost of being a part of Sweden or Muscovy was greater than the benefit of political protection. Therefore, the pro-Polish orientation prevailed when Poland after 1658 recovered its military ability the local nobility regrouped around Warsaw. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania managed to remain on the political map of Europe, but at the price of general religious Catholization and cultural Polonization. After the crisis, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania gradually changed into a deep province of the Polish state.