The annexation of Crimea and the war in Eastern Ukraine in 2014 had already moved the territorial conflicts in the post-Soviet space into the light of international attention, now, after Russia's full-blown invasion into Ukraine on 24 February 2022, this has become dramatically topical. Still, the subject ist broader.
Since Russia is involved, directly or indirectly, in all conflicts, political and academic debate usually concentrates on Russian objectives. The internal causes are, however, also important for the failure of efforts to resolve the existing conflicts: precarious state building processes, fragile statehood, instrumentalisation of conflicts by the dominant elites für the legitimation of their rule, marginalisation of civilian societies etc..
These conflicts will be analysed using the explanation pattern "post-imperial spaces", where (according to Herfried Münkler) during the empire period different nations, ethnicities and religions lived together reasonably peacefully, because no people or religion had dominant participation rights, all issues being decided by the imperial centre. In post-imperial spaces the ethnic and religious contrasts as well as the social and political divergences emerge much more sharply, efforts for integrative nation building almost regularly meet great difficulties.
The seminar has a contemporary history orientation and deals with important aspects of peace and conflict research. Causes, patterns and actors of individual conflicts will be analysed, looking at the following case studies of so-called "frozen" (rather "simmering") conflicts: Tadzhikistan, Chechnya, Nagorno-Karabakh, Transnistria, Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Kasakhstan.
Since wiith the ongoing assault on Ukraine and its implications we are living through “history in the making”, there will be a concomitant update and brief discussion in each session.
- Kursleiter:in: Dr. Klaus Wittmann