After struggles in Chechnya, Georgia, Nagorno-Karabakh and other places, the annexation of Crimea and the beginning of the 02war 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 is 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 impor-tant for the failure of efforts to resolve the existing conflicts: precarious state building pro-cesses, fragile statehood, instrumentalisation of conflicts by the dominant elites for the le-gitimation 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 diffi-culties.
Apart from such internal causes, Russian’s behaviour towards countries in the former Soviet space appears to be determined by President Putin’s fear of the “democratic virus” that could befall the Russian people. This is epitomized by the fact that in the Russian security doctrine potential further “colour revolutions” (of course instigated by the West) figure among the factors threatening Russia’s security.
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", in Ukraine’s case violent military) conflicts: Tadzhikistan, Chechnya, Transnistria, Belarus, Georgia, Kasakhstan, Nagorno-Karabakh, and, as a natural priority, Ukraine..
Since with 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