David Dube is a Ph.D. student in Political Science at McGill University and a member of the Centre for International Peace and Security Studies. His research interests revolve around Central, Eastern European and Eurasian political trajectories, democratization, and the development of computational methods and artificial intelligence as tools of social inquiry.

In this episode, we first address why academics and analysts use colonialism to depict Soviet Russia’s relationship with Soviet Ukraine. Then we talk about whether there is validity to looking at history or political science through nationalist perspectives. We further discuss some examples where there is a tendency to revise the history of the region. Lastly, we briefly touch on Alexei Navalny’s death. In particular, we contemplate if there is hope to have a Russian opposition to Putin that does not have to fall into similar Russian imperialist beliefs about its history. I hope you enjoy.

For those who might be interested, here is some further reading:

The mentioned book by Sheila Fitzpatrick: Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times: Soviet Russia in the 1930s: https://shorturl.at/vGRV2

And here is a book on the famine of 1930-33 (Ukrainians call the "Holodomor") in Kazakhstan that we briefly mentioned in the episode as well: The Hungry Steppe: Famine, Violence, and the Making of Soviet Kazakhstan: https://shorturl.at/wIQ15

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