SUMMARY

The forum “The Marginality of the ‘Center’ in Contemporary National Historical Narratives” features a series of interviews with historians representing the national historiographies of the former Soviet Union republics – now independent states – who answer questions on the presence and significance of representation of the “imperial center” in post-Soviet national historical narratives. The interviewees share with the readers of Ab Imperio unique reflections on several aspects of current historical thinking and politics of history with respect to the history of the Russian Empire and Soviet Union, including variability in the perception of what constitutes the imperial center or metropole, “learned ignorance” about the complex imperial past or persistence of Soviet historical idioms, the critique of national history and the search for adequate theoretical frameworks to account for heterogeneous and nonlinear historical experience.