Ab Imperio

Studies of New Imperial History and Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Space

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Ab Imperio

Studies of New Imperial History and Nationalism in the Post-Soviet Space

4/2023 Bringing Agencies Back: Ecosystems of Humanism and Posthumanism | Ab Imperio

Issue 4/2023 Bringing Agencies Back: Ecosystems of Humanism and Posthumanism

Methodology and Theory

Fun Facts vs. Dreary Concepts: Making Sense of Diversity and the Burden of Agency

LOL at Loss: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

Sheila Fitzpatrick

Soviet History as Black Comedy

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

“History Is Not a Novel”

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

Mark Lipovetsky

Inverted Binoculars

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

Evgeny Dobrenko

The Great Imitator: Russian History from Potemkin Villages to Kuban Cossacks

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

Kafka’s Smile

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

Embracing Laughter

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

Laughing about Dictatorships – and Ourselves

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

Laughter in the Dark

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

Ronald Grigor Suny

Sheila Fitzpatrick’s Black Comedy

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

Benjamin Nathans

The Longue Durée of Dark Humor

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

Have You Heard a Chukchi Joke? In Search of Other Soviet Comedies

Forum Ab Imperio: Mainstream Narratives of Soviet History and the Laughter of Surprise

History

Timothy Blauvelt, Anton Vacharadze

Autonomy or Unitary Sovereignty: The Democratic Republic of Georgia and Abkhazia, 1918–1921

Making Basic Law in a Postimperial State: Diffusion, Adjustment, and Legal Cunning in the Constitutional Debate on Ethnocultural Diversity in Poland, 1919–1922

Historiography

“This... Was My Secret ‘Complex’”: Ivan Lysiak Rudnytsky and the Jews

Іван Лисяк-Рудницький. Щоденники. Дух і Літера, 2019.

Book Reviews

Diego Repenning

Kati Parppei and Bulat Rakhimzianov (Eds.), Images of Otherness in Russia, 1547–1917 (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2023). 498 pp., ill. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 979-8-88719-146-1.

Mykhaylo Gaukhman

Fabian Baumann, Dynasty Divided: A Family History of Russian and Ukrainian Nationalism (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023). 329 pp., ill. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 978-1-5017-7092-0.

Andrii Portnov, Dnipro: An Entangled History of a European City (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2022). 374 pp., ill. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 979-8-88719-102-7.

Karsten Brüggemann

Tomas Balkelis and Andrea Griffante (Eds.), The Shaken Lands: Violence and the Crisis of Governance in East Central Europe, 1914–1923 (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2023). 258 pp. Index. ISBN: 979-8-88719-173-7.

Miscellaneous

Myroslav Shkandrij

Author’s Response to Per Rudling’s Review of In the Maelstrom in Ab Imperio 2/2023

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April 14, 2026

The 2025 annual Ab Imperio Award - winners have been announced!

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Book by Ab Imperio

Aleksandr Korobeinikov

Svetlana Suveica, Post-imperial Encounters: Transnational Designs of Bessarabia in Paris and Elsewhere, 1917–1922 (Berlin: De Gruyter Oldenbourg, 2023). 509 pp., ill. Index of Names. Index of Subjects and Places. ISBN: 978-3-11-116633-9.

Xenia A. Cherkaev, Gleaning for Communism: The Soviet Socialist Household in Theory and Practice (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023). 189 pp., ill. References. Index. ISBN: 978-1-5017-7023-4.

Babyn Yar: Ukrainian Poets Respond. Edited by Ostap Kin. Translated by John Hennessy and Ostap Kin. Introduction by Ostap Kin (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2023). 269 pp., ill. Bibliography. Index of Titles and First Lines. ISBN: 978-0-674-27169-2.

Walter Sperling

Nicole Eaton, German Blood, Slavic Soil: How Nazi Königsberg Became Soviet Kaliningrad (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023). 315 pp., ill. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 978-1-5017-6736-4.

Antony Kalashnikov, Monuments for Posterity: Self-Commemoration and the Stalinist Culture of Time (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2023). 202 pp., ill. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 978-1-5017-6863-7.

Piotr Kuligowski

Natasha Grigorian, Visions of the Future: Malthusian Thought Experiments in Russian Literature (1840–1960) (Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2023). 125 pp., ill. Bibliography. Index. ISBN: 979-8-88719-055-6.

Ab Imperio Annual Award

Article of the day

Игорь Торбаков · 4/2001 Empire at War · 2001

“Осколки разбитого вдребезги”: историческое поражение имперского проекта

Джордж Элиот однажды предположил, что “счастливейшие женщины, как и счастливейшие нации, не имеют истории”. Похоже, однако, что политики (и интеллектуалы, обслуживающие политические интересы) склонны смотреть на вещи существенно иначе, чем писатели. Вот лишь...