(c) D. Eckert
A geo-history of the relationship between Ukrainians and Russians, as a commentary on the essay by historian Andreas Kappeler (University of Vienna), published in 2017
Lecture by Denis Eckert, director of research at the CNRS (Géographie-cités – Paris Aubervilliers, Centre Marc Bloch – Berlin)
Thursday, March 3, 2022 from 2:30 to 4:30 pm
as part of the seminar “Geography and Social Sciences” of the EHESS led by Marie-Vic Ozouf-Marignier and Nicolas Verdier
Room 50 of the EHESS building on the Condorcet campus
2 cours des humanités 93300 Aubervilliers
and in distance learning – to obtain the link Zoom : nv@parisgeo.cnrs.fr
Béatrice Von Hirschhausen, director of research at the CNRS (Géographie-cités), specialist in Central Europe, and Camille Schmoll, director of studies at the EHESS (Géographie-cités) will participate in the discussions.
Summary of the intervention
Since the large-scale invasion of the Ukrainian territory since February 24, 2022, the successive shocks provoked in Ukraine in 2014 by the lightning annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, then the de facto secession, under the leadership of the Russian power, of the two self-proclaimed “republics” of the Donbass (Lugansk and Donetsk) seem to weigh little. Yet these events are very closely linked, and the current actions of the Russian power are part of an argumentative device already mobilized in 2014.
Without biting on the dramatic news of the ongoing war, we propose a geo-historical reflection on the Russian-Ukrainian relationship in the long term, based on the essay by the Viennese historian Andreas Kappeler “Ungleiche Brüder: Russen und Ukrainer vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart”, not published in French. The aim is to describe the structurally asymmetrical relationship between Russians and Ukrainians over the centuries. This reflection should lead to the deciphering of the arguments of “historical” legitimization constantly invoked by Vladimir Putin to justify the claims of the Russian Federation towards Ukraine, a state whose existence is today radically questioned.
Denis ECKERT
Denis Eckert, a researcher at the CNRS since 1994, has been posted in various research centers in France (Montpellier, Toulouse, currently Paris-Condorcet) and in Germany (Marc Bloch Center, Berlin, 2016-2019). He was also a visiting fellow in Moscow (Institute of Geography of the Academy of Sciences, 1997-1998), in Montreal (CIRST, 2015) and in Leipzig (Leibniz-Institut für Länderkunde, 2015-2016). Director of the UMR LISST (Toulouse Jean Jaurès University) in 2011-2015, and president of section 39 (Spaces, Territories, Societies) at the National Committee of the CNRS (2012-2016), he also directed for 12 years (2005-2016) the online journal Mappemonde devoted to the question of images and maps and their uses. His work on Eastern Europe, its borders and regional dynamics, led him from Russia to Ukraine. He is currently a member of the French-German ANR/DFG project LimSpaces – Living in the in-between: adaptation strategies and expectation horizons of ordinary actors in Ukraine and Moldavia.
